Manufacturing Consent, A Propaganda Model book in acetate slipcase; 9.5 x 9.5in., 28ppg. / 2003

What is the role of American mainstream media? This book visualizes Noam Chomsky’s and Edward S. Herman’s message that a few powerful individuals and corporations mask their own deceit and corruption through their control of the mass media. As the writers urge, the reader must take an active role in looking beneath the messages “filtered” by these entities in order to understand the real content.

In this piece—a project undertaken for the Publications course in the University of Washington Visual Communication Design program, in which we were to interpret an excerpt of this seminal work—expressions of manufactured mass media content are printed in light cyan blue while the Chomsky / Herman text is printed in red on white paper. Red acetate “filters” sharpen contrast of the cyan while obscuring the copy.

The first action the reader must take is to remove the book from its masking slipcase. Once removed, the subject’s title becomes immediately visible, while the mass production of American perception recedes.

Manufacturing Consent, A Propaganda Model book drawn from acetate slipcase; 9.5 x 9.5in., 28ppg. / 2003

Each section begins with an automated assembly line, from which mainstream news stories emanate in cyan…

Manufacturing Consent, A Propaganda Model chapter head, filtered; 9.5 x 9.5in., 25ppg. / 2003

However, if the reader looks beneath the filter, the true content of the the Chomsky / Herman becomes clear:

Manufacturing Consent, A Propaganda Model chapter head, acetate filter lifted to reveal body copy; 9.5 x 9.5in., 25ppg. / 2003

The reader is constantly offered the filtered information first. They must be vigilant in their search for the hidden truth. The voice of Chomsky / Herman is set flush-left and originates from the left of the page or spread, in reference to their political viewpoint. As well, their text comes from beneath the surface of the suppressive mainstream media.

But even the mass media presents bits of the truth. It just needs to be analyzed, re-contextualized and put back together in the correct order. To punctuate this idea, pull quotes of the Chomsky / Herman text are embedded within the mass media stream.

Manufacturing Consent, A Propaganda Model book, pull quote embedded in mainstream media text: “THESE… TWENTY-FOUR COMPANIES… ARE LARGE… PROFIT-SEEKING CORPORATIONS… OWNED AND CONTROLLED BY… QUITE WEALTHY PEOPLE”; 9.5 x 9.5in., 25ppg. / 2003

Sections end with the mainstream content running ragged, abstractly referencing a U.S. flag torn apart.



As with almost every project on which I have ever worked, this concept and execution came as the result of significant idea exploration and experimentation. Shown below are several initial directions for the piece. These include more literal references to the U.S. flag and interpretations of mass media and the vehicles by which they are delivered, as well as more comical ideas based on overt mind control by way of fanciful machinery.

Manufacturing Consent, A Propaganda Model book excerpt concept sketched; pencil on paper 11 x 8.5in. (each) / 2003

Comping this book was no mean feat, requiring a lot of trial and error with size, coloration and density of typography and imagery and acetate in order to achieve the desired interaction between the two media, not to mention the actual printing, mounting trimming and construction of the book and slip case. But in the end, I was quite pleased with the realization of the concept, and the comp turned out to be durable enough that I was proud to show it on several interviews years back.

Unfortunately (funnily enough, now), by the time those interviews happened, several months after the class, design darling Stefan Sagmeister’s “Made You Look,” one of several of his monographs, had just hit that stands with a nearly identical execution concept. Nobody accused me of anything, but a few interviewer’s did mention it, which was most annoying to me because I wasn’t really a fan, so didn’t even know that he had designed yet another thing about himself. I’ve since come to appreciate Sagmeister’s self-described self-indulgency, but, at the time, it was just an obnoxious lens through which the true meaning of my work was being filtered.

Materials symbol set promotional poster; 20 x 30in. / 2002

There is something very primal and essential about building things. Behind our most basic needs is the need to build something to facilitate it. Before we can put food on the table, someone has to put the table together. Before we can sleep under anyone’s roof, someone has to put that roof over our heads. And, in order to afford such things these days, most of us need to go to work, which, more than likely, is in a building.

But modern technology and evolving divisions of labor have rendered the notion of building even the most trifling gaff foreign and anxiety-filling to most. Hardware stores (big-box and corner-shop alike) are stocked floor to ceiling with too many confusing answers to even the most basic questions. For our Marks and Symbols class in the Visual Communication Design (VCD) program at the University of Washington, we were set out to develop a universal language of icons that would help de-mystify this environment and enable people to fulfill their basic need to put stuff together.

The class was divided into two phases: research and development. In the research phase, we worked in groups to look into issues facing the hardware customer, decide upon the problem we felt had the most potential for amelioration by a concise set of symbols (ten or so), and present our process and findings to the rest of the class. In the second phase, we each developed symbol sets on our own to respond to this problem.

