There’s no denying that Kat of Rock N Roll Bride has some serious enthusiasm for her brand. What I admire about Kat is that she doesn’t just let things be — she keeps pushing ahead and thinking up new ideas. What started out as a small collaboration two years ago creating a new brand identity has blossomed into even bigger projects. Earlier this year, the Rock N Roll Bride media kit debuted. Then, over the summer, Kat proposed creating a magazine for an event she was attending. Not content with just handing out a business card or brochure, she wanted to offer something that encompassed her online brand that people could take home with them.

And that’s an interesting point in itself. With brands that are formed and presented digitally, when you turn off your computer, how do you stay in touch? Even with media increasingly going digital, there’s still something to be said for an object that you can hold in your hands. Call me old fashioned but that feeling and interaction just can’t be replaced. Just this weekend, I picked up a copy of TIME magazine with Steve Jobs on the cover because I wanted something I could keep. All you hear these days is that print is dead…it’s slowed down but it’s definitely not dead. It’s just changed. Half of the things that I design for print now never actually make it to print; they end up in a PDF. But this project was different. 1,000 copies would be printed.

Kat originally proposed a 14 page mini magazine but the more I thought about it, the format seemed too close in size to her media kit. And she didn’t need another media kit. I grew up reading fashion magazines and I wanted this to have a more editorial feel with full articles, a letter from the editor and a front and back cover.

When I did the original Rock N Roll Bride identity, I created a horizontal lockup of the logo that I don’t think was ever shown. Even though it was never used in the web header or media kit, I had designed it with the thought of it working well on a magazine or book cover.

So far, this first issue, numbering 40 pages and with three distinct sections (Real Weddings, Rockin’ Fashion and Rockin’ Lifestyle) has exceeded our expectations, with 500 copies handed out in one weekend alone. The rest of the copies will be available on Rock N Roll Bride. The magazine was just written up on Print Week and we’re now planning issue 2. I love seeing brands blossom from an idea and an identity to something much, much larger. Thanks to Kat for letting me give you a peak inside our most favorite collaboration yet. And thanks for reading!

Am I in need of business cards? Not particularly. I probably have close to ten different designs on hand that I’ve designed over the years. Though I have a lot of cards, I’ve never done a letterpress version, in part because they are very expensive to produce.

This year, I finally took the plunge. I’ve done a number of letterpress card designs for my clients and every time they’d sent me samples, I’d wish that I had my own. I knew that it was time to make the commitment and to finally make it happen. Since they’re so expensive to produce, my design strategy was to keep the information contained on the card very basic so that they’d never become outdated (there’s nothing worse than being stuck with hundreds of leftover cards when personal information changes!)

Blind embossing the red crosses added the tactile element that I was looking for. I’ve been drawn to the symbolism of the red cross since high school and I love its simplicity.

Since I was doing an all white card with just one color of ink, I knew I wanted one colorful touch and decided to do colored edges on my card (PMS 185 U). I’ve always admired colored edges from afar because to me, they’re that final detail that shows that someone really thought the design through on all surfaces.

The final decision with these cards was which printer to choose. I’ve followed the work of Studio On Fire for a long time and have seen their work firsthand from clients I’ve referred there and the overall reviews about their services are glowing. Yes, they’re very expensive but I knew that I wanted every last detail on my first letterpress adventure to be perfect and they’re known for producing exquisite work. Was it worth it? At this point in my career, yes. I’ve gone through the trial and error of designing a lot of sets of cards for myself in the three and a half years since I finished school and I wanted to step it up. It was time for me to commit to a more premium look for my brand.

I wouldn’t recommend letterpress cards as your first card. My advice is to design a few inexpensive sets first and experiment to see what works best for you. When you’re first starting out, your style is constantly changing so making a huge monetary commitment is not a great idea. For the first three years, I ordered all my cards through Overnight Prints because the quantities were small and I could change them constantly. But, once you’re comfortable with your branding and feel like you’re grown into an aesthetic, take the plunge. The results are totally worth it.

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!

About a year ago, I worked with Kat from the highly imaginative (and addictive) U.K.-based wedding site, Rock N Roll Bride to update her branding and web header. We were both really happy with the outcome — it was bold but still pulled together. A few months back, she contacted me and wanted a media kit, invoice and promotional badge. Here’s the outcome!

