An update well overdue. We gave Hawaiian Islands Tea Company a fresh and modern new look that matches their product.
The Taste of Aloha!
-Design, Typography, Illustration, Copywriting & Direction: David Zack Custer-Agency: HUB Collective
Less is more when it comes to great taste. Brewed with passion, Camellia Grove transforms honest, pure ingredients into a celebration of life. We bring you a sophisticated taste from simple ingredients that allows you to nourish your soul. Here’s to good taste!
The Balanced Joyseeker
Our target persona is career-focused but also wants to enjoy life. She is intentional about her health choices and is a savvy consumer aware of her impact. She owns a mix of used and new things, but she splurges on herself for well-being — for example on yoga retreats and wine club memberships. She is intentional about taking care of herself and carving time out to recharge. She is a casual yoga go-er and bike commuter, appreciates the outdoors but lives in an urban environment. In her free time, she volunteers with her community and spends time with friends and her significant other and enjoys eating good food with friends in Portland’s foodie scene. She strives for vitality through eating whole foods and healthy beverages, but also nourishes her soul with her favorite treats that add joyful pep to her day. She embraces imperfection—both in herself and in life. She doesn’t take life too seriously, but appreciates the things and experiences that help her to feel and be her best.
-Simple Joy!
-Design, Typography, Illustration, Copywriting & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
Mission is a Portland, Oregon based vegan chocolatier. They wanted to create a sustainable package and engaging brand identity,
For the package design, they wanted something that was flat packable, easy to assemble, and would help them stand out from their competition at retail locations such as New Seasons Market and Food Fight Co-Op. I created a glueless and unique design that fit their needs.
Patterns were developed to be used as tissue wraps or to be printed on the cushion liner of the box.
Alternate logos were created for expansion of the chocolate range. The chocolatier was developing flavor selections geared towards certain audiences. This alternate was inspired by cigar labels and would be used for a savory selection like smoked salted caramel or bourbon ganache.
A second set of patterns was created for use as background on the lid and more decorative use such as gift bag liners.
-Design & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
Downtown Attleboro—just 20 minutes north of Providence—has seen better days. The jewelery capital of the world, the city’s center hosted major gold and silver operations that anchored a bustling district of industry, shopping, and entertainment. As the jewelry facilities moved out of the center, so did much of the life and vibrancy. But recently, investment in infrastructure, arts, and new business is starting to change that. To reflect the bright future the downtown is headed for, HUB worked with the City to create a brand that would communicate all the qualities that make downtown great already and a central focus for the city’s future.
-Design, Typography, Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
Synq Consulting is a business to business networking consultancy whose job it is to connect domestic businesses with over-seas partners for manufacturing, sourcing, and development. The goal was to create a brand that was modern with subtle implications of communication and networking.
-Design & Typography: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
When one of the previous co-owner’s of Justa Pasta left to start her own cafe, she came to us to help name and create the restaurant’s identity. Both the name and look are inspired by old Dutch decorative hand painting.
-Design & Illustration: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
The 2011 Nike Baseball All-Star Retailer event took us to Phoenix, Arizona in the beautiful and arid southwest. Nike’s retreat would be hosted by the posh Montelucia International Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, which we looked to for our visual inspiration. My initial inspiration presentation to our client featured Spanish and Moroccan themes (intricate tile work, old engraved maps) as well as the Old West (aged leather, earthy color palette). The client fell in love with the concepts for the event’s brand, its logo, and its invitation suite.
THE LOGO
Inspiration for the logo came from engraved, Old World maps. The six-pointed star nods to the Moroccan tile work seen throughout the Montelucia Resort and also to sheriff’s badges of the Wild West. There are thirteen stars in the logo—one star for each of the stripes on the Arizona state flag.
THE TEASER
The client asked to send out a book about the Montelucia Resort to pique potential guests’ interest. In order to make the book feel like an exclusive piece, the hardbound book was housed in a custom designed, heat-stamped wooden box. Inside the book, an embossed leather bookmark was included, set to a specific page featuring a gorgeous photo spread of the resort’s gardens and pools. The book was wrapped in gold tissue paper and sealed with a custom wax seal.
