Strategy | Research | Naming | Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration | Photography

Sizz N Fizz started as a simple idea to start a smash burger food truck in northern Illinois. This project gave us the opportunity to fully flex our creative muscle by exploring the brand in it's entirety, beginning at identifying strategy and naming to identity design and implementation of the brand elements across digital and print medias.

This project was created by my brand foundations company, Low Octave.

@sizznfizz

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration | Video

Visit Milwaukee had worked closely with an amazing local agency to design their new brand initiative which was to launch in spring of 2024. They had a good start to their new logo but they were running out of time and what they needed, and needed fast, was to put together a full library of logo and brand assets that would provide the foundation and flexibility to launch their new communications for the coming year. We created a fully flexible logo system that could fit into any space online or in print. We put together brand guides for internal use and another for external partners. We refined their fonts and color palettes along with designing custom icons that were inspired by the 3 strokes of the logo.

Beyond that key foundational piece, we worked in tandem with Visit Milwaukee to create billboards, magazine ads, digital ads, posters, and a dynamic set of logo animation to utilized across all their video marketing.

This project was created by my brand foundations company, Low Octave.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

The Music Box brought a new and unique music venue to downtown Rockford and they needed an identity that could help visualize and reinforce the type of space they were creating. The brand needed to work seamlessly alongside the Art Deco decor while conveying a sense of quiet and focus.

When we started the exploratory work of what could be a fitting symbol, we stumbled on the idea of a hummingbird. The jeweled feathers alone could have been enough but we loved the idea of how a hummingbird can immediately stop a viewer in their tracks. Causing someone to immediately pause and focus on the beautiful sight and sounds. It seemed like a perfect match for Rockford's new Listening Lounge.

This project was created by my brand foundations company, Low Octave.

Strategy | Research | Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

Disco Chicken wanted to celebrate its tenth year with a total rebrand. Not only was the food truck going to be revamped but a new storefront, in downtown Rockford, was in the works. Creating a new identity that could work across both was the key.

We first designated ideal customers for both the truck and the restaurant and then created personas to help us craft the brands new personality.

After exploring many different logo directions in our early sketches, we found a fun and simple way to bring the headphones and chicken together to create an iconic letter D. A larger than normal logo family, color palette, and textures were created to give the client immense flexibility and playfulness.

This project was created by my brand foundations company, Low Octave.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration

Each summer Starlight Theatre puts on an amazing set of performances for the northern Illinois region. When the theatre brought in new leadership, I was asked to come along for the ride. In 2022 they approached Aaron Branding to help reinvent the identity allowing the brand to have more flexibility and better represent the quality put into each years performances. We decided that pairing the new identity closely to the award winning architecture and convertible roof was a direction that would achieve their goals for many years to come.

Each show receives a custom logo which is applied to 14-foot tall banners, program covers, t-shirts, and social media posts. If you are ever in my home town, you have got to see a show here on a beautiful summer night!

Rockford, IL

@rvcstarlighttheatre

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Packaging

Bubu Brands approached us when they were given an incredible opportunity to have their premium dog treats sold on GoPuff's website. GoPuff had some criteria they needed to meet before things could really get going and that was bringing their brand and packaging up to a level that matched the quality of GoPuff and the products they attached to their brand.

After some research into the target audience and competitors, we uncovered many different design directions that could use color and type to provide flexibility for many flavors...with room for even more to come.

Bubu Brands

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Web Design

The owners of O’Connor HVAC and Electrical felt stuck with an outdated visual identity that failed to convey their values and personality. In a highly-competitive market, their old logo and lack of brand assets made it hard to stand out against the competition. We helped them identify their unique qualities and applied these insights to create a new logo, website and supporting brand collateral. This gave their team a renewed sense of pride about the brand they represent and established a compelling, consistent presence in their community, distinct from the competition.

This project was created by my brand foundations company, Low Octave.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

Fitzgerald Equipment is one of the leading material handling companies in Illinois. When the opportunity arrived for them to celebrate their 60th anniversary they asked us to help create a new set of badges to use for both internal and external marketing. After creating this new set of badges and marketing materials, the team at Fitzgerald fell in love with the new metallic look and asked us to upgrade their current branding to match.

Fitzgerald Equipment

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

Normal Public Library is an amazing place in the heart of Illinois providing all kinds of opportunity and services to the surrounding community. They needed help refreshing their brand, designing strong themes and design directions, and most importantly creating a style guide to guide their team of young designers interning from Illinois State University.

Normal Public LIbrary

Creative Direction | Design | Illustration

Miles Nielsen and the Rusted Hearts wanted help bringing their yearly music festival to the next level and create a unique poster, T-shirt, stickers, and social media posts each year. The elephant has become a key brand element for the band and for the last few years, we've had the incredible opportunity to play with visuals supporting the Stamped and self named "Herd" of fans.

