Back in the fall, our very own Tadd Myers was invited to give a TedxTalk on his inspiring American Craftsman project and the impact it’s had on his life, as well as his subjects and audience. Tadd wanted to create an email to promote the talk, letting people know when and where they could tune in to watch it live. That’s when he reached out to us for help crafting an email design.
Since our usual emailer designs focus on creating a branded template for photographers to promote their work and is designed specifically to be used over and over again, this project was a nice change of pace. Tadd wanted to do something pretty unconventional by promoting the talk not with one of his images but with a graphic type arrangement instead. Photographer promotion without the use of a photo isn’t something we’d typically recommend, but knowing that Tadd’s father was a pressman and that old-school letterpress printing very much falls within the American Craftsman realm and Tadd’s own brand aesthetic, it made total sense. With this in mind, I put my knowledge of letterpress printing to good use and designed a wood-type-inspired lock-up for Tadd that’s good enough to print.
The graphic has some of the characteristic type styles and glyphs that would be used with woodblock printing and uses distressed characters to give the illusion of actually being printed. The type is also arranged and spaced out how wood type would be set for printing on a press. Tadd was so pleased with the graphic that he commissioned us to create a follow-up that he could use to promote the talk once it was posted online.
A few months later, Tadd reached out again to let us know he’d been interviewed about the book, this time by Texas Country Reporter.
Texas Country Reporter is a TV show here in Texas. It has been around for a really long time and I remember watching it when I was young. They approached me last Sept and wanted to do a story about me and the book. This is really exciting and should be great for the book.
Tadd employed our services once again, and I had the privilege of creating another typographic lock-up to promote the story.
It’s been a real treat creating these graphics to promote such an inspiring project, not to mention that Tadd is a pleasure to collaborate with no matter what the project is. If you think these promos are exciting, just wait for the business cards Tadd and I have been working on recently. I won’t spoil the surprise, but the style of these emails should give you a hint on the print technique. With that in mind, stay tuned!
To see Tadd’s work and more of his American Craftsman Project, pay him a visit at taddmyers.com.
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