Bemidji's historic Chief Theater is a refurbished Art Deco movie house that now serves as a top performance venue for the arts community of north central Minnesota. Its primary tenant is the Paul Bunyan Playhouse, the longest continuously-running (1951-present) summer stock theater company in Minnesota.
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I started working with QA Cafe a couple of years ago. QA Cafe is a software studio based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and basically, they create testing applications for networking hardware. Think it sounds dry and intricate? Think again. QA Cafe was founded by Joe McEachern, who got into this line of work in the '90s when he was a graduate student at UNH and working for UNH's innovative InterOperability Lab. Being a smaller studio, QA Cafe does not limit themselves to their existing product and customer base, and regularly asks themselves, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if...?"
I guess it's about time I talk a little about Pecha Kucha Night. I am on the coordination team for the Bemidji chapter of this fun, creative, community-building event, and as such, Evensen Creative is a sponsor. I love it. Basically, PKN is an event where people come together and talk about cool things, but they do so using this specific format of 20 slides, each timed out to exactly 20 seconds. It's fast, fun, and contagious.
It's that time of year again. My own holiday celebrations have become quite involved as of late, mainly due to to the usual family travels and visits one must do. So I am already in the spirit. I was thinking it would be cool to do some sort of freebie Christmas graphic, like other design studios do, but then I decided that the pressure was too high. And who among us likes Christmas Failure? So instead, I put together a New Year's graphic. It's a fun, letterpress-inspired lyric sheet of Auld Lange Syne, and you all can download a JPG file of it by right-clicking this link.
Earlier this year I had the great fortune to work with the Harmony Co-op, a thriving, local farm-to-table grocer. To understand Harmony's success, you first have to understand Bemidji. This town is a regional hub. It's located in northern Minnesota, almost equidistant between Fargo, Duluth, and Brainerd. Bemidji's economy is largely made up of small businesses, mom-and-pop shops, and other local enterprises. As is happening across the country, consumers' interest in fresh, local, and organic foods is growing exponentially, and the nearest Trader Joe's is hours away... (click 'read more' to continue)
What makes a good infographic? Well, obviously it has to communicate. Communication is central to graphic design, which is why I subscribe to Ohio State's nomenclature and prefer to think of it as "visual communication design." I read an article last week condemning infographics as a whole for not providing more accurate or thorough data, and that's not the point. Infographics are meant to be seen quickly, with the most important chunk of information understood within moments. They should also have a second, maybe even a third tier of information that provides more clarity the deeper you dig. But they're not meant to replace spreadsheets, or peer-reviewed articles. They're meant to increase awareness and affect understanding. They also must look nice, but above that, their style should be relevant to the data being shown.
One of the great things about having a wife who is a musician is that it provides an endless stream of fun project opportunities for me. Case in point: her school, Bemidji State University, recently formed two electronic music ensembles; one for faculty, one for students. The faculty are having a blast with their group, which should be evident by its name -- the Midiots. Electronic instruments (EWI, Malletkat, Wavedrum, etc.) are secondary instruments for all of them, and they've had to arrange most of their own music, so it's given them free rein to experiment and have fun. I tried to reflect this playfulness in my poster for their upcoming performance on campus. Also, I depicted the members of the faculty ensemble in 8-bit, so I should probably get some extra nerd points. See more poster design projects here.
I've been a pretty big band geek all my life. Now, I'm old, and the opportunities for band geekery are more limited. But my college friend Casey is now the Director of Athletic Bands at one of my alma maters, the University of New Hampshire, and as alumni ourselves, we recently conspired to create some new T-shirts for the annual Alumni Band members who perform at homecoming. I haven't been able to attend homecoming for 5 years or so, but this way I felt like I was there in spirit. The front of the shirt features the band's uniforms over the years, starting with the old ROTC band uniforms from the early 20th century, and progressing through to today (Casey and I once donned the white-jacketed uniform, second from right). The UNH logo recedes into the background like yard lines on a football field. The back of the shirt uses the final lyric fron the school's fight song. Sadly, it snowed, so the alumni were wearing winter coats, but the shirts were still well received!
You can order a print, framed print, or canvas print of this design here. |
The Blog.This is where we post news, announcements, product launches, and musings on the design process. All posts written by Erik Evensen unless otherwise noted. From the blog:Archives
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