Sam's Chowder House Re-brand and Image Refresh
This famous seafood restaurant located in Half Moon Bay is known for its fresh delicious food (specially its clam chowder and lobster rolls), its waterfront view and impressive food truck menu.
The challenge was to refresh the business's image and to keep the concept of the brand intact, the restaurant needed a visual theme that would tie all of its elements together and one that would be attractive to people from all ages, considering the broad diversity of age of the clientele.
The approach to a solution began with a logo that can be used throughout different mediums at different sizes. The color palette speaks the setting at which the business is located since it comes from color samples taken from the sky and the ocean on location. The website was redesigned and a mobile application was created to keep regulars updated with menu changes, events, food truck location and other info.
Enter Site
Bose C4D Modeling and Animation
3D model of a Bose A20 Aviation headset created in Cinema 4D. The model was duplicated from several two dimensional pictures and was modeled using primitive shapes, polygons, NURBS and transformers. To add credibility to the textures bump maps were use in conjunction with them. After the model was completed a motion shot of the product was done in Cinema 4D with depth of field added to add credibility.
The Urban Forest Project:
San Francisco
The Urban Forest Project is a series of unprecedented outdoor exhibitions taking root in cities around the world. This unique environmental, public arts and educational initiative calls on artists, designers and students in each location to employ the idea or form of the tree to make a powerful visual statement on banners that are displayed throughout the community.
After several banners were created for the city of San Francisco the challenge was to create an identity system for SF Urban Forest Project including a logo and a website that would reflect the city of San Francisco but would also speak to the concept of the project nationwide.
Enter Site
San Francisco Underground
Film Festival
Set of stationery created for the San Francisco Underground Film Festival. The official poster is entirely created with vector art so the client can increase it or decrease its size as desired with out losing quality.
The image of a goat-headed-man is used to convey the message experimentation and creative liberty often used on underground and independent cinema. A simplified version of this character is the logo and both versions appeared throughout the series.
The duotone flyer for the SFUFF can be easily be photocopied in black and white for cheap high volume production and be used as a bill. The flyer doesn't contain much information about the festival on purpose so people would be persuaded to visit the web site and have direct access to the festival's online store.
Craigslist Redesign
The challenge was to improve and embellish the user interface of Craigslist.org. Part of the challenge was to keep all the data on the main page as it currently is (without altering the XHTML code) and shift the information architecture with CSS. The tabbed content cleared the visual tension and added hierarchy to the main categories. The position of containers and negative space improved the eye flow and set space for the eye to rest. The green palette came from Craigslist concept of being mostly free and environmentally friendly.
Enter Site
Information Architecture and User Experience Design
Behind the visuals steps taken into account to create simple user friendly interfaces and web applications. It all starts identifying a problem or challenge and identifying the solution. The problem is best understood through vast amounts of research and understanding and then when the scope has been fully understood the challenge can be taken on through several steps including: further research throughout the project, competitive analysis, market research, target audience specification, personas, Heuristics evaluation, story boarding and wire-framing, user testing, etc.
These are examples of some of these steps while considering re-designing the Academy of Art University website.
