Another Color Inc

Brooke Rental Center site redesign

samhaltom — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:53:37 +0000

Back at work now after 6 weeks in Africa. It seems very strange but getting back into the swing of things. My first project back was the redesign of the Brooke Rental Center website. Much has changed with the technology of websites since this was launched in 2006, the site was originally built with a mix of flash and HTML. The new site included a custom WordPress Ecommerce system to allow them to take reservations on any of their products. If you live on the east cost give it a shot, they got just about anything you could possibly rent for your parties. Check it out at http://www.brookerentalcenter.com/.

As trips go…

samhaltom — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 17:29:04 +0000

As trips go I would have to rate this one as a 10 on a scale of 1-10. What better way to serve your fellow man here on earth than to help provide medical support to a country that is in great need of it. What blows me away most of all is the blessing received seem to always be more than the blessing given. Read about the complete experience on Mercy Ships African Mercy in Sierra Leone at http://www.everlater.com/samhaltom

Arkansas River Rods launches new site

samhaltom — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:36:47 +0000

Back in November I wrote about starting to design this new site and working on my first bamboo fly rod. Well here it is March and my first bamboo fly rod is finished along with the new website. The site was just launched last week. And while there is still some content to add and things to finalize we are open for business. All in all I think it turned out pretty good. Of course we will see things we want to change or add over time, but over all I think the site does what we want it to do and markets our products in a professional way.

As for my bamboo rod… I couldn’t be happier. It was a long process and I learned so much. I have to thank my teacher, Dave Moore, for his patience. I know it took a lot. If he is anything like me he probably wanted to just do it himself. So far I have fished the rod about 4 times and caught fish every time. The rod action is smooth yet powerful. I am still learning what it will and won’t do, but I know that we will become great friends as we get to know each other better. I am already starting to think about the next rod I want to make… a 6 ft. 3 weight.

So check out the new site and consider buying a bamboo rod. You can’t go wrong.

CCSR

matthaltom — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:08:29 +0000

New logo for letterhead, envelopes, brochures, flyers and website for Chaffee County Senior Resources, Inc.

Steamboat Cowboy Downhill Poster

samhaltom — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:55:22 +0000

After creating the Steamboat Cowboy Downhill promotional materials for more than a decade it is becoming harder and harder to come with fresh ideas. This year I decided to try something different. I was inspired by Boulder, CO artist Steve Lowtwait. I just love his use of flat color and simple shapes. His posters have a real old school vintage feel that I thought would work well with the cowboy theme and the CBDH logo that we have been using for the last 3 years. Unfortunately, our budget would not allow me to hire Steve to create an illustration for us. So I decided to try to design a poster similar to his painting style using Adobe Illustrator Live Paint. With Live Paint you can select the number of colors you want to fill shapes with, then AI automatically “traces” the image. You can control smoothness and detail of the outline. Once the outline and fill is completed you can add texture and lighting to the fills if needed. You can also delete fills within the outline to make the illustration simpler. I selected some photographic images taken from last years event and started experimenting with color levels, composition and layout. I thought the 3 options I came up with were all good designs. But in the end the client did not see it my way. They preferred the more traditional approach. I submitted 2 more designs and of course the last one was approved.

Cowboy Downhill 2011

samhaltom — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:23:44 +0000

After creating the Steamboat Cowboy Downhill promotional materials for more than a decade it is becoming harder and harder to come with fresh ideas. This year I decided to try something different. I was inspired by Boulder, CO artist Steve Lowtwait. I just love his use of flat color and simple shapes. His posters have a real old school vintage feel that I thought would work well with the cowboy theme and the CBDH logo that we have been using for the last 3 years. Unfortunately, our budget would not allow me to hire Steve to create an illustration for us. So I decided to try to design a poster similar to his painting style using Adobe Illustrator Live Paint. With Live Paint you can select the number of colors you want to fill shapes with, then AI automatically “traces” the image. You can control smoothness and detail of the outline. Once the outline and fill is completed you can add texture and lighting to the fills if needed. You can also delete fills within the outline to make the illustration simpler. I selected some photographic images taken from last years event and started experimenting with color levels, composition and layout. I thought the 3 options I came up with were all good designs. But in the end the client did not see it my way. They wanted to go back to something more like what was done in the past. I submitted 2 more designs and of course the last one was approved.

Habitat for Humanity Poster

matthaltom — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:03:28 +0000

Habitat for Humanity of Chaffee County builds homes for families that would not be able to otherwise afford a home of their own. Raising funds to purchase the land on which to build is the initial step. One of the ways to do that this year is sponsoring a community dance with a live jazz band. Classic dance images were used and enhanced to get a feeling of movement and excitement.

Service: Poster design & layout, print production, image enhancement, print buying and supervising.

Arkansas River Rods

samhaltom — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:51:10 +0000

I am excited to get started on the design of a new website for Arkansas River Rods. In return for the development of this site a friend of mine and a bamboo rodmaker Dave Moore, who will be featured on the site, is teaching me how to create bamboo fly rods. What a treat. In this day and age of computers it is nice to get back to creating works of art by hand. Bamboo fly rods are truly works of art. Each rod is unique and has a character of their own. The rodmaking process is very complicated and time intensive. It takes about 80 hours to create one rod and there are many things that can go wrong during the creative process. So stay tuned to find out more about my experience and check the new site as it is designed.

EpicParent.tv

samhaltom — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 21:59:35 +0000

I am super stoked to announce the launch of EpicParent.tv. This is a blog that I created for a good friend Chris Spradlin. He had this vision to start this website about parenting and post experiences and knowledge about the subject. Nothing is held back and anything can be discussed. He will be producing a weekly video on different parenting subjects and then taking different aspects of the video to discuss throughout the week. I am proud and honored to be a part of this effort and know that God will bless our efforts. Check it out.

A partner from the past

samhaltom — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:36:45 +0000

What a surprise!!! When i checked my email the other morning I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from one of the original 3 partners in Another Color, Anton Sukardjo. Anton, Edwin White and myself started ACI in 1975. We all worked together at another design studio in Alexandria, VA. Anton is from Indonesia. One Asian, one black, and one white… hence the name Another Color. Pretty cool huh. We thought so. We also had no idea what we were getting into at the time. But with $600 in cash and the help of our wives and girlfriends we took the leap.

While Ed and I opened an office in Georgetown, Anton continued to work for his current employer because we really didn’t have enough work to support all 3 of us. But he did work with us on projects as needed. This worked out just fine mostly because we weren’t making any money at that time anyway. Just enough to pay our rent and expenses. Anton was a wonderful illustrator. I remember he could draw anything and paint in just any style needed. So he was a great compliment to the other skills brought to the table by myself and Ed. However, Anton was not a US citizen. He was in the US on a student visa. He had married a diplomats daughter so as long as they remained in the US he could too. Well that day came when his wifes family had to return to Indonesia… so he had to leave also. This was all before design was done extensively on computers and the internet was pretty much nonexistent. So when he left the country we lost contact with him.

Now after all these years we have made contact again. What a joy to hear about his family and kids he has raised. Maybe we can even get together again some time soon. Its just amazing how connected the world is today.