Alphabet Arm Design News

Dearest friends of the Bloggery:

It is my last day interning at Alphabet Arm! It has been a pleasure to work at this studio alongside Aaron, Ryan, Matt, and Fredo. The guys at Alphabet Arm are outrageously talented, always willing to help, and as an added bonus, they are pretty brilliant in the humor department. If you get the chance to work here, you will learn from the best. If you become a client, Aaron and Ryan will set you up with a logo, branding system and or, a design solution that will knock your socks off. Seriously, I can’t speak highly enough of these people, they are the best.

Until next time,

- Laurie / Lawrence / LawR / Lory Borry Alice

We had the dubious privilege of working with the team at Flea Marketing before re-branding them. So, we had a solidified sense of what they would respond to visually. The Brooklyn based company makes it impossible for indie retail to not pay attention to new releases. Their clients include legendary labels such as Dangerbird, Barsuk, Warner Bros. + Vapor. Two of Alphabet Arm’s intern army (Matt Kaiser + Laurie Mildenhall) expertly crafted the new logo and business cards. The new branding features some severely compromised typography, a (bit-too-life-like) flea and some custom illustration tying the system together.

Check Flea Marketing out on the Facebooks and follow their Tweetifications.

Hello there! My name is Laurie Rane Mildenhall and I am a newly enlisted member of Alphabet Arm’s intern army. I can’t believe I get to work here. I hail from San Diego-Encinitas if you want to get technical-where I learned to love the beaches, cheap Mexican food, traveling and music.

It was not a struggle. I’ve always loved drawing, but I suppose my passion for typography began in middle school when I started making these elaborate hand-lettered doodles in my school notebooks, often to the chagrin of my teachers. However, it was many years, two unfinished majors, and three years in college before I met with the head of graphic design at BYU and asked, “What exactly is graphic design?” Instead of throwing my ignorant behind out of his office, he explained that graphic design is about solving problems and communicating through type and images. He also said that if I wasn’t committed to excellence I should find a different major. Sold. It has been about a year and a half since then and my life has been a giant design explosion. I graduated a couple of months ago and then moved to Boston which, it turns out, is just about the best place ever. Some other fun facts: I love black liquorice, I’ve fractured and sprained both of my arms, and I’m married to a guy named Nick.

To wrap things up, I can’t think of a better place to be learning the ropes than Alphabet Arm. Aaron, Ryan, and my fellow interns are quite simply the cat’s pajamas, and I’m lucky to work with them.
Feel free to say hello! laurie@alphabetarm.com or check out some of my work:http://cargocollective.com/laurierane

Hello all you type and design groupies…

My name is Ryan Severance and I am the most recent intern for Alphabet Arm. This is my first installment of bloggery goodness. Due to a certain Senior Designer here at Alphabet Arm, I am banished from the privilege of using my given birth name. Subsequently, I have already accumulated a plethora of nicknames, none of which we will delve into at this juncture. I have achieved most of my schooling in the oh-so-corrupt city of Chicago. I have a great love for typography and the individual form of letters, but interesting ligatures seriously launch my Apollo. I stumbled across the work of Alphabet Arm, by chance, and inquired of an opportunity such as the one I am in.
But, you know what they say, ’til next time, Alfred signing out.

We worked closely with recent intern, Matt Kaiser, to develop the new logo for Amalgamated Balladry, an independent, musician-owned record label. The founder of the label, Richard Shindell, asked us to draw our inspiration from the iconography of Industry. We particularly liked the idea of contrasting the imagery associated with WPA posters of the 1930′s with an overt musical reference. Hence, the our friendly factory worker with a guitar — his tool of choice — slung over his shoulder.

I recall wanting to be a part of Alphabet Arm for three years, when I got this amazing opportunity to Intern this Summer with Aaron and Ryan, I was so thrilled. Today is my last day here at Alphabet Arm and as my last hours pass by with tears as I think that this has been one of the best experiences & times of my life. What more can you ask for when you get to spend your day with two incredible human beings, artists and inspirational people that push you to be better and help you grow in many areas of your life as possible. I must say that Aaron Belyea and Ryan Frease have been not only great inspiration and motivation for me and the other interns here this summer, but great friends. From helping me grow as a designer to being part of a show I curated this summer (Human Powered Works) to BBQs and ball games at lunch, I know these guys will always be a part of my life. I am very sad to go but am also excited to use all the things I’ve learned here in future projects. I’m sure I’ll always refer and remember the little tricks Ryan taught me and the process that Aaron helped me develop.

