It’s been a long process to get the mobile restaurant up and running with a lot of design elements to go along with it. With the truck wrap, menus, packaging, stickers, clothing, patches, iPhone app and website… we’ve been busy. The end result is fantastic and we couldn’t be more proud!

Many thanks to Farhad, the Ambassador of the Republic of Sauca, for his willingness to work with some of our more creative ideas and for coming up with some very unique ideas of his own, to JML Consulting for their excellent PR work, and the team at VSAG for their tasty menu development.

So check out the website, find where the saucamobile is currently located via Twitter or the websites’s mapping widget, and head on down to check out the mobile restaurant itself to see the rest of our work!* : )

*As a special offer to ripe fans, print out this blog post and bring it to the Saucamobile to receive a free sauca wrap! Limit one per customer; offer expires February 28, 2010.

The Vucurevich Simons Advisory Group (VSAG) is responsible for a lot of the hottest restaurants not only in DC, but around the country.  We recently worked with them when they were repositioning local restaurant Agraria to be more closely paired with its sister restaurant, Founding Farmers.  Working closely with the VSAG team we completely revamped the restaurant’s image — from their logo and name all the way down to the color of paint on their walls.

Soon after finishing the Agraria (now Farmers & Fishers) project, VSAG asked us to redesign their own website.  With its massive amount of content and VSAG’s numerous services, it provided ripe with a challenge that was quite different than we’d come to expect from restaurant-related businesses.

The final result of our efforts is the recently launched VSAG.com.  It incorporates various navigation methods so that different user types can find one that suits their needs, a new blog so that the VSAG can more easily communicate with their clients, and all sorts of tightly organized content.

Along the way the client also decided that if their website was getting a facelift, their collateral could use one as well, so we designed some sexy plastic (recyclable, of course!) business cards, and did a little work refining their logo.

We’re extremely happy with the result, as is VSAG.  We cornered Dan Simons, one of VSAG’s principals, and asked him for a quote:

“We are thrilled with the way the site turned out – it’s garnered us great reaction from our clients and from our partners, and more importantly, it’s complete and comprehensive,” said Dan. “The ripe team provided us with great ideas, responded to our vision, and have helped us move ahead with our international visibility.”

We look forward to doing business with you in the future, Dan!

Soon after they sent Brad Trent down from New York to photograph the ripe team and the studio.  What followed was a long, long day of shooting where Creative Director Tomás was heard stating several times, “Oh God, all this smiling is making my cheeks ache.”  Besides Tomás’ aching cheeks, however, it was a great experience.  It was a blast having Brad, his assistant Bo, and Business Week’s art director, Mike in the office… and we even surreptitiously snapped a few shots of our own to document the event. Afterwards it was a night of pizza and wine at Matchbox in Chinatown.

The article released yesterday in Business Week: Small Biz, and is also available online.  It details the green practices of six different businesses including a printer, an antifreeze recycling company, a beverage wholesaler and others.   A big thanks to the whole Business Week team for their thoroughness and effort.

So… want to know ways to make your business greener?  Why not read the article, or head over to the Greener section of the ripe site.  Although the first option is probably the most entertaining — there’s a picture in there where Tomás has a tree growing out of his head.  Or if you’re really serious, why not give Adrienne Spahr, our friend from Green Living Consulting, a call?  She’s helped us more than we possibly could have imagined.

The Art of Peace Foundation logo is also a PRINT 2009 Regional Design Annual winner, which is fantastic.  We really loved working on this project, and we’re glad that not only our design, but the Foundation itself is getting a little more exposure.  If you’re a music lover, or a Tibet lover, or someone who just has an extra sixteen bucks lying around, head on over to the Art of Peace’s website and buy a CD.  It’s for a good cause.  And be sure to keep an eye on PRINT for the Design Annual issue.

And yet another piece of ours, the invitation we created for SPIN LLC, won an award of distinction in the Announcements, Cards & Invitations category at the AGDA awards.

So that’s a lot of warm fuzzy feelings, as you can imagine.  It’s nice to have your hard work recognized!  For more images, please check out the Art of Peace and SPIN pages on our site.

It’s hard to be thinking about marketing yourself in this economic climate — not to mention marketing yourself in a sustainable fashion.  Most firms and businesses seem to be cowering and waiting for the next bit of bad news to surface.  But the smart, pro-active firms are making plans and preparing for a new wave of business to arrive, and when it does, they’ll be ready for it while their counterparts might not.

Marketing firms and design studios can make a positive ecological impact if they have the knowledge, and if their clients are serious about maintaining sustainable design.

At the end of our presentation, we’re going to ask attendees to post any additional questions on our blog.  If you attended our presentation, please feel free to ask us anything regarding green design, marketing, printing, etc. If you can’t think of any good sustainability related questions, ask us something else!  We’re happy to share (some of) our secrets. We’ll answer them in a new post in the next few days.

