||||| JDK Design

ROXY, a leading surf and mountain apparel brand for young women, hired JDK to develop a new activewear sub-brand identity. In contrast to other brands in the category, the identity was inspired by the optimism and youthful, spirited style that is core to the brand and their athletes. JDK developed the name, ROXYathletix, which both communicates the category and captures the spirit of the ROXY brand through the use of the signature “X.” The visual identity employs warm color, gradients and sun-flares; the resulting wordmark is powerful and energized, yet open and friendly.

JDK has partnered with SRAM to celebrate Lance Armstrong’s return to competitive cycling by releasing a series of limited-edition posters. The posters, part of SRAM’s “Choose to Win” campaign, honor Armstrong’s 2009 season, from the Tour of California to the Tour de France.
“Choose to Win” encourages enthusiasts who’ve purchased a SRAM-equipped road bike at an authorized independent bicycle retailer to take a picture of themselves with their new bike in front of the shop, along with the salesperson, and submit it to ichoosetowin@sram.com. Both consumers and bike shops have a chance to win one of JDK’s limited-edition, screen-printed posters.
“As avid cyclists and enthusiasts ourselves, working on this project has been an incredible experience for our studio,” said JDK CEO Steve Francisco. “Capturing the excitement of Lance’s journey in these posters is an amazing way to document this incredible time in cycling history.”

JDK welcomed Stephanie Williams, our new Account Manager, to the studio in May. Stephanie's a Burlington, Vt., local who—as if that weren't enough—brings six years of project-management experience to her new position. In fact, from 2001 to 2007, she worked right across the street from JDK World Headquarters at Kelliher Samets Volk. As a senior project manager there, she handled a variety of clients, including Stowe Mountain Resort, Green Mountain Power, Cabot Creamery, and Vermont Energy Investment Corporation/Efficiency Vermont. Before her stint at KSV, she was a health-care associate at Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Stephanie graduated from the University of Vermont in 1996 with a degree in psychology (and a minor in both environmental studies and studio art).

Fredrik Averin joined JDK in April as the new Design Director of our Portland, Ore., office. Fredrik has a great deal of creative experience in a variety of areas, including corporate identity design and packaging strategy/design. Before accepting this new position, he was already working closely with us as a freelance contractor on a range of Xbox projects. Fredrik spent a couple of years as a creative director at Avenue A/Razorfish in Portland, Ore., and was a senior art director for marchFIRST, in San Francisco, Calif., and Portland. Although his first job as a designer in the USA was at Landor Associates in San Francisco, Fredrik—a native of Sweden—began his career in Stockholm, where he was an assistant art director at HLR/Dromfabriken BBDO and Villmer Reklambyra. He has a M.F.A. with an emphasis on graphic design from Konstfack-University College of Arts, Crafts, and Design (Stockholm).

Rapha, a small but rapidly expanding company based in London, creates fine cycling clothing and accessories for the elite cyclist. In 2007, Rapha embarked on a journey to discover some of the toughest, most grueling, most epic rides and routes in America.
Steve Francisco was able to get away from the office long enough this spring to experience the exhilaration, and agony, of Appalachian cycling. He pedaled up and down mountains on dirt and gravel roads, spent nights in converted barns, and survived to tell about it, even if he was a bit worse for the wear.
Find out more about Rapha and the Continental rides.

Melody joined JDK in 2007 as the studio's new Travel Coordinator. Since then, while continuing to manage all things travel-related, she has taken on many other responsibilities, including supervising the maintenance, janitorial, and reception teams.
In awarding the "A" to Melody during staff meeting on Friday, April 24, Abdul mentioned how she made him feel like part of a family, with her emphasis on respect and cooperation. He also cited her generosity and kindness, especially when it came to helping him with his citizenship test. Finally, Abdul said, she was a really nice boss. Way to go, Mel!

