how do you design an imme­di­ately rec­og­niz­able iden­tity that describes you pre­cisely? how can you build a cap­ti­vat­ing and com­pelling site that tells your story? how will you get your mes­sage in front of the exact peo­ple who are look­ing for you?

Pre-school gets a fresh new logo, Rego Park, NY

sesame sprout logo design
Sesame Sprout has been pro­vid­ing child care and early edu­ca­tion ser­vices in the neigh­bor­hood for more then 25 years. They offer after-school pro­grams and were one of the first schools in Queens to pro­vide a Uni­ver­sal Pre-Kindergarten pro­gram. In Sep­tem­ber, 2001, Sesame receive approval from the New York State Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment to pro­vide spe­cial edu­ca­tion pro­grams to preschool stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties and is approved to pro­vide bi-lingual Span­ish instruc­tion. They also offer speech ther­apy, occu­pa­tional ther­apy, coun­sel­ing and phys­i­cal ther­apy and a range of enrich­ing pro­grams.
Rego Park res­i­dent Robert Merola designed the new logo and helped re-brand the school.

March 18th, 2010 | robert merola | Branding, Logo Design | No Comments »

The All Souls Unitarian Church’s AIDS Task Force


Estab­lished by the Rev. For­rester Church of the All Souls
Uni­tar­ian Church on Sep­tem­ber 29, 1985.
Formed only four years after the Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol issued clin­i­cal evi­dence of a new dis­ease, now known as AIDS. It was the first faith-based AIDS task force in Man­hat­tan.
The first major action of All Souls’ AIDS Task Force was a pub­lic edu­ca­tion cam­paign in which 10,000 plac­ards were placed in this city’s buses and sub­ways.
The graphic designed by Robert Merola, was used on large ban­ners and lapel pins and helped pro­mote and raise funds for the organization.

January 19th, 2010 | robert merola | Not for Profit | No Comments »

Typeface designers wrestle with the world of pixels

A New York Times reporter sits down with typog­ra­phy gurus, Jonathan Hoe­fler and Tobias Frere-Jones to dis­cuss some of the chal­lenges fac­ing graphic and web design­ers. Incon­sis­tent ren­der­ing of type­faces due to dif­fer­ent oper­at­ing sys­tems, web browsers and dif­fer­ent user set­tings. View the Times arti­cle.

Three tips I have: 1– Reset your browser zoom set­ting, this at least ren­ders the same sized type that the designer intended. 2– Upgrade to Fire­fox or Safari, any browser but Explorer. 3– Check to see that your mon­i­tor is set to it’s high­est res­o­lu­tion set­ting. I’m always amazed to see how many peo­ple never bother to check this setting.

Design — Type­face Design­ers Wres­tle With the World of Pix­els — NYTimes.com.

January 11th, 2010 | robert merola | Typography, Web Design | No Comments »

Merola designs launch website for Mapwise software

Mapwise homepage

Map­Wise soft­ware bring the power of visu­al­iza­tion to the man­age­ment of trade­marks. By unlock­ing the data trapped in reports and spread­sheets and dis­play­ing it graph­i­cally, com­pa­nies can now man­age their trade­mark assets strate­gi­cally. Merola Designed the Map­wise cor­po­rate iden­tity and was then asked to design the web­site. Visit the Map­wise web­site.

December 16th, 2009 | robert merola | Logo Design, Web Design | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Describe yourself precisely in seven words, or less

Charles Dickens's  Christmas Carol reveals seven unflattering adjectives to describe Scrooge, squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner. The original manuscript shows Dickens considered many more.
Charles Dickens’s Christ­mas Carol reveals seven unflat­ter­ing adjec­tives describ­ing Scrooge, “squeez­ing, wrench­ing, grasp­ing, scrap­ing, clutch­ing, cov­etous old sinner.”

The orig­i­nal man­u­script rev­els that Dick­ens con­sid­ered many others.


