This is cool. My friends at Vahalla Studios print all of the Dexter posters I make. This is what it looks like.

I thought that it would be cool to show the creative process on this project. So I documented the entire project from start to finish, so that you could see everything that goes into making the print. I actually recorded my screen while designing the poster, then time-lapsed it so you can see the artwork come to life!

This was the original rough sketch. After the finale, I went back and scanned through all of the episodes and made a list of the moments that I thought were iconic throughout the season. Then I tried to see how they might work together.

Once the design was finished I sent the art to  Vahalla Studios. When it comes to screen printing, these guys are the best! The prints are 3 color on Super Thick French Black Licorice paper. Since we’re printing on black, we do a double hit of the white. Then the pink layer prints, and the red is last. Here are some photos of the posters being printed.

I was thrilled with the way it turned out. It’s not an easy piece to print, but it came out perfectly. Below are some detail images of the finished poster.

The poster is currently available on Sho.com. We also did a second edition of the Season 1-4 prints in case you missed those. The art is exactly the same. The only difference is that I changed the scalpel to a cleaver in the bottom right corner to indicate the second edition.

It was definitely the best year on record for Mattson Creative. We added some fantastic new clients such as Apple, Hasbro and Mattel, while continuing our collaborations with Brilliant Sky Toys, Discovery Channel, Pocono Modern, Maroon 5, Sara Bareilles and many more.

Some of my favorite projects in 2010 began as personal initiatives. Exactly one year ago, I created 8 posters inspired by the television show, LOST.

I was a big fan of the show. But what I loved even more was the community that the show inspired. We invited a few people over to watch it together during Season 4. And each week more and more friends would come. People that we didn’t even know would show up at our door. Like this girl. I literally have no idea who she is. She just showed up one night. Dressed up. As The Island. Awesome.



We had a few traditions. The first was that before every show, I would introduce the program by saying, “22 Conyers Lane presents, LOST!” This odd custom of stating my address and formally introducing movies and TV programs dates back to college (where it began as subtle homage to the scene in Say Anything when Lloyd Dobler introduces Cocoon to the nursing home). So every week, without fail, I would introduce the show, “22 Conyers Lane presents, LOST!”

The second tradition was a weekly email that I would send out to our ever-expanding Lost group. The day of the show I would send out a quick invitation. Like this:

Or this…

or this…

or this one…

I wouldn’t spend more than 10 minutes on these. They were just fun, fast Photoshop invites. But last year, for the premiere of the final season of the show, I decided to spend a little more time and actually design a good invitation.

I’ve always admired the work of  studios that designed silkscreen gig posters and I had always wanted to explore that visual language and style. At the same time I was looking at Taschen’s reprint of Arts & Architecture, and I was completely inspired by all of the incredible cover designs. Most of the LOST fan art that was being done in response to the show was very literal. I wanted to create something minimal and more abstract. My goal was to take the complex mythology and narrative structure of the show and distill it to simple, smart visual expressions.

I had so many ideas that I wound up creating 8 designs that day, and for fun, I posted them to my blog.

Then things got interesting.

I received an overwhelmingly positive response to the designs. Which led to some incredible opportunities and experiences over the next few months. ABC made the prints available online as official LOST merchandise…I was invited to visit Bad Robot and the Lost Writers’ Office on the Disney lot…I got to meet the writers, producers and even some of the show’s cast…I even got to see  Saturday Night Live filmed in New York because one of the featured players is a huge LOST fan! Unreal!

But my favorite part of this whole story is that through the posters, I got in touch with Jorge Garcia – who played Hurley on LOST. He loves Lost fan-art and I sent him a few sets of the prints I designed. And in return he sent me this:

I can’t even describe how much cool it was to have Hurley introduce the show for our group of die-hard LOST fans! So much fun! And by the end of the season, we had two more celebrity intros.

The entire experience with the LOST-inspired art was so incredible, that I couldn’t help but to try and recreate maybe just a little bit of the magic with another one of my favorite shows…Dexter!

I started watching the show in 2010 and where LOST was very much a community event, I have to say, Dexter is more of a guilty pleasure. I had the idea to summarize the narrative of an entire season graphically in a single poster. During this time, I was inspired by Christoph Niemann’s illustration for MoMa which I saw in New York, and also really loved the silkscreen prints by the Little Friends of Printmaking. I was intrigued by the idea of creating a complex graphic illustration with a very limited color palette. I also liked the concept of “building” a visual story, like architecture, to create a single cohesive piece, comprised of many smaller icons. And of course Saul Bass has always been a big influence on all my work.

Once again, when I published these to my blog I received a really incredible response. Showtime was excited about the designs and made them available on their website…I was able to meet some of the amazingly talented people who write, produce and star in the show…and there is even a chance that I will actually be an extra in Season 6. Unbelievable!

So you would think that after all of these incredible experiences that I would be done with the recap…but the reality is, none of this compares to my number-one highlight of 2010…

Becoming a dad.

On March 13, 2010 my son, Shepard, was born. And words just could never describe the joy that he is, in my life. Of all the things I’ve ever created or designed, I will never do better than this.

Which is why 2010 is my favorite year.

An all-new season of MythBusters starts tonight on Discovery Channel, so I thought I’d share one of the designs I created for the show. I’m a big MythBusters fan, and I love how this concept turned out.

I think this may be my favorite t-shirt design of all time. You can get this shirt in the Discovery Store. They also applied the design to a set of mugs. Fun!