If you’re holding an event and would like us to come and speak, feel free to shoot us an email at sprout@ripe.com.

Not only does the ripe brand give an elegant suggestion of green practices, but material consideration was given throughout the stationary package design. Printed on Mohawk (a notable force in the industry’s green movement), the paper stock was created with wind power and is 30% Post Consumer Waste. Additionally, the unmistakable ripe green was printed with vegetable based inks. In integrating these practices ripe hopes to give an example in influencing our clients in making more verdant choices. Our continually growing knowledge in the field of sustainably can be seen as an added service. We can’t wait to order the book, and continue down our path of green advocacy. We hope you’ll join us.

Sweetgreen is well known around the Georgetown area for not only providing excellent food in an eco-friendly fashion, but also for their distinct look and feel.  Sustainability saturates every inch of the restaurant, from their wildflower paper menus (which will actually grow if planted) and reusable salad bowls, to their beautiful reclaimed hickory floors and ceiling.  All of these choices are not only green, but they provide customers with a singular visual experience.  In order to replicate this experience, we’ve incorporated various elements found in the restaurant itself into the website.  We too have made use of the hickory and wildflower paper, and hopefully we’ve managed to capture the same modern, fun and organic feeling sweetgreen itself has.

We also took the opportunity to redesign their blog (which we’re big fans of, as it is chock full of great music).  The new design, like the website itself, mimics the look and feel of the restaurant by incorporating sweetgreen’s wall art (lettuce leaf veins) in the background.

Sweetgreen is in the process of opening two new locations — one in Dupont and one in Bethesda — and we wish them the best of luck!  Check out the website and blog for more info, and feel free to give us your thoughts on the design.

It all began on a cool fall day last year. We were armed with nothing but a Pages document, a phone and relentless patience. Yes, we were calling each junk mailer and asking to get off of their un-rad mailing lists.

Admittedly, my junk mail epiphany came while watching Oprah’s Earth Day special (don’t judge), at which point Matt Damon brought GreenDimes into our lives, saving us time and money and the world some precious resources. We have seen the paperless light. They have two services: one which is free and for one person at a time, and another for $20 with unlimited names sans legwork. We have the $20 premium service that has the added bonus of keeping us off of new lists, while taking us off of the campaigns and catalogs that we specify.

We are highly recommending this product to our friends, clients, and colleagues. Do it for the trees. Do it for the back health of our mail carriers. But most importantly, do it so you can get back all those hours that would have otherwise been spent hating the direct-marketing-man.

We just finished another project fairly recently as well; a logo for a program called “Art World” at the Cincinnati Art Museum.  Art World provides kids visiting the museum with a hands-on, fun approach towards art appreciation.

We knew that we’d hit it off with the client right off the bat when they told us in our first conference call that they didn’t want to see any sort of logo that resembled a “finger-painting or a bunch of kids holding hands or whatever.”  We couldn’t agree more… And yet, when faced with the task of designing a logo for children, it’s hard not to just pick up your pencil, doodle for awhile on a piece of paper, and call it a mark.

However, we’re very happy with the final product.  The logo, which we have come to call “the propeller”, was meant to represent some of the things that are found in childrens’ art while not falling into any cliché.  Thus, within the propeller there are several shapes that children often draw (stars, flowers), but the logo itself does not appear as a childish drawing.

It’ll be up in our portfolio fairly soon.  Feel free to give us your thoughts!

We’ve been concerned with sustainable design for a long time.  Maryam, the studio eco-freak, has been cataloging, organizing and discovering new ways to offer earth-friendly design to our clients.  While this is great and we’re happy that it’s a service we can offer, we thought it’d be useful to share some of this insight with the greater design world.

The new Greener section of ripe (which can be found here or by clicking “Greener” on the ripe homepage) lists tips for making your studio and/or design greener, and links to various green resources we find helpful or informative.  We hope you’ll check it out and let us know what you think.  It’s a work in progress, so please check back now and then.

Art of Peace

Backed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Art of Peace Foundation strives to foster peaceful discourse between China and Tibet.  They’re in the process of releasing a CD titled Songs for Tibet – The Art of Peace which will be available for purchase on iTunes on August 5th, and at Amazon.com and other retailers on August 12th.

ripe was offered the opportunity to create the Foundation’s branding package, website and the artwork for their upcoming CD.  We were happy to accept, and are more than pleased with the results.  Check out their website, and stay tuned for more information regarding the CD release.

Blog

Last but not least, we recently decided to launch a blog… and here it is!  We’ll be posting here now and then with information regarding new work we’ve completed and are happy with, upcoming projects, interesting techniques we’ve discovered, etc.

It’s been a busy summer so far, and it shows no signs of letting up.  But at least being so busy keeps us out of trouble.