This month I also did the creative for ExtremeTerrain.com's monthly sale. I began with a base shot of a rolling JK and composited a more interesting background. Below is the original and the retouched composite.
I needed a TJ version as well so I used the same base shot and rendered a TJ using KeyShot to get the exact angle.
I then took the render into Photoshop, removed the JK in the background but kept the JK wheels instead of having to recreate the blur. The original JK was a 4-door, so I moved the wheels closer together to work with the TJ body. Along with that came adjusting the shadow on the road.
These final composites were then used in various email, site and social graphics to promote the XT April Sale. I treated the typography in email similarly to how it is on site.
The creative is currently running as a homepage banner at ExtremeTerrain.com. Check it out while you can.
ExtremeTerrain.com is having a $6,000 Custom Wrangler Build Giveaway and I designed the creative. The initial design direction was a Wrangler off-roading in the mud. I sifted through our in-house lifestyle photography and found some more recent photos of a Jeep we have not used much yet in our XT graphics. There were various shots of this Wrangler in the mud, however it didn't include very much greenery in the images. Since this sweeps is running March through April, I decided to retouch the photos and composite in some leaves.
The initial photo had some foreground elements, mostly sticks, but this inspired me to add a brand with leaves. I used a Gaussian blur filter on a stock branch photo to make it look like it's in the foreground and out of focus.
I also added some subtle green grass and leaves to the background. From there I placed this main image in various email and on-site templates and added copy. Below is an email a-spot and on-site banner showing the slightly different copy elements and design.
The social team requested several alt images, and I took the same approach as I did with the original image. I found two other angles of the same Wrangler and added touches of green throughout the scene. Below is one of the alts.
Check out ExtremeTerrain.com for the latest sweepstakes and aftermarket Jeep Wrangler products.
Part of my on-going duties is to maintain and update house brand websites. The Raxiom brand continues to expand as more products are created for various vehicles including Mustang, F-150 and Wrangler. As new products are added, I like to continue to add them to the Featured Products section of Raxiom.com. This month I added ten new products to the top of the featured section and worked with the web development team to execute the additions.
Updates for this section are pretty simple, as I pull the assets, arrange them in the grid and slice them up. I also provide the sort category (vehicle type), product name and the type of Raxiom product (ie: Performance Lighting) that appears on hover. The sort function is what I think is the highlight of this grid of products, as you can see different parts for different vehicles and the boxes rearrange accordingly. This site is responsive and so is that functionality. Check it out here: Raxiom.com/featured.
The last 2016 catalogs were mailed out about a week ago to AmericanMuscle and ExtremeTerrain customers. Below are some of the spreads I designed for this final catalog drop of the year.
Above is a content spread featured in the JK Wrangler catalog for ExtremeTerrain.com. The spread is an editorial on the Jeep build that was done for a local wounded officer. The design mirrors what has been created for the landing page I had shown a few months ago (view blog post).
In addition to that spread, I was responsible for designing the 4-pages of Holiday Gift Garage content that lined up with the landing page I recently designed and showed (view blog post). Below are those two spread that were also in the JK Wrangler catalog.
AmericanMuscle's F-150 catalog had some product swaps and design updates for this catalog drop as well. The Exterior section had many changes with new products added, and I worked in some additional lifestyle imagery. Below are two spreads throughout that section that feature updates with new lifestyles. I retouched the photos and composited additional aftermarket parts on the images.
With 2016 catalogs completed, the design team now focuses on the 2017 catalog strategy.
Similarly to the AmericanMuscle calendar I recently posted about, we designed one full of Jeep photography for ExtremeTerrain. I had less involvement with images for this one but was responsible for designing the back cover. The back cover was to feature imagery that showcased a highly modded Jeep Wrangler featuring Barricade Off-Road parts. I used a photo taken from our in-house photographer, tossed it in Photoshop and worked in Camera Raw. After some editing I added the Barricade Off-Road logo and integrated it with the environmental elements within the photograph. From there I added it to InDesign and added additional copy needed to complete the back cover. Below is the final image.
I have been abnormally quiet on my blog posts as of late again, and I'll assure you once more that it is not due to a lack of work being made. Outside of work there have been lots of progress on my CB that I will have to share, however at work it has been booming with holiday graphics.
