Bill Toms has been a Steel City mainstay for years. His blue collar rock ‘n’ roll goes back to days sharing the stage with Bruce Springsteen when playing in town and on the road. His sax player and my friend, Phill Brontz reached out to me to see if I would be interested in designing an album cover for him. All they had was photos of past album covers and a handful of JPGs pulled from facebook. I was looking for a treatment that would make them look as legendary as they are. The design ended up with an almost 70’s pulp sci-fi look, without the swords. The square orientation was able to be manipulated and morphed into 11x17 poster for touring.

In 2011, I was hired by Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to assist in piloting a program centered around tech for teens. The goal was to establish an informal learning environment where teens can have the opportunity to learn something and make something at the library, in the teen space.

The goal was excitement over achievement. We wanted some kind of certification or award for each skill learned or each thing made. Solving this issue, I designed a visual system that would be come the badging system. This world of colorful signifiers and rewards served as a bedrock for what was later to become the “Teenspace rebranding”

The skill categories are differentiated by color, and the level is conveyed through border style--bottle cap or saw tooth. An attractive type-choice, paired with simple graphic symbol, makes for a recognizably "CLP - Teen" style, which marries well with the 2017 re-branding.

While some of these designs on the master “Badge Pathways” document are not my own, the vast majority are — and the standards are, as well as the document itself.

Working with Ampersand Consulting, I had the privilege of being the lead designer on Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto's successful run for re-election in 2017. This campaign consisted of a rigorous campaign of numerous direct mailers, door hangers, hand bills, newspaper ads, and television commercials.

With direct mail, the goal is to have your audience hold your material in their hand for as long as possible. After that, the information shared should inform, with an impact. We did just that.

I had the honor of laying out the signage, invitations, tickets, and programs for the subsequent inaugural events.

Photography by Larry Rippel.

Before I was hired as freelancer for Ampersand Consulting, they had the lovely Times New Roman ampersand logomark and the Arial-font Lettermark from which to build a campaign around. I put together an attractive stationary set, storefront sign, an info-graphic to be used as a landing page for the website, and a website layout.

One of the many pleasures of being a part of the Pittsburgh music community is when I'm asked to make show posters.

As a Pittsburgher, I’m always excited when I get to work with someone as recognizable as Chelsa. Her approach to policy is clear, coherent, and dedicated to equality and fair play. She wanted something that might be based off the Pittsburgh Pirate’s baseball logo that sometimes includes the color red. This, paired with the round, solid geometric shapes brings an inherently bold progressivism centered on local pride.

In 2017, working for Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, we hired Wall-To-Wall Studios to re-brand our Teen Services Department. The new brand brought on a freshness through adaptability and room for personalization by Teen Specialists and the teens, themselves.

Before introducing the brand to the public, we needed to introduce it to our Teen Specialists, and the library as a whole. We needed something to greet employees with this new look and give them a heads up that we have been re-branded, and what that we have reestablished our core values.

We decided to play off of the square geometry set forth by the Teenspace "Dynamic T", and got creative with folding, ultimately making the audience spend more time with the piece than your average handbill sort of flier.

Bright colors, thought evoking imagery and sentiments, invite the user to explore every panel, revealing another page of exciting information pleasant photography and branding, all following a need-to-know hierarchy.

Event invitations, like posters, are poised with the task of creating a feel for the event before the event even happens. I like to give the event its due consideration as to the setting, the audience, most-importantly the host's vision for the gathering.

Here, we have an example of an informal seasonal event centered around nature and family, while the other one is buttoned up and classy, taking place in a high-end Italian spot for the well-to-do.

This was a project that ended up on the cover of the Pittsburgh City Paper! We created a three-song visual EP called Summer's Best that tracked the journey of a piano on its way to being disposed of. We created this poster and pushed the release of this video as one might push the release for a short film. 

Months later, we released another EP called Way of The Future. This time, we created a limited run of 7 inch vinyls, and pushed them as a bundle, where people could receive the record, a cd, and digital downloads of both Way of The Future and Summer's Best.

This was a campaign funded by Penn Futures, a political action committee, on behalf of governor Tom Wolf. The campaign is meant to attract voters to vote for Tom Wolf, as well as to hold Govorner Tom Wolf's feet to the fire, when it comes to campaign promises of environmental protection.

I used to manage a coffee shop in Pittsburgh's neighborhood of Beechview, called "BREW on Broadway". It's through that shop that I came to know Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak. At some point in around 2014, hired me to take a very rough already-designed, folded 11x17 brochure and “make it look nice”.

The brochure was used to stir economic activity along the unique, trolly-lined business district that is Broadway Avenue.

I improved the font choices, added borders, color adjusted, retouched and and re-cropped photography. Callouts provide a curated impression for the reader that is both a take-home notion for if they are done reading at that moment, and simultaneously supply a reason to dive deeper and read more of the body content.

I noticed the Ice Cream shop next door was under new ownership, so I went poking around to see if I could convince the owner to pay me revive the faded 1960’s signage of the former storefront. I stopped in next door at the Tobacco Outlet to see if they knew who or where the new owners were. I told them I was looking to do the new sign, and they hired me to paint one for them. I would have gone further with it if they had more of a budget, but I think it turned out great. Kind of a classic look. I would agree that the color choice was pretty bold.