Madison Square Garden is a major client of an agency I work with. Our job is to bring a fresh new look to MSG.com utilizing some of the latest in social media to further engage the audience. The visual system was pre-determined by the creative director leaving my primary role to maintain and manage the strict guidelines and keep the quality assurance tight while offering up new ideas that could benefit the experience. I implemented some of my own design ideas which were approved and welcomed by the client helping the successful phase 1 launch.

Sandra came to me looking to add an article section to her blog to post some of her University publications. We decided despite lesser web usability, we would mimic a magazine format to keep line lengths short and the sections tight. Sandra wrote the content and took the photographic assets, I created the article template and illustration of the floor plan. I designed a wordpress template for use posting additional articles which will be published as time progresses. To see the article in it’s entirety, visit Sandy Canvas, it is an engaging paper.

Peafactory.com was originally for Sandra. She intended to use this as her personal portfolio however it was later adopted for myself as my personal portfolio with a later intent of using it for freelance photography. We decided to re-brand Peafactory.com to Pellstudio.com after we created our own personal domains. Peafactory’s logo is the thing I love most about, possibly cliché, it is a pea wearing a hard hat. The term Peafactory derives from a silly origin, my last name (P)ell as well as the fact Sandra and I are two creative peas in a pod, dorky, I know!.

I created this poster based on tight brand guidelines and business requirements for the New York Rangers fanclub known as The Blueshirts United. The poster is displayed on the website their website and is the pledge for members of the fan club. As with any client with a strict standard it becomes increasingly difficult to think outside of the box with the poster design so a safe approach was given to the overall aesthetics of it. It matches the brand requirements of their current visual style quite well for all the Rangers branding.

StevePell.ca is a complete re-design of my old site, Pellphoto.com. After years of procrastination I decided it was time to focus on illustration and graphic design as well as photography. The style of this site is an attempt for me to convey my personality in a visual way using a style I am not commonly known for. In the past I have been partial to maximalism which for me was more artistic than it was design, as I learn and grow I am focusing on the basic elements of design and architecture over the veneer. More to come in subsequent versions.

According to their 2009 campaign, The Weekend to End Breast Cancer ensures that “Breast Cancer is hard, walking isn’t“. Last September 2009, My fiance Sandra participated in The Weekend to End Breast Cancer’s Toronto walk. This year the name of the event has changed to the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers. Click here to register for this year’s Toronto event. I made this poster to help promote her donations. The shot is a picture of Sandra’s chest speaking to the audience asking for donations.

SandyCanvas is technically the first iteration of this site. This site was created for my fiance Sandra Howard to facilitate a spot for her to post her photographic explorations in a similar fashion to me. Her site is built using Wordpress and a blank template. I designed and developed the blank template into a minimal, yet functional photo blog (still seems to be buggy in IE7). The design is built to focus on content, not the UI. We have a few planned phases for this site in the future as we understand the users needs and the Wordpress platform better.

PellPhoto.com is no more, it has turned into this site. PellPhoto was a place for me to post my photographic explorations. It used the PixelPost blog engine but was limited in SEO value plus I wanted to upgrade to Wordpress, it was time for it to evolve. I am bias towards maximalism in design and art, I really like lots of detail and rich imagery however that is not always the best approach. PellPhoto’s point was to showcase the photos, not the design so it was an attempt to keep the design really simple to focus on the content and practice minimalism.