Nathan Rutman

Technology Startup Branding & Web “Sell Sheet”

Nate — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:25:09 +0000

As a one-man technology consultancy startup, ProBusiness, Inc. required branding and a single-page web “sell sheet” that would allow its principal to distinguish himself from the less skilled, dime-a-dozen consultants in the marketplace.

The solution was a clean-cut and professional logo that implemented a striking plus sign (+) on the ProBusiness name. The accompanying webpage included not only the logo, but also custom iconography and illustration to stress the sense of value that ProBusiness, Inc. offers its clients.

Turas Group Logo & WordPress Theme

Nate — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 20:36:25 +0000

The Turas Group is a professional recruitment start-up in the Washington, D.C. area with a unique perspective on the career & hiring process. Rather than only seeing the “next prospect” or the “next interview”, the Turas Group encourages its customers and candidates to view the process as “a journey”, which is the meaning of the Irish word, turas.

The identity mark developed for the Turas Group features a sailboat with wind in the sails, communicating movement and strength in a way that is fitting for a professional services firm. The website design elaborated upon this mark and included a mix of business and sailing imagery. For easy content management, the Turas Group website was built upon WordPress, a leader among open-source web publishing platforms.

WordPress Theme for Water Non-Profit

Nate — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:49:05 +0000

The Water to Wine Project is a non-profit that partners with local restaurants to give clean drinking water to some of the world’s poorest people groups. They needed a website that would help encourage the public to get involved, as well as provide them the tools to build an information base for people who wanted to know more.

WordPress was the perfect fit, and I quickly provided a theme that helped communicate their message. Now their own staff can add to individual pages, as well as the organization’s blog, in order to spread their mission to provide clean water to the globe.

Real-Time Data & Charts Web Demonstration

Nate — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:26:49 +0000

While employed, I created a demonstration of live data and charting through a standard web browser. The page took the form of a financial investment website, and showed dynamic charting and graphing, sparklines, live data updates from the back-end (approx. every 5 seconds), RSS importing, and on-the-fly chart color customizations.

The demonstration was written in standards-compliant HTML, CSS, JavaScript (with JQuery), and PHP. It is 100% accessible in all major desktop browsers, and supports modern mobile web browsers including the iPhone and Droid.

Lingua Progress Website

Nate — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 13:27:47 +0000

After helping Lingua Progress with identity and logo development, the website took shape around the same core values: growth, knowledge and enjoyable learning. Along with attractive design, the website needed to reach across linguistic and cultural lines, as well as provide Lingua Progress’s staff the ability to manage various forms of web content.

By designing and implementing a custom WordPress theme, I helped Lingua Progress satisfy all of these requirements in time for their September 2009 launch.

Lingua Progress Identity

Nate — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 02:34:24 +0000

Lingua Progress, a ESL school based in Russia, was looking for a versatile brand and website for their launch in September of 2009. I used their previous brand element—a photograph of a tree—as a conceptual starting point for the identity.

By producing the mark at various color depths and file formats, I was able to help pave the way for brand implementation through banners, fliers, business cards, a future website and other collateral.

Service Center Web Application UI

Nate — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:10:53 +0000

A web application with an emphasis on real-time data needs to be fast and flexible. While working for my employer, this client’s service department needed access to real-time data from the web. By using standards-compliant HTML, CSS, JavaScript and the JQuery toolset, we able to deliver a front-end that remembers screen states, makes fast AJAX calls and updates (utilizing JSON), delivers near instant searches, and is object-oriented, which makes for faster revisions & additions to the codebase.

My responsibilities on the project included all UI design (HTML, CSS) and JavaScript development (JQuery).

Sovereign Grace Church Identity

Nate — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:32:54 +0000

Sovereign Grace Church in Cleveland, Ohio wanted a logo that was abstract, but clearly communicated the concept of spiritual growth through the cross of Jesus Christ. The resulting identity fused those ideas into a strong, easily-recognizable mark for use on weekly announcements, the church website, signage, projection, church letters, and more.

Icons for Application that Uploads Documents

Nate — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:50:52 +0000

I designed these icons for a desktop application that allows users at multiple locations to upload and synchronize large architectural documents. The application allowed multiple users the ability to submit and see the status on different uploads, so the design needed to also have a “social” aspect while remaining relevant to the construction market.

