Charpie

Heyoh!

Check out our shnazzy new identity piece for Fargo-based firm, Stahl Architects and Builders. The idea behind the design was to create something far different from your typical architecture firm logo sporting either some sort of trendy san-serif font or alas… a Roman or Greek column. Sorry Futura, Century Gothic and Roman Empire, but you’re not needed this time.

We think the logo twists a nice modern feel with an old school carpentry/handyman/craftsman-like warm feeling establishing a sense of long-standing reputation without dropping “Est. 1889” below the name. It also offers a unique and great direction for future collateral that will separate them from competition for sure.

But… the client didn’t like it. Or rather, they did, but it wasn’t the direction they wanted to take. Shucks! It happens though. This is the design business.

So, this will be the only place you see this logo. We wanted to give it one last shiny little moment before filing away. Goodbye my looooove!

Ok, we’re over it. Next!

We are so super excited to launch our up-and-coming sister site, GrillingAddiction.com, that we just have to give you a visual taste of what’s in store. Introducing the Grilling Addiction logo.

For us, it started as a love for grilling over hot coals in our trusty Weber grills with a cold beer in hand. Now, it’s an addiction. Grilling has not just become a past time or a means of preparing that which we need to survive. It’s become our life.

We want to know every tip, trick and recipe for every meat, fruit and vegetable that could possibly come in contact with a grate. And, we want to share our experiences with you through GrillingAddiction.com

The final design took a couple weeks to finish off and is vastly different than some of the first concepts. We originally went down a road of traditional western-style typefaces and used visuals such as flames and wood grain. Although nice, the designs didn’t pertain to the feel we wanted the site to have — something lighter with more modern lines and easy on the eyes.

Follow Grilling Addiction on Twitter!

New logo for LA based consulting company EcoSet! Woot!

EcoSet contacted Charpie in an effort to help them make a splash in a breakthrough new industry offering green solutions and logistical environmental support tailored specifically for the feature film, television, and commercial industries. Their goal is to reduce the industry’s negative impact on the environment.

While working in the production office of the latest Coen Brother’s flick, A Serious Man, Ecoset’s founder Shannon E. Shaefer helped divert nearly 80% of the set waste which totalled precisely 11.1 tons! Yowza. Read more about Shaefer’s efforts.

EcoSet will help production staffs integrate environmentally responsible practices involving composting, recycling and waste diversion, energy and transportation, client services and general production support.

Follow @ecoset on Twitter!

When designer denim and fashion boutique Luxe contacted me to create a new logo for them, I was faced with a challenge. The store catered to both young fashionable women from age 16 to more mature women with refined style up to age 55.

My initial designs always swayed one way or the other. I struggled to find a middle ground between young, fun and innocent and bold, sophisticated, yet not highbrow.

This is how this design was born. The custom Luxe typeface seems to have two personalities. That of a younger still emerging and developing style as depicted at the base of the word to another as you continue to scan up the logo and the initial personality becomes more defined and even refined as it appears to almost grow and lift off the surface.

Zip zing!

There’s a few things I love about summer: softball, beer, and design. Ok, so beer and design have nothing to do with summer. Those are kinda year round things. Regardless, my softball team, The Crew, needed something for our jerseys. Since beer drinking is as part of the sport as the game itself, to us anyway, we had to come up with some combination of the two.

My life in graphic design wouldn’t be complete without at least one creation of the standard brush script baseball logo, so this will be my offering to the logo cliché gods. Yay! Check it off the list! Now all I need is a clipart spinal chord chiropractor logo to complete my sacrifice.

All in good fun.

Yay for new work! Recently, an up and coming electric vehicle manufacturer asked me to polish up their image. Fargo-based Electric Vehicles Unlimited wanted something that looked clean and professional that would have room for future growth.

Up until I met them, they strictly referred to themselves as EVU, and their current logo also suggested this moniker. So, this is where I began. Hiding the word “electric” was not something I wanted to do for it was the foundation of the company’s existance. Let’s get EVU out the window and bring Electric Vehicles to the world. Now when someone sees their name they’ll know exactly what they are all about. It won’t be another acronym guessing game.

