My package design for Hill’s Science Diet’s “Ideal Balance” formula dog food was to convey “premium”; hence, the golden letters of “Balance” and the green leaf implied “organic,” the food pyramid illustrated good nutrition. I was pleased with the outcome of this package and had a good time designing it. ❦

Poster designs for one of many Hill’s Science Diet charities. ❦

The AmVestors Financial Annual Report and a billboard (not shown) on the turnpike between Lawrence and Topeka were the only pieces done for this client. ❦

The Sunflower Foundation is a state-wide healthcare foundation whose mission is to improve the health of Kansans. This 2003 annual report cover displays a soft monochromatic photograph of a sunflower. ↓

A thin ribbon of sunflowers stretches across the width of this 2004 annual

report. ↓

Big skies over distance sunflower fields on the Kansas plains. ❦

The folder carried informational material, stationary, envelopes, and a business card. ❦

It had been a handful of years since I had left Alco Duckwall in Abilene and working for Admark in Topeka when Alco reached out to our agency to update their storefronts. I don't know if they purposely came to my agency because of me or if it was a coincidence, but I like to think it was me. Alco, of course, no longer exists because of the likes of national discount chains like Walmart and Target. If this storefront I designed were in existence today, it would most certainly be in need of a drastic update! ❦

The first logo I designed was for an actual company, my own at the time. It was the Alco Duckwall corporate logo. I had done several other designs, but this is the one that floated to the top. Of course, I was pretty proud, being my first logo for a multi-state discount store.

The Alco Duckwall corporate logo is constructed of wood on the Great Plains Theater wall in Abilene. The wood rendition, I think, enhances the logo and gives it a stately feel. ( I did not create the wood rendition, only the design.) ❦

One of my favorite logos I designed was the Spyder logo; the spider in the “D” is memorable and makes for a strong brand. This logo had a few variations depending on the usage. Spyder manufactures high-end power tool accessories and is sold nationally, primarily in Lowe's stores. The top logo is designed for the packaging created in Photoshop. The text was illustrated with beveled edges and a brush stainless steel surface. For the background, I used diamond-plated steel to give it a tough, rugged look. A fave! ❦↓

A Spyder sub-brand for a German-made saw blade that could cut three ways. The logo projects strength as well as progressiveness with a little attitude. ❦

Manhattan logo that I created several years ago, I’m sure it's been updated. ❦

The KU Buddy System encouraged students to have a travel buddy to stay safe on and off campus. ❦

The Yin & Yang “e” logo is a definite fave! The positive and negative double “e” intertwined logo captivates interest and makes a strong, memorable branding mark. I visualized this logo in my head, but materializing it onto paper was quite a different story. I burned many hours to get this logo across the finish line. ❦

Internal brand consultant group specializing in marketing strategies focused on women. Notice the backward “R“- it's a woman’s prerogative! I still like this logo. ❦

I created this 3D logo for the Lawrence Performing Arts play, “Snow Queen, “displayed on posters to promote the play. What better way to express “Snow Queen” than with a crowned “Q” made of ice? ❦

MERCY! Looks like this logo is in need of an ambulance! Stat! ↓

The old logo portrayed a recovering child receiving a loving hug from a parent. Unfortunately, the way the logo was executed (TERRIBLE), it looked like the child was in a STRANGLED HOLD and was jokingly known as the strangling kid logo! The typeface/font was poorly crafted and did not fit the subject. I was assigned to redesign the logo without it losing integrity. As far as I could tell, it didn't have much to lose! The logo concept is “The Happy Outcome” parent and recovered child celebrating. ❦

DH Pace is a national company that provides door and entry solutions for all commerce sectors. You are probably familiar with the Overhead Door Company. It's a division of DH Pace. The arch above the “DH” suggests we have your entry needs covered. ❦

An HVAC and electrical service company. At the time, I liked the boldness of this logo ...Ah, heck! I still like it! ❦

The “DinoTykes” logo was the name of the dinosaur characters on four kid's meal cartons that I designed and illustrated. ❦

The Sunflower Foundation is a state-wide healthcare foundation whose mission is to improve the health of Kansans. I liked the logo then, but later, I realized that the body proportions were a little off. Oh well! Who cares about body proportions

anyway? ❦

Kansas logo concept, a thought bubble! The obvious solution with the tagline, or so I thought. It didn’t cut the mustard, only the cheese. My creative director came up with the winning logo, which I liked immensely. It was modern and progressive, which is what the state needed to break away from the Kansas stereotype. The logo was simple and memorable with its typography artfully crafted and the elegance of a shooting star with a ribbon of color following behind it above the name Kansas, which projected energy and was a representation of happiness and a bright future in Kansas.

