Erin McHardy

I met Trice & Bret about four years ago when the three of us worked at the same company. After about a year of working together, they realized that their coworker relationship could be something more and over time, they fell in love with one another. (So cute, right?) When the two asked me to design the wedding invitations and such, I was absolutely thrilled since I knew the couple so well.

The couple didn’t have any strong feelings about colors or themes that could be used with the printed material, so the door was wide open for design. After brainstorming some ideas with the two, I decided to go with a “things that go together” theme for the Save the Date. Like peanut butter with jelly, it just makes sense that Trice & Bret are with one another and are getting married.

Next up, invitations!

When it comes to issue advocacy, no other PR firm in Washington, DC is quite as funny as Berman and Company. With thousands of voices competing for attention, standing out takes more than just buying ads and hoping for the best. To demonstrate how Berman and Company can make people laugh, and think, all at the same time, I designed a brochure that highlights the funniest campaigns the PR firm has done over the past few years. I combined quotes from big Washington names—Marion Nestle, Morley Safer, and Tucker Carlson—with clever, award winning print ads.

Because the ads featured in the brochure were created over a long time span, I wanted to have a design element that could bring all the pieces together and create a cohesive product. To solve this problem, I decided to focus on using the typography of the quotes as the uniting element. By combining different fonts and sizes within each quote, I could emphasize particular words or phrases that would grab the viewer’s attention.

I was lucky enough to have a larger budget than usual with this project. I decided to try a new (to me) printing technique and printed with a spot UV gloss on the advertisements throughout the brochure. Contrasting with the matte paper, the shiny ads really pop off the page, making them look even sharper. You can see the gloss of the ad reflecting the text from the right side of the spread in the picture below.

Here is a direct mail piece for The Legal Council’s 2010 Spring Seminar. The Legal Council holds a yearly group meeting of General Chairmen to discuss the latest in legislative issues in the restaurant industry.

The focus of this year’s seminar is on the implementation of the new healthcare reform mandate. Tired of the same ole, same ole images that usually go with healthcare issues (doctors, stethoscopes, prescription pills) I decided to go with the classic image of the eye chart updated with the seminar’s title “Healthcare Reform: What Now?”.

Nothing like casually going to your website one morning to see this lovely picture displayed on your homepage. Yes, I got hacked! I still have no idea how this happened, but luckily I have a great friend who is amazing at IT work and was able to bring my baby back to life. (Thank you Ian!)

Seriously though, what would a Saudi Arabian want to do with my website? These things baffle me.

On the upside, because of this little scare, I have decided to fully get into blogging about my work and what inspires me. It’s like a New Year’s resolution, just at the end of February…

Just finished up a brochure design for the Indoor Tanning Association. Members and potential members received the brochure to learn about the ITA and what the association can do for local tanning salon owners. The brochure includes a perforated membership application that salon owners could mail in to join the association. It’s been a nice break working with the ITA because I could be much more funky with the design than the usual corporate client.

UPDATE: Included in GD USA’s American Inhouse Design Awards Issue, July/August 2010.