After relocating from San Francisco to Los Angeles our area of design focus shifted to motion graphics and interactivity. This early version of our site shows the experimentalism and movement we emphasized during that period. Though unconventional and intentionally anti-corporate, this fun and hyper-minimal site suited our focus and goals at the time. (Flash Player 5+, Database backend) View Offline

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Featured Projects

• Books
  • Do the Right Thing, AMMO Books
    Do the Right Thing, AMMO Books / Film Book

    Spike Lee and Jason Matloff of the Los Angeles Times present an insider’s view into the making-of this modern film classic. It includes an in-depth interview with dozens of the film’s production and on-screen talent and presents candid production stills by David Lee. The entire film is retold through high-resolution frame grabs and features the complete original script handwritten by the director. (Hardcover, 12 × 8.5", 360 pages)

    

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  • Locals Only, AMMO Books
    Locals Only, AMMO Books / Photography Monograph

    An oversize format emphasizes intimate close-ups and sweeping action shots in this collection by Hugh Holland. This slice of mid-seventies Americana is filled with counterculture teenage skateboarders practicing their craft in the pools, beaches, streets and playgrounds of Southern California. It includes 120 large format images and a Q&A with the artist. (Hardcover, 11.5 × 15.5", 84 pages, with French and Spanish translations)

    

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  • The Contact Sheet, AMMO Books
    The Contact Sheet, AMMO Books / Photography Anthology

    A collection of iconic photographs from celebrated photographers is shown alongside outtakes and rejected frames from each session. These contact sheets along with backstory from each artist shows the artistic process behind creating each these 40 famous works. (Hardcover with acetate wrap, 8 × 10", 192 pages, with French, German and Spanish translations)

    

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  • America, AMMO Books
    America, AMMO Books / Photography Monograph

    Philadelphia-based, self-taught photographer Zoe Strauss captures the realities of average Americans. Though the situations are often bleak, her style and artistic voice tell a brighter more optimistic story. Zoe maintains friendships with the people she has met and in this compilation shares both poignant experiences and informal email exchanges with her subjects. (Hardcover, 11 × 8", 192 pages)

    

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  • Exit East, Tucker Scarton
    Exit East, Tucker Scarton / Artist Prints

    Photographers Eric Tucker and Rae Scarton were drawn to the desolation of remote suburban Los Angeles— empty retail spaces, tract homes, big box stores, endless parking lots and struggling reservoirs. This limited edition boxed set of 16 archival prints includes letterpress pages reprinted from their book of the same title. (Cloth wrapped clamshell box, 14 × 12", 22 unbound pages)

    

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  • Jazzlife, Taschen
    Jazzlife, Taschen / Photography Monograph

    Musicologist Joachim Berendt and photographer William Claxton hooked up in 1960 to tour the great jazz cities of America. This oversize edition with CD captures the audio, images and personal tales of the artists who devoted their lives to this great American art form. We worked alongside Bill and his wife Peggy Moffit to create what was a truly fitting legacy piece for his photographic life. (First edition, Hardcover plus CD, 16.5 × 11.8", 720 pages, with French and German translations)

    

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  • The Polaroid Book, Taschen
    The Polaroid Book, Taschen / Photography Anthology

    Polaroid encouraged artists to experiment with their new products and formats. Over the years the corporation amassed an extensive archive of art in a wide range of styles. These works are presented here with a nod to the company’s graphic design past and foil packaged like their professional pack-film. (First Edition, Hardcover with PVC wrap, 7.2 × 8.8", 352 pages, with French and German translations)

    

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  • Steve McQueen, Taschen
    Steve McQueen, Taschen / Photography Monograph

    William Claxton’s visual recount of his days with the actor as both friend and subject. Some of these candid shots on-set, at home and during off-hours show McQueen as the rough-and-tumble cool guy but there are many more moments showing a mischievous silliness and some of intense earnestness. (Softcover, 8 × 9.9", 192 pages, with French and German translations)

    

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• Web
  • Rec Center Studio
    Rec Center Studio / Website and Branding

    The look for this photo studio and event space is a combination of schoolhouse institutional and corporate professional, blending it into the newly hipsterized Echo Park neighborhood. The tone is polished yet fun which supports their client list and casual business style. (Flash Player 7+, Database backend, Logo design) View Website

