Fullsteam Brewery, Durham NC

At the end of October, Olivia and Imoved to sunny Washington, DC. It was quite a whirlwind experience: Olivia received a truly unique and exceptional job offer at Georgetown University. We jumped at the opportunity, selling a bunch of stuff, getting a renter in our house and moving up here in just shy of 3 weeks. We've only begun to see the sights, and on occasion I will miss our home in the south.

Right down the street from where we used to live is the locally (and regionally) legendary Fullsteam Brewery. Founded by Sean Lily Wilson, the self-styled Chief Executive Optimist, in 2008 the Fullsteam taproom has become a cornerstone of the Durham community. Sean, please feel free to comment and correct any errors in this post. The proximity to Fullsteam and the lively-as-of-late Rigsbee Avenue was a non-insignificant factor in the purchase of our house.

I've been working with Sean in my role at The Brandit for almost a year now, after meeting him shortly after we arrived in Durham in 2012, and since then we've done a bunch of really fun stuff together.

Here is a sampling of their recent Twitter images, all of them featuring projects on which I worked.

The Brandit Updates

You might recall an article I posted about moving from Nickelfish to the The Brandit in early 2012. Well, much has happened at The Brandit since then, the most visually significant of which might be the identity update implemented this spring.

The Brandit character evolved darkly, switching from a fun, primary, geometric dude to a much more stylized, vigilante-esque charater. The new website also reflects the brand update.

Almost all of the work I've done in the past year has been with The Brandit. Some of my favorite projects include Hello IT, Vizcaya Villa and the logo for St. Florian's Brewing Company; you can peruse the WORK page to see some of the other stuff we've put out recently.

All the new art is the primary reason this website hasn't been updated in a while, but now is the time to change that.

I recently added a couple new project pages to my portfolio, and two of my favorites are Lauryl Lane (who I've written about before, and whose case study you can read here) and Mile High Style, two stylists who have already seen excellent mileage from their identity overhauls.

Three weeks ago, Dan (Creative Director at The Brandit) and I went to the Craft Brewers Conference. It was the first experience for both of us, and we had a great time. We made a ton of great contacts in the industry, and hope to begin working with some craft brewers, startups and old standards alike, to develop their brand identities.

Stay tuned to see some work from that industry in the coming months.

Goodbye, Nickelfish. Hello, Brandit.

This week is my first full week at The Brandit.Friday was my last day at Nickelfish Interactive Design and Marketing.

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I came on board with Nickelfish as their first Senior Designer in July of 2010, one month after getting married and one week after moving up to Princeton, New Jersey. Since that summer the staff has doubled in size and we expanded to our downstairs workspace. Check out these photos of the awesome space.

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If you look above my desk you will see a panoramic image. This is one of the most fun projects I worked on during my time there: The Nickelfish League of Heroes. Over a lunch early in my Nickelfish career, I said it might be fun to illustrate our Nickelfish group as a team of superheroes. This was mentioned casually (and if you've known me for any length of time you will recognize this suggestion as pretty standard procedure anytime I am in a new professional or social setting), but the proposition was immediately taken up by the CEO, Justin Marcucci.

Though the pet project was delayed by busy months of actual client work I eventually began sketching on our then-15-person team and researching professional comic artists to render them. After many months of sketching, revising and proofing we finally printed our inaugural class image in the summer of 2011. The long-term plan is to re-print a new league poster every summer, updating the team as necessary.

The portfolio section of this site is littered with projects I've done while with Nickelfish, and my time there truly expanded my skill set and pushed me in directions I otherwise would not have explored. My relationship with the people at NFIDM is excellent, and I am leaving on equally excellent terms. I will continue to work for Nickelfish as necessary, wrapping up the rest of my remaining projects on a freelance basis and helping the team out as needed.

Thanks to everyone at Nickelfish for making my time there enjoyable and rewarding. I hope I contributed to the team's experience as much as they contributed to mine. My best wishes to everyone over there, I hope to see you all soon.

What about The Brandit, you ask? That will have to be saved for another time.