CONSP!RE Magazine Issue 4

This issue dealt with prayer, so we thought of calling on color to help us interpret this theme. We recalled the prayer flags we see throughout Portland and their vibrant color.

Instead of taking a hyper-textured approach (what we’ve done with a good deal of this magazine), we kept this issue clean, simply using smoke to illustrate prayers rising up.

CLIENT
The Simple Way (2009)

  • We designed the whole package for these guys…talking through branding, designing a logo, building a website, and creating stationary. The logo represents the multi-faceted dimension of the relational community. And it offers some dynamics in that the logo color/tone will change each season to show that they are rooted in some rhythm larger than their [...]
  • Ayuda hired us to assist them with their annual report for their donors. Being a non-profit organization in a low-income neighborhood, they really wanted to show their donors how important their support was. We helped them to tell this through strong images and minimal text. It was printed as an untreated 8.5×5.5 booklet.
  • Here’s an excerpt we wrote for the introduction… Each time we put together an issue of CONSP!RE, we dream about how we can create a visual environment to best receive these gifts of words and image. For this issue, we connected concepts of community with trees and bacteria. The thought of trees being rooted in the [...]
  • Beauty…real beauty…growing out of the humus of human existence. The clutter, the identity-shifting, the gnawing hope, the…normal. That’s what this book is about. Reclaiming the everyday as significant. Beauty growing from mundane. This is the first offereing from Swerve Press, whose website we also built.
  • This emerging faith community was trying to find a way to articulate that they’re a dynamic community, trying to move with the seasons (shown in the seasonally-shifting logo) and trying to be something more than just a place where people merely “talk about God”. They’re about action, life, and relationships. We built each page so [...]
  • This was a fun project for us. The act of promoting and deconstructing revolution in the same few pages. 56 pages of grit, blood, and reflection. This is the second issue we have designed and laid-out for this quarterly magazine.
  • This was a fun project to work on, dreaming up ways to connect food and earth. These good folks attempt to help people rethink their food–where it comes from, how it’s been cared for, and what that means to the greater world. So we tried our best to show dirt, plants, and table-ready food.
  • This organization is really just a network of people, so we tried to illustrate that as a circle or chain sort of icon. One letter flowing into the next.
  • Concepting a photo shoot that could articulate the idea of this book was a fun challenge. The author wanted to clearly convey the idea that we must move beyond “speeching” at each other to a more conversational [...]
  • Drawing from the ancient Book of Common Prayer, we harkened back to older times that still could mean something on our own postmodern era.
  • Ah, the akward years. Some of us never grow out of them, but all of us hope to. Nothing like old pictures/stories to drop you off you pedastal!
  • We designed this logo for this Santa Cruz-based photographer of children and family. They wanted something playful and memorable.
  • We tried to show the fragility of the artist here. Pen and ink with visions a-whirling.
  • When these guys called us, I knew we’d all work together quite well. They wanted to put together a publishing line that would focus on the off-beat spiritual path. The idea of a side-winder-like path instead of a direct line seems to match most of our profiles in reality. They wanted a simple website they could [...]
  • After designing the book Jesus For President, we were contacted to draw up a tour card for promoting their across-the-nation odyssey. We pulled from an image we had intended to use for the original book cover to make this card pop.
  • A bird with a broken foot. Sure it’s still a bird, but how does it do what it’s meant to do…fly? This book shares the stories of youth struggling with their scars.
  • These longtime clients (formerly CYFM) contacted us when they were ready to re-brand themselves as the Fuller Youth Institute. We did the whole package for them, concepting brand ideas, creating a lasting logo, working that into a hyper-functional website, drafting up printed materials and an e-newsletter campaign.
  • An organic rock-n-roll band from Orange County, Everyday Collision writes songs telling of the beauty and complexity of creation. We designed the album to [...]
  • This is a quarterly publication that we’re designing. It’s been wonderful and challenging, pulling content from all across the globe, mashing it up around a common theme, and then creating a sort of cohesive lay0ut to frame the stories in. This was our first attempt. 52 pages of winter-turn-spring.
  • This cover was begun with Holly’s art piece UNFOUND SIMPLICITY from her WITHOUT THE SPACE WITHIN series. It was inspired by the same things that inspired this album, so it just made sense. It’s like we were riffing on the same theme/experience in different mediums.
  • Take an earthy-sounding album with a grassroots audience. How do you package it to be consistent with the content? Well, we cut lino blocks, had stamps made, and [...]
  • In an attempt to show the transition from one paradigm to another, we chose to use a combination of photography and illustration. Sewing two fabrics together, we were able to imply the content of the book.
  • Songs of love, hope, family, meaning, and chance encounters. We blended these stellar photographs with some illustration and texture to match the tone of the album. Warm, multi-layered, yah…that’s what Christine’s music sounds like.
  • As a handmade, mostly-organic children’s clothing line, our hope was to design something earthy, playful, and memorable.
  • How do you bring clip-art into the 21st century? Youth Specialties commissioned us to gather a team of artists to do just that. We created 500 new images and designed packaging [...]
  • We were asked to recover this book for it’s Second Edition. We opted for a design that we felt articulated the material clearly…that it’s for those on a journey through these complex issues.
  • The author wrote this to the EveryGirl. Pageant dress, sure. But cut it with the heels. The real and the fake, fighting each other. We coordinated this photoshoot in (shhhh…) our bathroom in San Francisco!
  • Just in case you missed it. It’s also a chance to catch some of our earlier works.
  • Quiet, pure tunes in a chaotic world. This needed some abstract tied in between raw texture and harsh characters.
  • Ha.
  • We wanted to help these good folks tell their story…of their family, their beautiful property, their rich history on the California coast. We first helped them think through their brand, establish a solid logo and then flow that emotion into a functional and captivating website.
  • We worked with these guys a couple years back, setting them up with a killer logo that articulated their ethos. For the launch of their new film, DROP, they wanted a site redesign, so we offered them this. Larger-than-life and ready to go.
  • Thanks to Bob for passing this along to us. I’m sure Ian will appreciate this as well.
  • We have been designing book covers for some time now…what, maybe 5 ot 6 years? It feels like we’ve been at it for a while anyway. If you’re a designer, you know the process. And if you’re not, keep reading and I’ll fill you in. It goes something like this… Publisher gives us an idea of what the [...]