Omaha Gives! logo

While you can donate to the Omaha Community Foundation every day of the year, May 22nd is a special day that required its own brand. As the ongoing design partner of OCF, Oxide was asked to build the visual design for the event. Our goal was to build a straight-forward yet exciting identity for the event. Nobody wants to donate money to something that looks complicated or boring. This is an event to get excited about — and to challenge yourself and others.

The multi-color hand-drawn logotype is meant to give the event a fun and personal feel. The rounded font on fields of orange was picked because it’s easy to read but has friendly characteristics. We felt that additional elements beyond this would have taken away from the simple and direct messaging.

Omaha Gives! website

To get in on the excitement, visit omahagives24.org on May 22nd!
Give early and give often!

He was pitching me his concept for Big Omaha. He had recently partnered with Dusty Davidson (who I knew from his web development shop Brightmix) to launch Silicon Prairie News, a media site centered around celebrating entrepreneurial efforts in the Midwest. Big Omaha was to be the in-person manifestation of their ideas — an event highlighting regional innovation and entrepreneurship.

Commemorative poster from Big Omaha 2009

While the reputation of Oxide Design Co. may also have played a part, I still have a sneaking suspicion that I got the initial invite for that beer because I own the domain bigomaha.com. Whatever the reason, this was clearly the start of something great. He told me their hopes and dreams for the conference and what it could become. My enthusiasm must have been apparent, because it wasn’t long before we were talking about how Oxide could help to brand Big Omaha.

Commemorative poster from Big Omaha 2010

The conference sounded like everything we like to support — innovative thinking, the creative spirit, and our hometown. Saying yes was the only option. So I agreed we’d brand the conference from top to bottom, pro bono (back then, no one even knew if this idea would make it through the first year). Jeff promised to trust our professional design expertise and give us complete creative latitude, knowing we’d put the conference on the cutting edge but always make decisions in the best interest of the event.

Commemorative poster from Big Omaha 2011

Five years later, Jeff and Dusty have held true to their promise. When we bring them the creative concept for each new year of Big Omaha, they enthusiastically say “yes!” and let us do what we do best. Together with the rest of the SPN team, they continue to be some of our very best clients. And it’s safe to say that some of Oxide’s best work over the last five years has been our annual branding of Big Omaha. (See the work and read about the design thinking from each year here: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.)

Commemorative poster from Big Omaha 2012

More than that, Jeff, Dusty, and SPN have made good on their grand plan to deliver the region’s (and arguably the nation’s) premier conference on innovation and entrepreneurship, year after year. While Oxide’s visual branding from identity to floor decals is valuable in creating the overall experience, it can’t compare to the work the whole SPN team does in putting together the best combination in the world of tech conference, entrepreneurial meet-up, and summer camp.

Commemorative poster from Big Omaha 2013

All of us at Oxide are honored to have been a part of Big Omaha for all five years of the event. We’re proud to have contributed to its success, and even more excited to have built great relationships with a collection of fabulous people. Thanks, Giant Cow!

Taking our cues from the runway, we restyled the cow into a fashion maven. Instead of leopard, python, or zebra, we have the best the heart of the Silicon Prairie has to offer… Cowhide.

The cow has always been a metaphor for life’s challenges, and this year it’s also about success. About getting your collection — your product, your company, yourself, whatever it is — out there and making it the best you can. This year, the cow represents making it BIG, not just being big.

If you haven’t already, get your tickets and join us. It’s going to be fabulous.

The transparent layers would have made using a simple parallax background really easy to implement, and now, none of that was going to work. So I had a brand-new problem to solve.

I certainly wasn’t going to go back and tell Nathan to start over because I couldn’t figure out how to get everything to look right and work properly. I had to rethink how I was handling the background effect. If I couldn’t get an actual multiply effect overlay, I figured I could certainly fake it, so I set out to do just that.

The intended appearance of the overlay.

The overlay effect when attempted with a simple transparent layer.

In Photoshop, I took the cow-skin background image I had already output and made an exact copy of it with the red overlay multiply effect on top of it. Since the basis of most parallax scrolling background effects is to first set the background scroll property to “fixed”, no matter where the element falls on screen, it lines up just right! All I needed to do was set the CSS class of the wrapper element to indicate whether I wanted each particular section to appear in full color, or as the red variant.