JDK Creative Director Michael Jager delivered the keynote presentation, titled Killing Curiosity, at the 2009 Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) Northeast District (NED) Conference in Cambridge, Mass. (Michael also presented Killing Curiosity to the Chicago Ad Club on May 13.)
The conference, held March 27-29, had “revolution” as its theme. Michael told his audience of students and professionals that design, even during these difficult times, is more important than ever. He is, he said, a firm believer that design can save the world.
Michael urged designers to scare themselves, asserting that facing the unknown was not only healthy but critical to executing great design. Above all, he said, curiosity had to be protected. Many forces—from difficult clients to our own inertia—vie on a daily basis to blunt our curiosity, but they must be resisted.
Michael then showed that he was willing to follow his own advice—using a program that randomly displayed images on a screen, he called upon audience members to come up a tap a key to stop the sequence. He had no part in selecting the images and no way of knowing which ones would come up, but he promised to speak about whichever image appeared.
This was a night when the unknown led to inspiration.

For about two weeks last August, the 2008 Beijing Olympics shone a bright spotlight on the world's top female athletes. But what did that mean for young women who were training hard all summer for their school track team? Did they feel a connection to the Olympians? Could they imagine victory at that level? Could they see themselves standing atop the podium, as champions?
Nike created its revolutionary Sister One training shoe to be lightweight and ultra-responsive. But they asked JDK to do more than just create a buzz around the shoe: they wanted help elevating women's sport. They wanted help making that connection.
The Nike Sister One Limited Edition initiative encouraged young women to work hard toward their training goal. Six Olympic athletes from the U.S. and around the world—Hope Solo, Sanya Richards, Diana Taurasi, Maurren Maggi, Jessica Mendoza, and Gulnara Galkina-Samitova—provided a swatch of fabric from their uniforms to be sewn into the tongue of a limited number of Sister One LE shoes. Nike then sponsored a contest, asking the young women why they thought they were worthy to wear one of the special Sister Ones. Winners have been selected by the athletes and will soon have the opportunity to meet their favorite Olympian and receive their shoes.
JDK, in addition to working on other elements of the Sister One campaign, produced a beautiful passport-size, fold-out booklet featuring pictures of and quotes from all six of the Olympic stars.

Michael Jager rallied the troops on Cinco de Mayo with the lyrics to Billy Idol’s “Kiss Me Deadly.” For many of us, no doubt, the link between the spiky-haired punk rocker and the Mexican holiday was not immediately apparent.
But if you were a pinata, about to face the kiss of a Wiffle ball bat, then perhaps the connection was all too clear.

Fulfilling a long-held dream, the Iskra Print Collective recently hosted two months of screen-printing instruction, inspiration, and creation. Battling the daily deluge of bad economic news, thirteen students—drawn from JDK and the Burlington, Vt., area—answered uncertainty with creativity, intensity, and desire.
Death Sex Disco, which opened in JDK’s Sanctuary Artsite gallery on June 12, is both a record of these students’ achievements and a testament to Iskra’s commitment to introducing the broader community to the world of the printmaking arts.
To find out more about Iskra, visit iskraprint.com.

JDK designers were among the local artists who donated their creations to SK8CRE8, a group exhibition and auction to benefit Burlington City Arts (BCA).
Every piece in the show featured a common medium: a skateboard deck. Much of the fun was in seeing how different artists approached this "canvas." JDK's Miya Teraki, Coberlin Brownell, Steve Cousins, George Mench, Ned Beebe, John Siddle, Chris Partelow, Fairchild Fries, and Michael Jager (not to mention his children, Eli and Oli) did not disappoint—each donated imaginative decks to the cause.
The benefit, held April 17-May 30 at Burlington's Firehouse Gallery, raised over $1500 for BCA's Mentor Arts program. Mentor Arts supports youth who have an aptitude for art but might not have the resources or support network to discover their talents. Youth are matched with adult artists for relationships based on friendship and a mutual love of the arts. Together they explore a variety of media in BCA’s studios and classrooms.