I also didn’t want to overcomplicate things. I’d like Electric Vehicles Unlimited to have a symbol, but I don’t wanna go overboard with something that overshadows the most basic definition of the business. My solution was to make Electric Vehicles Unlimited a text based logo accented with a well known symbol for electricity - the good ol’ bolt. The bolt also ties the two basic elements of the company; electricity and vehicles.

The room for future growth will rely on the bolt. It will be able to be used with tags and as a physical emblem on the vehicles themselves, and it will create a second wave of branding after the initial establishment of Electric Vehicles Unlimited. For example, check out this spec animation I whipped up: Watch. (Requires QuickTime)

We’ve revamped the logo for San Rafael based production group Dandy Dwarves! They really wanted something simple with room to add a little fun later, so I’ve initially based the logo off the Century Gothic typeface. I evened out all the stroke widths, and rounded everything off. A little nip there, a little tuck there, and that’s what you see.

If you know me, you know I love to grill. And who love to grill just as much as I do? Well, a lot of people, but mostly my friends and family! So, this year we’ve created a seasonal event dubbed Grill-A-Thon. The idea is simple. Wake up and start grillin’ and keep on truckin’ until you literally can’t stand anymore. We gather as many grills as we can find and get as many chefs and eaters as we can to take part of this little spectacle.

Grill-A-Thon was created as a time to get together with friends and learn from each other tips, tricks, and recipes. You can come and cook, or just enjoy the food. There’s really no rules at all.

What would an awesome event be without a little design for desert? That’s why I created this logo for us and am currently working on a website and some merchandise. I figured I’d through the design in a starry night scene around a glowing grill as is how the event usually comes to rest. So feast your eyes!

We’re currently in the process of giving Thermal Energy Products Inc. a little facelift! I’m super excited about the project. It’s been a long time coming!

TEP Inc. specializes in reusable, removable insulation blankets. These fancy blankets wrap around valves, pipes, and other big hot or cold things you’d find in large factories. The blankets will help keep the equipment at acceptable temperatures to help the facilities maintain efficiency and reduce the amount of energy needed perform. That’s my take on it anyway!

The original logo was created by the company’s owner, Mark Walstead, using a some sort of plotter and CAD software. The company has grown quite a bit since 1985, so TEP came to Charpie for a makeover. I didn’t want to stray too far from the original design, so I maintained the ovalish shape. However, I incorporated red and blue, dare I say ‘swooshes,’ to symbolize the ‘thermal’ aspect of TEP’s products. An inner gray oval represents the client’s pipe, valve, etc. to which TEP’s thermal blankets are applied.

We’ve got a website redesign in the works, so stay tuned!

Way back when I was a freshman in college at the Savannah College of Art and Design I hooked up with three like minded achievement addicts: Josh Lind, Britt Spencer, and Kevin Phillips. We all got a long great and each saw a skillset in the others that offered a unique blend when we combined our effort toward a project. We knew we wanted to some day work with each other professionally, so as an excersize we formed a group called Dandy Dwarves.

Within this group we made up fictitious clients and produced work for them as if they had come to hire us in the real world. The work ranged from a simple logo to websites to television production. From this we gathered great experiences in understanding how each of us worked and what roles we naturally fell into. The Dandy Dwarves did eventually become a business and now operates out of San Rafael, CA and is lead by Josh Lind. Although Lind is the last remaining ‘original’ member, we all still work closely on projects together.

History aside, I recently created this minor facelift of our old emblem, the lollipop, to tide the Dandy Dwarves image over until the complete overhaul already in the plans. I did it mostly for fun, but also wanted to see how far I could push the idea.

One of my first jobs when I started as Art Director at Fargo-based marketing company, Sundog, was to develop a new logo for a nearby tool and die shop. Performance Tool & Die needed something sleek that represented precision and professionalism. This is what eventually came of the project. Their original logo had the crosshairs, and I didn’t feel they needed to go. It was a nice, easy way of bringing the precision aspect of the business into play.

But how do I portray the underlying personality of not only the company but the folks that make it up? That’s where the typeface comes in. I wanted it to look as if deriving from a classic, timeless vehicle. I wanted it to look like it was ripped right off the back of a car from a time period when they actually had personality and to own one was to love and care for one, because that’s what you could see in the faces of these employees that worked hard and cared about what they did.