French Paper. American Design.

 

We designers tend to geek out about stuff like illustrated posters and postcards—(especially when they are printed on cool paper!) So when the coolest paper company on the planet asked us to partner with them to create a new promotional calendar, it was like being handed an authentic Boba Fett costume and being asked to make a personal appearance at a Star Wars Convention.

We have long since been fans of the French Paper Company’s amazing products—made famous by their promotional materials designed by Charles S. Anderson (no relation to Anderson Design Group founder Joel Anderson.) 

French Paper encouraged us to dream up a deluxe promotional calendar that would feature Smart White and PopTone papers. So our team of artists went right to work, trying to out-do our previous Spirit of Nashville calendars by assembling a brand new collection of illustrated prints and uber-cool postcards that feature original travel art of our favorite U.S. cities and national parks.

McQuiddy Classic, a 100-year-old Nashville printing company partnered with us in a 3-way joint promotion to produce this 13-month calendar full of 11" x 14" ready-to-frame mini prints. Printed on Smart White paper, with a set of 16 postcards printed in silver metallic ink on PopTone paper, this became the perfect opportunity to unveil our new Art And Soul Of America poster collection.

McQuiddy Classic Printing has helped to put the Spirit of Nashville Collection on the map by producing fabulous promotional calendars each year since 2004. In a few weeks, McQuiddy reps will have 500 of these special edition 2010 calendars to give away. French Paper reps will distribute 2,500 calendars around North America, and Anderson Design Group will give away 250 calendars to clients and friends. For anyone else who is interested, we have also reserved 250 calendars to sell on our ArtAndSoulOfAmerica.com site.

We hope you can get your hands on one of the 3,500 limited edition calendars that French, McQuiddy Classic and Anderson Design Group will be giving away. And if you can’t snag a free promo calendar, you can always buy one at www.ArtAndSoulOfAmerica.com.

Running with the Right Crowd

Anderson Design Group has had the pleasure of working on dozens of posters ever since our Spirit of Nashville Collection became popular. Recently, we were asked to create a new poster and t-shirt design for an annual charity race called the Boulevard Bolt. The race takes place every Thanksgiving Day on scenic Belle Meade Boulevard in Nashville, TN. Since 1994, the Boulevard Bolt has grown from 2,500 participants to nearly 8,000 participants. Today, it ranks among the largest 5-mile races in the country, having raised over $1.4 million for the homeless community in Nashville since it began.

The Boulevard Bolt Committee representative emphasized that the event always happens Thanksgiving Day, so a fall theme would be in order. So ADG staff artist Andy Gregg produced a couple of concepts that were like Art Deco Olympic posters. The designs looked right at home in the Spirit of Nashville Collection. Unsatisfied (and a little bored with himself) Andy set out to create a design that would involve some kind of graphic pattern or rhythm based on autumn colors and symbols, using positive and negative space to create drama. Inspired by a 1960's-style Modern design style (made famous by TWA Airlines travel posters,) Andy created a bold, stylish option with hand-lettering that was very different from the Spirit of Nashville look. To his surprise, the Boulevard Bolt committee picked this more inventive and risky design.

In Andy’s own words: “I've always loved retro design, and having illustrated many of the Art & Soul of America prints, I had had plenty of chances to work in an Art Deco style. However, I really hadn't been able to break out of the first half of the 20th century on a poster design project. I saw this as an opportunity, figuring the Modern style would be conducive to the flat, graphic nature of this concept. What you see is the final product. The header typography I created is admittedly not really 60's Modern, but rather conflation of 60's and 70's script styles. When designing a piece that does not need to be from a specific design movement, why limit it?” 

The project took about 5 days from start to finish. Andy had a great time working on it, and the Boulevard Bolt committee was very pleased to have such a cool design for this year’s event.

Opening Doors with Great Design

The Grand Ole Opry suffered catastrophic damage during the flood in May. Almost 4 feet of water covered the wooden stage, destroying it along with the pews, curtains, and walls. The staff was able to salvage the historic six-foot circle that was cut from the original Ryman stage and placed into the Opry House in 1974. The famous backstage dressing rooms were all ruined and had to be completely gutted. 

As soon as the waters subsided, a massive renovation project began. Just 5 weeks before the grand reopening, we got a call from a Grand Ole Opry official who asked us if we would team up with Kathy Anderson, a well-known Nashville interior designer who was hired to completely transform the old back stage dressing room area. All 18 of the dressing rooms had themes celebrating the glory days of the Grand Ole Opry. They needed us to create unique door signs for each dressing room—signs that would hint at the distinct theme, decor scheme, color palette, and heritage that each dressing room represents. The Opry folks wanted a classic look for the famous rooms which Minnie Pearl, Little Jimmy, and Roy Acuff, even president Clinton used — a warm, timeless Music City feel — inspired by our very own Spirit of Nashville Collection!

So we (Joel headed up the design team of Edward, Ligia and Andy) set out to create 18 full color die cut logo signs. Each sign started out as a sketch. Once the sketch was approved, we created a vector illustration with a die cut template for each unique sign shape. Finally, we gave the vector illustrations a classic aged look in Photoshop before being sent off to Phase 3 Media, the sign vendor. The door signs were all installed just days before the grand opening celebration. A special open-to-the public backstage tour event was named “Spirit of Nashville Day” as a nod to the famous collection of prints that these door signs were patterned after. Of course, we were flattered.

 

We really enjoyed working with the excellent folks at the Grand Ole Opry and the interior designers at Anderson Design (not related to Anderson Design Group!) If you ever have a chance to take a back stage tour, be sure to check out the custom art that identifies each dressing room!

