Watch the book trailer for the creative pop-up book ABC3D
Pop-up ABC’s
Friday, November 7th, 2008For what it’s worth
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 
I was just presented with the National Public Health Information Coalition’s Gold Award for Excellence in Public Health Communication for my work on the Hawaii State Department of Health Adult Mental Health Division’s newsletter. For what it’s worth, it really is a reflection of the people and organizations I cover in the newsletter. The staff and the consumers of mental health services are the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. I’m honored to present their stories in the humble form of a newsletter and I thank the NPHIC for their recognition.
2009 Conference Brochure Design: Draft II
Monday, September 15th, 2008 
This is next draft of the 2009 Conference Brochure I posted earlier. There was some concern on the first draft that the meaning of the single hand could be mistaken as “stop!” and not as it was intended. Note taken. I went through several alternative designs and settled with hands again, this time in a outreaching gesture as though to grasp each other. I also took the time to warp the words according to the curves of each hand, which turned out pretty well.
2009 Conference Brochure Design
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
I was dreading the design of this brochure since I first heard the topic: mental health forensics. It’s such a dry topic for one thing, and another, the obvious imagery had to be avoided at all costs: handcuffs, jail cell bars, jumpsuit orange, and so forth. The conference is about providing help to people with mental illnesses who would otherwise be imprisoned.
It took a while, but I finally came up with the symbol of the hand. It’s a bit generic, but only as it needs to be. Most people in law need to take an oath and those testifying in court need to swear in. A hand in the position of swearing an oath seemed like the perfect visual for the main conference theme of “Responsibility and Recovery.”
The hand on the cover may be viewed as a palm facing outward during a swearing-in process or as a palm downward on a book to swear by. The hand also serves as a reminder for those in positions of power that the human touch is essential in what they do.
I’m pleased with the design and look forward to designing the rest of the brochure.
UH Manual Cover
Monday, August 11th, 2008
This is one of the rare freelance projects I took on just because I like the people in the organization. This is the PhD program and policy manual for the University of Hawai‘i School of Social Work.
I went with bees as a visual because of their “social” nature, and all the social workers I know are incredibly busy and dedicated to the people they serve. The flowers, of course, represent those they serve. (Yes, it’s cornball. What do you want?)
The difficulty of this project was finding visuals to use. Ordinarily, I might have considered using the school’s building or some feature of the architecture, but that wasn’t an option. When meeting with the program director, I had a private tour of the most awful university building I’ve ever seen: Henke Hall. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but there were cats living in the ceiling. ‘Nuff said.
Anyways… bees. They turned out to be a good visual, worked as a symbol, and the social work committee loved it. That’s all that matters.
A Quick Cover
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 
All too often, a designer will have projects assigned to him or her on a whim of a manager. This is such a project. This was done in a couple of hours, and while it passes my standards for design, I still consider it uninspired.
As designers we can’t make everything a work of beauty when deadlines loom and when frankly, the audience couldn’t care less (this report is going to a small handful of federal administrators).
To maintain sanity, we as designers need to choose the lilies we gild.