Corporate Holiday Invitations

Nate — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:09:11 +0000

The annual corporate Holiday Party was one of the few times that all of my coworkers spent time together with their families. Each year extra effort went into planning a formal invitation melding the corporate brand with imagery from the holidays as a part of the overall celebration.

Providence Church Identity

Nate — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:18:39 +0000

After over two years of searching for a new church logo, I had the privilege of helping Providence Church develop their new identity. It was important to church leadership to not only communicate the centrality of the cross, but that it was a treasure.

The identity features an “open” cross at its center which is laid atop a diamond and surrounded in a circle abstractly resembling a coin. This struck exactly what the church wanted to communicate in its brand, and is currently being implemented across multiple mediums including weekly announcements, signage, projection, website, stationary, etc.

Providence Church Invitation Card

Nate — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:17:03 +0000

Following the identity development process, Providence Church asked me to produce a helpful tool for inviting others to the church. The size of a business card, the piece is informational, portable, and communicates key values and the vibrancy of the church.

Since production, these invitation cards have become a valuable resource for personally sharing information about Providence Church.

“Seriously” Direct-Mail Series

Nate — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 22:02:27 +0000

As a part of our sponsorship of a local Progress Software programmers user group, I designed and produced this 2-card mini-series of direct mail pieces to announce upcoming meetings.

The concepts take a common occurrence (like bumper stickers or bedtime stories) and push them to the extreme to say “We Take Progress Seriously”. For the bedtime story piece, all photography is original: that’s a good friend and two of his kids curled up in my house’s master bedroom. The resulting photograph was then edited so you couldn’t tell that I taped a different cover on front of a Flash book I had laying around.

Steel City in Black and White

Nate — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:18:35 +0000

I absolutely love living in Pittsburgh. It’s a great city with amazing culture, nice people, great architecture, fantastic parks, etc. Many times my love for Pittsburgh has crossed my interest in photography.

This collection of black & white photos was taken on one trip downtown, and it remains some of my favorite Pittsburgh photography. Three of these prints currently hang on my dining room wall.

Annual Corporate Event Materials

Nate — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 12:20:32 +0000

For several years in a row, my employer would have full-day staff meetings, which meant flying in employees from across the East Coast. To highlight the importance of these meetings, several design pieces were produced including signage, custom projection slides, professional name badges, and two 7-inch cubes with 5 faces of past marketing messages and imagery—all with common visual themes.

The effect of these pieces was that many members of the staff were freshly envisioned by the company’s past accomplishments rather than bored by standard Word and PowerPoint templates.

Personal Event Invitations

Nate — Mon, 07 May 2007 00:16:07 +0000

Being a graphic designer has many perks, and one of them is being able to do small side projects for friends’ baby showers, graduation parties, etc. Over the years I have had the opportunity to design several of these pieces in hopes of making these celebrations of life’s milestones even more special within a budget.

Cabin Fever Festival Promotionals

Nate — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 12:29:05 +0000

I helped Providence Church advertise their 2007 Cabin Fever Festival by producing various pieces to promote the event: postcard-sized invitations to be handed door-to-door, flyers to be posted on community event boards, and a projection slide for announcements during the Sunday morning service.

The materials purposefully use colors, textures, typography and photography that help them capture the eye, especially when placed amidst the standard “black on white” public announcement literature.

Protech Identity

Nate — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:57:02 +0000

As part of my corporate career, I helped brand a partner company that specializes in technology consulting. The logo needed to fit well within a highly proficient corporate setting, but also communicate a pleasantness in doing business.

This “smiling” word mark became the cornerstone for the corporate brand: a simple execution of professionally-set type between arcs that simulate a smiling eye and mouth.

Corporate Sell Sheets

Nate — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:43:12 +0000

In the software consulting world, many companies target their services based on technology stack, and my employer was no exception. I designed, produced and help write a set of coordinating sell sheets for each of our Microsoft .Net, Java, and Progress Software practices, as well as one for our flagship product.

Each sheet has the same hierarchy: a bold header image with a title, a summary statement, content in paragraph form, client quotes, and a color-coded tag in the upper-right to distinguish the category.

Kingdom Mortgage Identity

Nate — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 23:40:05 +0000

Kingdom Mortgage was looking for a logo that showcased the “king of the jungle” in a dignified and elegant way. This identity, which fuses the lion’s mane with a Gothic k was, in Kingdom Mortgage’s words, “perfect.”