February 2022 - When a Brand develops a reputation for something new, unique, or out of the box that adds value; that brand should always look to capitalize on that reputation. While Sweetens Cove has formed a reputation based on a multitude of unique aspects, one that stands out is its dual flagstick setup. As a 9 hole course that can seemingly be played a million ways from tee to green, cutting 2 holes per green simply magnifies the variety of ones play. Each loop around the course is inherently different from every other loop. Showcasing the out of the box setup, and unique pin flags that accompany it, became a no-brainer for Sweetens.

Landmand Windsock: Merion is known for their wicker baskets, Landmand is going to be known for their windsocks. Use the windsock to gauge the wind but just be careful, if the windsock has blown off the flagstick it might be time to head back to the clubhouse for a bit.

Landmand Milk Carton: When little Timmy goes for the green in two and pulls it left, you better snap a picture real quick because little Timmy may never be seen from again. Post his picture on the side of the Milk Carton and hope someone stumbles across him walking off the first tee box.

So much of what we try to do in branding is inject personality into something that can often feel cold and distant. Latching onto a client’s internal personality is a great way to allow the public to connect to the people behind a brand, not just the brand itself. The same can be said for golf courses. They are not static and charmless, rather quite the opposite. They take on a life of their own and the character of the course can often fuel the brand of the course. For many playing Landmand, the 18th and its massive Milk Carton bunker will be one of their last impressions of the course, which inherently leads to immortalizing the iconic bunker, as we did in this t-shirt design.

Farmer’s Table: While discussing the creation of Landmand, Will Andersen always talks about the goal of building a world class golf course for his local community. The national accolades and interest from afar are wonderful, but this course is for the local farmers. When tackling food service for the course, Will drew inspiration for one of his favorite childhood restaurants where even on a packed evening there was always one table in the restaurant reserved for the local farmers. The Farmer’s Table food truck pays homage to that mentality that those who toil in the ground to produce the food always have a spot to eat, or in Landmand’s case always have a tee time.

“UP TOP”:

August 2021 - Clients approach us with a problem in mind that they are looking to solve (i.e. I need a ¼” drill bit). But after speaking with them, learning about who they are and where they are trying to go, it is often discovered that the problem they think they’re trying to solve is not exactly what it seems (i.ei. they don’t need a ¼” drill bit, they need a ¼” hole). Working with clients in the early phases of a project to better understand what goal they’re trying to achieve can help better structure our activities as designers and allows us to consider their next goal or need that may be coming in the future

The focus when we first worked with 3DP in 2019 was just for a primary logo. When they returned in the summer of 2021 for an accompanying wordmark we had already established a design language for their brand that allowed for a smooth transition into a wordmark. Logos are more than a standalone graphic, but rather an introduction to a deeper representation of a brand. Considering the potential for a brand early, even if not immediately needed, allows for the growth of that brand to be achieved thoughtfully and harmoniously.

April 2021 - Gather 100+ players on a compelling course, fuel them with bbq & booze, and let them go at it for a few days of competitive play. There is only one way to describe it, it’s just simply...

THE GOAT ROPE

March 2021 - After a long winter's slumber ends and progress on @landmandgc resumes, it was a good time to look after the other Andersen family golf course in Dakota County. Old Dane is a sporting little nine holer that needed a new coat of paint. A quick refresh of the logo and scorecard should do the trick to give this neighborhood course a bit more curb appeal.

February 2021 - A designer’s brain never stops churning. And when we get the chance, even for the most insignificant reason, we do what we do best. After being cooped up for a year, only playing at #QuarantineCountryClub, I finally got the chance to get the gang together for a long weekend on the RTJ trail. To celebrate the occasion we just had to have a tournament name and logo, thus the Covid Classic was born. Wit and whimsy with a touch of old school, ‘cause when you call the first year a 'classic' you can’t take yourself too seriously.

January 2021- A logo is a singular object, a symbol, but it is not solely a brand. A brand is the image the public has in mind when considering a product or company. This can be manifested in a practical sense, weighing features and quality; and in an emotional sense as the feeling one experiences when interacting with a brand’s offering. How we connect with a brand is often experienced through a multitude of touchpoints.

Branding will include a logo as part of a cohesive collection of visual marks and themes all designed to resonate with the public and build a persona around a company's offerings. Through a visual design language you can convey a brand's values and vision, set a brand’s tone, and develop resonance within their brand community.

Clients often approach us with the need for a logo. This is the start of the brand strategy and it falls on us to communicate with the clients the need to develop their projects whole brand. Working with our clients we can begin to build out the persona of their brand through multiple visual representations. Even if we do not completely develop the full brand structure initially, it is critical to establish a foundation that can be built upon.

