Our FM monogram for Farmhouse Modern was published in Communication Arts’ 57th Design Annual. Of the 4,228 entries, 161 were selected for inclusion.
Farmhouse Modern is a website and quarterly magazine that celebrates a simple but refined aesthetic for the home.
See more of our Trademarks.
Touchstone Climbing owns and operates the most prestigious indoor climbing and bouldering gyms in California—and we are fortunate to have been working with them since 2010. The T monogram we designed is inspired by megalithic monuments such as the dolmens of Brittany or the taulas found on the Mediterranean island of Minorca: massive, stacked stones marking a place of importance in an often flat landscape.
The theme of the 1989 AIGA Design Conference held in San Antonio, Texas, was “Dangerous Ideas.” As a mere conference attendee, Seven Woes was my attempt to share some dangerous design ideas with my fellow attendees. Cheaply xeroxed, I handed out the postcard-sized list randomly while awaiting the first speaker one morning.
The Seven Woes are:
1
The designer who said: “I don’t need problems from some illustrator.”
2
The client who said: “I love what you’ve done, but did you have any other ideas?”
3
The art director who said: “Move to New York and I’ll use you.”
4
The designer who said: “This is far too sophisticated. Remember, your audience bowls.”
5
The client who said: “This won’t work at all; there aren’t any clichés.”
6
The designer who said: “We’re not creating art here—this is a business.”
7
The client who said: “I’m sorry, but we can’t use it; one of the women on the board thinks it looks like a penis.”
All of the quotes on the card are real, and were directed to me. (The art director in quote no. 3 is none other than Steven Heller.) The variation of the BlackDog logo was drawn by Gary Baseman. (MF)
Our latest assignment from Touchstone Climbing was to redesign the identity for Berkeley Ironworks, the East Bay indoor climbing gym that opened in 2000. The gear is a reference to ironworks, of course—the gym’s original logo featured three gears—and the yin and yang design alludes to Berkeley’s reputation for alternative or non-conformist thinking.
The symbol was carefully inked to determine the relationships between the positive and negative forms; line weights were optically adjusted to ensure that the individual elements contributed to a balanced and harmonious whole.
We designed a distinctive T monogram within an eight-pointed star to identify the new Sacramento microbrewery Touchstone Brewing Co. The construction of the monogram is based on a series of nested squares: one for the T, and two for the eight-pointed star (with one square rotated 45°). The mildly explosive process of fermentation is suggested by the outwardly expanding star and the surrounding pattern of beer bubbles.
We look forward to sampling the product when the brewery launches. Cheers!