Nathan Rutman » event

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.

“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.

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.

“Dance” Direct-Mail Series

Nate — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 21:52:13 +0000

As part of my employer’s sponsorship of a local users group for Progress programmers, I designed and produced this set of three postcards using a code construct to explain why the businessperson in the photography was dancing: they were attending the next meeting.

Ad for Brighter Futures at Regional Meet-Up

Nate — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:45:53 +0000

At a large regional technology meet-up for users of manufacturing technology, this ad promoted my employer’s flagship product. It was determined that many attendees would be looking for ways to integrate their current (somewhat aging) technology with the cutting-edge, which the product easily allows. The ad features the product logo “dawning” over a hill with the caption, “The road to a brighter future awaits you.”

This ad was printed full color on the back of the conference program, and ended up being the most eye-catching page in the 30-page booklet. A direct-mail postcard featuring the same imagery was sent 4 weeks prior to the event.

Regional Meet-Up “Too Great for Words” Ad

Nate — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 01:52:36 +0000

This ad, which appeared in a program for a large regional conference dedicated to manufacturing software, attempts to describe my employer’s product with a series of adjectives. This list of adjectives makes up the main backdrop, as well as a more pronounced rendition of the product logo set in smaller, tighter typography. The tag then reads, “Ever envisioned a technology too great for words? We have.”

The complexity of the letterforms in contrast with the simplicity of the layout (it is, after all, just a logo) makes for an eye-catching piece in an otherwise standard black & white program.