One of the best ways to transform a logo into a brand is by building out a family of designs around it. When utilizing a monogram as a primary brandmark it's worthwhile to also consider how extending the monogram's design language into a full wordmark can greatly increase one's brand value and provide greater latitude to the designs usability.

For @LandmandGC, the script L that is the centerpiece for their primary logo provided a modern take on a traditional cattle brand, helping to establish the ethos around the “Farmers Golf Club”. But the design language of the L became the perfect candidate for an evolutionary study of a script wordmark. Inherently linked but individually unique, the combo of the two marks allows for much broader utilization of the brand. Allowing the community’s attachment to what is being built in the Nebraska hills to grow along with the grass on the fairways.

December 2020 - The magnolia has been a longstanding symbol of dignity, nobility, and hospitality across the American South. Mix the magnolia with imagery often found in historic British golfing societies and you have the logo for the @southernhickorygolfsociety. Affirming the importance of tradition & sportsmanship, the SHGS strives to bring together hickory players across the south in comradery & competition.

September 2020 - When you stumble upon coyotes roaming your golf course you can either try to shoo them away, or just simply ask if they'd like to play through. At Landmand Golf Club, Ole the coyote is a big fan of Twilight round, stocking the par fives as he races the sunset.

August 2020 - Once upon a time a golf course didn’t have to be 18 holes. Courses were constructed to fit the land available to them, regardless of how many holes were built or how long they played.

Not as common a perspective in today’s golfing world, but a few bold souls have started to look towards the past to help shape what the game may look like tomorrow. One such project is @brazenheadgolfclub in Jackson, Mississippi. A 12 hole property, but not just a 12 hole course, Brazen Head looks to blaze their own path.

World class architecture combined with a local community feel, Brazen Head seeks to become a neighborhood gathering place for golf in the Jackson Area.

August 2020 - Even when brands have established aesthetics, it doesn't mean they don't need a refresh or new brand marks. @caddystash approached us with the opportunity to expand their product offerings with new Stash branded hats and headcovers.

Helping smaller brands build upon their early success and expand into new markets is what we love to do best. The Stash mark was step one, developing a new look that blended in with what they were previously doing. Step 2 was creating a line of hats that played off the player personas in us all.

Texas Wedge - When chipping on the windswept grasses of the lone star state it's often best to use the ole’ flatstick and run the ball low along the ground. The Texas wedge patch hat is for those of us who keep the ball rolling low, even from 30 yards off of the green.

Tour Sauce - It’s what puts the dance on the dancefloor. That special spicy sauce that turns a good shot great and makes you feel like a traveling professional. Until the day that you can buy this two-step tonic in your local pro shop, Tour Sauce is something you’ll need to cook up during your next round.

Cartster - Cushman released the Golfster golf cart in 1954. While not the first cart on the market, these iconic 3 wheeled wagons lead to a new era in golf. One that has had a profound impact on golf course design, course operation, and the game's popularity.

While it's hard to argue against the traditional view that golf is a walking game, it's impossible to ignore the monumental growth of the game in the 50's, 60's, and 70's was in part driven by players in carts.

It's unusual to think that riding in a cart is an old school idea, but If you show up to the course with one of these 67 year old beauties, a set of blades, persimmon, and some sansabelt slacks it would be hard to argue otherwise.

March 2020 - Golf lockdown leads to drastic measures. Feeling starved for golf I fired up my local GIS server and illustrator to plot a pitch-n-putt across my backyard. Mower in hand, the greens were cut low and play could begin. But the course wasn't complete until it had a logo and Quarantine Country Club was born.

March 2020 - Custom labeled single barrel whiskey releases have been a thing for a few years now. Not only do people chase the special release juice in the bottle, they also collect the unique art outside the bottle. When finishing a special birthday bourbon for @gtg007a I decided to create his own special label sticker. A man covered in woodpecker tattoos, it was an easy decision to depict Jake as a woodpecker stealing a dram.

February 2020 - Most everyday investors think they want their money to run like a Cheetah. Cheetahs are sprinters, they may be able to outrun the Bulls for a short period of time but they don’t have the stamina for long distances. What investors really want is a Pronghorn.

Pronghorn Analytics develops investment strategies with simple, easy to understand assets, engineered to limit drawdowns and provide persistent, reliable long-term returns. Tested against a half-century of market data Pronghorn positions your money at head of the pack, running clear of any chasing Bears year after year.

November 2019 - Driving down the highway anywhere within 100 mile of Chattanooga, Tennessee you’re sure to come across at least one bright red barn with “SEE ROCK CITY” adorned across its roof. At this point, the Rock City barns may have more notoriety than the attraction itself. While not a barn, @sweetenscovegolfclub does have a shed, and that shed has taken on a life of its own. It only seemed fitting to combine 2 Chattanooga landmarks together for this t-shirt design.

