Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Student Spotlight: Tic Tacs Redesign

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Here at Hexanine, we are passionate about helping raise up the next generation of designers and design thinkers. This is why, as a firm, we seek to pass along what we’ve learned by teaching, mentoring, and instructing.

We gain at least as much inspiration and encouragement from the work of our students as they receive from our instruction, so we’d like to pass it along by showcasing some of their impressive student projects. Periodically, we’ll highlight great work coming out of our classrooms on this blog.

Tic Tac logo redesign

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Ocean Dawn logo included in LogoLounge Master Library Volume 2

Monday, June 28th, 2010

LogoLoune work includes Ocean Dawn Logo by Hexanine

Our copy of LogoLounge: Master Library, Volume 2: 3000 Animal and Mythology Logos has arrived! Ever a great source of inspiration, research, and insight, this new volume includes our work for Ocean Dawn, an upscale set of oceanfront luxury suites. Thanks to Rockport, Bill Gardner, Catharine Fishel, and the whole LogoLounge team for our inclusion, and for putting out such a great resource.

A Celebration of Process

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

We’re covering a very familiar topic — the design process. We went back and forth answering each other’s questions, describing the process for our last project at Hexanine, a logo for BevReview. Think of it as the teaser before the big reveal of the final design. Brigid and I each took turns asking the other questions, and responding in turn. Read on to find out what our process was and what we learned along the way.

Can you explain the brief for this project?

Chris: BevReview is a beverage blog ran by Steve Tanner. His blog discusses everything from taste and nutrition facts, to the packaging of the drinks. All of the BevReview posts focus on non-alcoholic beverages. Brigid and I took on the task to create a logo that shows BevReview as a fun and credible resource in the beverage industry. The goal was to give BevReview a logo that will stay true to it’s brand.

Would you like to talk about what kind or research we did for the project?

Brigid: I researched the company, industry, and their competitors to find out who they are and their target audience. From our initial meeting with BevReview, I was handed the task of focusing on the concept of rating. So, I began by writing words that could be used to describe or symbolize rating, such as, checks, thumbs up and down, scale, arrows, ranking using bottles or caps, etc.

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7 reasons why the iPad turns sh** to gold

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

iPad turns sh** to gold

It’s been hyped as “magic”, “revolutionary” and the potential salvation of the publishing industry. A little thing called the iPad. Yes, it’s beautifully designed by Jonathan Ive. Yes, it’s simple to use. But why do people seem more willing to pay for news, magazines, and content when it’s delivered as an iPad app, when the same basic content has been on the boring, old Internet for years?

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Chicago Design Week with AIGA

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Last week we participated in the first-ever AIGA Chicago Design Week, five days of great events aimed squarely at the Chicago design scene. Crowd-juried design shows, panels, studio walks, art shows and our annual member meeting. It was an amazing whirlwind of events, inspiration, design and celebratory drinks in a great community of creative professionals.

Some of our work was included in the 2009-2010 Snapshot publication, seen below. Can’t wait for next year!

AIGA Snapshot

UPDATE: You can now see the Snapshot in all its glory as a PDF, courtesy of AIGA Chicago.

Spreading the message of branding to NPOs

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

EPIC branding lab
Last week Erin and Tim participated in a panel discussion at North Park University’s 2010 Axelson Center for Nonprofit Management Symposium, to discuss some of the issues nonprofit organizations face in branding themselves. The event was sponsored by EPIC, and Erin (founder of EPIC) moderated a panel of experts from some of Chicago’s best creative agencies and companies, including Gravity Tank, Museum of Contemporary Art, Threadless, Simple Truth, Critical Mass, Synthetic Infatuation, and others. Some of the comments overheard during the Q&A and one-on-one sessions:

“Creating a brand is about trust.” “Branding is who you are, and marketing is what you say to different audiences.”

And finally,

“An organization’s visual language organically comes out of the brand story.”

Say hi to Huizenga!

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Erin Huizenga, new Hexanine Principal

This last year has been a whirlwind for us at Hexanine, and the changes keep on coming! On today’s “very special episode” of Zeroside we’d like to give a huge welcome to our new partner, Erin Huizenga!

Erin joins us as Principal/Designer. Fresh from launching her own non-profit organization last year, Erin brings to Hexanine more than a decade of experience with both corporate and nonprofit clients—such as Motorola, OfficeMax, Grainger, Northwestern University, and Walgreens. She also founded, staffed and created curriculum for the design program at Chicago Portfolio School. In short, Erin brings a fantastic design pedigree and boundless enthusiasm into our midst.

She would love to discuss your next brand initiative, so feel free to drop her a line at erin {at} hexanine.com.

A logo for Opening Day

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

MLB logo

In honor of the first week of baseball, we wanted to give a little shout-out to the designer of one of the most iconic logos of the 20th century. Jerry Dior designed the Major League Baseball logo. Though there was previously some confusion about the logo’s authorship, after conducting the proper research, MLB officially announced its recognition of Dior as the designer this past September.

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Helping &s for Haiti

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Hexanine Ampersand featured in Font Aid IV: Coming Together

Last month we spread the word regarding Font Aid IV: Coming Together, a typeface consisting solely of ampersands. This week, SOTA officially released the font, and we’re proud to be able to say that we’re included.

More than 400 designers from 37 countries contributed to Coming Together, and we’re excited to be involved. We submitted two ampersands, both of which are included in the typeface, (one features the Haitian flag, another, just a plain flag).

Coming Together is an OpenType font and is being sold for $20 US. It’s available through Ascender Fonts, Veer, FontShop, and MyFonts. All proceeds from the sale of the typeface will go to Doctors Without Borders, to help with their relief efforts in Haiti.

Illini Life logo featured in LogoLounge Master Library Volume 1

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Just wanted to draw attention to the fact that our identity work for Illini Life is included in the newly-released Rockport book, LogoLounge Master Library Volume 1: 3,000 Initials & Crest Logos. As we’ve mentioned before, the LogoLounge book series continues to be excellently designed, well-curated, and a source of inspiration and research for designers everywhere. We are humbled to be in such great company.