Miles Nielsen

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Packaging

SpecApp is a specialized engine oil company that is designed to extend the life of air-cooled engines and is aimed at vintage VW bus and Beetle owners. After researching vintage VW marketing and uncovering the things that vintage VW owners love, the visual direction became very clear. We utilized VW's vintage blue color as our base and used logos from the 1960's to inspire the direction of our mark and type treatment. Our client's desire was for their customers to feel like these products would fit right in on their grandfather's garage shelves.

This project was created in partnership with my talented friend @paxcurio.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration | Photography

Greenlink Energy Solutions came to me initially looking for help to “de-swoosh” their old logo and help them create a new identity that felt contemporary and friendly. That was the easy part. What took some time was untangling their messaging and design which was centered around their credentials. We convinced them to think strategically about their customers lives and instead lead with design and language that was more empathy driven.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

TitleWAVZ was a startup looking to unlock the door for new musicians and help them connect with each other while finding their potential break into an already saturated industry. They needed help creating a unique identity and visual direction to inspire the community of artists hungry for help.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Photography

VeeDubs wasn't even VeeDubs yet when we started talking but the idea of fully restore vintage VW bus turned into a mobile bar was exciting to be part of. After some exploration around names and potential visuals, the name finally stuck and the fun script became an obvious good fit.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Photography

AllSeasons Carpet Cleaning found itself in the same position many smaller service companies find themselves in. They have a great team of people, a very good product offering, and a desire to truly help their clients but their logo and appearance didn't stand up to the competition nor properly represent the quality of their work against their competitors. Our charge was to help AllSeasons take their branding to a level that enables them to compete with the larger budgets of the industry leaders and also stand out from their competition among the smaller carpet cleaning companies in northern Illinois.

AllSeasons Carpet Cleaning

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration | Photography

Lino’s has been a staple of Rockford, Illinois for 50 years. I was excited to help them update their logo and branding while honoring the heritage and brand equity since 1972.

Lino's

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

Macktown Construction needed a new look after two of the top construction companies joined forces. The goal was to focus their new logo and brand in a direction which appealed to an audience desiring to find a contractor they could trust with high end home remodels. Old home keys was a visual that came out of our early discussions that felt strong and full of tradition which aligned with their company goals.

Macktown Construction

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

Iverson Painting is one of a few premier painting companies in Northern Illinois. Unfortunately, their paint bucket logo didn’t reflect the quality and care they put into their work and so they urgently needed a refresh of their branding.

Iverson Painting

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration | Photography

Prairie Street Brewing Company has been a long time client and to celebrate their tenth anniversary they asked us to help create a new sub brand that would be fun, flexible, and last for the entire year. We explored lots of different directions and landed on a package of options that could give them the ultimate flexibility across many different brand elements like menus, beer labels, and digital signage.

This project was created in partnership with my talented friend @paxcurio.

Prairie Street Brewing Company

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration | Packaging | Photography

Lyfe Dispensary was looking for help designing their new brand which started out by taking their initial creative direction and then exploring different ways to make it work. We were able to improve their initial design and take them to a level that aligned with their goal of being a modern and inviting store front. We then expanded upon that single logo and built out an entire logo family and style guide defining patterns, color palettes, icons, and fonts. Once that was complete we worked with their team to design packaging, apparel, and interior wall graphics to make the experience unique.

This project was created in partnership with my talented friend @paxcurio.

Lyfe Dispensary

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Packaging

Gourmutts was a fun smaller project we were happy to help with because it was raising money for those with special needs. They came to us with a need to better demonstrate the quality of the product through a better logo and label design. The labels also needed to be printed in house on a shoestring budget to help maximize the money raised. We helped come up with a fun new logo that was flexible and friendly across print and social media and we helped created a label that implemented a new font and color palette while be easy to print and apply.

Brand Identity | Design

Roadhouse Harley Davidson asked me to help brand their newest facility after successfully helping them brand another location in Texas called The Ranch. Seeing my logo on a building next to the Harley logo is mind blowing!

Mount Vernon, IL

roadhouse-hd.com

Brand Identity | Design | Illustration

Since 1983, Dairyhäus has been delighting taste buds with it's handcrafted Homemade Ice Cream treats, all prepared in a cozy kitchen nestled in historic downtown Rockton, Illinois. When they wanted to freshen up their brand and create a series of fun illustrations to commemorate their 40th anniversary, they asked us to help. We started by designing a new and more fun wordmark with a subtle nod to vintage ice cream shops. Then we had fun creating a series of mascots including our happy ice cream cone along with what has become known as the seasonal "monster house".

Dairyhaus

Brand Identity | Design | Photography

A new, but very old and ridiculously "cool", food truck was coming to the Rockford, Illinois area. Along with these decadent ice cream sandwiches, it needed a fun logo with with a hint of nostalgia.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

I worked closely with the leadership of the town of Normal to explore some new ideas and design directions for the new logo. Nothing ended up being used in the end but it was great fun working with their team to envision a new future.