    

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  • Stephen Stickler
    Stephen Stickler / Website

    Hollywood music and celebrity photography is presented in a minimalist environment. The malleable distorting grid adjusts to the changing aspect ratio of each photograph and rearranges itself between the sections of the site. (Flash Player 7+, Database backend) View Website

    

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  • Laura Crosta
    Laura Crosta / Website

    With pre-designed layout, logo and functionality requirements we helped this commercial photographer create a site that offers large photos with quick load times. The construction revolves around a custom-interfaced database that allows her to upload imagery and change portfolios frequently in response to a specific request from her rep or agency. (Flash Player 8+, Database backend) View Offline

    

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  • Aaron Wade
    Aaron Wade / Website

    Minimal animation and spare environment support the brightly-colored, textural work of this figurative painter. Designed to work with earlier, lower resolution monitors this database-driven Flash site uses modestly-sized photos to optimize load times while not diminishing the impact of the work. (Flash Player 5+, Database backend) View Website

    

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  • Juster Pope Frazier
    Juster Pope Frazier / Website

    To complete their corporate identity and house their library of projects we gave this architectural firm a simple professional website that stayed true to an already established brand. The compact viewable area addresses monitor resolution and broadband limitations that were a concern for this rural New England firm. (Flash Player 5+, Database backend) View Offline

    

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  • Outlet Sound Recordings
    Outlet Sound Recordings / Website

    This record label devoted to ambient and electronica artists wanted visitors to explore an abstract environment where they could stream full audio tracks and purchase CDs. The mysterious imagery with subtle audio-synced animation matches the avant garde quality of the music. (Flash Player 5+, Database backend) View Offline

    

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  • Early Thirdthing
    Early Thirdthing / Website

    After relocating from San Francisco to Los Angeles our area of design focus shifted to motion graphics and interactivity. This early version of our site shows the experimentalism and movement we emphasized during that period. Though unconventional and intentionally anti-corporate, this fun and hyper-minimal site suited our focus and goals at the time. (Flash Player 5+, Database backend) View Offline

    

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• Branding
  • Stand With Wisconsin
    Stand With Wisconsin / Campaign Materials

    We helped the Wisconsin AFL-CIO with their symbol for the fight against Governor Scott Walker's radical right-wing agenda. It shows Wisconsin as a revolutionary raised fist in Democratic blue, surrounded by an expanse of Republican red with Madison as the star. The illustration is meant to feel rough, irregular and handmade. The slogan encourages Americans to follow Wisconsin's lead in protesting anti-union legislation. (Protest Sign, Banner, Web Icons, Clothing, Yard Sign, Newspaper Ads, Button, Flag, Mini-Site)

    

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  • Louie and Chan
    Louie and Chan / Branding System

    Sitting between the neighborhoods of Little Italy and Chinatown this Manhattan restaurant and nightclub embraces a lived-in 1930s utilitarian aesthetic. The graphic identity supports an era-specific story of friendship and cultural merging in the time of the discreet speakeasy—Chan running the downstairs cocktail lounge and Louie the street level Italian restaurant. (Logo, Stationery, Promo materials, Website)

    

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  • Help
    Help / Branding System

    This LA-based hard-driving indie rock band wanted a logo that was ambiguous and abstract yet legible. It can be used boldly in promotional contexts or small as an icon/bug in any color of their choosing. Because the “word shape” assumes a single form it visually stands out from other bands on a bill and provides a great stencil. (Logo, Stationery system, Packaging, Menu, Signage, Website)

    

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  • Behavioral Science & Policy
    Behavioral Science & Policy / Branding System

    Behavioral Science and Policy is a joint-venture publication of UCLA and the RAND Corporation. The quarterly journal will rely on an active web presence providing a resource for behavioral economists and governmental policy-makers but also act as a news portal for the interested public on related topics. The printed journal will be produced on-demand from a subscription base. (Logo, with proposed applications for stationery and website)

    

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  • Municipal Digital
    Municipal Digital / Branding System

    For clients in the photography world this company provides set and location digital capture services plus post production retouching, compositing and photo illustration. The visual elements play with print magazine ideas of color spectrum, pixels and grid system. Site contents include before vs. after case studies, price packages and a hidden pixel playground. (Logo, Stationery, Website in progress)

