These illustrations were created for a presentation 160over90 gave at the 2010 Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, organized by the American Marketing Association.

I got the honor of working on several projects at 160over90 that were integral pieces in the agency’s brand, and new business strategy. One of those projects was the creation of the agency’s book, “Our Beliefs & Our Process.” The book was one of many touch-points a potential client could experience the 160over90 brand. Others included the 160over90 website, portfolios, proposals, face-to-face presentations, and tours of the office. Since this book was one of the earliest pieces sent out to potential clients, it was important that the book laid out a few fundamentals: 1) What we believed made good branding. 2) The process we used to create good branding. 3) The overall personality of 160over90, without focusing solely on individuals. 4) Our branding work.

In order to showcase these fundamentals the book was split into three parts. The first part of the book laid out our beliefs like they were commandments. For each belief a unique visual was created to represent it, but it was important that the styles and mediums varied throughout. This part also focused on showing the space in which we work, as well as a variety of topics you could overhear being discussed in that vicinity. This copy allowed us to express a variety of people’s personalities, without focusing on singular people.

The second part of the book focused on our process and methodology for creating great brands. At 160over90 we’re very process oriented and we realize that helps us and our clients get the most creative, effective, and efficient work. Not only did the second part of the book explain the importance of this through copy, but it also used thumbnails and annotations from the actual creation of the book to show the 160over90 process. Throughout the pages the thumbnails step through the creation of the book, from creative brief, to research, outlines, mechs, and the final printing of the of the book.

The third part of the book is a stationery system that is individually bound to the back of the book with a variety of custom made case studies that are relevant to the person receiving the book.

Created at 160over90, the team included:

Executive Creative Director: Darryl Cilli; Creative Director: Dan Shepelavy; Art Director: Adam Flanagan; Designers: Matthew Bednarik; Stephen Penning; Copywriter: Brendan Quinn; Photography: Matthew Bednarik.

The 160over90 website was created to accompany the new brand aesthetic and philosophy. The goal was to align the website with the 160ver90 book “Our Beliefs & Our Process,” as an important touch-point within the 160over90 new business strategy. The website also needed to be extremely clean and simple, while expressing the quality of services provided by 160over90 and showcasing the branding work created there.

Similar to the book, we chose to split the website into 2 very simple sections, Our Work & Our Agency. Our Work showcased the branding work for 160over90′s clients in a very clean and easy to navigate manner. All of the necessary information for learning about 160over90 resided within the Our Agency section of the site. It was also a place to display more of the personality of 160over90, with a Profile section inspired from the annotations in the environment photos from the book. As well as a link to the 160over90 blog, a resource for more of an individual flavor of the agency.

We also added a subtle photographic layer to the overall website to suggest the different industries our clients occupy. We shot a series of white tonal photographs that implied the state of a product before the 160over90 branding expertise is applied to it.

Visit the website.

Created at 160over90, the team included:

Executive Creative Director: Darryl Cilli; Creative Director: Jim Walls; Art Director: Adam Flanagan; Copywriter: Brendan Quinn; Web Developer: Brian Tennyson; Photography: Matthew Bednarik and Tom Ammon.

These typographic treatments were created for new business proposals for 160over90. The testimonials came from past and current clients of 160over90 who were an athletic or sport focused brand. The designs were inserted into proposals between client case studies, and mailed to brands with an athletic inspired brand. The design was influenced by LED type found in scoreboards.

Created at 160over90, the team included:

Executive Creative Director: Darryl Cilli; Art Director: Adam Flanagan