Now, to create the parallax, just a little javascript to get all of the elements and change all of their background positions in sync with one another while the user scrolls.

jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
	$cowskin = $('.rubylith,.saranwrap');
	$(window).scroll(function() {
		$cowskin.each(function ( i, v ) {
			scrolltop = $(window).scrollTop();
			scrollchange = Math.round( scrolltop * -0.5 );
			$( v ).css({'background-position': 'center ' + scrollchange + 'px'});
		});
	});
});

Simple; now for every pixel the user scrolls, the background appears to move only half of a pixel, giving the desired effect. Check it out in action at bigomaha.com

Stark Wedding
logo on a jersey

Ronnie’s favorite color is purple, and he proudly wears a purple hockey helment and pads. Needless to say, he wanted to include purple in the logo. Ronnie and Jane’s only other input was that I use the Grim Reaper as the primary image. They gave me various illustrations that they liked and left it up to me to make it work. Even though we all knew Ronnie loved the reaper, at the time it seemed like a rather odd thing to include in a wedding logo, no matter how non-traditional this wedding was going to be. Death is typically the last thing on your mind when you’re thinking about marriage. I was convinced it wasn’t going to make sense, until I realized the significance of the phrase “till death do us part” and how it was reiterated by the image of the reaper. I knew I had to work the phrase into the logo. I also created a secondary logo (crossed hockey sticks creating a heart) which is utilized in the primary logo.

Stark secondary wedding logo jersey shoulder patch

Obviously not those to follow tradition with a tuxedo and white dress, Ronnie and Jane had a set of orange and purple hockey jerseys made for their wedding party. After their short on-ice ceremony, they handed out extra jerseys to a group of friends from the league which they split into two teams, captained by Ronnie and Jane. A friendly game of hockey was exactly how they wanted to celebrate their special day. Hockey pucks — with the primary logo on one side, and the secondary logo on the other — served as wedding favors to those who attended the ceremony. Since the wedding, Ronnie and Jane have made sure that their custom jerseys didn’t go to waste, by forming a travel team appropriately named the Omaha Reapers.

Stark wedding puck
favors and logo

I am pleased to announce that several pieces of Oxide Design Co.’s work are featured in the latest edition of Graphic Design Solutions, a comprehensive textbook for design students nationwide. It’s an honor to be included alongside the likes of Herb Lubalin, Pentagram, and Paul Rand in this in-depth reference.

Oxide’s posters for Big Omaha 2009 featured in Graphic Design Solutions

Written by Robin Landa (Distinguished Professor in the Robert Busch School of Design at Kean University) Graphic Design Solutions is described as “the most comprehensive how-to reference on graphic design and typography. Covering print and interactive media, the book examines conceiving, visualizing and composing solutions to design problems, such as branding, logos, web design, posters, book covers, advertising, and more.”

Oxide’s design of the Voter Registration Form for the State of New York, featured in Graphic Design Solutions

I’m particularly excited about the inclusion of our design of the New York State Voter Registration Form, along with our statement about the sub-category of information design: “There’s nothing aesthetic or gimmicky about form design — it’s exclusively centered around creating the easiest experience for the user. For the design of this form, we threw out the previous layout and started over with a clean slate. Our process involved determining how a user goes about completing the form, and then facilitating that activity. The primary objective is to maximize the number of users that fill out the form completely and accurately, without confusion or trepidation.”

Oxide’s Metro Transit logo featured in Graphic Design Solutions

It’s a real joy knowing that the next generation of design students will have a few samples of Oxide’s work sprinkled in throughout their journey.

Which leads me to my main takeaway: even though you’re done with your “education”, you should never stop learning. Our field changes so quickly — new technologies are happening every day — that to stay relevant you need to know not only current design aesthetics, but how to implement them.

For example, when I started my design education less than five years ago, the iPhone was just barely on the scene, the iPad wasn’t released yet, and responsive web design had yet to become a “thing.” School curriculums simply can’t keep up with technological advances in both consumer goods and web design best practices. Which means that you have a lot of catching up to do!

