Corporate Identity/Marketing Collateral + Web Design + Photography + Jewelry + Other

 Corporate Identity + Marketing Collateral

Amanda Dahlgren Photography

I am also the owner of a fine art portrait photography studio called Amanda Dahlgren Photography specializing in children's and family portraiture. The visual identity I designed needed to communicate a brand that is professional, yet fun and "childlike." The logo needed to work on everything from B&W printed invoices to the colorful website I also designed. The symbol that I came up with to communicate the wonder of childhood is reminiscent of the dandelion "wishies" that children love. I also created 2-sided full-color business cards (side 1, side 2 ) with rounded corners and a spot varnish using the new logo.

Envision <the arts at canyon crest academy>

I spent 4 wonderful years as a high school teacher at Canyon Crest Academy in San Diego, CA in the visual art department. I was a founding member of the team of teachers and administrators at Canyon Crest Academy that developed a specialized program in the visual and performing arts called Envision. When a visual identity was needed, they came to me with the idea of something that communicated the vision that the arts at Canyon Crest Academy would grow to not only have a positive impact on individual students, but would "ripple out" into the school, the community, and beyond.

19th Annual JDRF Dream Gala

Paula J. Del Giudice, Executive Director of the Seattle Guild of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), contacted me from Seattle because she had seen the work I did on the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation's "New York, New York" gala. I readily accepted the challenge of working remotely from San Diego on the initial design concept and art direction for this project. Paula wanted something similar in look and feel to the "New York, New York" marketing collateral, but with the Seattle skyline prominently featured and the typefaces updated for the 10+ years that had passed since I had done the CEEF project. The 19th Annual JDRF Dream Gala, which was held on March 8, 2008, ended up raising $4,975,688 for diabetes research.

Pearson Strategic Consulting

Bob Pearson came to Dean Image + Design with a brand new high tech strategic consulting firm he was starting in the Bay Area. I worked closely with Bob to figure out what his marketing strategy was going to be and how he wanted to position his new company. He mentioned repeatedly that his firm was going to be different because he was going to work with his clients to develop feasible solutions rather than trying to force solutions on them like so many consulting firm do. He loved the corporate identity I came up with that showed that Pearson Strategic Consulting was a stable firm that would work together with his clients to move forward and upward. He was so pleased with Pearson's new corporate identity, that he asked me to create business cards, letterhead, and envelope.

Organizational Focus

Brooke Dahlgren hired Dean Image + Design to create a website for her new professional organizing company. But before I could create the website, I felt that the company needed an identity and Brooke agreed. In brainstorming possible solutions for Organizational Focus' corporate identity, Brooke described her company's niche in the market as being focused, targeted, personal, and detail-oriented. She had already created some marketing collateral herself with some very nice reddish-brown circles. I took the adjectives she used to describe her company and the collateral she had already developed to come up with a new logo that Brooke was very pleased with.

Cornerstone-PC

Sam Dee, the owner of Cornerstone-PC, came to me with basically just the name of his company and a description of what they did. Cornerstone-PC provided small business owners and individuals with network installation, upgrades, and computer support. We brainstormed together about the types of adjectives that described his company and came up with words like reliable, technological, and knowledgeable. I developed a corporate identity for the company, incorporating two well-known computer symbols (the USB symbol and a power symbol). I also created business cards using the new logo I developed and created a basic "starter" website to which Sam could point potential clients.

Intersections at the Presbyterian Church of Sunnyvale

The Presbyterian Church of Sunnyvale was starting a new contemporary worship service and needed a logo to symbolize and attract people to come to the new Sunday evening service. Dean Image + Design was hired to create this new logo (pro bono, of course!). Although a church service trying to attract worshippers is obviously not the same thing as a corporation trying to attract customers, there are many similarities. In fact, the committee in charge of this new service had many of the same ideas, including a marketing plan, a target audience, and collateral, like flyers and invitations that needed to be sent out to the community. The logo that Dean Image + Design came up with worked well with the service's name and the tagline that the committee had developed. The committed was very pleased with my ability to incorporate the idea of an intersection, a symbol of a cross, and an egg shape symbolizing rebirth.

