Rascalater
Keeping everybody happy can be a challenging but also fun task when that includes the homeowners, wildlife, and the community at large. Fully exploiting the expressiveness and intelligence of raccoons this balance of wildness and playfulness with utility is present in every aspect of the brand expression including the product design itself.
Brand Identity
Main logo style and alternative uses.
Product Design
Manufacturing & Supply Chain
Storytelling
Packaging
Web & Digital
Fonbnk
“If you’ve got a phone, you’ve got a lawyer” is familiar to many Americans of a certain generation who have lived in the mid-Atlantic. Fast-forward to the present and a significant population of the world depends on their mobile phone for just about everything to make the everyday without the need for a passport, a credit card, the physical banking infrastructure or really even a bank account.
Fonbnk came to us with the challenge of creating a highly intuitive brand, easy-to-use but still distinctive user interface that works in low bandwidth or restricted data environments to allow as many folks as possible to pay for products & services locally or across the border instantly, securely and without the traditional interchange fees and red tape while converting their mobile phone data minutes into digital currency.
The Brand Identity
The brand palette. Green for money. Charcoal for good luck.
The symbol in the logo is inspired by the Bell telephone rotary dial action. For connecting the dots between legacy and the future.
The Apparel
Storytelling
Taking cues from Afrofuturism and religious iconography, the visual storytelling is aspirational and focuses on the enterprising, younger customer at the center of change.
The App
Awai
An angular, choppy stroke pattern evocative of Japanese traditional brush calligraphy is a time capsule containing the heritage of the brand.
Print Stationery
Oral Care & Supplements
Subscription Mailer.
Skincare
Trade Show Booth
Keeping the brand consistent across ALL the touch points.
Awamoritime
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away a beverage was born from exotic ingredients. Introducing Awamori to North American audiences as a versatile alternative to Sake, and Okinawa as a unique and special destination within Japan were the key requirements of the brief.
The Inspiration
Okinawa is one of the planet's so-called "blue zones" where people regularly live to a very advanced age.
Brand Identity
The brand's icon is a custom-designed Shisa dragon symbol that draws directly from the Okinawan folklore.
Storytelling
Web & Digital
Sticky Fingers
“No butter way to bake a mess” is what we said when we first accepted the opportunity to create a foundation for the next level of growth for a legendary DC-area vegan brand founded by reality baking celebrity Doron Petersan.
Together, we re-imagined Sticky Fingers as a unified and highly visual but also coordinated offering of products and services offered some offered only locally and others nationally, some online while others in brick-and-mortar settings. This means we truly began from scratch.
Starting from the joyful color scheme and friendly typography style the resulting image is accessible, fun, playfully humorous, and inclusive in presentation and tone with an emphasis on delivering bespoke-like luxury and superior performance all while reducing waste and increasing compostability and compatibility with local recycling stream.
Visit the Bakery Website
Visit the Diner Website
A palette that doesn’t take itself too seriously and vibrant graphic patterns that map to product categories work together to create a quirky but accessible DIY mood.
The flexible pouch is a high-resolution medium with a relatively low waste profile. 100% recyclable and modular by design.
Wholesale multi-packs.
The “hat box” for gifting and kits.
A branded mailer system.
The Sticky Card gift card.
Printed collateral system evokes the nostalgia of old-timey postcards.
Holiday gifting kits. And more!
Solartag
Ever since there was light most life as we know it in our solar system has depended on it for its boundless energy. Despite advances in technology, rooftop solar continues to suffer from the stigma of cost and the perception of aesthetic limitations. That is why Solartag emphasizes its Danish design & engineering heritage while positioning themselves as a more sensibly priced alternative to Tesla.
Brand Identity
Product labels for the panels.
Storytelling
Web & Digital
Deploy
Inspired by effectiveness - a trait they credit their hero General Patton with, Deploy was born as a best-of-class product in any category. American-owned and made, it is meant to be bold and stand tall and represent a military-grade germ defense perimeter - like an invisible but very real force field of sorts. The idea of urgency combined with the notions of efficacy and blunt force power added to the very real need to differentiate in the retail isle necessitated the eventual choice for the coral neon as the vibrating and singular signature brand color.