Our research group, comprising mates Devon DeLapp, Jesse Graupmann, Narith Hoc, Sarah LaMont, Shaun Tungseth and myself, began by thinking of and assessing the potential (and drawbacks) of six possible options: A set of symbols for connectors, which could help people figure out what fit with what else (but seemed too broad to spawn a useful set of just ten symbols), electricity symbols, which could help people figure out the ins and outs of amps and volts (but we couldn’t figure out how to boil this subject down to ten symbols, either), how-to symbols, which could help people with standard tasks like building a deck or installing a light fixture (but, we quickly realized, would be nearly impossible to describe in mere icons), function/action symbols, which could help explain what a particular tool might do, such as “twist” or “strike” and might have made for a cool set of symbols (but seemed too basic a concept to actually be of any use to any adult not born on Mars—”a hammer is for hitting; fancy that!”), or warning symbols, which could help deter someone from doing stupid things with those tools—like strike themselves with a hammer (but had already been done to death, so to speak).

After much debate, we decided that materials had the most potential for new exploration of symbols that could enjoy real utility, potentially touching a range of applications within the context of hardware, such as way-finding (“Where is the wood?”), contents listing (“Is this made with wood?”), and proper use of tools (“Can I use this on wood?”)…

Once we had decided on our topic to develop, we halfheartedly debated the merits of different ways to present our preliminary investigation and the resultant “problem statement” to the class. We could have done a simple verbal presentation supported by material objects, poster boards, handouts and/or a slide show. In reality, though, having Devon in our group set the foregone expectation among us and the rest of the class that we would do some sort of film (Devon somehow found time to be a Film Studies major in addition to being a Visual Communication Design major, while most of us were killing ourselves just to hold down VCD). And so we made a film.

The film begins with us visiting a hardware store and shopping around as a metaphor for our exploration of ideas. Each of the members discuss one of the original six directions briefly, culminating with materials. We then find examples of the materials for which we had decided to symbolize in the store and load them onto our cart. The film then moves on to vignettes of our photographic research of our chosen materials with as the supporting soundtrack intensifies. Finally, we review previous such symbol programs and speak to intentions of improvement thereof as we check out of the store, idea in hand (or, rather, on big cart thing).

Materials presentation video (stills); written, directed, acted and narrated by Devon DeLapp, Jesse Graupmann, Narith Hoc, Sarah LaMont, Shaun Tungseth and myself; DV / 2003

Recently re-viewing this film was a bit painful. It’s amateurish, we’re all terrible on screen and it was embellished with plenty of juvenile flourishes (highlights include Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine” playing while showing our semiotic exploration of plaster—which is generally made from a white powder—and the film closing with the obligatory toilet flush out-take—from our discussion of ceramic materials). But it sharpened some great memories of having fun with a project, and reinforced in me the idea that irreverence can be a great vehicle to engage an audience, even if you’re trying to convey that a lot of work went into something, which it had. I don’t remember any other groups’ presentations, though I’m sure they were all solidly delivered. I’m guessing people remember ours.

As the credits rolled on our presentation, phase one faded to black and we were off on our own to start creating appropriate symbol sets. With photographic research and general knowledge to draw from, I began my symbol design process by making cursory lists of the semiotic relationships to each material, looking for overlaps between them that would give me a solid base from which to draft a set of ten equivalent marks.

Materials semiotic relationships study / 2003

These lists were in no way exhaustive, but they were effective in helping me figure out routes that had the most or least potential. Only a few of the materials were referenced by commonly known symbolism or metaphor. The greatest potential, therefore, seemed to lay in literal representation stemming from either attributes or examples of the respective materials.

Then, at last… I began sketching to test different visual language. To begin, I worked with the three most vastly different materials (glass, metal and rubber) so I could try a range of execution while hopefully ensuring the approach would translate to the other seven. My initial exercises were highly literal representations of canonical objects that were tied visually by a strong common shape, though I soon abandoned this, as the symbols would have been too specific and not thus not necessarily be effective in representing the range of a particular material.

From this, my next tactic involved slightly more abstract detail views of pattern. I tested different scale to determine optimal overall color, or visual density of the marks.

Materials symbol set study; pencil and marker on paper / 2003
top row: glass
middle row: metal
bottom row: rubber

Though simple pattern looked as if it could be successfully carried over to the entire range of materials and make for a relatively effective symbol set, the depth of impact of these marks was relatively shallow. In search of a more sophisticated result, I drew more abstract marks based on interaction. In this system, the materials relate with a common element (a black square) in a unique way, based on the material’s characteristics. For example, the box shows through the glass, it is welded or riveted to the metal, and the rubber stretches over it.

Materials symbol set study; pencil and marker on paper / 2003
top row: glass
middle row: metal
bottom row: rubber

Intellectually stimulating as it was, the idea of ten different materials interacting with one formal element in ten different and relevant ways was more or less doomed to failure. In an effort to create an interesting and sophisticated set that would also be truly usable, I realized a balance needed to be struck between literal and abstract. My first attempt at this approach combined solid shapes and lines. Initial experimentation with a three-by-three grid also began at this stage and, while the solid shapes were not working well with the linear elements, I felt like the solution was close at hand.

