Logos — Aria Creative

CM Grip

After gigs as key grips on several recent high-profile films, the owners of CM Grip take pride in the fact that they’ve honed their skills beyond the film meccas of New York, Atlanta, and Hollywood. But don’t let their central PA home base fool you into thinking they’re hicks; these men are set building artisans with a business acumen to match. To play up their outlier image, while remaining true to their pristine work, we developed an identity that’s a little bit corporate and a little bit rock’n’roll. By crossing retro motorcycle signage, vintage footwear, and the look of well-loved metal, we created a logo that speaks to their talent—with attitude.

Algae Solutions International

Can green slime help change the world? The answer is undoubtedly yes. Commercial-scale algae production is a rapidly growing industry, with the humble organism serving as a key source of biofuel, fertilizer, and food supplements. Algae Solutions International helps “algaepreneurs” get their business off the ground by providing tools which lead to successful project financing for algae farms housed within disadvantaged communities.

The company’s logo represents each aspect involved in and affected by the algae production process: water, algae, and the community within which it is housed. Showing each of these aspects as part of a spherical whole not only implies the inherent cyclical reliance on one another to succeed, it also calls to mind Earth itself. The “spark of life” bursting upwards from the bottom of the sphere represents not only the simple life form’s genesis, but Algae Solutions International’s belief that algae’s cultivation can reinvigorate the communities within which it is farmed.

CBO Financial, Inc

When your mission statement has more substance than the typical corporate sunshine blown up the hind-ends of stuffy CEOs, your logo should, too. CBO is virtually unlike any other financial company, and they needed a look to reflect who they are. CBO helps organizations that help distressed neighborhoods with the hope that new development will spark additional investment to turn these communities around. We worked with CBO’s in-house marketing team to get to the heart of their mission: CBO has literally aided in the return of dozens of communities from the ashes; therefore, the phoenix was the perfect visual metaphor. It’s so perfect, in fact, that all new employees—once they complete a 90-day probation period—must have it tattooed on the fleshy patch of their supervisor’s choosing.

Red Door Remodeling

Most contractors live by this creed: Do the Least With the Cheapest and Leave Cigarette Butts and Mountain Dew Bottles Behind. Red Door Remodeling is the antithesis of a typical contractor; they are true artisans who provide an old-world attention to detail and quality largely unheard of in the modern age, usually surprising the owners with more than they imagined possible. To visually represent Red Door Remodeling’s artisanal remodeling talents, the retro truck evokes an era when craftsmanship was still king. The positioning of the door in the truck’s bed subtly nods to the company’s name as well as a general principle of feng shui which suggests painting a home’s front door red to bring success and prosperity to its inhabitants (and a tonic from the ills of ignored phone calls, shoddy quality, and sporadic work hours).

DC529 College Savings Plan

College students have it rough: parties, sleeping until noon, Ramen noodles. Graduation comes and along with it the cold, cruel punch in the face of student loan debt. The DC529 College Savings Plan is the T-bone on the shiner of the aforementioned student (and his or her parents). Developed specifically for the DC529 College Savings Plan, this logo uses easily recognizable symbols of the District of Columbia to simultaneously represent the dream and the realization of higher education. The logo ultimately became the basis for the plan package’s overall design, which has helped thousands of parents sign up before their children take their first steps along the path to public drunkenness.

Attune Development Consultants

Successful project managers are a different breed; they see peace in a Post-it note melee and gain inner strength from infinite-tabbed Excel spreadsheets. The Attune logo offers a slightly whimsical yet grounded approach to the company’s mission. Three balls convey the idea that the construction process has many facets and that Attune deftly juggles/coordinates them all. (The logo should actually have about two dozen more balls in it to literally represent all that Attune does but then it could have resembled a chicken-pox-plagued preschooler.)

Arrisbrook Builders

An arris isn’t a bottle blonde with a lot of money and even more free time, it’s the line, ridge, or hip formed by the meeting of two surfaces at an exterior angle. The inspiration for the Arrisbrook logo came from cathedral ceilings: when seen from below, an arris resembles a stylized star. By removing some of the elements so that the basic architectural vaults remain, the star is read as a flower. The elegant typeface paired with the off-center arris shape reflects the client’s refreshingly honest and atypical approach to home building. The singular orange petal in the arris is also a symbol of the client’s belief in using innovative home-building materials that are better for the environment and teacup Chihuahuas.

U.S. Foodservice

Along with white-collared blue dress shirts and the use of the word, “solution”, corporate theft is a tremendous problem in the food service industry. Based on a retro USDA poultry “wholesomeness” stamp, the logo was created as part of a kick-off campaign for a managerial human resources package specifically targeting ethics standards. The response was so great that the client was inspired to extend the campaign to other topics. (Unfortunately, the campaign against “if you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat” is still being waged.)

Acumen Development

This real estate development firm takes pride in its quickness, accuracy and insight—which is exactly why Acumen is their business’ name and not Molasses. A secondary meaning for the word (tapering to a point) led to the use of the accent, providing emphasis and direction. Given that in America we stress the first syllable of Acumen, it was natural to place the accent over the letter ‘A’, reinforcing its shape. The added benefit of this placement is that it both subtly mimics a roofline and creates an upward-moving arrow implying strength, growth and other positive chest-pounding attributes.

Garrison Forest School Athletics

Garrison Forrest School’s athletics department was having a hard time finding the right balance between fearsome self-confidence and not scaring their student body with their revamped Grizzly logo. One of the specific requests was, “We need something that scares the pants off competitors, but we can’t show teeth or claws because it makes the toddlers cry.” Taking this into consideration, we were left with angry eyes and a scowl, best seen in profile. The client wanted it to be collegiate-looking so we researched college sports team logos as well as those of other area private schools. We also discovered that Grizzlies attack on their hind legs, so the logo reflects that stance with the long neck. Grrrrrrrrr.