Green Acres
The place to be if you reside in DC and are interested in keeping Cannabis-generated money in your community. Addressing a combination of social and economic justice issues via a unique and accounting-compliant marketplace that brings together local cultivators, consumers, and the greater community.
Alphaforms helped Green Acres Lab articulate their unique digital platform through the development of the visual brand identity along with original storytelling and customer experience design.
Inspired equally by farming and patriotic themes the logo for Green Acres Lab is as robust to reproduce as it is memorable.
Qixo
Branding, UX, and UI prototyping for frictionless fantasy gameplay. Inspired by the love of the game, designed with global user base in mind.
The monogram puts everything into context.
Simplified, horizontal form of the brand mark.
Differentiation by color.
Brand elements used in a social media campaign context.
Logged in user.
Genius Loci
Branding a memorial to something that did not just come to an end in a violent event, but to one that may well have been the definitive starting point of the current historical era, was to time travel and re-discover the hope and aspiration the World Trade Center development represented to anyone that remembers the time before tragedy.
Inspired by the photography of a long-time Manhattan resident, designer, and photographer Charles H. Moretz, Jr., the Genius Loci visual identity is first and foremost guided by the literal and philosophical pillars of light the twin structure embodied, but also borrows from the optimism and vibrancy represented by the cool blue sky that it so memorably pierced during its reign as a signature element of the New York City skyline for decades of growth and prosperity.
Brand Identity
Icon for social media and other shorthand uses.
Print Collateral
The vertical orientation of the stationery was chosen to purposely echo the skyward silhouette of the towers.
Experience Design
Book Design
“The Spirit of the Place” - a book published by ORO Editions of the photographs featured in the planned memorial.
Storytelling
The website serves as the primary point of presence and contact with an integrated fundraising module.
Maison Te Mata
A complete, unisex clean beauty line from LA. For modern nomads. Stay tuned for launch in 2020!
Washington Times
Getting with the times, the client faced a challenge of staying relevant with younger audiences and ahead of the eroding paid subscribers of the national print edition. We worked together to devise an entirely new, minimalist, premium format with bigger emphasis on original or quality images and video, user-configurable filters for topic curation, and embedded quality sponsored content similar to TV commercials.
First time user enters a topic of interest to cull the news feed for a customized experience.
An easy to navigate image-driven digest allows quick access to the latest news.
Editorial filters allow for focusing of the news without developing ideological biases.
Universal web app is effortlessly scalable to a growing number of screens.
User testing session.
Kannaswiss
Haloing off the Swiss school of modern graphic design we forged an identity that is at once accessible and inviting while also being reliably “pharmaceutical” in order to communicate the brand’s promise and the related value system and the premium price positioning of their expanding line of CBD-enhanced products.
An excerpt from the design brief.
Wellness is central to the brand promise.
The “plus” monogram device is loaded with meaning.
Subliminal promise of comprehensive lifestyle support implied and expressed.
The first SKU that launched the medicinals category.
An ever-expanding number of SKUs.
Bagasse fiber mesh molds echo the values of the brand.
Attention to detail is endemic.
A custom mold for the most Swiss of all chocolates.
Retail facade elevation prototype reinforces the underlying Swissness.
Modular expo system that packs flat for a life on the road.
Comfortable, functional and modern.
Reusable totes from organic jute.
Organic cotton tees.
Sheesh
Not another kabob joint! The mandate from the client seemed as clear as it did impossible: To create a unique, contemporary American fast-casual dining experience based on the Afghan-Persian culinary tradition that was not just inclusive of but also attractive to women and families, responsive to modern dietary needs and portion sizes, and distinctly non-ethnic in a way that defies negative stereotyping. Sheesh is launching in the fall of 2018.
The art of grilling is in the DNA of the brand.
Excerpt from the design brief.
A modernized take on the traditional menu.
The brand values of integrity, versatility and agility as represented by the interior finishes.
The logo meanders like a good fairytale from a campground on the Silk Route.
Exterior signage prototype.
Silk road culinary herbs and spices connect the dots between ancient heritage and the contemporary environmental context.
We use humor and attitude to deliver dietary education as part of brand messaging.
A modular menu and messaging wall.
Comfortable and casual, like the cuisine.
Serviceware inspiration.
