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Written by Dean Temple
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Wednesday, 02 January 2013 00:00 |
You could come up with any number of measurements to illustrate one billion, but none of them will make it easier to grasp. For example, I've lived a little more than one billion seconds, and the number still means nothing. So, never mind a lifetime, just try recounting a day's seconds, that vast but fleeting space and time that fill every present moment of your life. It doesn't take all that long to realize you're better off focusing on the seconds coming at you instead of accounting for the ones that have passed.
 Where VDAY is concerned, one billion is 14 percent of the world's population, more specifically, one third of its women. That's the number of women on the planet who will be victims of violence, in particular sexual violence. And it's the number of people VDAY is calling upon to end that violence on February 14, 2013 – an unprecedented uprising, answering violence with dance, using the power of expression to counter the tyranny of brutality.
If anything, the inability to grasp a number that size emphasizes just how ambitious a goal this is.
We've been lucky to work with VDAY for the past eight years. They teach us over and over that nothing is too audacious. They inspire us by using art to turn pain into strength. They give us a chance to splash a little color all over the world.
This 2012 annual report, The Path to One Billion, follows VDAY's path and shows what a couple of people willing to challenge themselves can do. It can be viewed online and in print if you ask them nicely. (And by nicely, I mean I think you should support their work. You can do that here.)
View The Path To One Billion » |
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Written by Dean Temple
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Monday, 09 July 2012 14:18 |
Let's put on a show.
For thousands of years that sentence has been the siren song that left countless theater widows weeping – or cursing – into their hands. County Players in Wappingers Falls, NY, says it four times a year, and when they do a faithful group of volunteers, from their board of directors to the ticket sellers, mark time out of their calendars to bring those shows to life.
When we looked at redesigning their website, we asked County Players what they needed most. Volunteers, they answered.
If you're not familiar with putting a show, four of them in one year might not sound like much work. Believe me, it is. What it isn't is much in the way of website content. That matters because County also said they wanted a website that gives their audience a reason to come back on a regular basis.
Why do you visit the sites you visit every day? Do they make you laugh? Think? Do they titillate? Are they about your passions? Obsessions? Regardless, I'm willing to bet if you visit them daily they produce regular content.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Thursday, 19 April 2012 00:00 |
Gloss. An explosion of color. A famous playwright, a cast of A-listers, a world of real women. Profiles of Haiti, Congo, a touring show of talented and passionate girls, the Tony Awards, the Ted Conferences, a movement that's touched 140 countries, and what to do with $80 million. V-Day's is not your typical, boring annual report, because V-Day is art become power.
So how do you represent that power and the magic behind it in print? You lose yourself in each and every project. You study the video and the images and grasp just what was accomplished. You find the spirit behind each and let that dictate how your pages come to life. You let their identity determine theme, and then develop it in ways that can surprise even their most ardent supporters. And you push color as far as your printer can take it because V-Day loves color.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Monday, 02 April 2012 00:00 |
 Category: Print, Content Development
Maplebrook is a school for students who find it difficult to thrive in traditional settings because they are slow learners or display learning differences, and their goal is to help these students and their families achieve the greatest level of independence possible. It's a noble mission. All we had to do was show how they do that on paper, show how meaningful a contribution can be when it results in a legacy that helps families for generations.
You learn a lot about human dignity and respect in a setting like Maplebrook. We wanted to convey that through the campaign, to create a feeling of hope, to deliver their vision for the future. And even though it's our work on those pages, we're thrilled they can close this book for good.
And now, on to phase two.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Monday, 19 March 2012 20:07 |
Alex and I share a trait with our dogs: we'll offer you unconditional love if you'll feed us. Maybe that's why we keep getting fun diners to design.
The new Red Line Diner is perfectly located at the busy intersection of two highways in Fishkill, New York. We wanted to create a fun and sexy beacon that would bring a good portion of that traffic into the restaurant. Given that all of the traffic would get there by car, we played with cars as our theme.
Using a tachometer was a no brainer. It says heat. It says speed. It says performance. It says fun. All characteristics you want when you walk through any diner's doors. And whether it's the location, the Vanikiotis' reputation for excellent restaurants, or that sexy red sign, they've been packed since they opened.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Thursday, 16 June 2011 12:49 |
We worked our first job with Eve Ensler in 2004, designing projected backdrops for a get-out-the-vote production of the Vagina Monologues at the Apollo Theater. That play, her best known, led Eve to found V-Day in 1998, an organization committed to ending violence against women and girls.
Our fourth V-Day project took place at the New Orleans Superdome in 2008, in honor of their ten-year anniversary. In that time, V-Day had raised over $50 million to end violence against women and girls.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Monday, 25 April 2011 14:41 |
I'll grant you the first time I heard the term local government efficiency, it mustered the same level of excitement as unsalted, steamed broccoli. Sure it sounds like it'd be good for me...I'll have the hot dog.
But whenever you have a client that is passionate about something, so much so that they devote their every resource to it, it's easy get to excited. Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress focuses on improving the our quality of life in our area. One of the ways they do that is by zeroing in on the efficiency of local governments. That's good for you, like broccoli.
In tackling this issue, Jonathan Drapkin, Pattern's President and CEO, and an avid scanner of the media for any coverage of anything that makes local governments work better, determined that a single a resource for the region that compiled and organized this information and presented best practices could be an invaluable resource to public servants and residents alike.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Tuesday, 16 November 2010 22:02 |
Category: Theatrical Design
You may never have seen the northern lights in person, but even a still image of them awes. They're so much bigger than we are. Other worldly. Delicately and overwhelmingly beautiful.
In John Cariani's play Almost, Maine, an aurora marks the transition between each vignette. They represent something magical happening both in the lives of the characters and in the world on the whole.
Given the romance attributed to these natural electromagnetic phenomena, you wouldn't want to portray them as random bursts of light. A light show trivializes them. You want to focus on something that ties your light to the preceding story. You want to create something with purposeful movement.
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Written by Dean Temple
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Friday, 15 October 2010 15:30 |
Most of our clients come to us looking to make money, so it’s a considerable exception when someone wants help giving it away. You might not think that would be difficult, but nothing worth doing is easy.
The Dyson Foundation plays a major role as a grantmaking institution in New York’s Hudson Valley, particularly here in Dutchess County. They awarded over $15 million in grants last year, with almost one third here at home, making them a substantial driver of our local economy. They are, in fact, the first name you hear mentioned when someone is looking for funding in these parts.
That sort of reputation can land you in an avalanche of grant applications. Sorting through all of it makes it hard to give money away.
So how does a website design alleviate a problem like that?
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Written by Dean Temple
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Thursday, 30 September 2010 11:49 |
Diners are fun. Fun to visit. Just as much fun to develop. You know what a person’s expectations are coming into a diner – there’s almost a century and a half of history there, dating back before the classic O’Mahony rail cars to lunch wagons in the Northeast. If expectations are involved, you have something you can beat.
In creating a mark for the Table Talk Diner in Poughkeepsie, New York, we wanted the result to have that same sense of fun, to have a capacity to engage as well as to be memorable. We succeeded in creating a logo that has unifying elements. It looks good on its own as used throughout the restaurant. And when broken into its various parts it has the interesting affect of bringing everything together into a unified whole: a single clear identity.
Table Talk is in soft launch for the next few weeks, so you have the chance to be one of the first people to eat there. Although I’ll warn you, Alex and I stopped in the other day and the line was out the door.
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