PCS Youth Ministries

When word got out at the Presbyterian Church of Sunnyvale that I had designed the logo for the new Intersections service, the youth minister, Steve Wilde, approached me about doing a logo for the youth program. Steve had done quite a bit of thinking about what he wanted out of a logo, so he was able to give me a lot of direction with just a few simple phrases. He wanted a logo that was "cool," but still had a foundation in the Faith. I came up with a logo very similar to a surf company logo, but with 3 waves to symbolize the Trinity. Steve and the youth were so pleased that they asked us to do letterhead, notepaper, #10 envelope, and A2 envelope.

CLUE Caravan 1997 T-Shirt

While working as an advisor to the youth group (CLUE) at the Presbyterian Church of Sunnyvale, the youth minister asked me to create art for a t-shirt. The t-shirt was given out to all youth and advisors who went on the 1997 CLUE Caravan (Mission Trip) to Neah Bay, Washington. The student executive council decided on the theme for the trip to be "Mission: Possible" and I came up with the art for the front and the back of the t-shirt. The students and advisors were thrilled. Even the youth minister, who was at first vehemently opposed to the idea of a black t-shirt, loved it!

  Web Design

www.amandadahlgren.com

I am also the owner of a fine art portrait photography studio called Amanda Dahlgren Photography specializing in children's and family portraiture. I created this website to showcase my work and to bring in new clients. The look and feel of the website is meant to mix professionalism with a childlike sense of fun.

www.amanda-dahlgren.com/static

I created this website to showcase my body of fine art photography work called "Static static: abstractions of time." The look and feel of the website is meant to convey an artistic sensibility and to highlight the photography itself.

www.sdmbbst.net

San Diego Mission Bay Boat and Ski Team is a non-profit organization whose objectives are "to foster participation, competition, entertainment and education in various aspects of competitive and recreational water skiing in Mission Bay." The team wanted a memorable, fun, colorful, and easy-to-navigate website that they could maintain themselves. I used an iconic symbol of tournament slalom waterskiing (the turn buoy), a warm color scheme, and a playful typeface to create a site they loved.

www.organizationalfocus.com

Organizational Focus was a professional organizing company that offered personalized, innovative, and effective organizing solutions for business and residential clients. Brooke Dahlgren, the owner of Organizational Focus, hired Dean Image + Design to create a corporate identity for her company and to create a website that would showcase what her company did. I created the website using Adobe ImageReady and Dreamweaver and Brooke did all the text maintenance using Contribute. Brooke has since moved on to bigger and better things, but you can click on the image on the right to view the work that I did.

www.recurringdream.com

Recurring Dream is a small software company that makes unique products for the Macintosh platform. Jeff Hokit, the owner of Recurring Dream, hired Dean Image + Design to develop a corporate identity and website to sell the company's software products. Jeff wanted a unique "retro" look in the corporate identity and the website in order to reflect the uniqueness of the company.

Fine Art Photography

I am a photographer with a specific interest in fine art photography. The following are a few of the photographs I am most proud of (click on the image to see a larger version):

Jewelry

I also enjoy jewelry design as a hobby. I create all the designs and do all the casting and fabrication myself. The following are a few of the pieces I am most proud of (click on the image to see a larger version):

Dean Image + Design would like to thank Sarah Palmer from http://greentheory.org for the preceding photographs of Amanda Dean Dahlgren's jewelry.

Work for Tandem Computers—Education Group

Before starting Dean Image + Design, I was a graphic designer at Tandem Computers, Inc., a division of Compaq Computers (now Hewlett-Packard) in Cupertino, California. While at Tandem, I worked in the Education Group which also happened to have the same Vice President as the Public Affairs Group. Below you will find some of the work that I did while at Tandem, some for Education and some for Public Affairs.

