Big thanks to Clark over at Mustache Power for shooting video of the LaunchUp 7 talks and getting me the file of my presentation. I synced it up with my slides using Zentation which has a pretty slick interface for side-by-side video and Powerpoint. Enjoy:
Last night I spoke about branding at LaunchUp #7. Jeremy Hanks and crew put on an awesome event as always. The three companies that spoke, FanFare, Bazari, and Inzolo, were very cool. I particularly loved the talk given by Brian Henderson of FanFare. I’m an avid music and live music fan and FanFare, which is basically taking a Groupon approach to concert promotion, sounded like a game changer. If they can pull off their concept I think they are poised to take an untapped market by storm. Dave Brascom of SEO.com also gave an interesting talk about how his successful search engine optimization company got started and the effect that purchasing the domain name “seo.com” had on their success.
I’m hoping to be able to post the video recording of my talk soon but for now you can download the slides here:
Being a designer takes thick skin. You can’t grow so close to your work that you get offended or upset when a design or idea is turned down. I’ve had numerous experiences throughout my career where I thought I had come up with the perfect design, only to be told by the client that for one reason or another the design needed to be changed. I usually find that what I come up with in the end, once I really understand what the client is looking for, is much better than my initial concept.
When we initially started talking about the logo, the client mentioned a concept that I really liked. She thought it would be interesting to see if we could incorporate the mountain peak itself and the path taken by the rescuers, into the logo design. I immediately started sketching up ideas and a day or two later, I had the concept flushed out. Everyone (including me) loved the design.
However, as the client started thinking about the tone of the film it was decided that something more simple would fit better. I had to agree. While I love the original logo I came up with, it looks more like a clothing brand or ski shop logo, and doesn’t really fit with a documentary film. Instead, we’re going to go with a simple typeface logo and let the pictures and trailer tell the story. I back that decision up 100% and am glad we made it. Even though I like the original logo I did, the client knows the story she is trying to tell and the logo needs to embody that.
Since this logo will never see the light of day, I thought I’d post it here as a reminder that situations like these can teach us to be better designers. Sometimes it’s frustrating to have to start over, but if we internalize everything that we learn, we’ll end up better than when we started and more prepared for the next adventure.
I’m excited to see what we come up with for the logo and website design and I’ll of course be posting that here as soon as it’s online
Summary: Discovery Expeditions & Adventures is a travel company that specializes in adventure trips to Israel, Petra, Africa and Peru. They also do custom tours to just about anywhere you want to go. They needed a logo and web design that matched the adventurous feeling of their trips.
The client had scanned an old ink drawing of a camel that he wanted to incorporate into the logo. I used Adobe Illustrator to create an old-style travel sticker for the logo. I then used Adobe Photoshop to design the site. The site is programmed in ColdFusion using standards based html and css. I used Adobe Flash and SlideShowPro to create the photo gallery on the home page and the jQuery Lightbox plugin to create the individual photo galleries on each trip’s page.
I also started a social media campaign for the client including a tumblr blog and Twitter and Facebook accounts. I carried that brand across to these sites as well and gave the client a tutorial on how to best use them to increase business.
It was a very fun project to work on and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
Summary:Telestory Pictures was contracted by Long Island Bride and Groom to develop and build their website and media materials. TeleStory Pictures hired me as a freelance web designer for the project.
This was a very challenging project that involved redesigning an existing wedding website with hundreds of pages, multiple admin portals and account pages and tons of content. The site was built in ASP and the content pulls from a SQL database. Our job was to take the existing code infrastructure and give it a new look and feel. This not only included the basic site template, but also coming up with more efficient/usable ways to display the content including text, videos, and client images.
The old site design (especially the home page) suffered from content overload and was very busy. One of our goals was to clean up and simplify the design without losing any of the crucial elements. What made this tricky was that we needed to design a site that looked new but operated on the existing backend admin tool and code that the client uses. The before and after picture above is an example of how we accomplished this.
Summary: Halley Consulting Group is a physician practice management and consulting firm specializing in the strategic development and performance turnaround of both hospital-owned practice networks and independent medical offices. Multiple acquisitions and management shifts had left their brand a little outdated and unclear.
I worked with Harding and Associates, a local consulting firm owned by my uncle, to help Halley reinvent their look. This included a redesigned website, brochure, folder, letterhead, envelopes, business cards and more.
I used Photoshop to create the design concepts and ColdFusion and XHTML/CSS to do the web layout. I used Sava, a ColdFusion CMS, to allow the client to update all their site content quickly and easily. The home page also has an interactive Flash feature. All the data for the Flash is pulled from XML so they can be easily updated. I used Adobe Illustrator and InDesign to create the various print pieces. I also created a Microsoft Publisher version of the brochure that allows Halley Consulting to update the PDF version quickly and easily.
Summary: I used Photoshop and Illustrator to create this logo for a firm called integrated Project Development. iPD has a suite of applications that helps contractors manage all aspects of their projects.
Summary: This site and logo were designed for a non-profit organization called Caregiver Support that helps people who care for older family members or friends.
I used Photoshop to create the design concept and XHTML/CSS to do the layout. This site has a Flash tabbed app on the home page that cycles through the tabs or lets you select a tab. All the data for this Flash is pulled from XML so the client can update easily. It also pulls in and parses an rss feed. The backend coding was done by Chris Tarabochia
Summary: This site was built for one of Apex Management’s real estate projects. The purpose of the site is to attract investors who might be interested in developing a building in down town Salt Lake.
I used Photoshop to create the design concept and XHTML/CSS to do the layout. ColdFusion was used for the templates. This site also has a Flash home page movie and photo gallery and a custom Google Map.
Summary:TornadoStream is a side project I’ve been working on with Dan Smith for a few years. Our products are a blog music player and our new blog video chat room app. The music player has become very popular and we expect the ivdeo chat room to do the same.
I used XHTML/CSS for layout, ColdFusion for the back end and a MYSQL database. I used RSS feeds to do some major Search Engine Optimization work. Dan Smith built both apps using Flash and XML. We use Flash Media Server to stream our music and video.
Hi, I'm Jesse Harding. I'm a designer from Salt Lake City, UT. I love Photoshop and everything about designing for web, print and anywhere else you can put color. I'm one of the organizers
of a cool event called Ignite Salt Lake. I like to speak at local and national events. I'm a husband, father and have a huge list of hobbies including
music, triathlons and playing with Legos.
Last night I spoke about branding at 
Being a designer takes thick skin. You can’t grow so close to your work that you get offended or upset when a design or idea is turned down. I’ve had numerous experiences throughout my career where I thought I had come up with the perfect design, only to be told by the client that for one reason or another the design needed to be changed. I usually find that what I come up with in the end, once I really understand what the client is looking for, is much better than my initial concept.
Hi, I'm Jesse Harding. I'm a designer from