Here are 2 videos shot after the renovation was complete:  

http://www.opry.com/news/2010/10-02.html

http://www.wsmv.com/entertainment/25228734/detail.html

 

 

Design like a Fool!

Recently, a really cool company called Book Fool asked us to help them create 2 new t-shirt designs that would appeal to college students. (Book Fool sets up near college campuses and offers cash for used text books. Then they sell the books online at a discount, infuriating college bookstores, while helping students save lots of money!) Book Fool was looking for an underground way of promoting their brand on campus—something pretty hard to do, since companies are not allowed to advertise on school property. They also wanted to reward "Friends of the Fool" with some fun, irreverent swag. The solution: we decided to create some really cool shirts, so students could legally advertise all day long in shirts that they would be proud to wear.

Our hip young team of designers were in college recently enough, so they knew exactly what to do: 
1. Andy Gregg illustrated and designed a shirt based on old pulp fiction Sci-Fi movies and novels. (Even though the budget only allowed for about 10 hours of design time, Andy went the extra mile by pouring his soul into 65 hours of sketching, inking, and Photoshopping. He even pulled an all-nighter to finish it off, then slept in his car for an hour before popping back into the studio to work another day.)

2. Ligia Teodosiu designed a shirt in the persuasive style of Victorian newspaper advertising. (She didn’t have to work all night to finish her design, but she did spend many hours studying and illustrating turn-of-the-century facial hair fashion.)


 

















The results were totally what you might expect. Book Fool is getting rave reviews, and from now on, students everywhere will probably use their “used book money” to buy cool t-shirts instead of beer. We feel pretty good about our contribution to collegiate fashion and sobriety!

Check out Book Fool’s blog site...

Gettin’ Saucy

When local BBQ legends Andy and Katie Garner asked us to help them create a brand for their famous BBQ sauces, we said YES without even having to think about it. That’s because we LOVE their smoked ribs, pulled pork, brisket, turkey & chicken. But the secret to Hog Heaven’s success has always been in their sauces. You can get them in a little plastic tub with your meal, but until now, the sauces have not been available in a bottle.

We started by batting around names for the brand and the individual sauces. They had a Barnyard Brawl theme stuck in their crazy sauced up heads. We loved the idea of food-fighting animals, and over the course of the design project, the brand became BBQ Fight Club with sauce names like Kickin’ Chicken and Punching Pig. ADG staff designer/illustrator Andy Gregg rolled up his sleeves and started inventing awesome fight club characters for the label art (which will eventually become trading cards and posters to help promote the sauces!) The process was a blast, and the end-product definitely lives up to its name.

The process started (visually-speaking) in a low-rent Luchadore district, wandered around in a stylish zip code, and ended up in a hot & steamy barnyard brawl fight club. Note the progression of the sketches and colors:


Hog Heaven sauces can be bought at Hog Heaven or at the Spirit of Nashville store.

Steeling the Show

We have worked on a magazine called On Track for many years. This annual magazine was created by Venture Publications, and is purchased by Community Colleges who want to encourage middle school and high school kids to stay in school and go on to college after they graduate. Each issue needs to feature a celebrity that will get the kids’ attention and make them pick up the magazine. And every issue needs one show stopping centerfold that will end up on a kid’s wall, serving as inspiration to follow their dreams. This year, pro-bowl NFL player Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to share his inspiring story with On Track Magazine.

Edward Patton, our resident sports authority and Terrible Towel-waving design star was the right man for this job. He started with the text and some mediocre stock photos of Troy in action. The photos were pretty cluttered, and there was not much to arrest the eye.

It was going to take a lot of magic to make the article and the poster come to life... (but that’s never been a problem for Edward before!) After working some Photoshop genius into a solid layout, Edward created a truly stunning piece of editorial design work. Full of energy and crazy cool detail, this poster and 2-page spread “stole the show” as the coolest chunk of the magazine. The client was very pleased, and we are sure that thousands of kids will pick up the magazine and be drawn to this uplifting article. Hopefully, they will be inspired to stay in school—and maybe even become graphic designers!

Art for ReTune Nashville

Four months after the historic flood, many Nashville businesses and individuals are still struggling to rebuild their lives. Among the hardest hit were the local musicians who stored their gear and instruments in a facility called the Sound Check. The entire place flooded and millions of dollars worth of musical instruments were ruined overnight. Sheri ONeal, A local photographer began collecting damaged instruments and giving them to local artists who would turn the sad remains into brand new pieces of art for an upcoming charity auction. Thanks to her efforts, and then the enthusiastic involvement of many others, ReTune Nashville was born. The big event will be on October 23 at 7:00 pm at the SoundCheck. Funds raised will go to: Nashville Musicians Association Flood Relief Fund and MusiCares Nashville Flood Relief.


Two months ago, Anne Browne of the Arts Company handed Joel Anderson a beautiful (but useless) warped guitar that had been salvaged from the SoundCheck. He immediately started to think about how to turn it into a piece of art for the auction.


Eventually, he created a giant collage built on a salvaged door layering together his flood relief posters along with a bunch of picks, strings, bottle caps and drum sticks donated by other musicians he knew. Joel cut a hole in the door and lowered the guitar into the cavity and sealed everything up with an acrylic medium. Kevin Dransfield from Belle Meade Framers donated the frame to finish it off. The finished piece is called Play On. All together, it was a cool melding of graphic design and fine art. We hope the piece raises a bunch of money for this worthy cause!