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.

YMCA Retirement Fund’s 2009 annual report

Merola Designs 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.

Merola Designs 2008 Annual Report

Secu­rity, Integrity and Endur­ing Value

For the sec­ond time in three years Merola Design cre­ated the YMCA Retire­ment Retire­ment Fund Annual Report.

Merola designs NYC multimedia logo

Archi­tect Charles Lauster and his part­ners opened a new mul­ti­me­dia com­pany. The new ven­ture required a cor­po­rate iden­tity. Let­ter­head, sig­nage, fold­ers, and graphic guide­lines to launch.

The cre­ative by Merola Design, attempted to sim­ply illus­trate the mean­ing of mul­ti­me­dia, the move­ment of light to com­mu­ni­cate infor­ma­tion. The sun­dial formed by the company’s ini­tials was an idea that was hard to ignore.

The logo was so well received that they used the iden­tity for their archi­tec­ture busi­ness as well.

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 »

A&E and History Channel identity

A&E net­work and His­tory Chan­nel cor­po­rate stan­dards guide­lines
In 1995 while part of William Sny­der Design, our team was given the assign­ment to redesign the A&E net­work and The His­tory Channel’s cor­po­rate iden­ti­ties. Each of these iden­ti­ties were being eroded and mis­man­aged and needed guide­lines. We cre­ated a thirty-two page graphic stan­dards man­ual for each com­pany to help main­tain usage and con­sis­tency. Top­ics cov­ered include, logo vari­ants, rules for logo use, color con­trol and repro­duc­tion materials.

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.