This is a letter of recommendation from Matt Rand describing Eric Ortner's qualifications as an Art Director

I received the following recommendation from my former employer. It’s pretty glowing so I decided to share it with the World Wide Web.

“April 18, 2013

To Whom It May Concern,

I have worked closely with Eric Ortner for the 7 years he was employed as Art Director at my company, Rand Realty. Mr. Ortner excelled in this role and completed hundreds of design projects for our company, on-time and on budget.

Eric is well versed in both print and online design and is exceptional at creating well-conceived design themes around loosely defined specifications. The quality of Eric’s work, organization and attention to detail are excellent. He has been a great steward of our brand and maintained consistency to our brand standards across many platforms.

I volunteered to write this recommendation for Eric because I am very grateful for his contributions to our company and am very confident that he has the intelligence, work ethic and design skills to add value wherever he works. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about Eric.

Sincerely,

Matt Rand
Managing Partner

The Meridian Signage for a condominium real estate new development located in Suffern, NY.

Suffern, New York is a really wonderful place to live and work. Its main thoroughfare Lafayette Avenue is reminiscent of the scenery in a Norman Rockwell illustration. The Village of Suffern is known for the historic and beautifully restored Lafayette movie theater which is complete with its own working Wurlitzer organ used during the screening of vintage silent films. For this Graphic Designer, though, the town’s main marquee is the sign near the condominium building known as The Meridian.

This sign was a fun project to work on because the campaign was built from the ground up. Meaning, the development’s logo and entire marketing campaign needed to be designed from scratch. The name “Meridian” conjured nautical imagery based on its association with navigation. Therefore the logo design incorporated a compass rose as the mark. You can see this and other logo design samples in the corresponding portfolio section of this website, by clicking here.

The sign’s design is fairly simple. The primary element is the logo set over a burgundy background, which was the main color in the Meridian’s graphic design system.  Meanwhile the, only supporting color utilized is the Meridian’s cream color. This allows the contact information and Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty logo to stand out clearly in black. The only other design elements in the sign are a few of the condominium’s features and the address.

Because the Meridian sign was intended for only temporary use as a marketing piece, little thought was put into its shape or the materials it was produced with. Instead, size was the sign’s key importance. The sign was created using a four color grand format UV print mounted to a 10 foot by 5 foot sheet of Alumalite and installed on two painted 4×4 posts.

For those unfamiliar with materials Alumalite is a composite substrate consisting of an interior corrugated plastic core sandwiched between two sheets of aluminum. This material is ideal for promoting real estate new development projects because of its durability, lightweight and relative low cost. Its lifespan is not as long as other materials, but for use in real estate marketing it lasts for the duration of most marketing campaigns. The largest size sheet of Alumalite available is 10 foot by 5 foot. Although this size would be too small for readability on the side of an interstate, in a small town like Suffern, it really is quite large.

For Graphic Designers and Art Directors, one of the most validating things in life is to walk past one’s own work. Living in Suffern, this Art Director has the opportunity to walk past a labor of love on a regular basis. It’s rough being a practitioner of the disposable arts, though. As the Meridian Development has almost completely sold out (a good sign for a successful campaign) this sign will be dismantled sooner than I like to think.

Looking back on the past fourteen years of professional experience, I’ve found that I barely remember the majority of projects that I’ve worked on. My hope is that this blog platform will aid me in inspiration for future projects, and help to keep me from slipping into similar pitfalls of past projects.

I believe that as the field of graphic design continues to evolve it will be interesting to watch design trends and techniques emerge through this weekly catalog of work. My goal is to only include my own creations or possibly the work of my subordinates. However, I may also include designs that I deem to be especially revolutionary regardless of their creator.

The type of design work that I expect to publish in this site will be primarily graphic in nature and I anticipate that it will include:

• Logos
• Layouts
• Illustrations
• Photographs
• Websites
• Flash Banners
• Motion Graphics
• Video
• Discussion on Branding and Brand Strategy

My plan is to include some textual explanation along with the specific examples in order to examine the overall marketing strategy of the piece. In some cases where there is an interesting design process I may also include the proofs that lead up to the final approved design.

In short, I’m really looking forward to discovering where this blog forum on the world wide web takes me.  Thanks for your interest in my work!

So without further ado, let me introduce the First Design of the Times.