The newly created homepage for dbirnbaum.com’s therapist website.

Ortner Graphics completed a new website design for Deborah Birnbaum MSSW, LCSW this week. Deborah has started a new Psycho therapy service located in Nyack, New York and needed a website to help market it. Deborah also needed a logo and business cards. Fortunately, Ortner Graphics was able to be a one stop shop for all of her needs.

The first stage of the design process on this project was creating a logo. Ornter Graphics provided six logo designs to choose from. Deborah chose version utilizing a tree as the corporate mark. This was due to the symbolic strength and tranquil nature. Being in the medical field, the site needed to be presented in a clean and simple manner.

In our initial consultation Deborah had requested that the site maintain a clean and simple design. She especially wanted the site to have an overall soothing feeling with an emphasis on a sea green color. Ortner Graphics achieved this by using photographs of woodland settings. The woodland settings had an added advantage of further reflecting and reinforcing the tree logo design. They also helped to compliment the sea green color. On close inspection, the viewer will notice that every page uses a different woodland image.

The tranquil woodland photos were further tied to the therapy concept because they all contain a unifying path. The path suggests the journey of life. To further enhance the photographs’ concept a mysterious light source was added in Photoshop. The goal of this was to make it seem that the pat was leading towards the light. The idea being that therapy will guide you to a better place or help you see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The website’s development was implemented using the WordPress Twenty Twelve theme as its programming framework. This coupled with meticulous styling in HTML and CSS results in a site which is fully responsive.

The ultimate result of the careful planning and design of http://www.dbirnbaum.com is a clean tranquil website. Ortner Graphics sincerely wishes Deborah the best of luck in her new venture. Deborah is a truly kind and caring individual. Certainly don’t hesitate to reach out to her if you reside in Nyack or the Lower Hudson Valley and are struggling with the challenges of modern times.

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.