This my original rough sketch of the idea.

And this was the actual illustration. I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out.

Last week I had the privilege of spending the day in Portland with the leadership team of New Hope Community Church. Last year we redesigned the New Hope brand identity and the church has since asked me to serve on their advisory board. We meet a few times a year to discuss vision, trends, technology, community and branding. It’s always an inspiring conversation and I love being involved.

Over the years, I’ve worked on branding projects for several faith-based groups. For me, the most exciting engagements have been with organizations who seek to transcend the typical or expected religious expressions. I love working with groups that interested in blurring the line between the secular and sacred.

New Hope is unique in that they’ve purposed to radically transform their church environment and their church experience in order to engage their local community. Through strategic partnerships they are in the process of a complete redevelopment of their land to realize a vision for a new, vibrant community gathering place that will be more accessible to the public.

Currently called Eagle Landing, the new development will be a mixed-use lifestyle center with retail, residential and hospitality components. The project will comprise 35 acres of new development containing 450,000 square feet of retail space, 750,000 square feet of office space, 700,000 square feet residential area—including a five-star hotel, lofts, senior active living and assisted living.

When complete, the center will offer an array of world-class restaurants, entertainment experiences, activities and community gathering areas.

What will differentiate this particular lifestyle center will be the integration of the church—the intentional fusion of a faith-community with a commercial environment. It’s a very exciting project for me to be a part of. I’ve worked with New Hope over the last year to help them redefine their brand as they redefine their environment. We started with a Brand Ideation engagement where we worked together to craft a verbal articulation of the New Hope brand. Then we addressed the brand identity.

This was the original logo. The mark was outdated and it did not represent the church’s new vision.

We looked at multiple concepts, but quickly gravitated toward the concept in the bottom left.

This is the final identity. Inspired by the colors of stained glass, the symbol is comprised of multiple overlapping quadrants. These forms converge to create both a cross – the central icon of the Christian faith – as well as an intersection, which represents the community it seeks to engage. We chose a lowercase, sans serif type to communicate modernity and approachability.

I also designed a new stationery system to show how the look-and-feel from the brand identity could extend into other applications.

We did an initial exploration of how the identity might look within the context of the new development – applying the mark to banners and posters. I really like how clean and vibrant the visual system is. It will be exciting to see the how the new identity continues to roll out for New Hope. They are heading in a very exciting direction and it’s been great working with them through the process.

We’re having a baby! I just heard the heartbeat.

Amazing…

Studio 1200, an architectural design firm, wanted a visual communication program that would accurately reflect their team’s versatility and personal, collaborative style. Mattson Creative worked with the firm’s principals to develop their vision of a vibrant and dynamic new brand. The following is an inside look at the creation of the new identity.

First, we engaged in a Brand Ideation project where we defined the unique personality and attributes of the Studio 1200 brand. This verbal articulation serves as a starting point for the visual exploration.



We reviewed the projects that Studio 1200 had completed for their clients and lots of great work they had on the boards. Images of their own office space also informed our identity development – especially the color palette.

Initial concepts sketches for the identity system.



The concepts above represent the initial presentation to the client. Because the name “Studio 1200″ is unique, the logo exploration was more typographic than symbolic. The numerals are so interesting and expressive, they become the primary design elements.



After the initial presentation, we narrowed the selections and explored the three directions above. Ultimately we decided that the middle column was the most visually interesting. The conglomeration of multiple architectural elements to comprise a single logo was an exciting concept.



I got really interested in the idea that the logo could rearrange into different configurations using the same kit of parts. The concepts above show multiple arrangements of the same pieces to create unique versions of the mark. This direction had a real mid-century modern feel to it, which I liked a lot.

This was a rough animation concept of how the logo might dynamically reconfigure itself.



Ultimately, we decided to go with this logo. Although we liked the mid-century aesthetic, we felt this direction was bolder, more dimensional.



We kept the kit-of-parts concept and created multiple variations of the mark using the individual pieces that comprised the logo. We used these variations on different applications, so the logo is never exactly the same. On the website, the transitions are animated and you can see the pieces disassemble and then come back together to form a new version of the logo. You can view it here.



The Studio 1200 stationery system.

The business cards gave each employee multiple options for the color, configuration and pattern on their individual cards.

The cards were also designed to interconnect using four die-cut slots on each side. So the business cards themselves could be used as playful, structural tools to build and create.

I recently completed a logo design for Mottsy – an innovative, online printing company. The client was really interested in the creative process and asked me to record my screen during the development of the logo. This time-lapsed movie is the result. (Be sure to hit the expand button in the bottom right corner to view it full size.)

At first I was a little self-conscious recording my screen…it felt like someone was looking over my shoulder, watching me design the logo. But eventually I got used to it, and it was an fun experiment. I’m not sure how interesting it is to watch me look through hundreds of fonts, scan sketches, plot points, check email, change songs in iTunes, etc. Let me know what you think…it helps that we sped it up. And threw a little music in there. Thanks, Jeff.

The following logos and variations are what I presented to the client. They ultimately chose the first one which I actually didn’t capture on video. Oh well, still a fun look behind the scenes at the brand identity development process.

After we explored a lot of color variations, we ended up pretty close to the original concept.



This is the final logo. We developed the tagline and their brand positioning as well. Keep an eye on Mottsy.com – they should be launching their site in September. Should be pretty cool.