Providence Subway Map

For the past two years, Transit Authority Figures has designed subway maps for unlikely locations. It started with an absurdist rendering of our hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts and, after fanstastic response, turned to sites like Cape Cod, The Hamptons, and other places that would never, for obvious reasons, have a subway.

Now we’re paying more attention to places that perhaps should have a subway. Cities all over the country are choked with traffic and existing public transportation is often pretty spotty. So now we engage in the whimsical fantasy of designing a city’s ultimate subway system in a universe where budget, bureaucratic entanglement, environmental considerations, and easements are no object.

This is our first draft of the Providence Subway. Our hometown was easy to map because we knew where the stops should be and where the lines should run (and it’s small). For Providence (big), we’ve been studying maps and traffic patterns and consulting friends. See more here...

Deerfield Academy Dance

Damia went up to DA last week and got up close and personal as students rehearsed for the spring dance performance. Here are a few of our favorites:

Gold ADDY for St. Vincent's Medical Center

Rob & Damia recently won a gold ADDY at the Western Massachusetts Ad Club awards ceremony for Smaller Incision. Greater Precision.

Visually, we tried to avoid hospital advertising cliché (no clipboards. no stethoscopes) and drew some inspiration from hospitals that we felt were embracing progressive design approaches - specifically, The Cleveland Clinic and Mt. Sinai.

We focused on creating easily graspable metaphors that downplayed the complexity of the equipment: A tiny needle threading a enormous button; A tiny arrow piercing the bullseye of an enormous target; A tiny golfball falling into an enormous hole. A tiny diamond-cutter perfecting an enormous stone.

St. Vincent's was very pleased with the direction and was even contacted by their Da Vinci marketing representative who wanted to show it around to other hospitals. They felt it was “innovative and different from anything else that they have seen from other hospitals, and they would like to showcase [the campaign].”


Kusika & Zambezi Poster for Williams

Blanche DuBois is at the end of her rope

Poster for Williams College...:

Initial poster sketches:

Dress Rehearsal Photo Shoot:

Opening Night Posters:

Program Logo for ISO New England

Logofor the Virtual Orientation Learning Tool – at the company that runs the entire electric grid for New England.

Here are some of the others that we liked...

Western Mass Ad Club ADDY campaign

The Advertising Club of Western Massachusetts recently commissioned us to design the marketing materials for our region's 2011 ADDY Awards. We came up with a campaign that celebrates the uniqueness of Western Mass by playing with graphic representations - geographic and conceptual - with which we had never before seen played. Here are a few from the crowded sketch pad that we decided to include

In the first, we emphasized the 'square-state' quality of the geographic make-up of Western Mass. We sliced it up by county, sub-region, telephone area code, and highway disection. Having thought for years that all of Western Mass was 'The 413', we were surprised to find that 978 sneaks in and takes a bite out of five towns around Orange.

We were delighted that when turned on its side, Massachusetts looks like a frosty pint that's just been slammed on the bar. Three or four swigs of Western Mass give this a glass-half-full positive outlook, provided you're an optimist.

We find one of the most curious facts about Western Mass is that three major sports were born here. Everyone around here knows about basketball in Springfield and volleyball in Holyoke. But recently documents from the late 18th century were found in Pittsfield mentioning the earliest-known references to baseball. It made us wonder what else these three cities have in common as cultural pioneers. As it turns out - paper products.

Finally, as a Northampton-based agency, we've long been amused by the electric charge of the word 'Noho'. The hipper-than-thou, über-urban, pretensiousness of it is bristling to many in the greater region. We thought it would be fun to liberate the word by including everyone. We're still working on one for Ware. Way-Ray?

Winterpills Poster Series