A Gyre is a natural whirlpool created in the Ocean, our planet has 5 of them stationed all throughout the world. 5 Gyres is a conservation organization that focuses on creating awareness on plastic pollution in the Ocean. Their current brand identity looks like something out of a nightmare.  My main focus was to lighten up the overall mood, and give it a more unique / distinguishable design.

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CLEAR SPACE

Maintaining proper surrounding clear space ensures that the logo isn’t crowded by other distracting graphic elements or typography. The blue lines represent the “no fly zone” around the logo. Nothing should breach the boundaries, around the entire logo. The base unit of measurement is the thickness of the number 5. This gives a consistent unit to base off of when dealing with scale.

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TYPOGRAPHY

Gotham was a perfect fit for the basis of the 5GYRES typography. Not only because of it’s geometric design, but because of it’s clean, modern, and easy to read look. It’s perfect circles mimic both the logo, and natural occurring whirlpools in the ocean. It’s multiple weights and extensive hierarchy make give it plenty of flexibility for every design need.

A couple of my roommates and I started a small advertising agency doing branding for start ups towards the end of 2012. Here's a sereis of storyboards of the full colored logo, along w/ the black & white version including color palette, type choices, and tag line.

Check out our website BDWBRANDING

Branding / Adobe Illustrator

Here's a graphic that I made for a Wheel Talk collaboration with our clothing sponsor Breezy Excursion. On top of making shirts, I pulled a series of colored screen prints to commemorate our two years of overseeing everything. Lately I've been inspired graphic artwork that has a fortune teller / black magic aesthetic. They've done a lot to help support both us and the local Fixed Freestyle scene here in the Bay Area, and this limited run of prints was a perfect way to highlight that. 

Vector Illustration / Adobe Illustrator

Wheel Talk was established in mid 2010 when a couple friends and I started up our own chain gang. What started out as one web video has since grown into a full blown media empire. Focusing primarily on promoting the Fixed Gear Freestyle Lifestyle I spend most of my free time riding my bike and documenting my friends. Our bikes have taken us on many expeditions around the country in search of architecture that many dream of and few ever see. We wage a never ending battle against security guards and stretch the boundaries of our own imagination in an attempt to push ourselves outside of our comfort zone to achieve the impossible. 

Riding bikes has taught me many things, pain being the biggest, but patience being the most important. It's all about the setup, proper planning and confidence in ones self. 

If you're curious and want to see a video of me riding, click HERE

Check out the blog | WHEEL TALK FIXED

Filmed and edited by Mike Schmitt and Matt Reyes the much-anticipated Grime Bikes video is 38 minutes of non-stop shredding. Featuring The Grime Team's Ed Wonka, Devon Lawson, Mike Schmitt, Anthony Combs, Ricardo Lino, Christian Hamrick & Grime's long-time homie Matt Reyes. It boasts a three song friends section filled with some of fixed freestyle's best street riders. The video is stacked full of heavy tricks, good natured fun, broken bones and of course some partying. Chopped together montage style, the fast paced editing and eclectic mix of tunes, are all compiled to push the fact that Grime is a team that rides together, films together, and never quits trying to push fixed freestyle to new levels.

SHREDWELL2 | INTRODUCTION

I embedded the intro or first 2:30min of the video below to give you a mere taste of what the video is jammed pack with.

Filming / Editing / Branding

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He's been undead for nearly 150 years. Giving his skin and cartilage plenty of time to prune like a grape. I based this zombie version of Abraham Lincoln off of an American 5 dollar bill. I went with a heavily stylized graphic look. Spent most of the time playing with the use of hair and wrinkled skin. 

Vector Illustration / Adobe Illustrator

Mercury Craze is a monospaced, unicased font face that was inpired by classic arcade games, industrial architecture  and the space time continuum. It's a modern throwback to everything 8-bit & analog. It's imposing letterforms, strong personality and heavy weight make it ideal for striking headline treatments.

The majority of the letterforms are based on a 1x2 square grid. Meaning they're double their width in height. Each letterfrom is built using only horizonal, vertical, and 45 degree lines. It's machined corners, diagonal crossbars, runic thorns and unique glyphs all add to the fonts electric flavor.

Typography / Design

50 LOGOS | 50 DAYS

The majority of these logos were made during the time I made 50 logos in 50 days. Each logo was flushed out in an hour or less, creating one a day for 50 days. I pulled a few of my favorites to showcase as well as embeded a video of them all compiled together below. 

I'm constantly picking up freelance projects doing logo work for start up businesses all over San Francisco. Feel free to contact me if you or anyone you know needs anything done. 

Logos / Vector Illustration

I took these photos and layed them out in a book about the San Francisco Federal Building which was designed by Thom Mayne in the early 2000's. The buildings 18 floors 605,000 square feet were designed both ergonomically and environmentally friendly to keep down the use of energy and pollution.

THAT'S THE SPEED

Here's a graphic that I made for the Bike Blog & Team I manage (Wheel Talk). I focus mainly on promoting the Fixed Freestyle scene and the riders who make it happen. There's such a lack of creativity within the bike scene, companies constantly use cogs and chains in their designs. These found objects are beaten into the ground and have begun to lose meaning. It doesn't have to have a bike in it to say bike. Instead I choose to use things with less literal meanings, which create a more unique aesthetic than can be directly tied to the brand. I have an uncanny affinity for bald cats, it might have something to do with their wrinkled skin and wicked appearance.

Vector Illustration / Adobe Illustrator

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WATCHFUL EYE

One morning I woke up to find my cat had caught a mouse in the kitchen and had offered it up to me as a present. I was so moved by this selfless act of kindness that I was driven to draw out this piece that day. I'm always looking for reasons to be creative and create something. This seemed like a good enough excuse to pull out the Wacom tablet, which I've been spending a lot of time working with lately. These keys open all doors.

Vector Illustration / Adobe Illustrator