You’ll be seeing more as our client expands to multiple locations and plans to franchise. For the moment, a few sneak-peek images of their retail space will have to suffice:

Barn pulleys become lighting fixtures.


Junior high gym lockers become merchandising displays.

Forgotten light fixtures become a hovering chandelier.

On the air, or on the can?

Sammy the Bighorn Sheep.

That’s it for now. Can’t wait to share all the details soon!

I made it back from Outdoor Retailer in one piece (barely, as you can see from the photo). Stuart, Bobby, Jeanie and Tom were holding down the fort while I was out like a kid in a candy store among the latest gear offerings.

Photos are prohibited at the show. This is mainly because product is nine months from hitting stores, and the policy deters would-be copycats from sending photos to Asia to create instant knockoffs. Of course, I couldn’t resist a few snaps that I figured were innocuous.

Just a few tents outside.

The scale of the show is a bit hard to grasp, actually. Salt Lake City grows by 14,000 people for a few days and the Salt Palace convention center is jam packed with more stuff than you can absorb in 3 days of walking the floor. I would know, since I tried.

Plaster sculpted like water.

As expected, product presentation ranged from straightforward and bland to inventive and exciting. Some of the booths that stood out to me were the textural panels from Columbia (pictured above), ice sculptures at Teva, huge black and white photography at Brunton, wind tunnel at Yakima and stretched fabric dividing panels at North Face. Of course this was only the tip of the iceberg for notable displays.

Other companies engaged with the audience in memorable, relational ways, rising above the clutter and waste of typical schwag. Gerber Blades had the clever photo-op with the bear climbing a tree (photo at the very top). Camelbak offered a bicycle-powered rickshaw service to surrounding areas. Royal Robbins had an espresso bar running non-stop. Vivobarefoot offered sessions of video analysis with an expert in running biomechanics. Osprey, Patagonia & Kleen Kanteen partnered to serve beer in reusable stainless steel pints (Yes, the beer starts flowing at 4:30p).

Slacking isn’t so easy.

Gibbon Slacklines had a competition area for people doing freestyle moves. (think balance beam tricks on a flat, springy rope). When I was there, a 10 year old kid with a rat tail was showing everyone up. He looked to be sponsored. They also had a more mellow demonstration area where anyone could hop on and give it their best. Let’s just say that my best (pic above) involved a lot of falling off.

Bookis, Ben and Barefoot Ted.

Anyone familiar with the book Born To Run will recognize the name Barefoot Ted. Reading the book is highly recommended, and so is meeting Ted. Now I’ve done both.

Grass typography made me smile.

Thanks to the generous folks at Garmont for the opportunity to attend the show. The outdoor industry is one that we know quite well here at Studiofluid, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity to work more closely with some of the people we met.

See you at the winter show in 2012!

One of our designers just turned us all on to Eat Street.

It’s an elegantly designed iPhone app with an intuitive interface to help you track down food trucks. Here in Los Angeles, where mobile food is still all the rage, this app really fills a need. It’s perfect discovering new trucks in your neighborhood in real time. You can sort by type (e.g. desserts) and filter by your location, as well as view the latest tweets from a selected truck. Go check it out.

We’re excited on another level, since this app ties in perfectly with the Tango Mango Italian Ice Truck website and mobile site that launches later this month.

Happy eating!

It’s no secret that food trucks are surging in popularity here in Los Angeles as well as other cities like Portland and New York. They’re fun, and the quality of the food can be impressive.

Since completing the branding and design of the Tango Mango Truck, we’ve had a number of people ask about the process of wrapping a food truck and now we’re sharing what we learned.

Keep reading if you’d like to download the free template at the end of the post…

These days vehicles aren’t typically painted with graphics, instead they are wrapped with a thin vinyl film. Wrapping is a cost-effective way to outfit your rig and the surface is surprisingly durable (but we’ve all seen when lack of restraint produces tacky results). Vinyl sheets are printed and then carefully applied by hand in small pieces, contouring around some elements like fenders and covering over other surface details like rivets and sometimes even windows.

Early on in our design process, we hand-measured our client’s actual truck to create a template that we could work with in Adobe Illustrator. This was an essential step, because it allowed us to work out the details of the brand and evaluate the work in proper context, making sure the logo, colors and type were all working together effectively.

Once the design was finalized, submitting the final design to the wrap vendor was a snap, because it was already in the proper format. The process worked flawlessly for us, and we hope you can also get some mileage out of it too.

Designing for a Vehicle Wrap

Keep your design simple: Be aware that wrapping a vehicle is a bit of an imprecise art and you won’t have as much control as you would in designing for a typical printed piece. Try to keep critical pieces of your design away from seams and edges, so they have a better chance of appearing unobstructed.

Is there a difference between left and right? Remember that the Driver side of the vehicle will be facing the street most of the time, and the Passenger or “Service” side will be facing the curb and the crowds most of the time. This might affect the scale of your designs. Also, take into account the forward motion of the truck and how that will affect perception of the graphics.

Be Informed: Be aware of what is already out there. Attend a local Food Truck festival to see a bunch of trucks in one place and inspect the details up close. Check out sites like Roaming Hunger and Mobile Cravings to see what techniques other food trucks are using. Make sure your design is carving out its own space in the marketplace.

Working with a Vendor

Choosing a Vendor: We worked with the fantastic folks at WrapOne in Anaheim, CA. They previously wrapped the Grilled Cheese Truck, Buttermilk, Nom Nom and more, so we knew our project was in good hands. If given the choice, we wouldn’t choose to work with anyone else.

