Art x Love created the new brand identity for WoodRaven, an advisor to startups that implements digital strategies, optimizes workflows, and prepares organizations for growth. The new logo suite, marketing collateral, and brand guidelines reflect WoodRaven’s impactful leadership and charismatic approach to tackle business challenges with creative solutions that lay a foundation for future growth and stability.
The Diamond Deli is one of Akron’s most famous sandwich shops and eateries. Their menu is legendary, and on any given day of the week you may find a smoothly moving line of people stretched out the door and around the corner. They’re that good.
In 2016, Mac created The King of Diamonds for the back wall of the dining area. Based on the overwhelming response the painting received, the owners asked if Mac could do a drawing of their business for a new t-shirt. He sat outside one fall morning and created the sketch that became this ink drawing. Although the art was never used for a t-shirt, it is prominently featured opposite the register and helped inspire our creation of the Akron on Deck playing card set to support local businesses and artists through the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the run up to the 2016 election, Art x Love was engaged to volunteer design and support of the Ohio for Hillary headquarters in Akron, Ohio. Our goal was to provide collaborative design solutions that would allow volunteers and residents to participate in the creative development and expression of the campaign.
Art x Love created one mural, designed and supported production of five others which were painted by volunteers, and developed interactive and interior design solutions for use of the entire space.
Northeast Ohio Media Group needed a new name, identity, positioning statement, brand guidelines, website collateral, and multimedia templates to do justice to their cutting edge digital sales platform. Art x Love created all of it in one month to meet an aggressive new year launch schedule. The new brand communications arrived on time and have been embraced internally and externally with greater recognition and improved sales across digital platforms.
Art x Love was engaged to create a Woman Card for Aubrey Montgomery, the President & Principal of Rittenhouse Political Partners, as a birthday gift and marketing asset.
Following the positive reception to Aubrey’s card, we created Woman Cards for each member of the Rittenhouse team, as well as their holiday card.
The Woman Cards were created by Zach and Zeb Wahl, and is available to purchase at thewomancards.com
Simplecare is a white-label mobile, desktop, and tablet application that was designed for Akron General's patients, health centers, and medical professionals to track and incentivize adherence to recovery and wellness programs. We created the strategy, positioning, and design system in collaboration with a new product development team at Akron General. Once complete, they moved forward with their own digital developer to create the application that went to market for testing.
Mac had the honor of creating Benton & Bowles’ commemorative advertisement for Roy Eaton in 2010’s Advertising Hall of Fame induction program.
Roy Eaton is a piano prodigy who grew up in Harlem, New York, in the 1930’s. He first played Carnegie Hall at the age of seven and studied abroad, performing at leading cultural venues around the world. After serving in the military, Roy returned to the United States and was hired by Young & Rubicam Advertising in 1955 as a copywriter and jingle composer. He became “the first black at Y&R, and probably the first at any major agency, with a creative function on general accounts.”
Roy Eaton moved to Benton & Bowles in 1959 and worked there for 20 years, rising to Vice President, Music Director. His work shaped the growth and public perception of brands like Cheer, General Electric, Piels Beer, Beech-Nut Chewing Gum, Gulf Oil, G.I. Joe, Mr. Potato Head, Prell, Chemical, Crest, Yuban Coffee, Hardees, Honeycomb Cereal, Texaco, Chef Boyardee, Cool Whip, Harvey’s Bristol Cream, and many more.
Roy Eaton pioneered the connection, which is so common today, between music, musicians, and branding strategies. He introduced jazz to advertising, worked with Ray Charles on “America” for Black & Decker, and was the first to sign Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 to an advertising contract.
Roy is famous for his ability to use music to elevate the image of brands. Furthermore, his work for the Ad Council helped make the campaign against drunk driving one of the most effective social marketing campaigns in history.
As a young creative, Mac was deeply humbled to create this ad for Roy, and had the pleasure of meeting him at his induction into the Advertising Hall of Fame.
Mac started working as a regional sales representative for the Cottrell Brewing Company in 2006. They brewed Cottrell’s signature Old Yankee Ale, and also served as the brewery and bottler for Trinity IPA and Narragansett Triple Bock. It was a great job.
From the very start, he learned that something was wrong with the way large distributors were treating local beers. Seemingly half of Cottrell’s established draft lines across the state of Connecticut had been replaced by Sam Adams, which was a Coors product. This made sense when you realized that our distributor was owners and run by Coors, so there were more incentives for their sales reps to replace local draft lines with corporate. It also made them easy prey.
Mac found that many of the local restaurants, bars, and stores that had previously carried Cottrell had been falsely told it was no longer available. This put him in a position to make quick friends. Advocating for a local beer with no artificial preservatives that tasted better, was fresher, and paired perfectly with local food was an easy win and fun side to be on.
We quickly re-established Cottrell’s foothold across the state, and strongly expanded the brand into Rhode Island. To complement these efforts, Mac designed many of our marketing and events posters to raise awareness and appreciation of our local beer. The brewery has continued to grow over the years and remains a humble and consistent point of excellence in the community.
Mac was hired to create the 16-page academic registration booklet for Wonder-Space’s 2009 computer, technology, and engineering summer camp at Rice University. All brand and marketing elements for the book were created from scratch except for the logo and photography. This represented a wholesale different approach to marketing and communication for the program.
Awareness of Wonder-Space and enrollment in their programs grew dramatically as a result of the vibrant and high-quality print production of the booklet. The served as a bridge to help parents, community, and the public recognize and appreciate the impact and value of an education in computers and technology.
