Michael Lashford | Graphic Design & Art Direction

Ad Age Global Issue Cover

Michael — Wed, 09 May 2012 22:53:27 +0000

I just completed this cover design for Advertising Age’s annual Global Issue design contest. The challenge was to create a cover that creatively represents the marketing / media / advertising worlds—so it was a pretty wide open brief.

I tried to think about this project like designing a logo or writing a core message—what is the most basic idea I could associate to advertising if I tried to explain it? The word that surfaced was: perception. Advertising is a lot of things, but really, it’s us helping create the way people interpret a brand. Since this idea—at it’s core—is simple, I wanted to use rather simple and well-known imagery to explain it in a smart way. This being a global issue, I also wanted to make sure that imagery would be recognizable in any country, and feel the scientific illustrations I used are understood worldwide. While I don’t think there is one right way to advertise, I do think there’s a kind of artistic science to it. And that’s what I wanted to show and feel I successfully did.

The winners and finalists are announced at the end of this month. Grand prize is a trip to Cannes Lions this June—fingers crossed!

Garamond Type Poster

Michael — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:50:11 +0000

At Loomis Group, all our conference rooms were named after fonts. I initiated a project where designers company-wide each pick a room and design a poster for it, somehow illustrating the font. These were then to be printed and hung. I partnered with Kelly Rodgers to create this poster.

Garamond is a really old, timeless, widely used font, so we ran with the idea of it being O.G. Subtlely, I used an ‘o’ to form the bowl of the ‘g’.

Created at Loomis Group, SF.

Protected: Kelly-Moore Brand Campaign

Michael — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:28:18 +0000

Protected: Rudolph and Sletten Print Ads

Michael — Tue, 08 May 2012 19:11:06 +0000

Release the Kraken!

Michael — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 23:55:26 +0000

Holy mackerel, do I LOVE these spots for ‪The Kraken Rum‬. The art direction, writing and web presence are just brilliant. And these all came out of the beautiful packaging and other print / tangible items. Brooklyn-based ‪Dead as we Know It‬ ties everything together so well it takes this whole campaign to another level. Watch some of the spots below and check out other elements from the campaign to see what I mean. I definitely look forward to watching this campaign evolve.

Love the double finger loops in the bottle packaging.

The website is big, bold and beautiful.

There are so many more great spots, all equally as beautiful.

The blog (journal) portion of the site contains irrefutable proof of the Kraken's existence.

Kraken-related bounty is available at the store.

The mobile app has even more ways to interact with the beast.

Press kit packaging.

Press kit contents.

Even more to get your slimy little tentacles on.

Shiny Street Art

Michael — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:07:30 +0000

Over the past several months, my good friend Paige Smith of A Common Name has been experimenting with street art installations inspired by naturally formed geode crystals all over LA. She painstakingly takes molds of cracks, holes and any other interesting recesses in a wall or surface and creates tiny paper shapes that all work together to form these awesome little gems. After a coat of metallic paint, they’re ready to be installed. It’s such a rad series and I’ve really enjoyed watching her project progress as she posts images of new installations.

Check out more images from the series on her site, here.

Vintagespiration

Michael — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 18:55:42 +0000

Check out these sets of vintage vinyl record artwork put together by Jive Time Records in Seattle. If you’re looking for some graphic inspiration you won’t likely find in your library, look no further.

Stereo Stack is a sweet collection of those horizontal bars printed on record jackets at (usually) the top to indicate the album was in stereo. The range of typography and design elements is so fun to look at, and nice to see how much time and attention was put into advertising such a commonplace feature by today’s standards. Click the shuffle link to remix the order and look at how the strips fit together as a whole.

Project Thirty Three is a great big set of vintage vector-heavy record jacket artwork—right up my alley as far as style goes—from Jive Time’s private collection. It’s great to see how simple and clean is a timeless treatment.

Claire Day Interiors Website

Michael — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:59:36 +0000

Claire Day Interiors is a residential interior design company in the Bay Area that focuses on creating spaces surrounded in beauty, comfort and calm. They approached me to create an identity and website that captures that peace and elegance, while making their work visually take the lead.

This simple and clean system helps display imagery in a large manner but is surrounded by white space and light design elements to give the site its subtle structure.

Here is the new logo design, which alludes to the perfect tension in a space as well as the company name.

And here is the website design. See it online here.

Protected: Kelly-Moore Mobile App

Michael — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:31:55 +0000

Protected: FuzeBox Website

Michael — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:53:21 +0000