SAVE THE DATE
It was important to us and to our client that we create something unique and useful for the event’s save-the-date. Pulling from the inspiration, we decided to use rich, embossed leather to create custom Moleskine journal covers. A local vendor fabricated the blank covers and a second vendor embossed them with our star pattern and logo. Inside the journal cover’s business card holder, we included a trifold, pullout save-the-date card. The journals were then placed within a muslin pouch, stamped with the logo.
THE INVITATION
The retailer event tends to be a men's club but our client wanted to make sure that the invitees would bring their wives. The invitation focused on the spa aspect of the resort so we custom embroidered luxury robes and packaged them in a beautifully wrapped box along with the printed invitation.
-Design / Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
Chasnoff Media is a full service marketing and production agency working to communicate the broadness of multimedia and social media, helping clients grow step-by-step, and creating an expressive way for clients to connect to their consumers.
Chasnoff came to us to refresh the existing logo to reflect the human side of what they do while communicating connectivity to the audience by being playful and engaging. Iterations of the play button and the speech bubble became common elements which were used to convey the essence of the brand.
When new management took over Cartola Cafe in an Eastside Portland building built in 1926, they called upon me to create a look and feel with an art deco touch.
-Design & Typography: David Zack Custer
The proprietors of Riffle had the concept of an open kitchen style restaurant and seafood market, focusing on local and sustainable seafood of the Pacific Northwest. I wanted to create an honest and approachable feel; a “neighborhood joint” with an emphasis on education while offering a fine plate experience without being stuffy.
A series of vintage fishing photos were chosen to be used as backgrounds on the website as well as decoration throughout the restaurant.
The logo was created from hand drawn lettering and given antique effect.
A custom typeface was also developed for use on business cards and the restaurant's website.
-Design, Typography & Direction: David Zack Custer
In 2012 the MLB All-Star event was held in Kansas City, Missouri. The client wanted to find a way to make the city a place that his buyers would be more inclined to travel to. The research revealed that Kansas City was not only a hotbed of barbecue but also played a major roll in the birth of jazz as well as being one of the few places that did not participate in prohibition.
THE TEASER
The invitation series began with a custom wrapped and labeled bottle of Kansas City barbecue sauce. The teaser information was rubber stamped and attached to the bottle with a length of baseball stitching thread.
SAVE THE DATE
Keeping with the theme of barbecue, a screen printed apron was wrapped like a cut of meat, then tied with the baseball stitching like butchers twine. Tucked under the stitching was a set of recipe cards for the attendees to sample their own Kansas City style barbecue which was labeled with the “Official Quality Seal.”
THE INVITATION
The printed invitation was accompanied by a custom wrapped and labeled shaker of rib rub from a Kansas city producer. The pieces were packed together inside a silk-screened cooler which was sealed with a custom patterned tape and shipped out to the attendees.
-Design & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
I developed this system of colored labels for a local homebrewer to apply to his finished 22oz product with a space to write in brew name and style, alcohol content, and the day in which it was bottled.
As an extra bonus, I produced posters and t-shirts for the client to use as gifts for his envious “beer cave” group.
The labels were letter pressed on kiss cut adhesive backed Strathmore white bond by the amazing Textura Press: Inge Bruggeman in Portland.
Four colors were selected to represent seasonal concoctions as well as an additional color that was reserved for the Brewer’s special
-Design & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
When a local entreprenuer decided to venture into the world of baby blankets, she contacted us to help fulfill her vision. She wanted something unique and non-traditional with a bit of a vintage feel. Our inspiration came from robot packaging and B-reel sci-fi movies of the 50s.
The first priority was to get the satin labels produced. These would be needed in order to finish production on the actual blankets.
A series of patterns was developed to use for the various parts of the blanket packaging including gift wrap, box liners and custom printed tape.
As the internet would be the primary means of retail, building a web site was the next priority. The goal was to showcase the product and make the logo extremely visible.
The Robot Bunnies product line will eventually expand into patterned blankets, apparel, and hopefully a mascot stuffie.
-Design, Typography, Illustration & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
A neighborhood homebrew supply shop, The Homebrew Exchange, asked me to design their logo and create a color palette for their shop and web site.
