Alphabet Arm Design News

Well, it’s a new month—so you know what that means! It’s time for our newest addition to the Alphabet Arm / Flagship Press 2010 calendar. February features a blind-emboss matched with opaque white ink on the stunning Curious metallic silver stock.

The name February comes from the Latin word “februum,” which translates to purification. After the densely-layered imagery we created for January we wanted to make something stark and elegant to purify our “design” palettes—if you will. As a studio we obsess over typography and we certainly enjoyed creating this strictly-typographic composition. Did you know that February doesn’t always have a full moon? This year it ends with one!

Interested in ordering one? We have both subscriptions and single month pieces available on our BigCartel store.

In order to start the year off on the right foot, we’ve teamed up with Flagship Press to create a unique, fine-art inspired calendar. The coolest aspect is that each month will feature radically different artwork and printing techniques. Each month will serve as a handy guide to different print processes and paper stocks, as well as ample eye-candy. The calendar comes with an all-in-one easel/envelope. When you are done viewing a particular month, you can store it in the envelope for later reference.

As we kick off the new year, we can’t help but to look even further forward to what lies ahead for humanity. The other source of inspiration for January is a collection of satellite photos being released by High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), capturing the surface of Mars. Simultaneously familiar and alien, these images sparked our creative fires and our imaginations; leading us to wonder what marvelous technologies the future will bring. After all, we’re also still waiting for our very own flying DeLoreans.

January’s calendar was printed on 12 pt. Nordic cover stock, with process inks. Additionally, it was printed with both matte and UV gloss varnishes to give extra contrast between the dull and shiny surfaces.

We’re offering the calendar for sale on our store. You can get it both as a yearly subscription, or just your favorite month. Take a look here.

Few things make us happier than seeing our clients succeed. NRG BAR is one of our long-standing clients, and things are really catching on for them. Having proven themselves at outdoor sport shops and bike shops throughout the area, you can now find NRG BARs in Whole Foods stores throughout New England. As part of the owner’s push to get into more stores, we were hired us to design a box that would stand on the shelves with the national big hitters. Our solution replaces the brand stripes with typographic stripes that showcase the product’s main bullet points. Utilizing the brand’s distinctive and bold colors, we created a box that showcases the brand from all sides.

From time to time we get the opportunity to design event posters for The Boston Conservatory student performances. In this case, Machinal is the story of a woman driven to murder. We intended for the poster to reflect the tension and paranoia of the main character — who is essentially drowning in the dark urban landscape of society. We spent a lot of time away from the computer on this one. One of our favorite tools, the photocopier, was used to create texture. We also cut up the type by hand and then pasted it all back together for the title treatment.

Sure, it’s a bit of a shameless plug—but we still get a kick out of seeing our (we mean their) branding being used on a regular basis. In this instance as Twitter icons. We decided to gather a list for you.

Empire Attire / Moustache Sally / New Collisions / Rhoost / Arts Boston / Mediadonis / Plus1tv / BzzAgent / Monolith Festival / Harlem Vintage / Sarah Borges / Schranghamer Design Group / Viximo / Boston Phoenix / Fenway Recordings / GoGaga / Clarias / Daily Grommet / Well Rounded Radio / Open Bicycle

Between our blog posts and tweets you’ve probably heard us mention the Monolith Music Festival on a number of occasions. We posted the logo and the festival director’s business card on our site but thought it would be beneficial to show how we branded the entire festival. People often ask what branding entails—so while we had our photographer shooting a bunch of new projects to be featured on our website we had him shoot a pile of collateral left over from Monolith. Here you can see a range of items from VIP passes to ads to schedules. We actually have another package of samples on the way as we type this, including merchandise and other print samples. Keep an eye on the website to see the rest!

Consequence of Sound is a New York and Chicago based, heavily influential online music publication that seeks to cover the music world as it has never been covered before. They were in need of some equally bad a** business cards and we were happy to be of service. For those of you new-schoolers, that shot on the back of the cards is a wall of vinyl, long-playing records. We had some help from intern extraordinaire Michael Deal on this project.

One of our designers, Ira F. Cummings, was invited by the art director of Select Design to participate in a show of custom-painted Qee figures. The show is part of Select Design’s South End Art Hop festivities, and features Qees painted by Dalek, Gary Baseman and other big names from the art world. Check out his finished bear:

For those who’ve been keeping track, we were asked by Brandon Bird, of the AIGA B(oNE) Show and Brandon Bird Design, to create one character in the title’s signage for the B(oNE) Show. We’ve been teasing the final design here, here, and here. Hopefully, some of you got to see the final piece in all its glory, but for those who didn’t, here a couple shots of the “i” in place. Each of the thirteen characters were auctioned of to benefit AIGA:Boston, with the one prize being bragging rights. We’re not usually ones to brag, but in this case we might make an exception.

After countless man hours, numerous trips to the hardware store, and and the sacrificing of several plastic toys, we’re finally done. Last week we put the finishing touches on our character for the B(oNE) Show’s signage, and we’re pretty happy with it. We’re going to keep the final assemblage under wraps, though, until the actual show. You’ll have to turn up to see it in all its glory. See you Thursday.