Materials symbol set study; pencil and marker on paper / 2003
top row: glass
middle row: metal
bottom row: rubber

From this point, the challenge was in formulating an elegant and cohesive set that would perform at many levels of display. This process led to the foundation of the final solution: a set of square marks comprising geometric line drawing based on a three-by-three grid.

Materials symbol set study; structural grid / 2003

More for facility of quick rendering than any conceptual theme, I had been working within the confines of a square containing shape without much deviation from the very beginning of my process, so this was the last nail in the coffin of any other shape exploration. Looking back, the symbols do seem somewhat artless and rigid for the box, but I’m not ashamed or regretful. These marks are for the most basic inanimate objects in the context of hardware; it seems quite appropriate. The structural grid made them feel even more solidly built and made for a very legible system with nearly limitless potential for application and extension to additional materials.

Once the formal method had been established, it was applied to other elements of the set. Care had to be taken to maintain the balance between the literal and abstract; utility and interest.

Materials symbol set study; pencil and marker on paper / 2003
top row: stone
middle row: cloth
bottom row: soil

Some materials took to the system quite readily while others required many iterations and changes of focus. Plastic, for example, can be made into almost any form imaginable, so establishing one mark to represent it in its entirety required extensive exploration.

Materials symbol set study; pencil and marker on paper / 2003
top row: wood
middle row: plastic
bottom row: drywall

One great thing about geometrically drawn symbols based on a grid is that they are extremely easy to render digitally. This allowed for even more extensive exploration and variation once the marks were translated to the computer.

Materials symbol set study; digital sketches / 2003
top row: glass
middle row: metal
bottom row: rubber

Since different iterations could be generated quickly and accurately, creating and evaluating variations went quite smoothly for most of the set. The ceramic symbol serendipitously benefited from a perfect relationship with the grid and required only one take.

Materials symbol set study; digital sketches / 2003
top row: drywall
second row: wood
third row: soil
bottom row: ceramic

Unlike the ceramic mark, some of the materials required significant trial and error to perform at a similar level functionally and formally. Plastic called for many different sources of inspiration (and, I must say, I’m least pleased with its final mark), while other materials, such as cloth, necessitated numerous formal interpretations. However, a complete final set was well within view at this point.

Materials symbol set; color, positive and reverse flexibility / 2003
top row: stone
middle row: plastic
bottom row: cloth

Soon enough, the complete set came together, and was put through its paces to see if the symbols could answer their duty. Could they reverse out?

Materials symbol set; positive and reverse / 2003
top row: ceramic | cloth | glass
second row: drywall | metal | rubber
third row: soil | wood | plastic
bottom row: stone

Could they be color coded? And what about that linear execution; what if that were reversed?

Materials symbol set; color, positive and reverse flexibility / 2003
top row: ceramic | cloth | glass
second row: drywall | metal | rubber
third row: soil | wood | plastic
bottom row: stone

But the most important question for any design, especially in a hardware store, is: Does it work? The following is but a brief study of applications, but shows how they could be useful for proper use of hardware or tools.

wood symbol application; proper use of hardware / 2003

drywall, wood, metal and plastic symbol application; proper use of tools / 2003

As mentioned above, the standardization of material symbols could not only help people determine whether something should or should not be used on a particular material, it could also help people quickly identify whether a pipe was plastic or rubber, or where to find glass or wood, and so on. With smart implementation, the potential utility of the system is quite vast. Someone just has to build it.

one of two entrances to room 247—the Visual Communication Design major studio in the University of Washington School of Art—both are locked at all times / photo taken 2008

A terrible economy. Personal pride. Do or die time. A real studio environment. Some brilliant competition. Real work experience. Real failure experience. Real life experience. An utterly unforgiving professor. A strong sense of potential. Total commitment.

I’m not sure exactly what the most motivating factor was for me as I went through “206,” the second of two screening classes the University of Washington Visual Communication Design program, used to select who could complete the next two-and-a-half years of the VCD program in 2001/2002. Whatever it was, that class marked a tectonic shift in my approach to design work. It was the second time I had made it into 206, and, likely, my last chance to make the final cut into the VCD major. In contrast to the first attempt, I felt no self-satisfaction in the step—just an unflinching focus on the next…

The first project was quite familiar: Design a postage stamp to celebrate something about one of the United States. I was assigned Florida. I’ve never been to Florida. Of course, I know a thing or two about it, but I wasn’t satisfied with just my anecdotal perceptions; I read books on the state and tangential topics to ensure total confidence in whatever direction I chose to pursue.

While I think that NASCAR has grown into a fat, ugly, dumb, deceitful and thoroughly boring scourge on the culture of motor sports, I watched the Daytona 500 quite faithfully as a youngster and used this as inspiration for one concept:

Florida postage stamp sketch: Daytona 500 / 2002

Can’t you just hear the big block V-8 revs roaring through the state?