The conception of this years Holiday Gift Garage began already in the beginning of August. In previous years we have used templates that focused on the grid, but overall became simple and standard. This year we wanted to design something more exciting, with a bit more of an editorial approach that played with hierarchy more than the previous design.
I went to the drawing board, conscious of potential limitations with development and pulled inspiration from a variety of sites. Particularly I was intrigued by Burton and Swell and how they arranged their lifestyle imagery while still abiding to the grid. Below are the rough mocks I began with.
I worked back and forth with our Art Director and compared mocks. We tossed ideas around and essentially scrapped most of our initial ideas to really break away from the generic grid and what we have done in the past. We began looking at a variety of other retailers and the way they represent collections of products and I believe we landed somewhere very exciting. Of course all the while, we were very conscious of how our new layout would be translated from desktop to mobile versions.
There was a lot of sketching and designing done before we had a finalized list of categories and products. While this was at times was a complicated guessing game, it did allow for pure creativity and innovation. Eventually we got all of the pieces we needed from our Merchandise team and the copy and ticket requests rolled in from the Marketing team. Once we had our approved ideas sketched out in Photoshop, we grouped up with the web development team to make sure our designs would be possible. With a few tweaks needed, we were set.
Because this Holiday Gift Garage would span across our two stores: ExtremeTerrain.com and AmericanMuscle.com, we needed more hands to get it all completed. I essentially worked through ExtremeTerrain's layout from conception to completion. AmericanMuscle mirrored the layout and I managed to create the finalized template we would need for slicing and passed it on to another designer to crank out the generational imagery. Other aspects included hero banner composites which were primarily handled by the other designer and became our future catalog covers. Logos for each Holiday Gift Garage were tweaked and geared towards their respective brands. All in all this beast of a project required a ton of hands and elbow grease to get it to where it is now. Below are what the two garages look like that went live today.
A lot of work went into the conception part of this process, and I believe it really shows in the final product. At times designers get into a production mode and focus on efficiency rather than expanding upon creativity, so looking back, this was a refreshing method of design.
View the Gift Garages here: ExtremeTerrain.com & AmericanMuscle.com
Each month ExtremeTerrain.com (and AmericanMuscle.com) runs a monthly sale that requires fresh imagery and copy. For the month of September I found a killer in-house photo to use that shows multi-generational Jeeps in a fall landscape. This creative spans from email, on-site and social graphics with different graphics specs and orientations. Below is a social forum banner, an email b-spot, and an on-site banner. As you can see the layout of the copy varies per channel depending on which piece should be emphasized for each application.
I had designed a smaller email campaign to create for this month that revolves around the "spend money, get money" concept. The copy given was "Mods that Pay Back" and I wanted to treat the type in a unique way to add it to a Jeep lifestyle. Below is how the imagery turned out:
I used this headline treatment and imagery for various email, web and social graphics, each varying in their messaging. Below is a banner that was used on site that had much more copy to include and used an alternate version of the headline "logo".
Who can believe that Labor Day is right around the corner?! The only way I can believe it is the fact that I have been working on several Labor Day Sale graphics for our various stores. The sale has just begun and I'd like to breakdown the steps that I had taken to get to the final creative of the ExtremeTerrain.com Labor Day Sale that is currently running here: ExtremeTerrain.com.
The project started off as a simple concept that the creative team and the marketing team decided on: red Wrangler on the beach with a nice blue sky to have a more subtle approach to the red, white and blue theme. I pulled some inspiration of jeeps ripping around on the sand and began my composite. I started with a rolling Jeep shot from our in-house photography collection.
This shot would be my base image for the rolling Jeep and I would begin to build out the sandy beach background around it. I first clipped the jeep, making sure to feather the selection when appropriate to keep the blur effect of the moving image. From there I went and purchased some stock imagery to compose the background. I have to say, you'd be surprised to know what the original photos look like that make up the final image.
All of the shots above were used. The first beach image was the starting point for the graphic. Then I used various pieces of the sand from the two ATV shots. The one was the perfect angle for the kicked up sand. Finally, the last one I used just some portions of the sky because I liked the feel of the clouds. Bet you never thought a photo of a bicycle and dog would be needed in a composite like this.