    

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  • RAND Labor & Population
    RAND Labor & Population / Collateral

    This division within the RAND Corporation assists governments worldwide with social policy issues by providing economic research and analysis. The booklet serves as a leave-behind after one-on-one meetings with clients, in the manner of a business card. Working within their corporate guidelines we created a system for the department which is being applied to a series of brochures for each of the many centers within L&P. (4 color + 2 spot offset print, 7 × 7", 8 page booklet, 3-panel barrel fold brochures)

    

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  • AMMO Books
    AMMO Books / Logo, Stationery

    The logo and identity system for this fine art book publisher parallels their editorial style—bold, simple, graphic and modern. Their titles feature photography, illustration, interior design plus modernist children’s books and games. The logo is used from super large to very tiny in an adjustable color palette. (Logo, Stationery)

    

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  • Outlet Sound Recordings
    Outlet Sound Recordings / Branding System

    The identity materials for the electronica label Outlet Sound Recordings needed to mirror the subtle yet avant garde spirit of their ambient sound. The cut-circle logo (reminiscent of an LP with reflective glare) is normally used without a tag-line as an icon — shown in small, unobtrusive ways in many different visually challenging situations. (Logo, Stationery, CD packaging and disc graphics, Promotional Materials, Website)

    

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• Unreleased
  • Tablet 40 Hotels, AMMO Books
    Tablet 40 Hotels, AMMO Books / Travel Book

    The website TabletHotels.com features an editorial selection of boutique hotels worldwide. AMMO teamed with Tablet to produce a book that would feature the top selection of these luxury destinations alongside interviews with the architects and designers. The book unfortunately never made it to press. (Softcover, Diecut, 12 × 5.5", 360 pages)

    

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  • Science of Spirituality
    Science of Spirituality / Website

    This site was for followers-of and newcomers-to Sant Rajinder Singh and his approach to the practice of meditation. His talks and group-led sessions have garnered him millions of practitioners worldwide and the organization's volunteer staff have amassed a huge library of material which would have been accessible through the site in an array of languages. The organization changed its web strategy before our design was built.

    

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  • Exit East
    Exit East / Photography Monograph

    Intersecting angles of the Los Angeles freeway system are echoed in the skewed blocks of text and captioning for this collection of photography. The imagery is pushed into corners and surrounded by a sea of white space while the rules and text angles bring implied references to maps, reinforcing the story behind these suburban wastelands. The book will be self-published. (Hardcover, 10 × 12", 80 pages)

    

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  • Mediadodge
    Mediadodge / Website and Branding

    The editors at this proposed online news and culture aggregation portal wanted their site to be bold, graphically minimal and incorporate a visually-based sorting mechanism. The emergence of Twitter lead the editors to abandon their abbreviated news post approach. (Logo, Stationery, Website)

    

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  • Night: The City Unfamiliar
    Night: The City Unfamiliar / Photography Monograph

    Structured as a log of moments, this book by photographers Eric Tucker and Rae Scarton unfolds as a night spent moving between the deserted spaces of Manhattan. The almost-square book mirrors the the 4×5 analog film format used. It will be self-published. (Hardcover, 12 × 10", 80 pages)

    

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  • Playboy Decades
    Playboy Decades / Historical Anthology Series

    This series of books was to highlight the subjects featured in the original Playboy Magazine and feature the best of the magazine’s offerings within each subject. Each book was to be dedicated to a single decade during the classic Playboy eras of the 50s, 60s and 70s. The project in this form never made it into production. (Hardcover, 9 × 11.5", 300 pages)

    

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  • Hugh Hefner’s Playboy
    Hugh Hefner’s Playboy / Historical Anthology

    This elaborate project was a large-format legacy-style book honoring Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. The book was to be as luxe and stylish as the magazine was in its heyday but packaged with a bold modern-day punch. After over a year, the project under this title was killed, and our work on it ended. In the ensuing years Taschen continued to redesign and negotiate with Hefner until finally they merged this book and the Decades books into an oversized set of 6 volumes—including the suggested acrylic case. (Hardcover with fabric wrap housed in molded plastic box or sleeve, 12.5 × 13", 600 pages)

    

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About Us

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