Eduventures Summit is Encoura’s annual Higher Ed thought-leadership event, and is considered their Super Bowl. It began as an all-new identity package each year – new logo, creative direction, and theme – then evolved into a standardized logo wrapped in an abstract environment that reflected the theme of each year, and in 2026 the entire package has become standardized.

Summit is always a great exercise in event and environmental design and abstraction. We’ve had moving mountains, time-lapse traffic patterns, dynamic halftones, a codex, space whales, and some Easter eggs here and there.

After the creative direction is developed, it’s built out into a full digital presence, suite of motion graphics and applied to physical wayfinding signs, towers, and event installations. Working with location and vendor relations, we transform the hotel space into… a hotel space with our stuff placed about. Budgets aren’t infinite, after all.

For this product, we needed visuals that made it distinct from the Wake-Up Call while still being visually included under the Encoura family umbrella.

To do that, the illustrations were directed toward a human figure focus –where the Wake-Up Call shied away into more broad and abstract concepts – while using the standard backgrounds and textures that are the foundation of Encoura’s overall identity.

These Action Plans needed to communicate concrete… well… plans of action, so it was necessary to connect with the people reading them. The aesthetic of the illustrations needed to express that while these plans are important, the stakes were appropriate to want to face them with positivity and confidence.

The figures are largely modular. Skin tone, hair, clothes, hands, and facial features are all interchangeable, and the bodies are built to position like digital mannequins.

Development and progression of a sub-brand under the Encoura umbrella through original weekly blog banners. Eye-catching and provocative, the banners aim to compel more interaction and readership.

Give em all a look (and a read!) right here.

An annual collection of published Wake-Up Calls. The Collection is an opportunity to showcase the banner artwork created throughout the year as well as developing a new cover.

The cover is a challenge to be fresh and compelling, maybe even a bit tongue-in-cheek, while retaining the overall messaging that the Wake-Up Call is the standard of higher education analysis, research, news, and trends.

When Encoura acquired RNL, along came the existing annual National Conference event as well.

As a sister event to Eduventures Summit, the challenge was to bring the creative direction of Conference close enough to Summit to communicate implicitly that they are under the same umbrella.

That comes from repeating the core elements of Summit’s creative direction – shield-based primary logo, dynamic supporting icons, textured background, deep color palette – put a fresh coat of paint on them, and inject them with meaning relative to Conference.

The Pickle Baron project centers around a passion for healthy, sustainable, natural snacks that won’t wear out their welcome.

Looking at other local pickle purveyors, we saw that there was room in the market for bigger character and and a tighter brand approach.

The primary logo proved a good exploration of applying texture and deeper colors to a brand that is not digital-first. With room for finer details to breathe, the suggestion of facial features were possible. Also everybody loves a monocle.

Building out the identity, the library of visual elements centered around a background texture that takes after a cross-section of a wavy pickle slice.

Watertown was looking for an update to one of their youth hockey identities. While retaining the high-visibility elements – knickname, colors, etc. – we aimed to inject some energy and character into a local organization to spark some excitement and unity.

As they remain the Raiders, what are some prominent historical raiders? Perhaps the Vikings! One of my favorite exercises in development is identifying the more obscure and obtuse elements within a conceptual environment. The kind of stuff that makes you go “Oh yeah!” In this case, the sail and the mast taking more of the center stage than the actual ship or the shields. A sail isn’t the first thing you think about when you hear Raiders, but what it does is tip off the approach and messaging of the identity.

Branding project for California electrical business. Project included a logo system, collateral, and simple website.

We took the usual first steps for mapping out the deeper needs for a full identity and website, but the scope of the project stayed relatively modest.

The work of building out a full brand identity, defining a mission and brand voice, developing information architecture, hosting, etc. is rewarding, but not always necessary. This is a small local business. A full corporate approach was far more than they needed to get up and running.

Not having an air-tight go-to-market identity strategy can still say what it needs to say.

Collier County is a fantasy football league. One of it’s members was following the 2nd & 10 project and reached out asking for custom logos for each team in their league.

After getting some inside info on the members of the league (inside jokes, stories, reasons behind the team names), the approach became “what if these were minor league baseball teams?”

On went the Brandiose hat, out came the hard shadows and thick outlines, and away we went.

A Branding package for a wedding and event business. The logo was an interesting approach because the client was set on using foil-stamping, so we ended up reverse-engineering the logo from there.

It was a little unorthodox, but it turned out to be a good way to make the creative box a little smaller.

A brand identity package for a “high-end rustic” restaurant. Project included large custom sign production

When I started at The Fenway Group, Fenway Printers and Sands Creative Group had merged into one business. Branding and messaging didn’t change until we were able to articulate to existing clients the purpose behind an identity change.

The Fenway Group logo is a joining of the definitive elements of the original two brands, and represents a whole being great than the sum of its parts.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never had an issue with “Can we combine them?” feedback. That just means identifying the elements that make each concept work, and then making those work in context with others.

2 & 10 began as a yearlong project that set out to redesign the NFL’s past 10 years of templated Super Bowl logos, which is why it has a name that’s witty at first, but seems less funny each time you hear it.

The creative goal was to research the location of each year’s game and represent its best qualities and elements of civic pride, and render the concept through the lens of the established visual history of Super Bowl logos. Basically, what we thought the NFL would have done.

Since then, the project pivoted to where each year’s approach is centered around a gimmick like developing a better template, using the League’s official logo as a conceptual foundation, or building out a TV package.

The work lives on the project’s website, where breakdowns of each logo’s creative process and inspiration behind each logo.

Follow the project on Bluesky and Instagram.

Yes. I designed my own wedding invite package.

Album artwork for Boston-based garage-punk band Mercury On Mars. Sleeve, insert, disc.

Album artwork and direction for Boston-based band Cheap Leather. Sleeve, insert, disc, noise. This band was loud.

A couple minimal-ish posters celebrating some of the smaller aspects of the two movies. They ended up being a great wedding gift.