Another concept, which I ended up moving forward with, was that of the splendidly-restored and preserved historic Art Deco hotel district in Miami. For this concept, I studied a plethora of tourism and architecture books for reference, but my approach wasn’t just to recreate the X hotel on Y street; I painstakingly created my own architectural amalgams that would capture the essence of the area:

Florida postage stamp sketches: Art Deco Historic Distric / 2002

These studies allowed me to delve into some of the different iconic elements of the period: streamlined façades, bright pastels, rounded corners, chrome runners, large clocks, glass block, heavy eyebrows, neon back-lighting, stepped levels.

From this foundation, I built my final solution: A heroic destination with hand-drawn Deco type stacked on a railed sign tower:

Florida Art Deco District postage stamp; 1 x 1.125in. / 2002

The second project was to create a package for a first aid kit. There are thousands of different kinds of first aid kits in the world. I did not want to just make one more. I knew a lot about bike riding by this point, having worked at a shop for four years and having ridden endless miles with hundreds of different people for fun and/or training, and I knew well the two worst things that could happen on a ride: a “mechanical” (something bad happens to your bike), or a crash (something bad happens to you). So, I designed a first aid kit for bike rides, comprising a roadside repair kit for your bike and an injury kit for you, taking the shape of a bifurcated water bottle that would fit in any standard water bottle cage on almost any kind of bike.

I explored approximately one million different ways to synthesize and separate the two components visually with the exterior graphic design (here are a few):

First Aid kit package graphics sketches / 2002

But before I could apply any kind of graphics to the package, I had to actually make the package. I ordered about a dozen bottles that I figured would serve as the best platform for my mockup. I cut them apart and glued different pieces together to make two halves that would screw into each other. I chopped the cap to get rid of the nozzle and made a flat top from sheet vinyl. I filled beveled insets with putty and sanded off any external textural elements for a good base. I then glued ultra-thin sheet vinyl around the forms for a perfectly smooth exterior.

After final sanding and priming, I painted the two halves and applied the exterior type and graphic elements. I had eventually decided on a simple solution that cleverly speaks to both purposes of the tool, dynamically formated for the cylindrical surface: a red cross is created optically by the composition of the title, the brand name (Cannondale, fictitiously), the components and two yellow road stripes that angle up and around the kit, all of which I had had custom made as dry-transfer rub-downs:

First Aid injury kit / roadside repair kit / 2002

I was terrified that this thing would come flying apart before I could even submit it for class, but I must have done something right because I still have this eight years on and it’s still perfectly intact.

The final project was a poster-mailer for Seattle’s Museum of Flight. After some initial research, I packed the family heirloom WWII-era Leica and journeyed down to the museum with two concepts already in mind for this informative self-mailer/poster.

The first idea was based on the vast range of exhibits in the the Museum’s collection, from an centuries-old Asian hang glider to a NASA lunar module, and quite a bit in-between. The concept was The Evolution of Aviation:

The Evolution of Aviation Seattle Museum of Flight poster-mailer sketch; 30 x 20in. / 2002

I think the idea is valid and compelling (if the initial design concept rather clunky), but it didn’t capture the essential attraction of the Seattle Museum of Flight.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this Seattle mainstay is that the majority of the aircraft are set not out on some abandoned airfield, but in a constellation of smartly appropriate structures, from the Red Barn, housing vintage prop planes from the early twentieth century, to the control tower, where kids young and old can practice pushing tin, to the pinnacle of the Museum: The Great Gallery, a giant hangar of glass and steel in which some of the most remarkable feats of modern aviation are showcased. These spaces are powerful attractions, in themselves. I worked on a concept that would speak to both the fascinating details one could learn at the museum and the structures in which they were showcased. I titled these pieces Aviation from the Inside. I developed two executions within this theme:

Aviation from the Inside Seattle Museum of Flight poster-mailer sketch; 30 x 20in. / 2002

The first idea offered a view from inside the American Airlines 737 section one can enter from the second floor, which serves as a theater for films, and a window seat to the Gallery where real jets hang like rubber-band-prop toys from the ceiling.

But the way to get the real inside story at the Museum is by just walking the ramps, pathways and landings that meander (very) closely around, over, under (and, in some cases, into) some of the world’s most exotic marvels of aeronautical design. Like the M-21 (a variant of the SR-71) Blackbird spy plane, which has a huge, breathtakingly sculptural fuselage, a cramped, angular cockpit, and gaping titanium ramjet exhaust cowlings that could swallow you whole:

Aviation from the Inside poster-mailer (front); 20 x 30in. / 2002 (original photograph also from 2002)

I was quite pleased with this photograph, and was so satisfied to let it be the hero of composition, bled full and even stealing part of the title. Caution stripes that complement the Museum type complete the tantalization.

The flip-side spoke to the different experiences one could get inside: the gallery, the machinery, the cockpit and the control tower, and, of course, it also offered inside information for visiting the Museum. The front and back complement each other through the cautionary visual language, the typographic system, conceptual messaging and a shared sense of visual play between foreground and background:

Aviation from the Inside poster-mailer (back); 20 x 30in. (open), 10 x 6in. (folded for mailing) / 2002 (original photography also from 2002)

This remains one of my all-time favorite design projects.

