Design Firm Friday - 2 - Sandstrom Partners vs. ID Branding

It's a showdown in the little town of Portland, Oregon. While San Francisco and New York get the most design press in the US, Portland's has been making a big splash for small fish. Wow, sorry for the rhymes, ha!

ID Branding
The first firm I want to highlight, ID Branding, has been around since 1979 yet I just recently found their award winning work plastered all over the internet and in design mags.







Sandstrom Partners
The other firm I want to showcase is the packaging powerhouse, Sandstrom Partners, they could be considered to be the king of Portland with amazing branding projects for Tazo, Converse Miller and more, but I haven't seen as much from them lately. Except for their cool monthly color scheme and this, St. Germain Packaging, wow, it's stunning! This may not actually be new but I am just now noticing it at least.























Of course you can't forget about Wieden and Kennedy, but because their website is so rad, I will just let you check out their work for yourself wk.com.

Ambigrams

In the last 3 years I have become fascinated by ambigrams, and they often takeover my sketch pad. An ambigram is a word that can be read forward and backward, like the Nine Inch Nails logo. I especially like the Blacksmith logo designed by John Langdon

and all of the Angels and Demons ambigrams, I believe also done by John Langdon. While searching for ambigrams I noticed that Dan Brown's book is being made into a movie and it's being directed by Ron Howard. Should be a good one.




Earth Air Fire Water by John Langdon


Illuminati by John Langdon

And here are a few that I have made in the last couple years.

Revolution


Believe

This post was inspired by one of David Airey's posts on ambigrams at Logo Design Love

Design Firm Friday - 1 - B:løk

B:løk
The first firm I want to highlight, Blok, hails from Mexico and was founded in 1998 by Vanessa Eckstein. I am absolutely blown away every time I look at their portfolio and I felt like I should share. Some of my favorite work of their's is the identity systems, the use of colors, patterns and typography is stunning. With over 180 awards from such respected companies as Communication Arts, Applied Arts Magazine, ID Magazine, Graphis, Type Directors Club of New York, Print Magazine and many more, it's hard to not to jock. This firm is definitely bookmark worthy and good for continuous design inspiration. Enjoy...


































Communication Arts has an excelant article on Blok that is viable online at http://malaletra.com/blokarticle/u01t01.html
HOW Design has a short interview with Vanessa here.