Sandlapper Studio || the photography and design of Jim Ferguson || Greenville, SC » Design

Black Perle Label for RJ Rockers

Jim — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:22:45 +0000

For this project, I teamed up with Spartanburg, SC based brewery RJ Rockers to design a label for their latest seasonal beer release, Black Perle Dark IPA. The Black Perle is the first in the “Ales from the Dark Side” line, and we wanted the label to carry a mysterious and ominous theme. The story behind the beer tells of a lost 17th century trading company ship, the Harvester, that was carrying a “strange and wondrous cargo,” the Black Perle. To go along with this theme, I chose a rough old-style serif font to set both the logo and the main copy in. The setting on the label is a deep blue underwater scene with rays of light coming down from the top and bubbles floating up from the ocean floor. Front and center, there is a treasure chest with a large hop in it (Perle refers to a type of hop). If you look closely on the right-hand side of the label, you’ll see the shipwreck of the Harvester.

They topped off the bottle by dipping the neck in a blue wax to compliment the deep blue label. For a review of the beer itself, I’ll leave it to the experts. I’m currently working through conceptual artwork for the next RJ Rockers release, so be on the lookout!

Augusta Road Business Associaiton Website

Jim — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:59:17 +0000

Client: Augusta Road Business Association (via Drum Creative)
Web Address: http://www.onlyonaugusta.com

For the relaunch of the Augusta Road Business Association (ARBA) website, I took the approved design and wrote the CSS/HTML and placed the site on a WordPress build. I used some jQuery to fade and rotate through the main images on the front page. I was also able to go out and shoot some photography for this site (separate post on that to come). One additional feature of this site is a business directory for ARBA members, which carries the same look, feel and navigation as the front end of the site.

Gresham Woods Website

Jim — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:48:49 +0000

Client: Gresham Woods Homeowners’ Association
Address: http://www.greshamwoodshoa.org

The Gresham Woods neighborhood was in need of a website refresh in order to provide current information to residents. This site needed a user-friendly content-managed back end that multiple people could update, so it is built in WordPress. Some features of this site include contact information for the Board of Directors, quick links to local areas of interest, a neighborhood business directory and a neighborhood news section.

Greenville Rec Website

Jim — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:00:16 +0000

Client: Greenville Rec (via Drum Creative)
Web Address: http://greenvillerec.com

We launched the new website for the Greenville County Recreation District earlier this week. At close to 260 pages at launch time, this was by far the largest and most complex website that I have built to this point. Since the site is built on a content-managed back end, I expect that number will continue to grow.

The website design is a mash-up of several concepts that Ben and I put together. After we presented all of these to Greenville Rec, they identified features of each that they would like to incorporate. Ben took this feedback and created the final mock-up. From there, I took the design and built the site in WordPress, creating the CSS/HTML, PHP commands and implemented several scripts. I also got to shoot a couple of photos that are found in various locations of the site.

The site features several dynamic components right off of the home page, including a Twitter feed that gives updates on field conditions and closings, a listing of upcoming events (sorted by the closest to the current date), a drop-down menu system and a featured blog posts section. We also implemented a park locator that can give directions to parks within a given radius from an address. We have helped Greenville Rec launch a presence on Facebook and Twitter, which are also linked from each page.

There are several different templates deployed onto the site, which give a unique look that compliments that particular park or program. Each template also pulls events that are specific to that park or program. The website has several advertising zones, that allow for targeted ad placement. Because GreenvilleRec.com is a naturally heavy site and we anticipate close to 1 million visitors this year, it is being hosted on a dedicated server.

I have to say that this website was a lot of fun to work on with the folks at Greenville Rec and at Drum Creative. In the process, I have learned a TON about WordPress and building themes. I’m excited to monitor the traffic and watch the site continue to grow.

The Blood Connection: Baseballs

Jim — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:56:13 +0000

Here’s a setup I created for The Blood Connection to be used on their signage at Fluor Field, the home of the Greenville Drive. I shot the baseball, cleaned it up a bit in Photoshop and then arranged the seams to form a line that would loosely resemble the “wave” in The Blood Connection’s traditional logo.