A couple of photo sessions and a little inspiration from getting to know a client can go a long way when establishing a business identity that you want recognized. The first time I met this client he had an old jacket that was embroidered a couple years earlier and rather tattered.
First reference for Logo Development
He wanted the same embroidered version of his beloved charter boat, Law & Order. Without any original files, I went to work to do my best to recreate Law & Order by tracing it in a vector program. Unlike Photoshop which is all pixels, a vector program creates illustrations made up of lines and is not subject to “pixelation” when enlarging the way photos are.
Logo Graphic for Law & Order
The results made Captain Murphy pretty happy and he proceeded to order some apparel with his new logo design. He already had the graphic of the Boat’s name, Law & Order, made for him when he had the name put on his boat and emailed the file to me so I could put the name together with the boat. I took these elements and proceeded to work on a design for his business cards.
Law & Order Business Card
After collecting all the pertinent information to be included in his business card design, I put this business card together for him.
Tickled pink, we decided to put together Letterhead and Stationery for all his correspondence using the key elements established to date.
Captain Murphy is pretty happy with the look we have established together and wanted to take it a step further. Seeing he is local, we decided on a two part photo shoot. The goal was to put together a marketing piece that would be a leave behind, marketing his Charter Service. He wanted to give his prospects a visual of what their potential experience would be like if they booked their charter with Law & Order. I took shots of the interior of his boat with my wide angle lens and on a later date, took some action shots of him moving.… waiting on a jetty in Scituate Harbor while he came in and left, I took several shots, achieving the goals for the project.
Together we decided to go with a Rack Card for its versatility and quality rather than a brochure. This choice was made out of practicality; however, the net result exceeded both our expectations since the glossy stock really showcased his images well.
While designing this piece, I felt it needed something more to pull everything together. Some kind of small element, relative to the Captain’s business and passion. The design was otherwise complete so I did my thinking thing and started looking for some inspiration. It didn’t take long before I found my solution. The Captain has a tattoo and I proceeded to make that tattoo into my needed element.
Here is a miniature version of the rack cards. Can you find that element?
Well, we all love a happy client and the Captain was happy in deed. Our next project was some visors and T-shirts. The visors were to be embroidered and we decided on full color digital printing for the T-shirts. Here are a couple variations made over the years.
To the right are the original designs used for a couple years. We were able to use an image from one of the shoots and for last year’s design we changed it up a bit, and still used an image from the outdoor shoot.
I recently put together the beginning of the Captain’s website, take a look. Design rules for establishing recognition apply to both Web design and Print design. I hope you enjoyed reading about how I work to get my clients recognized by using a set of key elements consistently across all their marketing media. Please email or call anytime to discuss your project 781.264.7275
