Tag projects
Hot Bread Kitchen Gets Some Hot New Packaging
When we first started working with Hot Bread Kitchen a few years ago, the social purpose bakery was a big idea with a little bread stand at a greenmarket in Harlem. Since then they have grown into a social enterprise that employs immigrant women to bake delicious breads while learning valuable skills for careers in the food industry. They now have more than 20 retailers carrying their products, including Dean & Deluca and the Brooklyn Larder, and participate in 4 greenmarkets per week, including Union Square. Over the past year Bad Feather has worked together with Hot Bread Kitchen to develop packaging that’s as tasty as the the breads they bake.
Lavash crackers (organic, crispy crackers topped with a variety of seeds and spices – you want these) are one of their biggest sellers. The challenge was to design packaging that retained the DIY, homegrown aesthetic that has influenced the Hot Bread Kitchen brand from the beginning. In the early days Jessamyn would hand-stamp kraft paper business cards with the Hot Bread Kitchen logo, and that was a foundation for design elements used in all of the marketing materials we’ve since created for them. When we set to transitioning from their handmade packaging (stamped re-closable paper bags) to a printed design, it was important that we retained the stamped logo which results in a charming irregularity when the bags are lined up on a shelf.
We finally got our hands on a few bags of newly-packaged lavash and must say, they’re as tasty as ever and we could not be more pleased with the result of the finished product.
Email Marketing Party Magic
We had you at magic, right? Bad Feather recently had great success using an email marketing campaign to promote this year’s Sonic Union party. Maybe you’ve seen the self-mailing poster invite we created last year? We got loads of positive feedback on the design and we’re told the party was one for the record books. When we sat down to brainstorm ideas for this year’s party, the folks at Sonic Union were interested in promoting the event digitally. It is 2010 after all, and in addition to being a greener and more interactive approach, we saved some serious cash by eliminating printing and postage.
Aside from rethinking the distribution of the invitation, we wanted to design an invite to reflect Sonic Union’s industry reputation of being darn good party people. On our end the ideas started flowing with the mention of the Zoltar machine that would be one of several party attractions. We created this digital poster design that we felt appropriately conveyed 100% FUN.
The poster design was embedded in an HTML email campaign sent to an initial list of invitees. We sent this through a 3rd party service, utilizing their list management capabilities to wrangle the guest list Read the rest of this entry »
Shop Bag Online
We recently launched shopbagonline.com, a custom-themed Big Cartel store for Bag, a Nolita shop that sells gorgeous genuine leather handbags. In addition to carrying such New York brands as Tano, Sabina and Pietro Alessandro, Bag owner Sheryl Lee, recently launched her own house brand of elegant and utilitarian handbags and wallets, simply named Bag.
You can purchase the Bag house brand collection online, and view many more styles from other brands available at the store on Mulberry street.
Collaborating on JoanWatts.com
We recently developed a new artist portfolio site in collaboration with award-winning book designers, Skolkin + Chickey. We first learned about Joan Watts when our friends at Radius Books published a gorgeous monograph of her paintings. We were pleased to have the opportunity to create this minimal site design to showcase her beautiful work.
Check out JoanWatts.com.
Did Someone Say “Zoltar”?
It’s funny sometimes what sparks ideas, in this case a word.
We’ve been doing quite a bit of image referencing for a project in the works here at Bad Feather. After a good old google image search, our next favorite resource is the New York Public Library’s digital gallery. Take a look at some of the treasures we’ve dug up from the visual depths of the interweb:
(click the thumbnails to view full-size images)
A new dress for Scuola Italiana
We’ve just completed a redesign of ScuolaItaliana.org, a brochure website for Scuola Italiana del Greenwich Village. The site offers schedules and registration forms, detailed information about the school’s methodology, events and additional resources for potential and returning students. Our goal in the redesign was to refresh the school identity and to improve the overall site navigation and content organization.
Scuola Italiana was founded in 1987 and over the past 23 years thousands of students have learned Italy’s language and a deeper understanding of its remarkable culture. We wanted to create a logotype that would not only reference Italian design (yes, we used Bodoni) but that would also reflect the establishment of the scuola.
We re-purposed the majority of the content including a wonderful library of images the scuola has collected for event announcements over the years. We also based the color palette on the original website so the overall site design would be familiar to returning students. We’re quite proud of the outcome, a minimal html design that shows how pretty code can be.
Heather is a student at the scuola and Bad Feather loves Italia! We thoroughly enjoyed our research for this project. Here is a great article we stumbled across on Italian type design including a story about Massimo Vignelli smuggling Helvetica.
Young Visionaries
Do you know someone with an idea for a project that works toward a vision of change? The International Women’s Health Coalition recently launched their 2010 Young Visionaries Campaign:
At the International Women’s Health Coalition, we are inspired by the activism of young people and their visions for the future of sexual rights and reproductive health.Through our Young Visionaries contest, we aim to celebrate, acknowledge, and support the exceptional and ongoing work of young people.