All of those photos combined with the correct color balancing, blend modes, color changing, photo retouching and added Gaussian and motion blur, got the creative to look like this:
At it's core it's exactly what the doctor ordered: Red Jeep on the beach with a blue sky. While it might be what was requested, it still felt like we could tie in a little more of the red, white and blue imagery. Instead of resorting to tacking an American flag on the back of this Jeep, I decided to go with something different. Jeep Grillz has come up with some grille vinyl to quickly change the face of anyone's Jeep to show off that American pride. I decided to remake one of their vinyl projects on this Jeep image to make this sale pop. It was a delicate process to get the vector shapes to feel real on this image, but I believe it gave it the added touch it needed.
From there I placed the image in various site, email, social and display-sized graphics to see if the composition would work. Once approved I could make the other version needed (TJ). I used the same methods as I did with the JK image above, where I clipped out a rolling Jeep at a similar 3/4 angle, color changed the Jeep, added reflections and grille vinyl while compositing it in within the beach background.
On our ExtremeTerrain website, a lot of the graphics include live copy where the designers do not have control of making it unique. Below is a mock of the homepage that is live right now.
As you can see, the text is strictly our store's font with no additional styling. This is done for many reasons, the main being SEO. While this is the case with most of our on-site graphics, our social, display and email graphics have free range when it comes to type treatments. I wanted to stylize the type in a subtle but noticeable way to enhance the look of the sale. After presenting three variations, I settled on the treatment below.
All together, the copy and the text work well together.
Be sure to hurry on over to ExtremeTerrain.com to take advantage of the Labor Day Sale from now until 9/7!
It's really special to be apart of a company that doesn't forget about the bigger picture, the bigger world out there. ExtremeTerrain did a complete Jeep overhaul for a wounded police officer, Officer Dorman, who is a local hero in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Officer Dorman was injured on the job not very long ago, taking several bullets and is currently healing towards a full recovery. The Southern Delaware Jeep Club contacted ExtremeTerrain to do a few mods and it turned into a large project within a quick turnaround.
While most of this project was handled by our XT installation specialists, video and marketing departments, of course the creative team had their share in helping this project see the light. Various departments came together quickly to work with the e-commerce team to get a landing page together. I was fortunate enough to complete the design of the landing page pulling design and UI elements from various places for it all to come together in an efficient matter. Once all of the photos, videos, copy blocks and events were completed it turned into something like this: ExtremeTerrain.com/police-officer-chris-dorman-jeep-reveal.html (also shown below). Be sure to watch the video on there, huge props to our video team as well.
Overall my task with this landing page were minimal and I more so managed how to get all of the pieces together. The sketches were previously drawn by in-house designer, Peter Owen. He took on the work to composite the Jeep images in the background for the slider at the top. The various photos I selected required minimum retouching that I took on, and the reveal photo took some retouching and compositing to get what we were looking for with that final image. With the copy and content being provided it was my responsibility to make visual changes as revisions came in and get those mock ups out quickly so everyone involved in the project could see the changes and approve and/or provide feedback. My part seems small in the spectrum of all that went into making this build possible, however, I am quite grateful to have been a part of this very positive and inspiring story.
The ExtremeTerrain catalogs have also hit mailboxes this week, and while much of the book was not updated for this drop, we did design and include new content in the insert. Tailored for the Trail is an article based on the Jeep build XT did on a 2-door 2013 JK Wrangler. You can view the full project here: ExtremeTerrain.com/TrailReady. Below is the single page design I had created by placing the copy and imagery. All photography and copy was provided by our in-house teams.
ExtremeTerrain is currently running a monthly sale for July, and I was responsible for the creative. I initially found this JK Wrangler image from our in house photographs and did a little retouching. I added some elements to make it look like the jeep was kicking up dirt and really wheeling. This shot has a lot of background included and was cropped in closer in various ways for a variety of graphics.
I found and retouched similar images for the TJ and YJ gens, shown below, while adding some extra elements such as dirt, a lens flare and XT branding:
These images were used for homepage graphics, email a-spots and b-spots, as well as various other site and social applications. Where live text was used I livened up the copy by mixing typefaces as shown below in a forum banner:
Visit ExtremeTerrain.com during the month of July to see this creative live on their site.