-Design & Typography: David Zack Custer
Propeller, an executive staffing agency, wanted to say thank you to their clients in a very unique way. They also wanted a tiered gift package so that the premium clients would get a little something extra. Brainstorming and inspiration from a co-founder's personal plane turned up a way to make the thank you card more than just a card and something memorable. We then carried the branding over to packaging up the premium gifts.
Design, Illustration, Typography, Copywriting: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
Exploration is an often used exercise that can help clients formalize what they are looking for. Sometimes a beautiful piece is born and sometimes you have to start over. Here is an example that yielded some interesting pieces from minimal direction.
Using "Digital" and "Technology" as a reference point here are a few explorations that treat existing marks and slogans in a way to help convey the idea of a new division that could potentially become art pieces around campus.
–Design, Typography: David Zack Custer
–Agency, Direction: Mitch Morse Design
Mollet, a family owned and operated business, has been a Portland establishment since 1968. In this era of the demise of the printed piece, Mollet made some investments in both equipment and their company. A new look was established to keep them competitive as well as help them stand out amongst the few remaining printshops.
-Design & Typography: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
K'elt'aeni is the Ahtna Indian word for the Wrangell-St. Elias mountain range in Alaska – which means "the ones who control the weather", which is why our client chose this name for their waterproof line of outdoor adventure accessories.
-Design & Typography: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
The 2013 MLB All-Star event took place in New York. New York proved challenging in a way to link the city with baseball in a new and artistic way. To do so, we travelled back to the late 1800’s, the time of the dandy and the socialite, the post-industrial gilded age of New York. thus the Gilded League was born, an exclusive imaginary team that invited the client’s guests to be a part of this exclusive team’s fan base.
The initial teaser was a simple and beautiful, gold foil card with gold painted edges.
The save-the-date came in the form of “tip” cards of proper etiquette for fans of the Gilded League. The cards were presented in an etched gold card case and wrapped in a black chamois.
The final invitation arrived in a custom built box that also housed a black baseball with a gold monogram of the Gilded League and etched gold cuff links.
-Design Ashley Pieren & Verelle Stuck
-Design, Typography, & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
Gelsons, a small grocery chain in California, was updating the bottle for their private label juice brand and found it to be a great opportunity to re-design the labels they had been using since first carrying the juice.
-Design, Illustration Jade Gonzales
-Design, Illustration, Typography, & Direction: David Zack Custer
-Agency: HUB Collective
It’s not often that a design project is also an art piece. When asked to communicate the renaming of the outlying buildings to key historical products of a Beaverton sporting goods company, the current construction zone was a great inspiration in developing a series of wheat paste posters to represent each new building name. The posters were spread all over campus and filled the lobby cases of each building. Rumor has it that the posters were so popular, employees started asking for copies of them.
"A COLLECTION OF NEIGHBORHOODS THAT SPAN DIVERSE GEOGRAPHIES, GLOBAL CATEGORIES AND FUNCTIONS — ALL IN SUPPORT OF THE SAME MISSION: TO BRING INSPIRATION AND INNOVATION TO EVERY ATHLETE* IN THE WORLD. AS OUR BRAND GROWS, OUR WORKPLACE CONTINUES TO EVOLVE AND EXPAND — AND THERE IS NO GREATER EVIDENCE OF THIS THAN THE WORK OCCURRING AT WHQ. OUR WORKPLACE PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN HELPING ACHIEVE OUR MISSION AND REFLECTS THE INGENUITY THAT CONTINUES TO ACCELERATE A GLOBAL REVOLUTION IN SPORT. WE CONTINUE TO INVEST IN CREATING SPACES WHERE INNOVATION, PRODUCTIVITY AND CONNECTION THRIVE. WE CELEBRATE THE RENAMING OF BUILDINGS IN OUR NORTHWEST, SOUTHWEST, NORTHEAST, SOUTHEAST AND WEST NEIGHBORHOODS AND INVITE YOU TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ICONIC NIKE INNOVATIONS THAT INSPIRED THE WHQ BUILDING NAMES."
*IF YOU HAVE A BODY, YOU ARE AN ATHLETE.
-Design: Mitch Morse, David Zack Custer
-Concept, Direction: Mitch Morse
-Agency: Mitch Morse Design