YOU GUYS ROCK!!! I hope that every Intern from now on has just as great of a time here as Matt, Flo and I shared.

This Summer, our fantastically talented set of interns participated in an awareness campaign for the Future of Music Coalition’s groundbreaking survey for musicians and composers. The task: create an informative, eye-catching poster design to promote the Artist Revenue Streams project. The lengthy copy led all three of the designers to take a hands on approach and experiment with a bevy of hand drawn typography and rough-hewn textures. We were very pleased to see the high level of detail (including a couple hand drawn QR Codes!) and creativity they brought to the posters. Nice work, team.

Hola!! I’m Flo (Florencia Tasso, that is) and I am one of the lucky few here at Alphabet Arm interning this summer.
I come from Argentina, where I graduated as Graphic Designer at Buenos Aires University last year. I´ve been thinking about traveling abroad for a very long time, looking for people to share ideas and visions with, to enrich my experience, and discover different ways of working and thinking about design.
How did I end up here? Well… I remember sending an e-mail saying “Hi! I´m from Buenos Aires, I am in Argentina right now; if I move to Boston, can I work with you for a couple of months?” Later, and of course after a 12 hour flight, I met Aaron and Ryan, two friendly and humorous people at the studio. And now, I am writing a blog post about how this summer will be one of the best times in my life. I’m very happy to be here and to have the chance to collaborate with these great designers and with the rest of the creative crew: Matt, Silvi and Jeru. Here you know that you’re involved in great projects, but yet you feel like putting pencil to paper and playing with your own funny ideas. Graphic Design is what I love to do, I’m passionate about almost anything hand-drawn, I am a loving type guardian and strive for finding beauty in defective photos.
You can find some of my work at www.behance.net/flortasso
Chau!
Flo

So the topic of ” What’s your plans this summer – yo” came up between a group of my friends. Some said “chilling…”, some said “parties erreday yo!”, and some even said ”I’ll be at the beach.” I said, I’ll be working in a graphic design studio called Alphabet Arm with two bosses, Ryan and Aaron, who seem more laid back than my parents. Youth Design has really landed me in an ideal space where I can benefit from my bosses and three interns, Matt, Silvi and Flo. I can tell you what makes this place so great, between the breaks to toss a football around or the constant jokes around the table for lunch, long days don’t seem that long here. Aaron has been altruistic enough to guide me through some of the essential things I need to know to be a good designer and I know that I can really benefit from what everyone knows here. After this summer I think I will almost master Adobe Illustrator and pick up some key components to be able to strongly use the programs. Being 16 years old, I probably could be “chilling” or “partying erreday,” but I understand that I am being given a unique opportunity that some kids my age just dont have. My goal is to take full advantage of the opportunity that’s in front of me and take what I learn here and apply it to the things I happen to do in the future. My name is Jeru Berry, I’m an all-star football player, an inspired designer, and a Youth Design student at Alphabet Arm – and by the way you – can call me Kidd!

Heyyyyy Yooooo,My Name is Silvi and I just started here at Alphabet Arm as a Design Intern for the summer. I know you all love Alphabet Arm, and let me tell you that it is incredible being here. It was one of the happinest news I received that I would be interning here with two amazing designers and people.
I graduaded from NESAD at Suffolk University this May with two degrees in Fine Arts and Graphic Design. I’ve been attending art school ever since i was 6 yrs old. Life doesn’t make sense to me without art in it. The work that I do goes from, Printaking, Letterpress, Graphic Design, Illustration, Web design and Animation. I love how a piece of art has it’s own life, from conceptualization to realization. I’ve always known that Art was the path I’d be on for the rest of my life. Being able to translate and convey the ideas fermenting in my brain into a tangible form and then share it with the world still amazes me. I actually find the whole process almost shocking. Design should make us think, surprise, fill us with wonder and exhilarate our senses.
Being an artist makes everything I do that much more stimulating and intoxicating. Sometimes even my bike rides get so exciting, looking up at the clouds and cooking up some great idea that I can’t wait to share with the world. Being at Alphabet Arm makes all this goodness happen and I can’t wait to sink into more design as the time passes.
If you’re feeling bored and such, you can check out my work here:

http://www.behance.net/silvinaci

http://www.flickr.com/photos/silveroris

Thanks for reading, Silvi