Illustration Friday: Cars

Illustrations by Kimiyo Nishio (top) & Brandon Fall (bottom)

Illustration Friday: Signs

Illustrations by Brandon Fall (top), Kimiyo Nishio (middle), and Eric Martinez (bottom)

I Spy Books: The Ones that Got Away

This year's theme for the Children's Reading Club is "I Spy Books." Senior Designer, Brandon Fall, created a slew of ideas for the Los Angeles Public Library. In the end, the winning cocktail was a mix of James Bond, Mission Impossible, and a splash of child-friendly design. The campaign folder encourages young readers to seek out more books, while engaging them to stretch their problem-solving muscles by giving them messages to solve in Morse code, grid-ciphers, and the Dewey Decimal system.



During the discovery meeting with the client, all agreed upon a retro spy design concept. The theme was executed throughout the pieces, from the fonts to the heavily-warn textures and colors. Custom cutouts for spy disguises were created, along with special boxes for the kids to check off, making them feel like real detectives.



Folder Outside/Inside


Inserts In Folder


Bookmark


Certificate

The library loved our first round of comps, however, after the committee’s overview, they decided brighter colors should be used, as well as having it skew to a younger audience. Illustrations were added.



Folder Outside/Inside


Eventually, the client shifted to the James Bond/Mission Impossible direction (seen at top).

Mission accomplished!

Illustration Friday: Citrus

Image created by Kimiyo Nishio (top) & Eric Martinez (bottom)

Arden Kaywin Website Design

Concept Development:
Arden Kaywin is an independent artist who is at a transitional point of her music career. Feeling tied down in the safe harbor of pop music, Arden began to eye the "rocky" open waters. Creating a new rock-fueled body of work, and needing a new website to complete her modern-rock makeover, Arden hired EPOS designer, Kimiyo Nishio, to create the new look by taking a "water" concept, swirling it up, and allowing it to flow into a vibrant new website.




Why did you decide to use water as a theme for your website?
It just came to me as we were on the phone and I was looking at the photo in the tub. In the spirit of doing things organically and going with the flow, I thought why not just run with what had presented itself which happened to be water, instead of getting rid of the background and trying to force another idea onto it. Even though we took that photo on the fly, I think the fact that I’m in the tub surrounded by water is pretty fitting to where I am in my career and life now. I am fluid and changing, never static, trying new things. I like that water is clear but will take on the colors around it. I am sort of like that. I have different sides to me that come out when I’m inspired by different situations and people around me. Water cannot be contained; it will find a way to keep moving and flow towards its destination. I think my drive to create music has that quality to it as well.

There was a constant stream of communication between Arden and creative director, Gabrielle Raumberger, for developing a concept. Once the concept was set, our focus was to determine the feel of the website that represents Arden and differentiate her from other artists out there.

Design Development/Process:
For initial comps, EPOS designers, Brandon Fall and Kimiyo Nishio, worked together to set the look & feel of the homepage. With both designers working on the initial project, Arden was dazzled with the wide range of comps which were presented.





Design Refinement:
After multiple rounds of changes and further discussions with Arden, the homepage look was based upon a design created by Kimiyo. Design wise, the biggest challenge Kimiyo encountered was to find a happy medium point between the “water” theme and how Arden wanted to present herself, which is…a serious singer/songwriter with a risky rock edge, while maintaining her fun and feminine sides. “Water is almost the opposite from the edginess that Arden wanted, so depending on how I treated the water, it was hard to integrate the two opposite elements into one and still make it work in the viewers’ eyes” recalled Kimiyo.




Arden was a great client with great ideas. Together, Arden and the EPOS team worked closely to define clearly what she really wanted and what worked best for her in this new stage of her career.

Illustration Friday: Neighbor

Illustration by Lidsey, our intern (top) Eric Martinez (middle) and Kimiyo Nishio (bottom)