We had free license to try all sorts of ideas when it came to design and branding, as long as they conformed to the Stanford Law School branding guidelines on color palette and treatment of existing logos.
This logo represents the culmination of work revolving around one of some two dozen different design approaches we proposed. It was undertaken as a part of an entire website redesign and redevelopment (which is as yet still officially in beta at this date).
]]>The idea behind it was to capture the idea of offering sunshine -- hope. The aura is also something of a shelter, and leads to the organization's name.
For color palate, we wanted something simple and vivid, without making it too specifically UK/US or African; they're an international organization connecting working around the globe.
Related:
Drupal theme for Aid Workers Net
rare pattern is my personal blog. I wrote a little bit about the new theme there.
]]>The BlogHer website itself serves as a clearinghouse of information for the 2006 BlogHer Conference itself, but it's also a vibrant online builder of community for women with its multiple daily front-page blogs about what women (and men, too) are writing about on blogs covering all kinds of topics.
The BlogHer Blogroll is the third main component -- categorized blogs whose listings are submitted by any and all who register on the site. We did some custom coding to get all those blogrolls to list the appropriate categories while paginating gracefully and linking directly to the linked sites while still tracking click-throughs. We also have forums set up, and a few other things planned.
We're proud to be sponsors of this year's BlogHer Conference.
More on the BlogHer site to come once it's launched and I write a little development case study. -Laura
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Now, to be perfectly honest, I can't say I cared much for the Dr. Science bits on the radio. But when I sat down and watched the footage of the Duck's Breath 30th Anniversary Show, the Dr. Science sketch had me in stitches! Because in the live show, he takes questions from the audience and answers them on the spot, ad lib. And that colors the whole experience. (Dan Coffey, the man who is Dr. Science, also hosted the radio show Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!.)
Another one of my favorites in the show is Ian Shoales, whose voice you might remember from snappy social commentary spots on NPR ("...I gotta go.") or recognize from ABC's "World News Now." His dry delivery and sharp wit are delightful.
My favorite sketch from the show is with Jim Turner as Randee of the Redwoods. Anyone who's been exposed to '70s stoner culture will get a kick out of this spaced out dude. I think it's his utter innocence that makes him so endearing.
How did I miss these guys all these years? They never hit the big time like Second City, but they really are just as silly, with perhaps a bit more of social satire. It's great to be able to work on a DVD project for such a talented bunch, but for me the real joy was being introduced to the nutty humor of these ascerbic wits. (And I'm not just saying that because we worked on the disc. You'll just have to trust me on that.)
The Duck's Breath 30th Anniversary Show DVD is being released at the end of October. Check Riverbend Entertainment for the latest info.
]]>As with all of the menus, we desaturated the image, mainly to prevent the orange from dancing off CRT television screens. All of the publicity stills were scanned at very high resolution, so we were able to crop in for the compositions of our choosing.
Pictured here is Jim Turner as Randee of the Redwoods.
Menus ©2005 Riverbend Entertainment, LLC.
]]>We had some fun with this one. These menu selections don't link to video, but to audio tracks. To indicate to the viewer what's happening, the "on air" image lights up when an audio track plays. The b/w photo is a shot from a few years back.
Menus ©2005 Riverbend Entertainment, LLC.
]]>We used frame grabs pulled from the actual show master. To make the chapters pop, we played with the color saturation of the stills. On a few of them, we cropped in to reduce the black background. The background image is desaturated.
Menus ©2005 Riverbend Entertainment, LLC.
]]>This menu features shots from years past. The background was "stolen" from one of the other publicity shots.
Menus ©2005 Riverbend Entertainment, LLC.
]]>We went with a publicity photo series for the background images on the menus. However, the background was a very vibrant orange, which would have ended up glowing or buzzing on some televisions, so we desaturated the color. A slight blur and semi-transparent drop-shadow were added behind the text to help it stand out against the still image.
The shot here is of the Duck's Breath cast: Merle Kessler (aka Ian Shoales), Bill Allard, Jim Turner (aka Randee of the Redwoods), Dan Coffey (aka Dr. Science) and Leon Martell.
Check out our DVD screenshots gallery for other menus from this and other DVDs.
Menu ©2005 Riverbend Entertainment, LLC.
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