Tandem Education Group Tablet

Students who took courses from the Tandem Education Group got a variety of marketing materials, as a way for Tandem to thank them and to make sure the students remembered our name. Some of those thank-you's the students were given included a folder, a pencil, and a tablet, all with the Tandem Education name and the Tandem logo and tagline. I take special pride in the tablet I designed for Tandem Education in 1997. Tandem had just updated their corporate identity and wanted to make it very prominent on all marketing material throughout the company. I found a way to display the new symbol prominently and in an aesthetically-pleasing way.

Tandem Education Essentials Catalog

Tandem Education published a comprehensive 100+ page catalog of all its course offerings once a year and a smaller 20 or so page catalog quarterly. This quarterly catalog was called the "Tandem Education Essentials Catalog." The cover and the first page were 2-color (Tandem's standard blue and black) and the rest of the pages were black and white. I used QuarkXPress to lay out each catalog and also coordinated all the information that went into each one. With a division full of contributors (each course developer wrote his or her own course descriptions), the coordination was quite a task. Setting up styles in Quark really helped streamline the work and make a visually cohesive package.

CEEF 1996 Fundraiser Poster for "Oil Barons' Ball"

When I worked for Tandem Education, the Vice President of Education (Yvette del Prado, Ph.D.) was also in charge of the Public Affairs Group for Tandem. I got to do quite a bit of work for Public Affairs which I found to be very rewarding. One of the beneficiaries of my work was the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation (CEEF). Each year CEEF would put on an extraordinary gala fundraiser event and the proceeds would all be donated to Cupertino schools. In 1996, the theme for the CEEF gala was the "Oil Barons' Ball." I was pleased to provide CEEF with the artwork for a poster, invitation package (invitation, envelope, reply card, reply envelope, and sponsor card), and program cover that Dr. del Prado and the CEEF committee loved.

CEEF 1997 Fundraiser Poster for "New York, New York!" Gala

After being so pleased with the work that I did the previous year, the Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation again asked Tandem to create the artwork for their annual fundraising gala in 1997. This year the theme was "New York, New York!" and I again created the artwork for a poster, invitation package (invitation, envelope, reply card, reply envelope, and sponsor card), and program cover. The committee was so pleased with the artwork for this gala that they invited me to attend the event and presented me with a beautiful framed copy of the poster that I still have hanging in my home. I am especially proud of this artwork because of the difficulty involved in producing this very complex 3-color vector-based artwork in Adobe Illustrator.

Tandem Holiday Projects Poster 1994

Every holiday season, the Tandem Public Affairs group would organize a series of volunteer events for the employees to participate in order to get in the holiday spirit by giving back to the community. They called this series of events the "Holiday Projects" and it was always very well received by the employees. In 1994, the Vice President decided that she would fund a run of posters to be displayed within the buildings of the Cupertino campus in order to increase participation. Because these were non-profit events, the entire budget for the run of 500 posters was only $500! We obviously did not have the budget for a photo shoot or even a stock photograph so we enlisted the help of our coworkers to find a photograph that captured the holiday spirit. The winning photograph (which is actually a photograph of me and my grandfather) was incorporated into a heartwarming poster that was very well received.

Tandem Holiday Projects Poster 1995

Because of the warm reception to the previous year's poster with the family picture, we decided to enlist the help of the entire company to find a suitable photograph for the 1995 Holiday Projects poster. This year's winning photograph captured the same heartwarming feeling that was perfect for the occasion. Our copywriter came up with a perfect headline to tie together the photograph, design, colors, and message of the poster: "Compassion is no ordinary word; it requires action."

Page last updated on Monday, June 29, 2009 8:15 PM.

Be advised that all text and images contained herein are Copyright © 2003-2009 Dean Image + Design and cannot be used or altered without the written consent of the author.