This is the third time I’ve worked on this project and by far my favorite edition. As with the other Hazelden annuals, I had a lot of fun with the design and working with Hazelden writer Teri Ryan and production manager Dawn Carlson.

We became even more ambitious than usual and decided to do something we’d always talked about: feature not just real stories from the people of Hazelden, but also real portraits.

Above, the three portraits and their spreads. Below, the cover and inside front spread.

Coming up with original photography of people from all over the country can be quite a challenge, especially on a limited budget. And these weren’t simple head shots — we needed portraits suitable for the high-profile piece.

This year with a lot of planning, help from Teri, and a fair amount of luck, it all worked out. We wound up doing something different for each person. One of our subjects had an awesome portrait already available, taken by a photographer friend who was willing to donate her work. (Thank you, Rebecca McDonald of B Fresh Media!) We hired pro photog John Tracy out of Chicago to do a photo session with a school principal there. And I did a photo shoot with our last subject, a Twin Cities local.

It’s a more effective piece for it. Stock photography can be compelling and certainly has its uses. But for something as personal as telling the stories of Hazelden, I like this solution best.

2010 Saint Paul Area Council of Churches annual report

Initial annual report planning meetings with Saint Paul Area Council of Churches Development Director Kristi Anderson and Communications Coordinator Melanie Lund revealed that a new direction was needed. We knew we wanted to feature stories from the many programs to which the Council provides a home. We also admired non-profits who were able to streamline their annual report basics into a compact, user-friendly format, also suitable as a marketing piece.

What emerged was the idea to combine their regular newsletter Faith Works — always packed with stories — with a wraparound piece. I worked closely with the printer, Impressive Print, to keep printing and mailing costs low despite the many changes. The end result was a huge success, which did not cost the Council any more than typical. Our audience went out of their way to tell us they loved the new format, and the Council now has a great, succinct marketing tool they can use all year long.

Top, inside spread of the wraparound piece. Bottom left, front cover of annual report. At right, companion issue of Faith Works.

A friend suggested updating my RAM. He had a point, as I was still using the original cards that shipped with my MacBook Pro. And when I plunked down the $100 for an upgrade to double the RAM [RAM is so cheap now!] I saw a huge difference right away.

But what escaped my attention for the longest time was my font management software. I use Linotype Font Explorer and it had not been updated in, well, a very, very long time. I simply overlooked it. And that’s no small thing, as font management impacts every area of your workflow.

Now we’re zipping along again. Hopefully I can remember to remember the next time this happens …

Here are some of the new brochures and the refreshed Faith Works newsletter. Click the images for .pdfs.

New Council brochures and newsletter make good use of a colorful brand palette. My roles in both projects: write, edit, design, production.

Prior to this series of projects, I came from working extensively with Hazelden, where I worked, coincidentally, with their Tilka-designed identity, this time on a 60th annual report:

Other clients keeping me busy these days:

ThreeWire — patient recruitment materials: concepting, design and production, including building a Joomla! website

ATK — proposal editing and graphics creation

ICMA-RC — employee newsletters and other human resources materials

As with all the Hazelden projects I’ve done, I worked closely with writer Teri Ryan to develop this concept, back and forth which is always rewarding professionally and also makes the end result much improved for it.

The logo is ready for application in a variety of formats, and I provided Hazelden with a couple shown here: a one-sheet summary document and a PowerPoint template. You can download a .pdf of the summary document [although it will have lorem ipsum text in place, to preserve confidentiality].

In other news, Yearbook Yourself turned up on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon a little while back. Check out the video.

Update 10/06/09: Portfolio now done. It’s right there. Right up there.

And so now I turn my attention to Hazelden, where I am working with the fabulous duo, Dawn Carlson and Teri Ryan once again. This time an invitation for an event for writers in L.A., as well as Hazelden’s graduate school case statement. Both wonderful creative projects that I’m very excited to be getting started on!

I’m also working with ICMA-RC on their benefits enrollment materials again this year, which is fabulous because that means I’m teamed up with Jan Irwin and Vanessa Waller-Jones, who are both just a dream to work with. And there’s always a nice little bit of creativity involved as well, in the form of a logo design for the year’s theme. This year it’s “Wellness Works.”

Will post examples of everything once available …

Update 7/21/09: And the site is live!

But occasionally TCG will send me on an assignment that’s just pure, unabashed fun. Last time it was to a balloon factory to familiarize myself with the product so I could do some renderings. This time, it was to Colle+McVoy, a Minneapolis marketing agency that just won a Webby award for their development of the Yearbook Yourself website.

I had seen these yearbook photos around on Facebook and such and did wonder where people were getting them. Now I know! And I’m working with some very nice folks at C+M to create new templates for the 2009 version of the site. These are the templates based on old yearbook pics into which people will insert their photos to create the retro looks. It’s super fun, especially when you take friends’ and family’s pics and retro-ize them. I often end up chuckling to myself throughout the day as I’m working on this.

I don’t have a date for the 2009 site launch, but you can sign up here to be notified when it happens.

Update: I’ve finished my work on this project, and they are wrapping things up at Colle+McVoy the latter part of this week. The site launches the week of the 20th! Check it out! There are some great new images, and some nice additions this year that make the end result even more convincing and fun.

Hazelden’s vision, while not easy to achieve, is simple and beautiful: “All who seek recovery will find it, and the stigma of addiction will be overcome.”

In keeping with this, we paired simple but beautiful imagery with a simple but sophisticated layout. I’m very proud of this effort.