An Eye on the Forest

I occasionally sit-down and create a "Portfolio Cheat-Sheet" as shown above. A single page of various cropped thumbnails of my design/illustration/product work that will usually accompany a resumé or go to a client for a quick visual reference.

I've never really been a designer that focused on one style or genre (perhaps supporting my abject obscurity), but find inspiration in variance. If you poke around this blog a bit, you'll see I have worked in a variety of industries that are seemingly quite disparate.

Because of the variety of projects, I find it a good exercise to thumbnail the work to gauge where I am leaning stylistically at a given moment. Work that has just been completed, mixed with the past helps me to see the "common threads" as well as where I may want to go next.

Cropping the images, aside from just arousing inquiry, helps to keep anyone from focusing too much on what the object is verses "reading" the visual "feel". In other words... something like not focusing on the trees, but to see the forest more clearly.

-rm

Gift Cards

In 2006, along with other projects (shown on previous posts), Old Navy was interested in building their gift card program to feature individual card concepts and styles. This was in contrast to the usual application of graphic themes from the apparel collections of the given current season. Alas, they ended up going with the later direction and none of the concepts were produced. Above are just a few of the many gift card concepts that I created at that time.

©2010 Richard Manville

Jean Therapy

As the Old Navy Dog Supply project (shown in the previous post) started to wrap up, exploration began on refreshing the branding for Old Navy denim. At the time, various styles and cuts of jeans each had their own branded look. The goal was to create a denim "store-in-store" including men's and women's sections. All jeans would have a consistent branded look and an easy to use system to quickly identify the gender, cut, style, and size.

I generated design explorations for this labeling system. The ones I'm showing you here were not chosen but are solutions I still have a fondness for.




The Belt Tag: This concept picks up on some of the style attributes of the Dog Supply branding through the use of typography. Every cut and style is clearly legible and color coded with men and women's palettes. The "belt" folding format of the tag allows for use of both sides of the tag, reducing the need for additional size labels. Like I said they didn't go for this one, but I love it.

Trompe L'oeil Tags: A very different concept just to show the range of exploration. This one plays to Old Navy's playful persona and slight retro quality. As you can see, the concept features the clothes pin as a uniting visual element with more distinct style variation in color and typography between men and women.


©2006, 2010 Richard Manville

Putting On The Dog

I worked on a number of projects for Old Navy in 2006-2007. As part of an overall effort to revive the brand I was engaged to work on a number of design development explorations.

My favorite, and the one to come to full fruition was Old Navy Dog Supply. The concept was an in-store boutique featuring a variety of pet accessory products from dog tags to dog beds.

My mission was to create the style guide for their in-house team to use for creation of all branding and product development. This included all original artwork, logos, elements, textures, palette, typography, patterns, along with some explorations of suggested use of the elements like the tag explorations shown above. You may notice, the original concept name was changed from T&T (Tried and True) to Old Navy Dog Supply due to potential trademark issues.

You can see below some examples of how the design direction was ultimately applied and interpreted in the form of final product.



rm.

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