Founded by members of Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO), Global Artisans Initiative is dedicated to marketing quality, socially-responsible products for corporate and chapter gifts.

Global Artisans Initiative contributes to the empowerment of women, the preservation of traditional handicraft skills, and economic development of the communities where the artisans work. Global Artisans Initiative is an umbrella company for three individual social enterprises – ethical muse, Hands Up Not Handouts and MyMela.

Friction developed a brand identity and launch marketing materials for this collaborative project in Fall of 2011. The logo design expresses global empowerment and growth through the symbol of a multi-colored tree, and the casual font style refers to the hand-crafted nature of the project’s product offering.

Friction continues to design catalogs, trade show materials and various point-of-sale promotional items to support the Global Artisans Initiative and various projects related its mission.

Knute wanted a logo that represented his campaign’s essential mission to “Get Oregon Working” . Friction developed a concept that conveyed this message through two interlocked gears that are literally working together inside the Oregon map, while their red and blue colors suggest both ends of the political spectrum.

This branding project is an excellent example of Friction’s core belief that a brand is a promise made by the company about what it stands for and what its customers can expect. We’re looking forward to seeing Knute’s logo on lawn signs and campaign posters across Oregon – good luck in November Knute!

While this approach utilizes current technology trends and turn-key management tools, its fast time-to-market and low cost structure make it an ideal solution for companies who are mainly looking to convey marketing information at the corporate level.

We’ve built many sites on the WordPress CMS that covey a high-level image on the front end and offer excellent management and upgrade tools on the back-end. They are all developed for WordPress, built on top of a SQL database with FTP access, and designed with a custom WordPress theme.

The WordPress CMS platform is independent, self-updating, inexpensive, SEO friendly, and customizable. It offers excellent content management tools via a user-friendly dashboard, and its opensource environment means that it organically evolves with the ever-changing online marketplace through community-driven enhancements and upgrades.

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Autumn 2010 cover of 1859 Magazine

BEND, OREGON (April 26, 2011) — Design strategy was a key factor in the Autumn 2010 of issue of 1859 Oregon’s Magazine, which won a nomination for Best New Quarterly Magazine from the publishing industry’s prestigious Maggie Awards Committee in Los Angeles. Creative Director Anouk Tapper developed a strong visual identity that supported the magazine’s objective to celebrate Oregon’s heritage and lifestyle for a sophisticated regional audience.

“The design needed to convey authenticity to support the magazine’s heritage theme. We wanted Oregonians to feel a sense of pride when they saw 1859, and to think ‘Wow, look at how amazing and beautiful our home is’. I felt if 1859 looked too cute or modern it wouldn’t feel authentic, so I created a sophisticated mood to convey a sense of respect not only for the content of the magazine but for Oregon itself.”

To achieve an authentic mood throughout the magazine, Anouk combined traditional graphic and typographic devices in a sophisticated way, kept to a limited color palette, used simple line work and graphical devices to draw the eye through the content, and chose photographs that showed a dramatic sense of place.

The Maggie Awards Committee reviewed the Autumn 2010 issue of 1859 and based their judgment for the nomination on ten editorial and design criteria including cover, layout, design format, typography, readability, research, editorial components, and graphic and editorial devices.

“I wanted to put an iconic image on the cover and the renown McKenzie River Drift Boat was a perfect subject. I thought the ‘Classic Oregon’ headline would refer to both the boat and the magazine’s objective in a clear way for the viewer, and that many of the articles in the Autumn issue were a perfect fit for that theme as well.  When I sketched out the concept to Heather (Heather Huston Johnson, co-publisher) and Kevin (Kevin Max, editor) they were behind it right away, and Mike Houska did a terrific job capturing the exact image I had in mind for the cover. I think the whole issue really worked to help define and amplify the 1859 brand.”

Anouk Tapper is the founder and creative director of Friction, a collaborative design and marketing studio since 2005 in Bend, Oregon. Anouk was contracted by Deschutes Media, LLC, to develop the logo, design and brand strategy behind 1859‘s print publication and webzine, and the sales and marketing materials to support the launch of the enterprise in 2009. Anouk was the Creative Director and sole designer of 1859 Oregon’s Magazine until 2011, including the Maggie Award-nominated Autumn 2010 issue.

1859 Oregon’s Magazine is a quarterly lifestyle and heritage magazine based in Bend and Portland, Oregon. 1859 is available on newsstands throughout Oregon and the Pacific Northwest and at www.1859magazine.com.

The Maggie Awards are produced annually by the Western Publishing Association to honor excellence in print, web and digital magazines printed or distributed in the western United States. The 2011 Maggie Awards dinner is April 29 in Los Angeles.

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Press Contact
press@frictioninc.com
(541) 350-0963

Recently founded by Dr. Harry Jacobson, former Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs at Vanderbilt University and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), Cardiovascular Care Group is a collaboration that integrates hospital and ambulatory cardiovascular providers around the common goal of improving cardiovascular care through a physician-led and patient-centric approach.

To support the launch of the project, Cardiovascular Care Group was seeking a corporate identity set and a custom website that would emphasize the caring nature of the organization and its members. Friction created a logo of human forms around a stylized heart that is smart looking and modern, and suggests that there people who care behind the heart-centered project.

The deep client relationship with Inovia helped Friction create a new image for Inovia that refreshed the brand and allowed for expansion without losing its long-established themes.

Friction designed an custom website that features a large rotating slideshow and galleries on the opening page, and a intuitive navigation system to browse the firm’s extensive portfolio of images. Friction built the site with a CMS backend that will allow admins at the firm to manage log in and manage their own content.

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