Orig­i­nal man­u­script for Charles Dickens’s Christ­mas Carol.

Could you effec­tively describe your­self in seven words?
This chal­lenge comes up every time Merola Design works with a new client. It’s not easy, but it is an essen­tial step in build­ing a strong brand and effec­tive cor­po­rate Identity. The truth is you have more then seven words if you include your company’s name, tag-line and logo. Lever­ag­ing these ele­ments and tak­ing care to avoid redun­dancy, can help you more fully describe your com­pa­nies unique value proposition.

A Closer Look at Charles Dickens’s ‘Christ­mas Carol’ — Inter­ac­tive Graphic — NYTimes.com

December 2nd, 2009 | robert merola | Uncategorized | No Comments »

Rob Merola designs Soma’s new Synerchi identity

New logo for Chico’s Soma brand

Soma Inti­mates new line of active­ware fea­tures inno­v­a­tive and beau­ti­ful design detail­ing. The yoga inspired line received its own graph­ics and mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als. The design will be used for hang-tags, labels, zip­per pulls and other on-garment branding.

November 18th, 2009 | robert merola | Branding, Logo Design | No Comments »

New program for leadership education & mentoring

Robert Merola designs logo for Build­ing Bet­ter Leaders

Art Petty’s goal is to pro­vide content-rich, real-world edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties for pro­fes­sion­als who want to take their careers to the next level. He offers per­son­al­ized men­tor­ing to pro­gram par­tic­i­pants to help them real­ize their pro­fes­sional goals and to pro­mote life-long learn­ing and fos­ter the value of lead­er­ship in orga­ni­za­tions of any size. Visit the Build­ing Bet­ter Lead­ers web­site.

Best of luck to Art and his new project.

November 18th, 2009 | robert merola | Logo Design | No Comments »

OneCoast gets a clean new identity

Merola redesigns OneCoast logo

OneCoast is the largest and only national whole­sale provider of gift, home, and col­le­giate prod­ucts to retail­ers through­out the United States. They assist hun­dreds of lead­ing ven­dors mar­ket and sell their prod­ucts to over 60,000 inde­pen­dent retail stores, inter­net stores, inte­rior design­ers, and retail chains.

Merola Design was hired to design Onecost’s new iden­tity. Sup­port mate­ri­als such as Graphic stan­dards, Mar­ket guide tem­plates, let­ter­head, Pow­er­Point tem­plates and Hol­i­day cards were also created.

Visit the OneCoast web­site.

November 18th, 2009 | robert merola | Corporate Graphics, Corporate Identity | No Comments »

HomeStyle spins off from OneCoast

New logo design for HomeStyle designed by Robert Merola

Robert Merola designs new logo for Home­Style.

Home­Style, will be spun off from OneCoast and merged with the regional sales agency, Ivy­s­tone Group.

The com­bined agency will oper­ate two dis­tinct brands: Home­Style will empha­size home accents and lifestyle prod­ucts, while the Ivy­s­tone Group will focus on the gift mar­ket. Together they will have more than 150 field sales rep­re­sen­ta­tives along with 20 key account rep­re­sen­ta­tives and will oper­ate show­rooms in Atlanta, Dal­las, Chicago and Las Vegas.

Robert Merola was called in to re-brand Home­Style and devel­oped its identity.

October 21st, 2009 | robert merola | Branding, Corporate Identity | No Comments »

Mapwise software launches new identity

Robert Merola cre­ates new iden­tity and brand strat­egy

Map­wise devel­ops soft­ware that visu­ally dis­plays com­plex data into clear, con­cise and user friendly infor­ma­tion. Map­wise for Trade­marks applies this con­cept to the dif­fi­cult job of trade­mark man­age­ment and organization.

In addi­tion to the new iden­tity, Merola also designed the Map­wise web­site. Visit the Map­wise web­site.

August 13th, 2009 | robert merola | Logo Design | No Comments »