Flying private jet for a one day business trip from one paradise to a Bahamian paradise… not a bad way to do it!  A truly stunning country heavily influenced by the US market and we hope that this could be our opportunity to bring our design influences into their world! A few more trips back and forth wouldn’t hurt either.

Jannus Live, the 30 plus year old infamous concert venue in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, took on new ownership in early 2010. The outdoor courtyard formally known as “Jannus Landing”  is set to not only be a live concert venue but also aims to broadcasting live shows on tv and the internet.

Enter Clear pH. Our initial mission was to tackle the name change. A series of concepts in the early stages were created around the shape of the court yard buildings, however, the client wanted an emblem that was further reaching than the local venue. We worked on a series of looks and this rather Stalin like,  Russian looking symbol started to take shape. Add an old school microphone and there we were!

Our next step was the larger part of the project.  To give the public a concert site that was new, innovative and different enough for people to want to stay on The site needed to provide information fast and efficiently and have a primary feature (billboard like area) that could promote and get tickets to sell.

Using a blog platform, we felt in this modern era of Social Media we would let the site virtually self populate with Twitter, Facebook and You Tube Feeds. We custom developed the site and it’s back end to allow the management team to take over and populate with reviews, photos and blog posts easily using a very simple CMS system.

As a creative firm we went the extra mile to create a site that could keep it’s trendy look even with non designers entering the pictures and content, by using fixed header sizes and image crops that would only show elements of the images in interesting cropped formats.

Outcome

The two killer elements that blew the client away were the custom footer (which we have since installed on our own site)  that allows the web user constant and quick access to all the key elements – Tickets, Contact Info and Directions, no matter where they are on the site. The second was the dynamic header which allows the viewer to get a taste for what is coming up, all at once. The headers are iphone / ipad friendly (no Flash) and show beautifully on the smaller screens… given the constant changing technology we are always looking to keep our clients one step ahead.

The “Jannus Live” name change took the locals some getting used to, but with the logo hand painted by local artist Johnny Vitale on the entrance to the VIP section, staff and security all emblazoned with the brand and spot lights featuring the logo on the city walls, I think it’s safe to say it has been a success!

Next the internet TV channel… stand by.

“Rockford” – Reviewed by some as Cheap Trick’s greatest album since 1979 was designed and created by our very own Creative Director Richie “Britley” Hughes aka Richard Hughes. Cheap Trick as a band did not at the time like much of the photography that was available to them and also did not have the time to do another photo shoot. In steps illustrator John Johnson who as a massive fan of the band had done a series of illustrations of the 4 members – Robin Zander, Bun E. Carlos, Rick Neilsen and Tom Peterson.

John submitted the art and together with Richie they created this incredibly lively album design that was fun bright and stood off the shelf. “We even created the heads of each of the artists and had them printed on sticks so that people in the crowed could hold them up and mimic their favorite member!” The design provided the band some superb ideas for different merchandise sold on tour.

The name of the album was a tribute named after their home town in Illinois, Rockford where the band was formed back in 1974. Richie “Britley” Hughes went on to do more than five albums and is currently working on a project with band front man Robin Zander.

“Classics” (“Clasicos” in Spanish) was recorded at Big3 Records. The album is an amazing collection of Jon Secada’s favorite classic songs by legendary artists such as Frank Sinatra, Ritchie Valens, Doris Day and Ben E. King.

Clear pH wanted, to create a “classic” look and feel through the photography and styling, as well as utilize color to capture a slight hint of his Latin flair.

Jon’s amazing wardrobe looked incredible, placed in some stunning architectural locations. The timeless photography came out fantastically, and so we set to work in post production…

Creating a very subtle grey/blue color and vibrant orange combination the outcome just looked striking. We created his name in a very modern Miami style font and worked it into our favorite shot by Gio Alma; a close up of the old school microphone with Jon singing, eyes shut. We cropped the cover and illustrated a die so that the microphone could be embossed on the digi-pack. This was a subtle effect that came out perfectly and gave a great illusion of depth on the cover. The overall design is very simple; we just let the photography do all the talking.

