Greetings from Sensical Design, Washington’s best publication design firm, where we’re more than a little embarrassed about the fact that it’s been 10 months since our last newsletter. We could make excuses—too busy, too tired, too whatever—but the fact is... well OK, we’ll go with "too busy." But the upside is, we’ve got plenty of stuff to talk about.
The AIGA Center for Sustainable Design, which we mentioned in the last newsletter, has been up and active since January. We’ve been part of the task force for nearly a year now, working to build and improve the site and help designers get the tools they need to practice more sustainably. We’ve also been able to learn quite a bit more about the issues involved and to bring that knowledge to bear on our design practice, to help clients produce work more responsibly and hopefully do our small part for the environment. If your company would like help with or information about sustainable printing practices, please give us a holler.
We’ve also begun our fourth year on the board of AIGA DC, our local AIGA chapter, serving as Vice President since June. Among many other things, we’ve been helping to coordinate a total redesign of the AIGA DC website, which should be launching in the next month or so. After the new site launches we’ll be blogging there about design: watch for more information about that soon.
Now on to a couple of design projects. AARP wanted a “toolkit” for its mobility program, which would include several different booklets and other related pieces. It needed to be expandable, with more pieces to be added in the future, without being a binder. We designed the toolkit at right, a cardboard box with a hinged lid and a trompe l’oeil latch. Inside are three colorful booklets with attached CD-ROMs or DVDs, tab dividers and a welcome letter. As a little, fun treat, we added a paper sculpture that could be punched out and folded up into a 3D city bus. According to Jeff Finn, Senior Communications Consultant for AARP, “Dan’s creative solution to the design challenges presented by the Mobility Toolit has ensured that this product will be used widely and not simply sit on the shelf collecting dust, like so many others. Everyone is thrilled with the feel and utility of the product.”
Long-time readers will remember that we designed a cover for our dad’s first book, A Lucky Guy, about three years ago. Now he's written a book of short stories, and once again convinced Sensical Design to design the cover, shown at left. The stories are about male-female relationships at different stages of life, with roughly half taking place in the United States and half in Chile. We designed a cover that captures the exuberance and sensuality of youthful romance, with a nod to the title story, Summer Vacation. The book is at the printer now and will soon be available from Amazon.
We have a few other nice projects to show you, but in the interest of not rambling on forever, pardon us if we just throw some images at you. At right are a series of book covers and a brochure for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pair of brochures for The Investigative Project on Terrorism, an ad for the National Association of Realtors, and a couple of publications for AARP, all flashing by really quickly. Enjoy!
That's the latest from here. What’s new with you? We’d love to hear from you. Visit our Web site if you haven’t, and please send an email if you have any projects you need help with, or just to say hello.
Dan Kohan