As the quarter’s end drew near, I had a distinctly new feeling. After three years of absence, I was again engaged. I was interested to see what I could do next. Though I would never admit it to myself, I was certain that I would not only make it into the VCD major, but that I could more than make up for lost time. So did the faculty. I was finally in.

Amy and Joel / 2001

I think I was first introduced to Joel Brazil when I was 15, on an open bike ride that was organized by a local shop. The shop sponsored one of the top teams in the region, and obliged some of its members to help corral whatever ragtag assemblage of customers and shop dudes decided to show up on warm summer Wednesdays. Joel was one of the best amateur racers in the country at the time, but I knew nothing about him because he never talked to me. This was primarily because he whiled away most of those miles in a perpetual, nauseating debate with Joe, another member of the team, in which they would each try to explain to each other how and why the other was not good at bike racing.

In the years that followed, I happened to work for that bike shop, attend the same university as Joel, race for the same team (and get sucked into similarly nauseating debates with Joe), do work for the same company and take on the same bitter arch nemesis (not Joe). I even ended up living in the very same room that Joel had rented before me in a house with a couple that counted as great friends to both him and I. Still, it was years and years from our initial meeting to when I actually began to get to know Joel, and, for quite a while, I couldn’t stand him.

As long as I knew or knew of Joel, he had been loud, brash, hyper-competitive, utterly exasperated by others’ life choices, inordinately concerned with material possessions, flakey, and schmoozey—ostensibly, an obnoxious, superficial, inconsiderate jerk. His nickname was “Razzle-Dazzle Brazil” (that rhymes), and he loved it. He wanted to write a column on my web site at one point, so I set up a section for him, which I titled Joell Report (a riff on the ultra-snobby Robb Report), and subtitled “Tales of the World’s Most Fortunate Malcontent” (he never actually wrote an article).

But, as more time went by, translations of Joel’s qualities became more lucid: He worked extremely hard to excel at life’s pursuits and was rewarded with the goods to prove it and the satisfaction with which to parade them. His derision of people’s decisions he deemed unwise was compensated for by his keen sense of their unique talent and fervent drive to tease out the potential thereof, at which he was actually quite gifted if given the opportunity.

Although Joell Report never came to fruition, I did get the opportunity to work with him on one very important project. Indeed, it was the materialization of two of his greatest loves: music and Amy, his then-fiancé. Amy+Joel, a soundtrack album of their wedding reception, would be the product…

True to form for the person everyone loves to hate, Joel wasn’t very good at any one thing; he was extremely good at many things. Indeed, before he reached the upper echelons of the amateur cycling ranks, he had been among the top of the amateur skiing ranks, with a place on the U.S. National team for some time. It was on the slopes, floating down powder runs at 90+MpH where his most solid, lasting friendships seemed to have been forged. It was only fitting, then, that his wedding be staged on a peak of the premier Whistler ski resort. In one concept (top-left below), a typo-photo collage melds the two in a blue and white palette that hints at the snowy venue. This atmosphere was most integrated into the concept on the top-right (below), where, the tilted peaks of the iconic location are limned of pluses, speaking to the bonding of Amy and Joel and the collecting of their friends and family:

Amy + Joel Soundtrack cover concepts / 2001

As I hinted at before, Joel was and is obsessed with music he likes (and, thus, disgusted and disdainful of anyone else’s musical taste). In another study (bottom-left above), based primarily on a photo of the couple taken at an after-party to one of our Joe-hosted bike team parties, meaningful lyrics from the songs reverberate between the two in their euphoria-drenched harmony.

The chosen concept was the most raw and expressive. In this cover (bottom-right above), A posterized photograph of a simple kiss is sealed with a plus. The acidic palette and digital typography expressed a sort-of techno rawness that helped define the couple.

From here, the composition was fettled to the essential elegance of the occasion: A more dramatic crop of the photo. A timeless, nuanced title. The burgundy palette of the event:

Amy + Joel wedding album cover; CD jewel case (front) / 2001

The slopes support the special thanks on the back of the booklet. (Look, Ma! There’s my name!). A raucous dancing embrace is spotlighted on the CD, from which the soundtrack titles emanate:

Amy + Joel wedding album; CD jewel case (open, inside), audio CD / 2001

The booklet opens up to the program of the event, set on an active posterized collage of people, places, products, and other ephemera that shaped the couple’s collective heritage and identity:

Amy + Joel wedding album program spread / 2001

The pacing of the package foreshadowed that of the event, from the permanent bonding of Joel+Amy, to the party of people and events that made their lives together possible, to the music that served as inspiration for the emotional release and celebration, and crescendoing into the dance of the night:

Amy + Joel wedding album soundtrack; CD jewel case (back) / 2001

In the nearly eight years since that night, Joel and Amy are still married, have moved their relationship to different states and continents, settling for the last several in London, where she and he both now write articles for the community-based critic web site that he started there. Their family is proud and sure to grow; Indeed, Amy + Joel may someday = three. All that, and he still finds time to pay attention to my web site, so I guess he’s a pretty decent bloke, after all.