This man has an incredible voice. I have been a fan since my days in Dubai listening to “Just Another Day Without You…” but once I heard and saw Jon perform live I was astounded… great performer… great family man… if you get the chance, listen to his work or see just how many great hits he’s written for other people!

OR buy his albums and check out our great design work…

Wallace Welch & Wellingham a large St. Petersburg based Insurance Firm approached Clear pH to assist them in redeveloping brochures and sales collateral. Our goal was to create an interactive, fluid sales tool that provided each sales person with the ability to navigate through W3′s broad product offering, depending on client needs and comments during the presentation.

This project would have been an ideal candidate except that the client needed to keep their options open to tweak the presentation while in the field, at least in the short term. Our solution was to rely on old faithful – Powerpoint. By utilizing the absolute limits of the software including logic based coding, web-like navigation and a vast array of images, we produced a tool that had all the visual appeal and functionality of a hard-coded Flash presentation combined with the flexibility and cost benefits of Powerpoint. The tool looks great, is robust and leave us plenty of options to modify as the tool becomes more mature.

Planet Beach Corporate hired Clear pH to assist them in transitioning their nation wide stores from being purely indoor tanning  to introducing more of a cosmetic and “Spa” like atmosphere.

Our objective was to work closely with the marketing department to create a Cosmetic line that they would private label and distribute throughout the United States. As you scroll down here we wanted to show the process we went through from early concepts to the final look at the bottom of the page here.

Some of the best cosmetic products on the market today are very simple. Look at Estee Lauder or Clinique for example. In Planet Beach’s case this actually helped them as budget was an issue when it came to printing so we stuck with two colors on the packaging and created a simple earthy design. If you have ever seen Indoor tanning products you will know they are loud and colorful! The FACE line being white and simple had excellent shelf presence in their stores and was a very successful launch.

Truth be known this was a muppet of a client! 6 months went into developing this huge totally custom content management system for a client who unfortunately mismanaged his idea out of business.

On the positive side it was work we were proud of. Like any web development project we always strive to custom build something that is heads above the competition. This site was no exception with a totally secure system that was able to take numerous individual credit card numbers, process them so that whenever the individual used them at a registered vendor location it would tally their total and show the customer their spending as well as their percentage donated to charity through their spending.

ClearpH developed the Brand, Campaign slogans and assisted largely in helping this start up company develop it’s business plan and market research. The back-end of this site was a beast with all the reports it could provide both customer and client. The security aspect was very detailed and unique. We were 90% complete and wished we could have turned this one on as this would have made the Master Card and Visa companies jealous!! Call us if you want to take a look…

Cheap Trick the quintessential American Rock band set out to do a DVD rockumentary that celebrated a return to Japan. 25 years after “Live At Budokan.” Upon the record label notifying us of the opportunity we set to work rummaging through all the live footage and stills to piece together a fun booklet and digi pack design that was to stand out in a store.

We created a funky sexy illustration of a Geisha girl for the cover which the band loved and went to work with the classic checker board design and montaged a series of black and white concert photos together, put a UV varnish and emboss on the packaging to finish it off.

You have to check out the DVD given the opportunity it’s a great job by director Jim Yukich.

Geoffrey Beene approached ClearpH at a time when they needed to make new strides with their over all brand. We went the extra mile with our presentation to them doing a photo shoot and styling everything ourselves to create a new youthful look.

Our approach to changing up their print campaign was to add subtle elements of illustration over photography whilst maintaining a consistent on brand location for their staple logo. We chose a very young sophisticated model and gave the whole look a very crisp, precise edge to everything to simulate precision tailoring.

Our presentation was greatly received but unfortunately Geoffrey Beene took another direction staying with the in-house team of PVH.