After nearly 20 years as the creative lead and managing partner of a boutique printing company, he moved on to formIVY DESIGN.He was ready to leverage the ground-up graphic design knowledge he learned producing beautiful print projects and become a one-man design agency. Nervy, non?
Richard’s first project was an annual report for Veritas DGC Inc., a publicly traded, international seismic corporation. This project, Docket #0001, became an exercise in calculated moxie.
Instead of producing the typical oil and gas rig-photo on glossy cardstock cover with big type and coloured photos inside, Richard chose simple, clean typography, inky black and white photos, elegant print techniques and an unconventional cover illustration.
For a few years, Richard had been following the career of an up-and-coming illustrator named Doug Fraser, whose stylized, Soviet-looking drawings had begun to grace the covers of magazines like Business Week. Fraser’s work conveyed strength, collaboration, order and shared outcomes. These were just the messages Richard wanted illustrated on the Veritas annual. Despite the fact that this wasIVY DESIGN’Sfirst project and despite Fraser’s rising star — Fraser went on to illustrate covers for Time Magazine, the New York Times, Forbes and Rolling Stone magazine — Richard called him up and asked him to help. Fraser accepted. And the results helped to create a project our team is still proud of today.
The other legacy ofIVYdocket #0001 is a core company belief thatany projectis better when you have the audacity to make it great.