Our Young Visionaries contest encourages youth to share their visions for young people and the future. Until March 25, 2010 youth between the ages of 18 and 30 can share their visions for a just and healthy life, and get a chance to win a $1000 grant from the International Women’s Health Coalition to fund a project that works toward this vision.
We recently completed a project, in collaboration with Dtek, to design a microsite for the Young Visionaries contest. Built on top of the WordPress platform already being utilized for IWHC’s Akimbo blog, the site allows users to register, nominate a contestant and vote to support their favorite nominees. You can read a more detailed write-up of the site development and WordPress plugins we utilized, courtesy of Andy, over on the Dtek blog.
Check it out and show your support for the visionaries from around the world.
Frontside or Back Bowls
Wow, this blog has gotten a bit dusty! While it’s snowing outside here in Brooklyn, we thought we’d take a moment to tell you about another little project we worked on with SKI Magazine earlier this winter…
The folks at SKI were looking to create an interactive map of Crested Butte that allows readers to follow 2 different skiers on a typical day at the resort. Bad Feather established the art direction for the project and SKI Magazine developed the project in-house. Choose an itinerary and see for yourself what the mountain and town (monster breakfast burrito?) have to offer.
A Case of Holiday Madness
The activity level at Bad Feather HQ during the month of December can best be described as elfin. Handmade activity was at an all-time high, as we all abandoned our computers and dedicated all resources to making, baking and packing for the holidays.
Some time ago we decided buttons would be the perfect holiday goody and so, this Fall we set to work designing buttons and buttons and buttons until we selected the 20 best (the 2009 holiday edition, if you will). During the first week of December, while Brad and Heather headed to Miami for a dose of art and sun (did we mention we brought back a hambone and mustache cream as souvenirs?), the ladies of Bad Feather held down the fort and made a mound of nearly a thousand buttons.
The second week of December we decided it was time to explore our stop-motion curiosity, because of course a video is the perfect way to send a holiday message to the world. We created a quick storyboard and began cutting and taping a forest worth of paper feather trees. For the next two weeks we slowly crafted our set, including an ice skating pond and airplane. In retrospect, the hours of photographing and editing that followed were nothing…
And then there was the question of what to give to our friends and family? Cookies of course! One week before Christmas we all headed home to our respective kitchens with many pounds of sugar, butter and all those ingredients that make the word a better place. We returned the next morning each with dozens of dozens of cookies, of which we ate quite a few.
And so we packed, we labeled and we mailed. We battled the local post office which twice returned our button packages (the second time on Christmas Eve!). We designed, we edited, we emailed and eventually we all headed off (just a bit exhausted) to our respective holiday activities. Perhaps we took on too much, but it sure was fun. Thanks to all who have since sent us thanks and compliments – we hope you ate your cookies, are proudly wearing some very bad buttons, and that all enjoyed our holiday video experiment. Happy New Year!
Have you heard 2010 is the year of the Bad Feather?
For the Love of Corduroy
A public service announcement for people who like Corduroy fabric:
Bad Feather is pleased to announce the momentous unveiling of the newly redesigned CorduroyClub.com, and perhaps more importantly, the imminent Grand 11|11 Meeting of the Corduroy Appreciation Club!
Below is a screenshot of the Corduroy Appreciation Club’s new home. Please visit the website, and if you have a true appreciation for Corduroy fabric, consider both joining the organization and attending the 11|11 meeting, which promises to be epic.
HAIL THE WALE!
Spin to Win at Sonic Union
This summer we had a lot of fun designing this prize wheel. Turns out Sonic Union and their clients are having even more fun playing with it!
We created the wheel as an alternative to branded SWAG. Sonic Union is sending its clients away with a memorable experience (and maybe a siiiick prize) instead of more stuff we all get (but don’t really want or need). Prizes vary from ‘Free Stuff You Get Free’ – recycled copy of this morning this morning’s Metro anyone? – or ‘Super Special Commute’, an escort to the subway with a free swipe, to a ‘One Night Getaway’ room at the W hotel. Who doesn’t want a shot at that? A spin of the wheel and a coupon for a free Frosty at the Union Square Wendy’s keeps clients talking about Sonic Union round the water cool for days.
We Got Our Data On, Now Get Your Skis On
We just completed an interactive infographic for SKI magazine online. Data visualization was a new and exciting thing for us to tackle here at Bad Feather and if we do say so ourselves, we’re pretty pleased with the results.
The oh-so-pretty infographic, which represents the top 50 North American ski resorts’ comparative ratings according to the 2010 Reader Resort Survey for such categories as terrain, snowfall, lodging, dining, family activities, is animated in Flash to allow users to interact and discover the top resorts in each category. The SKI site is chock full of resort stats and content to satisfy your inner ski bunny. Ski season is just around the corner – check it out.
Twentieth-Century Pattern Design
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students
Some People Can't Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry
SAGMEISTER : Made You Look
Data Flow: Visualising Information in Graphic Design
Typography: Macro and Microaesthetics
Graphic Design: The New Basics
Materials, Process, Print: Creative Solutions for Graphic Design