UBC monogram mark for Union Bay Cycling / 2001

A competitive cycling team, like all other kinds of teams, is a of a group of people with a similar interest; in this case, the team’s chief objective is to win bike races. The primary vehicle of a cycling team’s identity is the uniform that team members wear out racing and training. This identity is complicated, however, by the fact that competitive cycling is one of the very few sports in the world based on a sponsorship model, whereby commercial interests pay for some aspect of team operations in return for visible recognition on these uniforms. Almost invariably, this leads to a team’s identity being inextricably intertwined with the identity of their lead sponsors, which can change relatively frequently.

For example, most people would say that Lance Armstrong raced the last season of his career with the Discovery Channel team, and that, before that, he was on the U.S. Postal Service team for six years or so, even though these were, for all intents and purposes, the exact same team, managed by Tailwind Sports.

Union Bay Cycling (UBC) is a large Northwest cycling organization built around an elite-level team that races in local, regional, and national events at the pro/am level. UBC has been around, with the same leadership and core group of riders, for over a decade, but major sponsorship changes had made it seem like three or four disparate and relatively short-lived teams. For UBC, I worked with the team director to develop a long-term solution: a core identity system that accommodates prominent and unique recognition for lead sponsors, but embodies the unique heritage and dynamism of the team riders and stays consistent even with major sponsor changes.

I began with the UBC monogram mark (above) that would immediately identify all communication touchpoints of the team: stationery for proposals, press releases and other correspondence, the web site, T-shirts, gear bags, and so on, and, of course, the all-important team kit, including jerseys, shorts, socks, water bottles, gloves, helmet graphics, and several other tertiary clothing articles.

Union Bay Cycling jerseys (long-sleeve front | short-sleeve back) / 2003; I also happened to have designed the Holcam logo on the jersey shoulders (but not their web site) / 2001

The blue grid, an established device of the team, was reworked and became the foundation of this flexible system. The title sponsor was rewarded not only with the most prominent logo presence, but also with an expressive element emerging from the grid (in this case, the hands of Ashmead College, School of Massage), and other sponsors fit into pre-established hierarchical slots based on their respective levels of contribution…

Just behind the team uniforms, the next most critical touchpoint of the organization’s identity was the team web site, which I also designed and coded. As it was my first major foray into Flash, the concept of the site probably outshone the rather clunky execution. I know enough about Flash to elucidate an idea, but not enough to “optimize” the experience as specialist programmers can. The layout is a bit dodgy in some regards as well. Nevertheless, the site brought the dynamism and personality of the team to the Internet within the context of the sponsored team identity concept.

Union Bay Cycling web site / 2002

Here, too, the hands of Ashmead College emerged from the grid. The dynamic visual hook here was that the hands would actually move across the screen to “massage” the site from one page to the next.

the Ashmead hands in action, transitioning from the home page to the “Meet the Riders” landing page

In addition to the layout and interactive execution, I also developed and wrote most of the content, including pithy, spirited interviews of team members that brought the individual personalities out of the uniforms.

Over the years, the team identity concept was indeed tested, as other lead sponsors were considered—everything from wineries to gyms to car dealerships—and we illustrated these possibilities in various mockup sketches as part of the proposals. I won’t show these online, as I wouldn’t want to jeopardize these professional relationships. Imagine, though, for instance, in the case of the winery, vines of grapes or a hand toasting a goblet emerging from the grid; web pages being poured into the site. The possibilities, as they say, are endless.

But, as long as I was involved with the team, the Ashmead massage school (and their hands) remained committed to the team, which was great, as they were more than just a name on the jersey; they were highly engaged in realizing the mutual promotional and educational potential of the partnership. As a case in point, one element of the relationship provided for the racers to be worked on weekly by the massage trainees, which, in itself, proved to be valuable experience for both groups. Moreover, the Ashmead jersey is probably the only racing uniform that allows racers to raise more than just two hands after a well-deserved victory.

team rider Ingy taking one of many team victories (photographer unknown) / 2001

My first full-time desk job. Can you sense my enthusiasm? / 2001 (photograph by Lisa Torrence)

In order to engage context in a quotidian discussion about the various caste systems of ancient cultures, a feisty grad student T.A. in one of the many requisite Art History courses I have taken challenged our class section to define the contemporary stamp: “middle class.” Immediately, salaries rang out, one range louder and more determined than the last, until crescendoing in discordant numerical jangle; income could not objectively define it. Quietus gave way to a chorus of key possessions: Cars, houses. Okay, but what if the car is a Maserati? What if the house is a shack? Scenarios of familial constructs similarly swelled and crashed. These lines of criteria could not strike a clear chord of class definition.

The T.A. sat back and let the class caterwaul and self-dismiss various notions before bringing the struggling group back to cue. Coyly, he then rested the discussion by quoting a friend of his, who had jokingly defined a member of the middle class as anyone who “has a job.” The point of this was that such class distinctions are laughably vague and infinitely subjective (a job is not a job is not a job), but the passion with which people attempt to define them proved how deeply invested we are in socio-economic ranking.