Color Reproduction: Be sure to work with Pantone Spot colors and request a proof from your vendor. They should provide a proof for you to approve, printed on the final vinyl material.

Using the Template

The Truck: The template is for a 2007 Ford E-450 Super Duty Step Van which is a very common model in the food truck world. This one happened to be a retired DHL truck, purchased on ebay. You’ll need to double check with your vendor and coordinate with them before moving to production, but this template should give you a good head start even if you end up with a different truck.

Scale: 1mm = 1inch. The truck is about 21 feet in overall length, bumper to bumper. We reduced the scale to keep things small and so it all fits on a 11×17″ Tabloid page.

Layers: In Illustrator, you’ll find 4 layers—one for each view of the truck. Paste your artwork into the clipping mask within the “ART HERE” layer. You’ll have a finished looking truck designed in no time at all.

Disclaimer: This file is intended for visualization purposes only, to help facilitate presentations with clients and production vendors. It’s reasonably accurate, but double check your truck and with your wrap vendor.

And now for that link.
(1.4MB .zip file in .ai and .pdf formats):

Enjoy! And please link back to this page if it was helpful.

If you have any questions about the template or about designing for a food truck, get in touch. We’d love to hear from you when you’ve used it to create something great!

A few years back, Goodwill of Southern California rolled out a Halloween campaign to help boost seasonal sales. The campaign features of cast spooky characters, all developed in the same visual language as the tightly cropped face of the original Goodwill logo (in the lower right corner).

Many companies would be timid to use their logo in a such a non-standard way, but in this case it was the right call. Today the campaign still feels as clever, fresh and as fun as ever—from the wheat-pasted posters around Los Angeles to the cute advertisement on youtube:

Goodwill Explains:

Halloween is the biggest month of the year for Goodwill Southern California. That’s why we focused on this time to create a new attitude for the brand dating back to 1902—one that strongly connects with Goodwill’s 18-34 year old target. Our on-line ads, wild postings, college kiosks and newspapers, TV (cable, YouTube, viral) and word of mouth marketing campaign generated the highest sales volume for Halloween in the history of the organization.

Congratulations to The Miller Group and Goodwill on a job well done. Creative courage leads to business results.

This weekend we took a Studiofluid outing to hear the Pasadena POPS at their new venue at the lawn at the Rose Bowl. Stuart and I brought our families—we enjoyed the pleasant summer evening of conversation, wine and “All That Jazz” as performed by the POPS.

We get an incredible sense of satisfaction seeing our clients thrive, knowing that we’ve in-part contributed to their success. It was fun to see the logo we designed projected onto the vibrantly lit performance stage, and to see all of the printed materials we designed serving their function.

Thanks to our friends at the Pasadena Symphony for the tickets and memorable performance.

On Saturday, I spent the better part of the day at Cal State L.A. reviewing portfolios in rapid-fire succession. Students from all over Southern California and beyond gathered to present their work and get feedback on their work from design professionals.

It was an honor to be included in the event, and it felt good to give back to the design community. I saw some great work coming out of schools Otis, Art Center and Woodbury University. Overall, I was impressed with the level of thought and communication. Hopefully my feedback was helpful. I’m looking forward to participating in the next one.

Note to students: The main question I want to see answered at a portfolio review or an interview is: “What are you trying to communicate with this piece and how did you accomplish it?” If you’ve got a solid answer, you’re well on your way to having a strong portfolio.

Thanks to the folks at Cal State L.A. and the organizers from AIGA who put together these great events.

We’d like to welcome Clara and Katarina, the Design in Transit duo, to Los Angeles, California and the US of A.

These two adventurous ladies are here from Germany, taking a tour of the west coast and hoping to gain graphic design experience in the process. About a month ago, they emailed from Germany to set up a time to come by and get a tour of Studiofluid on their arrival in L.A.

As short-term interns, they’ve contributed to an advertising campaign and website design. But it hasn’t been all work. We’ve shared a few meals together, have taken a few sightseeing tours of some highlights to check out in Los Angeles. Next week I think we’re going together to check out the Echo Park Time Travel Mart for some packaging and general design awesomeness inspiration.

I’ve also introduced the DIT ladies to a few other design firms in the area that might be interesting for them to visit. If you’re in Los Angeles, San Francisco or maybe even Portland and you want to collaborate with Design in Transit, they’d love to hear from you. To invite them out for some good American beer or just say hello, you can get in touch at: designintransit @ hotmail dot de — and tell them Studiofluid sent ya.

The design work we’ve been doing for the Pasadena Symphony is starting to pop up throughout Los Angeles.

The branding system we developed for the Pasadena Symphony and Pops has been extended into to various print collateral, from Banners and signs to posters and promotional flyers. Right now, the Metro Rail Gold Line that connects Union Station to Sierra Madre is running the “Take Your Ears Out for the Evening” ad campaign, announcing the 2009-2010 Symphony Classics.

Thanks to the Pasadena Symphony Association for being such a fun and adventurous client, and thanks to Mikio Osaki and the talented students of the Agency @ Art Center College of Design for the ear artwork.

Photo courtesy of Tim Harwick.

Two Free Weekend Passes!

Good for Saturday and/or Sunday October 3 & 4, 2009 at the Pasadena Wine Festival. The event will be at the beautiful L.A. County Arboretum, from 4:30-10p both days. These passes are going for $170, so here’s your chance for the hookup!

How to Enter:

Post to twitter starting with “I want #pasadenawinefest tix”… followed with your best reason. The winner will be selected (based on creativity) and announced on the morning of Monday 9/28. We’ll be in touch to for mailing address, comp passes will go out via priority mail the same day.

Good luck!