Of course, Kansas officials could not stand for a contemporary and progressive design. They assumed the target audience was more interested in looking backward at an old Kansas, so after a short while of portraying ourselves as a progressive 21st-century state, they replaced his Kansas logo with the present one, which looks like it was designed by a semi-talented junior high school student in the early 1940s. It reinforces the stereotype of our state that it's flat and old-fashioned, and people like to chew tobacco and whittle sticks on the porch! …Excuse me while I spit! ❦

Logo design for the Bert Nash “Let’s Talk” campaign for mental health awareness. As you can see, “Talk” consists of communication-related words. The blocks below show how they would appear in different colors.❦

Tidbit: Once every few years, the agency held an all-day team-building event at different venues. If you have ever been to one, you know that once in a while, they have you do some goofy, sometimes embarrassing, team-building exercises. Most of my fellow employees prayed to be sick on the day of these events. My team was already built, so we didn't need any building! The mother of all team-building events was when it was held on a hot, humid Friday afternoon at the Girl Scouts campgrounds just west of Topeka. We were to bring sleeping bags to sleep under the stars together. Someone in HR thought this was a marvelous idea. Good thing we didn't know who that was! We had to do all of the standard goofy team-building exercises plus some custom ones for the outdoors. That night, we sat around the campfire. Luckily, we didn't have to sing “Kumbaya”. We were asked to share a memorable event we had experienced in our lives. There were a lot of moans and groans over that one. When it came time to hit the sack, a few girls refused to stay overnight but said they would return early in the morning for the event's conclusion. The rest of us went to sleep under the stars, and this night, the mosquitoes were out in force, which we knew would make it miserable, if not impossible, to sleep. The remaining girls decided they would sleep in the Girl Scout cabin. It was only us guys left to rough it under the stars. We woke up with very little sleep, looked around to realize we all had the same idea and slept in our cars. When I finally got home, I crashed on the sofa and slept a chunk of the day away. What a waste of a Saturday! ❦

My SBG logo, I remember it fondly! Apparently, SBG wasn’t king on the idea of their initials in their logo being portrayed as spaghetti noodles. It didn’t see the light of day! Some you win, some you lose! ❦

This extraordinary logo is the absolute pentacle of graphic design… to a mentally impaired orangutan! Well done!↓

It had been about 50 years since the client decided it was about time to join the 21st century and have a new logo designed that would resonate with their YarnBarn customers. Better late than never!↓

However, after seeing the proposed designs, they reasoned that their customers would become incoherent as well as hopelessly confused (walking in circles) and not understand the branding change. ↓

They believed their customers would give up and go elsewhere for their yarn purchases. So they elected to keep everything the SAME, even their extraordinary logo! Probably for another 50 years! God bless’em! ↓

This is my proposed website design for YarnBarn. The images and fonts invoke energy, excitement, happiness, and a reason to buy. It also has graphic buttons for a fast read in navigating the site. The background has subtle yarn strands filling the background to strengthen the branding. ↓

Change was hard for the YarnBarn people, so they chose to live in SAME! ❦

This was an unusual approach to a basketball poster, … predictably it fouled out! The basketball color and texture were partially superimposed over the faces of the players, which gave them a warrior with attitude feel. The blue background also had a subtle basketball texture with rough edges bordering the photo.

We had a saying around the creative department: “Dare To Be Stupid!” As you can see, I took that very seriously! ↓

One of our writers came up with the “Old School” concept and I had the privilege of designing it.The poster portrays a school steeped in tradition that continues to thrive and carries on the KU spirit. I created this from an old photograph of players in a KU basketball game. Believe it or not, I photoshopped out Wilt Chamberlin and replaced him with the full-color player making a lay-up. Of course, as you know, Wilt was a famous NBA player and attended KU for two years. We had a photo of the two full-color players in action, which I used to composite the poster. You know, if Wilt were with us today, he probably wouldn't mind having his lay-up picture on a KU poster without him on the poster! ↓

Between Lawrence and Kansas City on Highway 70 was the KU “Old School” billboard. An even older photo of a KU basketball team was used to create the Billboard. Both the billboard and the poster were one of those projects that I didn't want to end! Go Hawks! ❦

The KU Women's Basketball poster was designed to loosely resemble the men's poster. Notice the player’s red bandana and blue basketball. ❦

This proposed University of Arizona basketball poster projected attitude and determination. It didn't make the cut! ↓

This is the winning concept chosen for the 2011-2012 University of Arizona basketball poster. Standing on the shoulders of all the players and coaches that came before them, the two players are made up of the names of past players and coaches. Hince the title “We Got Next.” By the way, AOU picked us to design their basketball poster because they loved the KU posters that we had done. It’s a little unbelievable that AOU is going outside its city, let alone the state, to have its basketball poster designed! Oh well! I’m glad they did.

I Got Next!❦

Tidbit: One of our print managers and I attended a print trade show in Las Vegas. While there, we tried to take in as much of Vegas as possible. It seemed as though we visited more than half of the casinos on the strip. We even drove to Hoover Dam, not far from Vagas, and took the tour. One night, we were exploring the older casinos in downtown Vegas. Of course, there were all the bright lights, huge crowds of people, and all the sounds unique to Vagas. It was within these crowds that our print manager’s supernatural ability exposed itself to pick out a has-been celebrity who was mildly famous 20 years ago. He spotted Mark-Paul Gosselaar from the old late 80’s early 90’s sitcom “Saved By The Bell.” he didn't even have an entourage, and our Print manager was able to zero in on him through the crowd. He immediately told me to follow him, and we jogged right up to him, frightening him a little. Our print manager boldly asked him if he would take a photo with him; Gosselaar agreed with a cheezy smile and posed with their arms around each other's shoulders as I took their photograph. Once he arrived home, he proudly framed the photo and placed it next to his wife's and kids' photos on his desk. ❦