While I had technically had three jobs prior, my quest for a “real,” middle-class-making job began sometime late in the Spring of 1999. I thought I had it in a full-time, long-term temp position “working with computers” that I had taken up after finally quitting my four-year run as a bike mechanic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I realized that I wasn’t all that great at “computers” (at least, not in that context), and I let my hours decline steadily, until they were almost zero, and then they were zero. At that point, I had no income.

“Yo’ face is my case!” My head was barely scratched, but it did bleed a fair amount. Those scars on my arm are tire tracks, by the way. / 1999 (photograph by Ira Wamble)

As fortune would have it (if luck did not), I had been hit by a car that spring while riding my bike (two cars in the same accident, actually), which was an incredibly traumatic event that in turn paid me an agreeable insurance settlement. I ended up living on this modest reward, a tiny savings, and not much else for quite some time as my job search became more and more frenzied. By November, I paid rent by scrambling together the entirety of my bank account, the cash in my pockets, and loose change I had collected in a jar (seriously). The promise of middle class never tasted so sweet or came with such timely appreciation as when I was offered a job as an in-house “Junior Designer” at Sierra On-Line, Inc., just before Thanksgiving, 1999…

I was so anxious to get “a job” that I had neglected to figure out what Sierra On-Line, Inc. actually did. It wasn’t until about the end of my first week that I realized that they were in the video game business. Moreover, they were quite hot at the time. Their “first-person-shooter” game, Half-Life, was a blockbuster on the cutting edge of social networking, the mercury of a feverish rash of global online tournaments. This star was orbited by a constellation of other shining titles (so, obviously, I was not a “gamer”). Somewhat strangely, they also made similarly successful home-improvement and family-oriented software under the Sierra Home banner (so, obviously, I was not a dad, either).

It was another week or so before I figured out what I was doing there. I had started designing within my first hour, but I was in a bit of disbelief that I was actually getting paid for my tasks. My very first project was to create a two-inch round sticker for a software package that said something like “15% Off When You Buy Two!” with a long line of legal copy run around the perimeter. Talk about sticker-shock! Had I really gone from taking weeks to conceptualize, design, and produce posters for famous architects and such to churning out impulse-buy marketing decals (technically referred to as “violators”)?! Well, yes, but there was more to it than just that. For one thing, someone had to make those stickers, I guess, so why not me? (I needed the money, after all). And I would get my chances with more diverse, complex, and important pieces down the line. And for all of my cockiness, I still used a stupid typeface and didn’t kern the 1 and the 5 properly until my creative director told me so.

After getting a good handle on rebate stickers, online banner ads were added to my repertoire. The primary challenge for these was to get as many frames, colors, images, flashing lights, and whatever else into some really awkward standardized proportion in a final file that was under 12 kilobytes. From what I remember, most of the ones I did had great “click-through” rates. I think that there was a 98% correlation between these statistics and how obnoxious they were:

SWAT 3, Elite Edition online banner ad; 468px. x 60px. / 2000
This was obviously before 9/11.

Print Artist online banner ad; 468px. x 60px. / 2000
Print Artist was Sierra’s graphic design program. Somehow, Adobe survived.

Modern Bride wedding planning software banner ad; 130px. x 90px. / 2000
Discouraged? Frustrated? Then you probably shouldn’t be getting married.

As time went by, I got more involved in the actual packaging of games and Home software. Sierra, like most software companies, made huge, cereal-box-sized packages for their wares. These made great canvases for what were often incredibly elaborate illustrations, featuring all kinds of special production touches like extra fluorescent or metallic inks, spot varnishes, sculpted embossing, foil stamping, cover flaps, dollar bills, candy bars, live puppies, winning lottery tickets, dancing girls, and so on. The software box was an incredibly important point of sale, invested in heavily and appropriately impressive. But the only thing of any real value inside the box was a CD-ROM or two (or maybe three), which took up approximately 1/20th of the package volume. A frequent task of mine was to create the artwork for these CD-ROMs. This was usually some very banal, two-color translation of the box artwork, but occasionally I had opportunities to make a more conceptual interpretation of the content:

Sierra Home Complete Home 3D software suite; standard CD-ROM format / 2001
The diagonal stripes are in reference to all the construction that users of this software would be doing to their homes.

Homeworld soundtrack; standard CD format / 2000
This was actually a soundtrack that went along with the game Homeworld, so I tried making it look like a record and/or a speaker driver. The game had something to do with outer space, so the rings could also be read as orbits.

Sierra Home Looping Demo, Fall 2000 DVD; standard DVD format / 2000
This was a demo DVD of Home software that retailers would play in-store. Since no customers would ever see it, nobody at Sierra really cared what it looked like, so I had pretty free reign over the design. The linear element was an abstract house with a chimney constructed out of legal copy, or an even more abstract arrow, for “play.”