September 2019 - With so few new courses being built today, one would expect to see such a bold and exciting course under construction at a popular destination resort or remote membership club. Instead, Landmand is doing things a bit differently. The Andersen family wanted a course that would honor their late Grandfather, and in doing so the course had to be built for the enjoyment of their local farming community. Who said that a world-class course can’t be built for a local audience? To help define the branding of @landmandgc we hand to tap into those local roots and pay homage to the family’s farming history. Not too dissimilar to a monogram you may see on the side of a grain silo, the Landmand’s L fits right at home in the Nebraska pastureland, even after those pastures have been turned into fairways.

August 2019 - Vibrant colors, pageantry, personalization, and a little magical. No, we’re not talking about Vegas but rather the American sensation that is taking over the golf community in Korea. Helping to showcase a little golfing flair through Americana art has been a lot of fun. @bbandfco_korea

July 2019 - sometimes the projects you work on don't make it to market, and not because the design work was bad. This was the case for the concept branding I did for Focal, a local fresh to your door food delivery service that would directly connect the farms in your region with households looking for fresh, organic, and sustainably grown produce and meat. While the project may not have made it out of its infancy, I'm proud of the mark that was created for them.

July 2019 -

June 2019 - Through places like Youtube and Instagram the world of golf has shrunk tremendously. No longer is our exposure to the far corners of the golfing world confined to vintage episodes of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf, limited pictures in Golf Digest & Golf Magazine, and once in a lifetime pilgrimages to places like Scotland and Ireland. Today the casual player has access to courses and golf fanatics from across the globe at the tip of their fingertips. Today anyone has the opportunity to golf the earth without leaving the comfort of their favorite easy chair.

April 2019 - Forged, Cast, and Milled have been the ways putters have been made for more than a century. But that’s all in the past, 3d printed putters are the wave of the future. When 3DP design joined forces with National Custom Works (@ncw_putters) they came looking for a new brand identity that showcased the unique possibilities that only 3d printing offers. The ability for a single building block to be combined in an infinite number of ways to create a truly custom golfing instrument.

March 2019 - a popular choice for much of the early 20th century, this style of hats was epitomized for all future generations by Mr. Hogan. His iconic cap choice may have fallen out of vogue among the modern golfer, but his legacy has yet to tarnish. This design was commissioned to be emblazed on the hats and visors worn by today's player as a nostalgic reminder of an era gone by.

Hats on Hats

March 2019 - Imagine taking a modern day brand and aging them by 50 years. That was the challenge presented to me by @nationalcustom. Starting with the brandmark of today, and of course the inspiration of Saul Bass, we explored the de-evolution of National Custom Works, discovering what the brand would have looked like in the 1970's.

January 2019 - you play with retro, your bound to get burned. And this old school script logo for @bbandfco is on fire!

August 2018 - When you start being compared so someone great, you take advantage of it. That's exactly what happened with @sweetenscovegolfclub when well traveled players in the know drew parallels to a very famous club up north. Using a vintage aesthetic and the iconic Sweetens double trunk pine, we developed a suite of logos to bring these courses together. With a high level of detail within the design, multiple versions were created to maximize the design's fidelity across a wide range of usages. Printing or embroidery, desktop or mobile, anywhere @sweetenscovegolfclub wanted to use it the logo will always look good.

August 2018 - When you specialize in custom and creative ferrules for golf clubs, it only makes sense that you have a ferrule related logo. This secondary mark for @bbandfco is based upon the iconic ferrules used by MacGregor in the 1950's and 1960's.

July 2018 - I've been proud to see how the @nationalcustom Star N has grown into a standalone recognizable brandmark. But even the most recognizable logos still need a wordmark for those more formal situations.

January 2018 - #SweetensCoveIlluminati

March 2018 - logo work for @65acresketch. A design project exploring golf course architecture and the creation of grounds for golfing through sketching.

March 2018 - When a company that focuses on bespoke craftsmanship approaches us for branding work it's always a great honor. Their eye for detail that's helps them produce something special and unique applies just as much when they look for partnerships. Which often leads to some fun and challenging projects. This was the case with National Custom Works, who needed a brandmark to represent the growth of their truly custom, one off, golf club fabrication company. Whether it's on apparel, signage, or stamped into the steel on one of their irons the; the mark that is to represent @nationalcustom had to hold fidelity and prominence in a wide range of scales. The monochromatic "Star N" mark is able to accomplish the appropriate level of fidelity while affording quite a bit of fun contrast combinations, more to come on this project..

October 2017 - For the 3rd playing of the @freedmantrophy things are getting a bit bigger. As the tournament travels to Milan, Italy next May, a new logo is needed to honor our old friend Lionel and put the tournament on it's rightful grandiose stage.

