I created a new logo for Shire Post Mint, creators of high-quality licensed fantasy coins, that emphasized their focus on traditional craftsmanship. The line, “Authentic Fantasy” is intended to be slightly oxymoronic, a nod to their traditional methods of manufacture and the company’s lighthearted culture.
While at the company I was tasked with reworking the main online store to make the coins being sold more accessible give them a greater presence for customers .
I did not do the web design!
I developed the website from a Shopify theme and used the opportunity to further develop the Shire Post brand, creating all necessary graphics and images and working all images, colors, and type choices into a cohesive whole.
I also developed a semi-automated product photography workflow to quickly develop and maintain a full library of coin images with transparent backgrounds so the coins could flip when moused over.
I wrote a blog post about the new website for the relaunch.
A key feature request when developing the new site was that coins would flip when moused over so both sides could be easily seen. To achieve this I developed a semi-automated workflow to extract coins from their backgrounds using batch processes and Photoshop actions.
I wrote a new, consistent store description template that would include all relevant information for each product. Each description for 150+ products was generated from an internal data sheet and automatically assembled in with necessary HTML.
The Tesseract brand was developed to represent a center that develops 3D games and interactive experiences within the University of Arkansas. The biggest challenge was creating a brand for the wide range of disciplines and content Tesseract was already representing and could possibly represent in the future.
Because the center's first games focused on recreating the history and the humanities in a 3D world, the name "Tesseract" was chosen as it is a 4th-dimensional link through time in a 3rd-dimensional space. The word is striking and memorable, while having mathematical and literary connotations.
The logo system is modular, starting with a graphical representation of two cubes connected in time, a "hypercube." The faces of the hypercube can be unfolded into thousands of possible combinations. Each unfolded combination is intended to reveal visual content which creates complete unique logos that feel stylistically unified.
Early logo applications use public domain classical paintings as a "window" to the past.
A custom OSX login screen applied to all computers in the Tesseract lab to give them a sense of clean professionalism and unity.
Once the Tesseract name and brand was finalized by Global Campus and University Development, Global Campus produced this video to explain what our lab did. I had an advisory role in how the logo should be shown, and helped guide some of the text and color choices. I did not do any of the production or motion graphics in the video above.
Some die-cut packaging mockups I designed and created for Shire Post Mint to test out a couple different ideas.
The first two are ideas for a case pack for 100 of the existing single-coin packaging. The remaining images are exploring ideas for single coin packaging, focusing on integrating existing archival coin flips so the coin could been viewed from both sides. I was trying to create packaging that fit the brand, worked for retail, and could be displayed in stores or on a collector’s shelf.
Some of box displays were produced by a local prototyping company to use for conventions and events. The retail packaging redesign was still in-progress when I left Shire Post Mint, but I hope my work will be of some help when it does happen.
These designs were created while working at the University of Arkansas for the New Student and Family Programs department as a graphic designer.
In many cases I would work collaboratively with students or staff to come up with the aesthetic approach and often the theme of the events.
In this design, the lettering is depicted by "Senior Walk" a sidewalk that winds its way through the campus and is engraved with the names of all alumni that have graduated.
