Context: I’ve worked with this client a few times now on things like Sundown and Reprieve. When he found himself at Invisible North as the head of production and wanted to thank the crew for a great year, he gave me a shout. Creative Direction by Johnathon Cramer; Art Direction and Graphic Design by me. They ended up taking things in-house, but it was still great intro to their freelance team.
Approach: The client didn’t want a logo just slapped on a shirt; he wanted the piece to feel artful, technical, and reflective of the hard, beautiful work these folks do. It had to look specific to the team, yet part of the Invisible North family as well. This symbol-heavy structure is more of a wink than an announcement, something insiders would get but would just look like a cool shirt to others.
This was so much fun to make, and full of easter eggs for the
careful eye: numbers, phrases, and shapes important to the team.
The key to a bit of organized chaos was to create
relationships between the shapes that anchored them
while being flexible enough to engage on many layers.
Technical Blueprints & State Seal
made with image tracing + good ol’ pen in Illustrator
Dissolve Elements
made with dissolve blend mode in Photoshop
Globes
from a shapes pack I’ve had on my desktop forever
Everything else made in Illustrator.