August 2017 - 10 years after we created the original logo it was time for a redesign of the @shirlockfoundation branding. Able to look a how the original logo resonated and aged, it became apparent that the foundation needed a more simple and clear brandmark moving forward. For retention, a strong S is mated with the shorthand Shirlock to create the primary logo. But this mark is devised to scale with usage. In a smaller or simpler setting the split S can stand alone & in formal usage the whole foundation name can be incorporated.

June 2017 - Sometimes a little tweak is all that's needed. This idea was pretty well fleshed out by @bbandfco before it hit our desk, but a twist here and tweak there really pulled around the brand for this custom club maker.

September 2016 - The equipment engineers at Georgia Tech's Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) do a lot more than just maintain research equipment. From retrofits to ground up equipment development and fabrication, the multi discipline team that handles this work needed a logo mark their projects and showcase their impact.

July 2016 - When we were approached to design a new logo for @sweetenscovegolfclub the directive was clear, they wanted a logo that embraced the soul and spirit of the place. As the course was scratched out of the dirt we felt the logo had to reflect that handmade quality. While often a hand sketch would be polished into a final mark, in this case that hand drawn look was essential to convey the feeling of the course.

May 2016 - When the Nation Science Foundation created the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure in 2015 they helped to connect research universities across the country in a way that had never been done before. The newly formed network of 16 schools were tasked to promote leading-edge research across all aspects of nanotechnology. We were approached by the NNCI to create the visual identify of this new incitive.

April 2016 - What do you name a Free Art Friday project where you make very tiny baked goods in discarded bottle caps? We worked with @poptopsweetshop on developing both the project name and brandmark style, giving that classic 1950's soda pop shop feel.

December 2015 - A street artist who recently moved to Charlotte wanted to bring free art Friday to the Queen City. We helped him realize the personal of @queen_pitty_clt with this portrait of his beloved Pittbull Bailey. Primarily designed with wood stamping in mind, this single color logo, it has become extremely versatile in style and application.

November 2015 - Developing new processing equipment has become standard for the team over at Georgia Tech's Institute of Electronics and Nanotechnology. As the lab slowly filled with their own equipment a brand was needed to set it apart from the rest. the CtrLayer brand was developed to help identify what point of difference defined the equipment's performance. The graphical column is also color coded to help categories different types of processing equipment.

June 2015 - Concept wordmark for a project that blends the world's of golf course architect and cartography to produce some really spectacular art. One day we'll get this going!

February 2015 - Logo and wordmark for a horse boarding farm in Lexington, Ky.

September 2014 - Concept logo for the inaugural International Hickory Cup. A hickory golf match between the USA and World hickory players.

May 2014 - Using some peach state pride, this mark for the Georgia Hickory Golf Association provides a geographic twist on the classic circular monogram.

February 2014 - Concept design for Vincent printing. They asked for a strong mark that was capable of conveying their printing process in a simple manor.

June 2013 - Concept artwork for Dues Pay a start-up trying to provide payment management services for an organization trying to manage a large number of dues-paying members.

March 2013 - She came from a background in printing, him from construction. Both with a last name starting with S, this wedding monogram helped to set the stage of their union into one.

September 2012 -

April 2012 - New branding identity for the photomask production center agent Georgia Tech. With a customer base all over the country and the desire to have every mask produced marked. This design needed to have legs, and the ability to be printed at very small sizes.

February 2012 - Concept logo work for a student artist community at the University of the South.

September 2011 - We were approached to develop the branding and web site for a new antique store and estate sale group. An interesting challenge to give them some that looked old and classic but discernibly fresh and not dated. This wordmark and following website fit the bill.

May 2011 - As more and more people began to raise money for the Shirlock Foundation through races and athletic endeavors, the need to recognize those individuals under their own banner became apparent. Born out of their actions was Team Shirlock and the TS winged sandal logo.

February 2011 - The execution of a stacked monogram is always timeless, but as it's come back into popularity I wanted to make it a little bit different. For the design and fabrication partnership of Hollerbach & Tompkins the use of a pickaxe and steel beam created both the simple monogram and design aesthetic we desired.

November 2010 - Engineers by day, BBQ enthusiast by weekend, The MacGyvers, a semi competition BBQ team wanted something to show off their tech hacking style in their logo.

August 2010 - Desiring starkness and something a little strange, the visual anagram helps to build the person of web development firm NIHIL.

July 2008 - Concept branding identity for a developing Georgia Tech start-up. Building upon Tech's history and "North Ave Trade School" nickname.

June 2007 - Concept re-design for a new wordmark and simplified logo for Theta Chi Fraternity's national brand identity.

April 2007 - Original logo design for the Shirlock Foundation. The strong orange color representing the organization's roots in Leukemia aid and iconic sunglasses of foundation's inspiration Jonathan Shirlock.