Kristin Cofer is a San Francisco-based photographer with a knack for fashion and portrait photography. In a past life, she went to school for graphic design and her innate sense for composition shines through in the photos she creates. We first began working together in 2010 when she hired me to brand her photography business. Like me, she has a fondness for black and white, graphic type and clean lines. When designing her logo, we specifically worked to keep it open-ended; the lines can extend to create visual interest over a number of surfaces but when needed, it can also be nicely contained within a box.

In early 2011, Kristin contacted me once again for a few different projects. She wanted to do a new campaign for her photography site (I love her fresh, simple tagline, Develop An Image), a type-driven biography and perhaps most exciting, to mirror the branding of her design business to that of her photography. Kristin has a love for Warhol and what immediately came to mind for both of us was the idea of a mini Factory: a variety of creative endeavors that complement each other hosted under one roof. For this reason, Kristin Cofer Design (KCD) and Kristin Cofer Photography (KCP) are like two sides of a coin and complement one another: Most often, one is black and white, the other is white and black. They will join one another most immediately on double-sided business cards.

When creating new branding, it was important for us to build off of what we’d previously done. This is the collateral that we’d designed for Kristin Cofer Photography the year before.

The first of the new projects we worked on were splash pages for her two sites. It was important to keep the treatment simple enough so that she could switch out graphics to showcase new work and promos as often as needed.

Before we arrived on the type treatment for Develop An Image, we tried out a number of other options that almost made the cut. In the end though, we decided that leveraging the vertical Avant Garde type of the KCP and KCD logos was the most logical solution.

Kristin is inspired by biographies of art and rock stars including Keith Richards and Andy Warhol and wanted her new biography to be bold — I imagined something that would be painted across the white wall of her mini-Factory to greet visitors when they entered (she will have one some day, I just know it!)

To share her new tagline, photography and bio with the world, we designed double-sided ‘Deluxe’ postcards — Modern Postcards produces these at a whopping 6 x 8.5 format (and yes, they’re still mailable!)

These are a few page overviews from Kristin’s branding & Identity guide. Whenever I complete a logo, I provide a mini guide that contains all related lockups, swatches and type. These can be much more in-depth depending on the complexity of the project.

I loved some of Kristin’s really graphic photography and even though it didn’t get used in her new promos, I could see it being used in other areas some day. This image is so chic and very Parisian! Thanks to Kristin Cofer for allowing me to share our recent projects…and a happy belated birthday!