Save With Confidence 2011 Annual Report

Merola Designs the YMCA Retire­ment Fund’s 2010 Annual Report. The theme for the report is “Strength In Uncer­tain Times.” Bold head­ers and muted info-graphic styled charts and graphs grouped together, giv­ing this years report more struc­ture then pre­vi­ous reports. Merola Has been design­ing the reports for the YMCA Retire­ment Fund since 2006.

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

When par­ents are look­ing for a preschool for their child, word of mouth rec­om­men­da­tions from local par­ents are key. Par­ents want to know that the school is safe, clean and pro­fes­sional. Most preschool mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als do not com­mu­ni­cate these qual­ity traits. A rel­a­tively small invest­ment in these mate­ri­als can go a long way in help­ing par­ent choose the right school for their chil­dren early edu­ca­tion needs.

Robert Merola helped re-brand Sesame Sprout pre-school design­ing the new logo and mar­ket­ing materials.

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.

HomeStyle spins off from OneCoast

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.

YMCA Retirement Fund’s 2009 Annual Report

For the third time in four years Robert Merola designed the YMCA Retire­ment Fund’s Annual Report. The theme for the report is Weath­er­ing The Storm. The 36 page report con­tained dozens of duo-tone pho­tographs of board mem­bers as well as clear, con­cise finan­cial charts and graphs. Merola’s pho­to­graph fea­tured on the cover is a com­pos­ite of three dif­fer­ent shots taken off the coast of Long Island’s Fire Island Lighthouse.

Merola also designed the 2006, 2008 as well as the funds 85^th anniver­sary logo.

New line of eco friendly cookware

Robert Merola cre­ates new iden­tity and pack­age design

Eco­lu­tion has cre­ated a new line of cook­ware man­u­fac­tured with an envi­ron­men­tally friendly process.
Logo alter­na­tives sup­port the core iden­tity to help brand the pack­ag­ing and prod­uct design as well.

Visit the Eco­lu­tion web­site.

Merola designs Office​.com identity

Logo, brand guide and pro­mo­tional graph­ics

Before the dot-com implo­sion, Office​.com was one of the web’s most com­pre­hen­sive busi­ness sites.
Office​.com pro­vides infor­ma­tion on how to start a small busi­ness and pro­vided a Vir­tual Office suite, Online Col­lab­o­ra­tion Soft­ware, Online Cal­en­dar, Group­ware, and web based email for your small busi­ness made Office​.com an ambi­tious and help­ful resource.

In August 2009 Microsoft bought the url to pro­mote their Office Suite.

Merola Design cre­ated the Office​.com iden­tity in 1990 and col­lab­o­rated with New York brand­ing agency nick+paul and devel­oped brand style guides and pro­mo­tional mate­ri­als for the start-up.

May 13th, 2008 | Robert Merola | Branding, Corporate Graphics, Logo Design, Portfolio | COMMENT »

YMCA Retirement Fund celebrates 85^th year

To help cel­e­brate the 85^th Anniver­sary of the YMCA Retire­ment Fund, Merola Design was asked to cre­ate a com­mem­o­ra­tive logo.

This fund pre­dates Social Secu­rity and was cre­ated as an incen­tive to the attract and hold onto YMCA employ­ees. Today, the Fund has more than $4.0 bil­lion in assets and helps pro­vide finan­cial secu­rity for more than 75,000 Funds participants.

While research­ing the project we found a poster in the YMCA archives called “Lend Your Strength to the Red Tri­an­gle” by Amer­i­can artist Gil Spear. As soon as we saw it we knew this would be the type of iconic image we were look­ing for.

The process of redraw­ing the fig­ure in Adobe Illus­tra­tor and reduc­ing the full color paint­ing to work as a logo was time con­sum­ing. The type treat­ment and color stud­ies were done and a postage stamp bor­der treat­ment was added to rein­force the com­mem­o­ra­tive feel and help add a sense of scale.

A hol­i­day card design and alter­nate ver­sions of the logo were done for one color, two color, three color and full color uses. A poster of this graphic is also in the works.

The orig­i­nal 1916 Gil Spear paint­ing was part of the United War Work Cam­paign and it is among the best exam­ples of United States pro­pa­ganda dur­ing World War One.

Spear’s name is often men­tioned among the top illus­tra­tor of the early twen­ti­eth cen­tury, along with James Mont­gomery Flagg, James H. Daugh­erty, Ben Shahn and Otto Fis­cher. Gil Spear Paint­ing served as the design inspi­ra­tion.

Robert Merola has worked on sev­eral YMCA Retire­ment Fund projects and been their Annual report designer for sev­eral years.