The good part for you students out there reading this is that you still have
time to refine your skill set. Don’t just rely on your professors to guide you in the right directions. When it comes down to it, you have to take responsibility for your own education. If your program isn’t pushing you to learn digital and web design, then you need to push yourself to learn it. The good news is that most of the basics translate pretty well. (Special hint — A really solid understanding of hierarchy and typography will always get you places.)

Remember that even after you’re out in the real world, there is always room for improvement and more to learn. Because who knows what challenges designers will have to overcome in the next five years?

Lately, I’ve been brushing up on the practical use of inline SVG (scalable vector graphics) on the web, since every current version of every modern web browser now supports the use of them. With some safety-net fallback images for older browsers (mostly IE), a website can achieve total resolution independence — meaning nothing will degrade visually based on your level of zoom or the pixel density of your screen.

Johnson
Deconstruction
website

Another great advantage of SVG is the file size, which we all know is drastically lower when it comes to raster vs. vector images. This is compounded by the fact that true inline SVG is just more markup code on the HTML page, which means no extra HTTP requests to load images. This also means (in this case) that we don’t have to detect a retina display, since we’re always getting an ideal look from the vector data.

Johnson
Deconstruction
website on a
mobile device

The Johnson Deconstruction site is built completely with inline SVG — no raster-based images whatsoever. The site is also one of the most dramatic examples of the use of CSS meta-query breakpoints that we’ve created on a publicly released site. All of this makes the site extremely efficient and responsive, while ensuring that everyone has a great-looking experience.

On larger, more complex sites, there will always be a need for images which SVG simply cannot replace. Be that as it may, mixing in SVG for line art elements such as logos and other visuals can be a huge step forward for presenting a clean look to any device at minimal cost, both in implementation time and bandwidth usage.

Zipline Brewing Co. came to us last year looking for a variety of design work, including packaging (which will be unveiled later this year). All they had was a logo — which in their minds was finished — and a website. Pleased with the existing logo’s concept, we simply asked if we could take a look at a refinement. The guys at Zipline were up for it, so we started looking at where we could make some tweaks.

We began by thinking ahead to the packaging. Zipline desired an identity that skewed towards minimalism. Since zipline cables give the brewery its namesake, vintage industrial package design served as the perfect inspiration. Vintage American beer cans and bottles often implemented a similar aesthetic.

Zipline beer inspiration

We wanted to build custom letterforms, and this era in package design was a great reference for how fonts can can be built with a clean, simple aesthetic, but still have a hand-crafted feel. Building custom letterforms for logos is a somewhat common practice at Oxide. It allows us to get the exact look and feel that’s right for the specific project.

The cable that replaced the I’s in the original logo was not uniform enough to look industrial. We wanted it to look as machined as possible, so we looked at actual steel cable samples to create various options that had the right look.

Implementation on various pieces like coasters, glassware, and packaging, has allowed us to play with the logo. When possible, the logo runs off 2 sides of the piece to create the illusion of a continuously-running zipline.

Zipline Brewing Co. coasters

What we’re looking for

The region’s next great designer. If you eat, sleep, and breathe design, then this is the place for you. We’re looking for someone who does more than meet the basic requirements of a school assignment; someone who has an equally strong passion for high-level design thinking and finely-honed craft; someone who cares deeply about a properly kerned pair of letters.

Who we are

Oxide Design Co. is a communications and information design firm creating award-winning work for a national client base. See a full range of our work at oxidedesign.com, and read the latest happenings around the office in our News.

What it is

A 10-hours-a-week paid internship for the months of June, July, and August (start and end dates are negotiable).

Why it’ll be awesome

Work on a small team of some of Omaha’s most passionate creatives bringing great solutions to life in all media. Cool midtown office, free soda (pick your poison), two (or more) fun office dogs, and plenty of space to pile your nerdy design artifacts. You’ll also get to work with the whole team from the start of projects, providing input and collaboration along the way, instead of being shoved in a dark broom closet like some trained production monkey.

Don’t believe us? Just read what former interns have to say about their experience at Oxide: Josh Schwieger, Craig Hughes, Chris Kelly, Adam Casey, Jeffrey Dennis, and Kelsey Janda (in an epic, three-part series).

How you apply

Please email your resume and samples of your design work to internship@oxidedesign.com by Wednesday 27 March 2013. A selection for the position will be made by Monday 01 April 2013.

Questions? Email internship@oxidedesign.com.