06.16.09
New Work: Christopher Barrett
Last fall, Christopher Barrett dropped me a line to see if I’d be up for doing some branding and interactive design for his solo venture. Chris was striking out on his own and he was excited about the future. I’d been familiar with Chris’s work prior and even if not, his work graces many of the magazines, catalogs and such that you and I may have in our office, having photographed some of these items that you and I again, may even be sitting on.
Chris’s tastes run similar to mine — we have a fondness for the mid-century, modern period where a lot of of solid, clean lines in design were produced but Chris also loved that I layered and built depth with those layers in the design work here at Weightshift but always with a elegant and subtle touch.
We started discussing last fall and while it’s been a while since we started the project, we actually agreed to an initial design and version but halfway through, both of us decided we weren’t feeling the design as much. This isn’t the usual modus operandi but it illustrates a point that both of us wanted to it to be better. What was already in existence was good but it wasn’t quite right. With my asking and our open and honest client-studio relationship, I got to working on a different direction. Sometimes the better design comes along and for every time that time when you think “I wish I could have done it this way”, this one actually was done that way.
The photographs are handled with Todd Dominey’s ever-excellent SlideshowPro with the Thumbgrid extension. The blog is powered by Wordpress and the WP integration was expertly handled by Scott Robbin, who has been working with us on a few projects as a developer.
An image of the collateral and the website follow. For more images, visit the Design entry for it or visit Christopher Barrett for yourself.