On May 2, an enthusiastic group of JDK employees and their family members fanned out across the neighborhood to pick up trash as part of Vermont’s Green Up Day.
Green Up Day is a Vermont institution. The inaugural Green Up Day was April 18, 1970—that day, famously, the state closed down the interstate highways from 9am to noon to make the cleanup easier. While nothing quite that dramatic has happened since, the green tradition continues, stronger than ever. When the winter snows retreat, Vermonters get out there and yank all the no-longer-hidden coffee cups and bottles and tires out of the mud.
After a brief breakfast of bagels, coffee, and juice, thirty JDKers put on their specially printed T-shirts (designed by JDK’s Chris Partelow) and gloves and made their way out to the streets. In a mere two hours, they filled over twenty garbage bags with trash and hauled out one microwave, one tire, and a single boot. It was a wonderful morning of working together, helping our neighbors—and welcoming spring.

Printmaker Cayla Skillin-Brauchle is interested in the personal and collective landscapes we construct over time: How do we create them? How do they, in turn, define us? Class Kingdom Phylum, her first show in Burlington, Vt., was inspired by organizational techniques, scientific categorization, and family traditions.
Cayla explores patterning and organization through images of everyday objects and personal collections, using screen and woodblock prints to illustrate individual rituals and community habits. Given her focus on printmaking, being an artist-in-residence at JDK—with its renowned screen-printing studio, the Iskra Print Collective—was a natural fit. The work in her show, which opened May 8 and ran until June 5, was produced during her seven months at JDK, as well during a recent residency at the Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, Vt.).
Cayla will be pursuing an M.F.A. in printmaking at Ohio University this fall.

In March, Burlington’s Firehouse Gallery hosted the Combat Paper Project, a hands-on papermaking exhibit created by Vermont veterans of the Iraq War, Drew Matott and Drew Cameron. Combat Paper seeks to give Iraq War veterans a creative outlet for interacting with other soldiers and a way to reflect on their service. The veterans' active-duty uniforms are rendered into pulp to make paper, resulting in powerful statements of raw emotion and camaraderie. As part of their ongoing collaboration with artists and activists, the Combat Paper crew invited JDK down to the gallery to participate in a papermaking session and meet with other participants.

Senior Designer Erik Petersen was doing his usual rounds on the "hip" visual-art blogs when Design Director John Siddle came over and mentioned how much he liked one of the illustrations Erik was looking at. John mused that it would take ten minutes to make something equally cool.
Erik took that as a challenge. He started by digging through the "recycling bin" for work he liked but had never used. Those old files became the jumping-off point for poster art. Erik created feverishly. As soon as something was remotely cool he’d save it and start another. Erik says, "It was very liberating to smash stuff out like that." Each poster took ten minutes, tops.
John decided to hang Erik’s work on the wall. Gold star, Erik! We’ll show John Siddle’s 10-Minute Poster Wall next month. It’s a new tradition.

The American Design Club is currently presenting its third exhibition, "Hue Are You?" at the Future Perfect in Brooklyn, New York. This year's juried show revolves around the theme of color, and JDK's striking 2009 Burton Custom snowboard is a featured piece. Designed by Erik Petersen, with design direction by Marin Horikawa, the Custom was created with photography that captured trails of intense light in a darkened studio.

The gloomy economic news being broadcast twenty-four hours a day is enough to get anyone down. JDK countered the prevailing attitudes with a hopeful and defiant poster exercise, based on the work of Bruno Munari. Quick posters reveal the humor, the optimism, and the talent of JDK staff.

JDK was the studio of the month in the March issue of Computer Arts. The spread featured our recently remodeled designers’ space in the Burlington, Vermont, office. We blew out the walls and made it a little more free-flowing. Computer Arts captured the new look and took a sneak peek at what some of the designers were working on.

JDK Brand Director Cris DaBica was a guest on Inside Digital Design Radio, a weekly program covering news and views from the design community. Beyond the latest techniques and products shaping the industry, Digital Design Radio brings fresh opinions from the biggest names in the design field.
Cris joined the program to give the audience a little window into JDK, discuss the state of typography, and give his view on what it takes to build a lasting relationship between a brand and its audience. You can listen in on Cris’s guest spot by searching Inside Digital Design at the iTunes Store.