Kat’s business has grown substantially in the year since we first worked together and she had a lot of important content that she needed to share with current and potential clients. Luckily, Kat has a bigger-than-life, incredibly warm personality (and an amazing collection of professional grade photos) so this was easy. When she came to me, I knew that her content would be perfect for a more editorial-style look; essentially a mini magazine. And, I wanted to spread it out. I took the content that she’d initially planned to cover in about 6 pages and bumped it up to a total of 14. It needed to breathe.

* Please note: Sensitive stats, rates and contact information have been altered for this post.

Since we already had a logo, color scheme and Kat’s content was impeccably organized, this media kit pretty much only had one major round of revisions. Everything after that was really minor. I’ve never had a 14 page document come together this easily! Kat’s main purpose will be to email this media kit (as a web-ready PDF) but it’s completely built in inDesign so that she can quickly make updates and, yes, output it as a booklet if she chooses.

What I love about Kat is that she is the living, breathing embodiment of her brand. Pink-haired, tattooed and happily married, she has an electricity that connects with readers from all over the world because she remains relatable and true to her vision. When someone chooses to partner with Rock N Roll Bride, Kat sends over a digital badge for them to proudly display.

Finally, the back cover. Rock N Roll Bride: appropriately summed up in 14 kick-ass pages.

In case you missed it last year, these are the components of Kat’s identity: Logo, tagline typeface and swatches. When we first started working together, Rock N Roll Bride immediately made me think of Rolling Stone…but pink and girly. Can we hope that someday Kat has a magazine of her own?!

This is the Vendor Badge. We kept the logo and the Gotham but added in Knockout as well (the subject headers in the media kit also use this).

Finally, while looking good is important, you gotta get paid! We designed a custom invoice for Kat that’s formatted with editable fields in Acrobat so that she can simply tab through, add in her client’s information, save it out as a PDF and fire it off. Simple! It’s always an absolute pleasure to work with Kat — she’s got major style and knows what she wants. I love this latest branding collaboration and here’s to many, many more! Please pay Rock N Roll Bride a visit, you’ll love it!

Most of the time, I wouldn’t be caught dead in sandals but these See By Chloe cuties from Solestruck are a game changer. Metallic blue leather + wedges coated in the shiniest of white? Adjustability with the ease of hidden velcro? Need I say more?!

In my mind, these scream space age chic and would be perfect for a female Ziggy Stardust in the throes of summer. I almost always default to black shoes but clearly, there’s nothing that adds an exclamation point to an outfit like and unexpected pop of color on the feet.

And finally, some landing page variations, one of which was used in an adorable Chloë vs. Chloé newsletter last week:

Not only was I impressed with the styles of See By Chloe but also the craftsmanship which includes thick, all leather soles. What more can I say? Awesome, awesome, awesome. I can’t wait to see what they come up next — this is one brand that I’m really excited about.

eye4style is a fashion and lifestyle blog headed by Dina Fierro out of New York City. Dina is a social media marketer and works with world class fashion clients all the while making time to blog with a razor-sharp wit about everything from Burberry trenches to pole-dancing classes. When I read her posts, I always learn something new (and crack a smile). She contacted me last year about giving her a brand refresh and in the process, we worked through three projects that included a logo, business cards and a refreshed blog design.

This is an overview of the outcome featuring the primary, secondary logos, wordmark and swatches. Dina doesn’t mind a bright pop of color so we went all out with magenta. The wordmark is set in ITC Lubalin Graph which reminds me of old school eye charts (eye4style, get it?). And to make Dina’s blog easy to remember, I boiled down the full name to an abbreviated E4S for the symbol, which feels solid and stamp-like.

Even though the logo lockup above was meant to be secondary, as we moved along, variations became more prominent on both the blog and business cards. Simple and bold.

Dina has been blogging for years and I wanted to take her busy, illustrated header and tone everything down a few notches so that the focus would be on her awesome content. Star and The Legion took the design did all the web development seemingly overnight on Dina’s chosen platform, OnSugar.

For business cards, I came up with a ton of options and Dina smartly settled on the most simple of the bunch, with her new logo taking center stage. She wanted a square format so we ordered through Uprinting. Above is a photo she tweeted of the outcome.

These were a few of the standard format options that didn’t get chosen (but I still really liked). Magenta never disappoints! A huge thanks goes out to the wonderful Dina for allowing me to share. What are you waiting for? Pay her a visit!