Category Archives: Print

TVC Annual Report

Earlier this year, TVC (Center for Technology & Venture Commercialization) approached modern8 for a fresh perspective and take on their 2019 annual report. TVC is an organization that works in behalf of the University of Utah to help innovators and researchers turn their ideas and concepts into actualized products and businesses, which ultimately allows for fresh, innovative, and necessary companies to become a reality. TVC helps innovators with so many things, like invention management, patenting, funding, etc., and, like the actualization TVC does for researchers and inventors, we helped TVC actualize their vision for a cohesive way to present the innovators’ stories in the 2019 annual report. From the visual yet abstract conceptualization on the cover of the theme, partnership, to taking on the art direction for the photography used, we helped align and elevate the presentation of the report itself to be visually appealing and intriguing in a way that matched the dynamism of the people showcased along with their ideas.

So Fresh and So Clean

If you have ever been a medicine cabinet snooper, you know that what’s on the other side of that door says a lot about you. As designers, we can’t ignore how something looks, but now you can have a “stink-free guarantee” and two new bottles you won’t be embarrassed for those snoopers to see. After launching a redesign of their foot spray, Sprayzee came back to us to design three additional bottles to add to their line—a travel size, air freshener, and a toilet deodorizer—complete with custom illustrations and an expanded color palette as fresh as their ingredients.

And it doesn’t stop there! We are creating assets for the Sprayzee website and their social media, including “how it works” and “what’s inside” infographics for the website, along with custom lifestyle photography that shows off the versatility, personality, and all-natural ingredients of the sprays and brand.

Studio Mag 2019

Your Studio at the U.

Sometimes your college professor becomes your client. For the sixth year, we’ve had the privilege of designing Studio, the University of Utah College of Fine Arts’ annual publication, which is edited by Marina Gomberg and advised by graphic design professor, Dan Evans — who knows well some of modern8’s employees who were former students. The magazine is a rare chance to explore more progressive design solutions, which oftentimes makes corporate clients nervous. This year’s publication describes how the arts at the U are helping to heal, unite, connect, and restore.

View all Studio spreads by year here.

Marae Events

DOWN TO DETAILS.

Pulling off a successful event can be extraordinarily difficult, whether personal or corporate. It all comes down to details. Paying attention to the minutiae of event planning and execution is exactly how modern8 and the founders of Marae approached the creation of their new brand identity. We crafted new letterforms in an elegant thick and thin typeface without serifs, but not a san serif in the conventional understanding. The layout of their business card echoes the layout of elements at an event—exquisite but understated, clean yet rich. We love their services and their identity.

The Theatre Bows Again!

AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN.

For many years in a row, we’ve had the pleasure to help Pioneer Theatre Company with the design of their annual season brochure and advertising. With an attention-grabbing new size and fold, we depict each of the nine productions with an illustration, description, and creative credits (which, we’ve learned, must be at least half the size of the title)! The brochure’s purpose is to sustain season ticket sales, while digital, outdoor, and print advertising—which uses assets we created for the brochure—promotes individual ticket sales. We’re usually there on opening nights. Join us!

Banners
Brochure

Pick your Color

When you are busy rebranding other companies, it’s difficult to make time for refreshes to your own goods, but, slowly, we’re checking them all off. Our new business cards are one of the first, hold-in-your-hands, tactile, expressions of our new brand, and, we have to say, we’re stupidly infatuated with them. We created them in the range of our modern8 color wheel, and instead of having to choose one color, we got them all. So—depending on our mood—you might be bequeathed a pink, blue, gold, green or white 2×3 work of art.

your local libraries

A few years ago, as a side project of modern8, we picked some of our favorite SLC buildings to illustrate and turn into posters—after all, we love architecture and think our city has some pretty great buildings to show off. One of our most popular posters, the downtown Salt Lake Library, caught the attention of some of the library staff. They asked us to print over 100 smaller posters to be distributed as their Christmas gifts that year. How could we say “no”?

The illustrated posters were so well received that each of the libraries wanted one of their own, and a few months later, we were commissioned to illustrate all of the remaining Salt Lake City Libraries. The illustrations will be used on a set of postcards to be distributed during the library’s Super Summer Challenge, and blank greeting cards for “thank you” messages to be sent to those who have helped with services or programs (like Colson Whitehead who presented a lecture just last month).

We had a lot of fun working on these—some were even our own neighborhood libraries.

modern8 goes shirtless

We’ve been designing and giving out modern8 holiday t-shirts for as long as we’ve been around—since 2001, if you were wondering….

Every year, we’ve talked about finally changing things up, but always came back to the old tried and true. This past holiday we must have started planning early, because we pulled it off–we designed custom pencils and accompanying boxes with the new modern8 logo and updated look and feel. Sleek black and white with a pop of our corporate yellow.

If you feel nostalgic towards any of the past 15 years of tees, don’t worry, you can still get your hands on one of them here.

studio 17

For the fourth year running, we designed Studio, the annual publication of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Utah. The magazine-like brochure is a 44 page review of the past year in the arts, and serves as an annual report for the College. Each major story is treated with typographic and photographic displays that amplify the impact and message behind Utah’s leading educational institution. Besides designing, we direct the printing and photography, and coordinate the complete solution.

our theatrical reprise

One of the on-going perks of our multi-year relationship with Pioneer Theatre Company, is the chance to see each of the productions. We are excited about next year’s season, which we graphically portrayed in the brochure we designed, with illustrations for each of the seven productions. Taking a cue from the first production, Newsies, we created a newspaper-like layout filled with headlines. As the season gets closer, we will be designing newspaper ads, banners, playbill covers and billboards for each production.