As far as I remember, I only worked on the design of one actual game box while I was at Sierra, the Family Fun Collection, a rag-tag bundling of aging titles in need of a last-ditch effort to flee the warehouse for good. The cover design simply showed the box covers of said old titles (very meta, ya’ dig?) and a big, swoopy masthead:

Family Fun Game Collection software package (front); 8in. x 10in. x 2in. / 2000
Designed by a guy named Mark Vongunten (whose design prowess far outshines what this particular package might suggest)

But, actually, I didn’t even design the cover (Those of you who read the caption may have figured that out already). I designed the back (and the sides, I think):

Family Fun Game Collection software package (back); 8in. x 10in. x 2in. / 2000

Pretty exciting stuff. Hopefully, some family had fun.

At some point, our in-house design crew made a push to gain more respect from our own company, as many of the more prominent titles’ packaging were being farmed out to independent design firms. Part of our initiative was to create an identity system for our group, so we would look more like a design firm, too, I guess. We had something of a charrette to design the logo. My submissions generally centered around the idea that the most important thing we created were boxes:

The Creative Group (at Sierra) logo proposal / 2001

The Creative Group (at Sierra) logo proposal (type is custom drawn) / 2001

I did not design the logo that was actually adopted, a much more broad interpretation of our strengths, created by one of the Senior Designers:

The Creative Group (at Sierra) logo; designed by Tom Saffle / 2001
Flash animation of The Creative Group (at Sierra) logo; designed by me / 2001

I did design a Flash animation for the logo, however, which you can see by clicking on it or here. For one reason or another, doing this animation was one of the few things I felt compelled to do on my own, without anyone asking me. And, as such, nobody ever used it.

One thing that I actually designed from start to finish was the 2001 Sierra Studios Catalog, a showcase of Sierra’s prime new offerings in a 16-page glossy, to be shipped with every Sierra game. I created the S-form device (based on the exact curve of the Sierra master logo’s S) as a unique framing device for the action-packed illustrations and a container for titling and information.

2001 Sierra Studios Catalog (cover); 9in. x 12in.; 16ppg. + cover, saddle-stitched.
I still didn’t quite get the whole “kerning” thing by this point.

I had a lot invested in this project. Just in terms of time, this thing took forever to build. I had developed a number of concepts and nailed down the final format within a week, but, like many projects at Sierra, I created the working files for the entire layout of each page / spread in Photoshop. For those of you who have been on Pluto for the last ten to fifteen years and haven’t heard the buzz about Photoshop, it’s the whiz-bang fake-it-all-and-then-some miracle-worker, hailed as the essential design program by hacks and soccer-moms worldwide. Don’t get me wrong; Photoshop is a perfectly useful program for certain things (like, say, working on photos), but it should probably never be used to create any kind of comprehensive print mechanical. One reason for this is that the way it works with images creates immensely huge files that require almost as much processor power to work on as a Microsoft Word document (that’s a joke for all my friends over there in Redmond). Creating these massive, print-resolution files so taxed my then-state-of-the-art Mac G3 that I could—and did—put my feet up on my desk and read through bike magazine articles while the program whirred away at things like moving a block of type over three points.

2001 Sierra Studios Catalog (inside spread for Arcanum); 9in. x 12in.; 16ppg. + cover, saddle-stitched / 2000
On inside spreads, drawers of screen shots slid out from the “S” device.

Despite questionable file preparation and iffy work ethic, I had created what was potentially one of the most valuable communication pieces for the company, on time and on budget. I was pretty happy with how the brochure shaped up, and so were the rest of the involved parties. Anyone familiar with my general approach and sensibility about design may be a little surprised that I ever did anything like this, but I still think that it was a very appropriate solution and the target audience would have eaten it up with a spoon.

2001 Sierra Studios Catalog (inside spread for Homeworld Cataclysm); 9in. x 12in., 16ppg. + cover, saddle-stitched / 2000

I say “would have” because the target audience never saw the brochure. Just after I had handed over final files to be printed, it came to light that there were two groups within the company that were involved in commissioning the piece and each thought it was coming out of the other group’s budget. Neither group actually had the money, so the project was killed.

2001 Sierra Studios Catalog (inside spread for Half-Life Platinum); 9in. x 12in.; 16ppg. + cover, saddle-stitched / 2000
Half-Life, indeed.

Many of my colleagues were passionate about their positions, and it showed in their work. After all, it was a bona-fide “dream job” (you were required to play video games at the office for crying out loud). And of course I gained much from the experience. At the base level, my income range was, while nothing to sing about, decent; I was able to buy a car and live in a house (not my own, but I paid my fair share every month). Technically, I learned a ton about efficient organization and production—and a little bit about design. I got to work and hang out with a lot of really talented people (who also knew how to have a good time outside the office) that I never would have met otherwise. And, despite the “fun” industry, I still got a taste of how the middle class squeezes into offices every day, with all of its bizarre socio-hierarchical walling, necessary rung-jockeying and inevitable line-crossing—a strange but valuable experience for any young pro.

But it was never my dream. Without the paper or the real proof of education and with my slim portfolio, I was lucky to have a position in such a prominent organization, and I did my work fairly well. But the subject matter barely interested me at all, and any personal investment I made never seemed to pay much dividend. I didn’t have the sense that I could fulfill my potential, and I didn’t have a real zest for what I was doing. But I did have a job.