Design | Illustration

The Art Deli has been supporting local artists and bringing pride to Rockford for a long time. When they asked me to help design some of their shirts I couldn’t have been more happy to help out. One of my favorites is the first sweatshirt where I was able to design the (815) area code into Illinois.

Rockford, IL

rockfordartdeli.com

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

Lindeblad Piano Restoration is the premier Steinway piano restorer in the nation.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design | Illustration

Design | Illustration

Discover Peoria had the opportunity to create a new commemorate hockey jersey for the opening of the Peoria Rivermen's upcoming season. One option they asked to explore was reimagining the Rivermen's mascot in a much tougher and intimidating style. This option didn't end up making it to the end but we reused the new mascot in Discover Peoria's dasher board advertisement.

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

This was a fun project creating a new Identity for a church-focused architecture firm. We went through a lot of different options but once this one landed, the simplicity and almost obvious answer to the design was a perfect fit for everyone.

@risepoint.architecture

East Dundee, IL

Work done for conectiv.co

Annual Report | Creative Direction | Design

Discover Peoria came to us looking for help designing and laying out their year end annual report. They wanted to explore a refreshed design and layout that would leverage the very new brand identity. It was a fun exercise exploring and helping them realize visually how their new logos, fonts, and colors could work in the real world and set a tone for future communication.

Branding Identity | Design

Simeon is a Chicago-based film director and cinematographer and he is ridiculously talented. I was super excited when he entrusted his brand to me. You really need to check out his stuff! His instagram link is below.

Chicago, IL

@simeonpratt

Brand Identity | Design

I got to help make a logo for a Harley-Davidson dealership! I mean how awesome is that? AND I got to do it again for another one! This was super cool but also really tough. We went though dozens of logos and who knows how many revisions. In the end though, the client and their customers were very happy.

College Station, TX

Work done with conectiv & Thinker Ventures

@theranchhd

Branding | Design

Oh Baby Hair & Spa is a high end spa in the Bloomington/Normal area and, like most companies, their logo wasn’t representing their quality of service. They asked me to help fix that for them. This is one logo that I still get excited about and can’t believe how lucky I was to stumble on the O and B as a pair of scissors.

Bloomington, IL

@ohbabysalon

Branding | Design

My client wanted to create a new logo for it’s upcoming event in Chicago. They asked for it to include “Chicago”, the Chicago Gardens, and something that conveyed “scents & aromas”.

Chicago, IL

Work done for conectiv.co

Branding | Design

Swift Marine Services keeps the boats and docks of the residents in Cape Cod running smoothly year round. This logo just fell together once the sails stood out in the negative spaces.

Cataumet, MA

Branding | Design | Illustration

The name Dexios is an ancient Greek word. It literally means "right hand". Dexios asked me to redesign their logo more than ten years ago. I’ve been happy with how well it’s held up. Sure, I’d love to make some changes but they still love it! They came back and asked me to redesign their website a couple years ago. Check it out it’s pretty cool.

Midlothian, VA

Created while at Thinker Ventures

Branding | Design

The Proving Ground is a state-of-the-art new bouldering gym located in central Illinois. Doors will open in 2019 and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the new brand develops and the community embraces it.

Bloomington, IL

@tpgbouldering

Branding | Design

My friend at West Rock Wake Park asked me to help him and his buddy design a logo family for a new wakeboard tour focused on college age athletes. Ummm let me think…yes please!

@midwestcollegewake

Brand Identity | Creative Direction | Design

West Rock already had an amazing logo to start with. I was asked to help take that and create some more options that would make it feel dynamic and fresh. We incorporated the shape of the new system into things and then allowed that shape to rotate and flip all around.

West Rock Wake Park is one the most magical places in Rockford. It’s also one of the countries premier wake parks with a brand new cable system. If you spend your time there you’ll end up falling in love with how helpful the staff is and you’ll also see world champion Red Bull riders blow your mind with the things they make look effortless. You can also just hang out and watch some bands play on the beach.

@westrockwakepark

The cool photo was taken by @connorbrooksmckenzie

Rockford, IL

Brand Identity | Design

Pramantha Risk Management is a company that is all about security and I was really excited to be trusted with helping them create their new identity. If you ever use these guys, you are probably a super important person traveling to some distant land.

Chicago, IL

pramanthariskmanagement.com

Branding | Design

Anthony Green is the premier tile craftsman in the Bloomington area. His attention to detail and British accent have helped him make quite a name for himself. Having a giant orange “green” on the side of his truck for the last decade hasn’t hurt either. It was a simple answer to a tough question of how to stand out from everyone else and be remembered. Check out his Instagram to see more of his amazing work.

Bloomington, IL

@greentilecraftsman

Details coming soon-ish.