Ampersand Events is Ben Penman, a close friend of mine who, like many small business owners, offers a lot of service. Recently Ben has begun pulling his branding efforts together and asked me to help create a coherent design. It has been a lot of work, but the results are pretty slick — if don’t say so myself.

Back

 

Front

 

A Little Background:

The original sketched concept used an M.C. Escher passion called tessellations — geometric patterns that, in Escher’s work, led to some interesting transitional pieces. A tessellation would work perfectly for brand repetition while suggesting motion in the design which has become a core concept for Ampersand’s identity. Ben suggested that we use the Bokeh (Japanese style of out-of-focus photography) background to help convey the lighting side of the business, which also matches the website. He also had the notion of incorporating the wave pattern that we created with the original logo design.

Specialized Printing:

After several drafts and some time researching unusual materials we decided to go with silk laminate, 16 pt cards with both foil and spot UV. As you can see in the videos above the effects are eye catching. Total cost from start to finish was about $300 for administrative costs, design, and 500 business cards. The entire process took three weeks, mainly to tweak the design.