We just got a chance to update the portfolio with some branding, packaging, and Web work we did for our friend Paul Singh’s new creative collective, Pel.

Pel is a group of like-minded professionals, hand-picked by Paul, who share a passion for crafting inventive, creative digital media solutions in the form of Web sites, mobile applications, and digital video projects, all emphasizing usability and easy-to-use navigation. He’s brought together film producers, photographers, copy writers, developers, front-end specialists, and graphic designers—ourselves included—to form a diverse, flexible team of creatives for design-forward, intuitive visual communication projects.

We actually started our work with Paul by helping to come up with the company name—Pel is a trade term that’s short for Picture Element; essentially synonymous with a pixel, the basic building block of everything we see in the digital world. After establishing the conceptual identity for the company, we moved on to the visual identity, running various multi-version drafts of a company logo by Paul in our branding process before landing on the mark you see here—a logo that features clean, bold typography and stacked array of three pixel shapes that change their color palette to fit the product. For instance, above, the logo takes on the colors of the Brazilian + Kenyan flags for this promotional coffee packaging we designed to announce Pel to the world.

The standard logo—which you can see on the site—brings in colors that represent Paul’s initial forays into these various realms of the digital world in which Pel now works—a computer beige from his first computer (a Tandy 1000EX); a blue-grey for  his first cell phone (Motorola v8160); and a silver-grey for his first camera (Canon AE1).

After establishing the brand and doing the coffee packaging, we moved on to less delectable…but nonetheless essential + exciting projects like Pel’s business cards, Web site, and letter line, which you can check out below.

Visit the Pel site to find out more, find out about the rest of the team, and look at some of the projects Pel has done already—some of which we worked on, and one of which is this very site you’re on now.

Last week, when we up in Sonoma for some work meetings, we got a strange recommendation during an end-of-the-day happy hour:

“You have GOT to check out the Seed Bank in Petaluma!”

I’ve never been on Family Feud, but if I were, and if whoever hosts it these days requested that I name one of the top five must-see sights of California wine country, I would certainly not say “Visit the Petaluma Seed Bank, sir!”

But, it turns out, we were not at all led astray by that friendly, slightly bewildering recommendation. The Petaluma Seed Bank was established in 2009 as western outpost for the Missouri-based botanical behemoth, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Set in the historic Sonoma County Bank building—built in the 1920s—the Seed Bank is nothing short of impressive, be your thumb green or not. Acting as both a retail store and a kind of archival repository for obscure + nuanced flora, the massive depth of their seed collection matches the interior of the vast, high-ceilinged building.

The call the Bank “a beacon for gardeners, foodies, shoppers, and tourists alike.” They continue on their site—”We offer over 1,500 varieties of heirloom seeds, garlic, tools, books, and hundreds of local hand-made gifts and food items. Remember—everything we offer is pure, natural, and non-GMO!” Writing that out now I realized I somehow missed the heirloom garlic. I have no idea what heirloom garlic is…BUT I WANT IT.

Pair that enthusiasm for heirloom seeds with the “did I just step onto the set of Frontier House“, homemade garb of company founders and store workers, and…I have no idea what you get, but it’s excitingly weird. In a great way. As long as they don’t sit me down to talk about ‘the great lord’s bounty’ or anything.

You can read Christine Muhlke’s 2010 New York Times article to find out more about Baker Creek and the quelling of that writer’s curiosity on the company.

Visit the Petaluma Seed Bank for all your seed-buying needs next time you’re in the area, located smack in the middle of historic downtown at 199 Petaluma Blvd. It really is worth the trip. You can shop Baker Creek’s online store as well.

Please note: The California coast is fucking amazing.

Just back from a trip up to Sonoma—which is lovely, by the way—and then back, over the Golden Gate Bridge, through one of our favorite cities in the world—San Francisco, past a town called Los Gatos (we procured an armful of cats), all around the undeniably magical Big Sur, and past, what, one thousand elephant seals? So playing a bit of catch-up—we’ll be back with you in-full shortly.

Click the panorama below in the meantime to see the White Wolf basking in the Cali sun at a larger scale.

As we’ll be traveling up the coast for some work the next couple days, we thought it worth mentioning—we have an Instagram account.

Well, technically, we have two—an ‘official’ one for the studio + a personal one for Katie. The former’s mainly run by Troy (me), not due to any strange anti-Katie hierarchical reasoning, more because I’m an early adopter when it comes to promotional social media and hopped on that raven + crow user name very promptly.

Anyway, as we head up the coast, check out either or both Instagram feeds. They usually feature most prominently our handsome-yet-goofy dog, Owen; our wise and somewhat wizened cat, Allister; a lot of soon-to-be-eaten vegan food; hiking; and many other things we deem pretty and/or funny, like this note someone left on the sidewalk the other day.

In the next couple days, we anticipate fewer dog + cat photos, but many more of the California coastline and venerable Sonoma vineyards.

Above, a piece we call “Cat in Profile, Galloping Up Brick Hill”. We anticipate it rivaling notable Warhols in both price + prestige given time.

Some words of wisdom from American author + environmentalist, Wendell Berry to commemorate this Earth Day:

“The soil if the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”

– Wendell Berry,
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture

The words were passed on to us through the Hollywood Orchard, who celebrate Earth Day with a community pot luck, live musical performance of original work inspired by the orchard, and commemorative CD + hand-stitched booklet, pictured here. Last we heard, they had a few copies left—email them with inquires.

I found these chunks of Chalcopyrite in a store in Highland Park a little while back and couldn’t not pick them up.

Chalcopyrite is a copper iron sulfide mineral that—when exposed to air—oxidizes in a wide range of blues, purples, golds, and pinks that make it look like the Ziggy Stardust of minerals. Some claim they can relieve joint pains if held over an afflicted area for a time…but I just love the way they look.

Go, nature.

Fare thee well, New York. It was great to spend some time together again.

And hang in there—the weateher’ll stop fucking with you sooner or later.

Quick—someone buy me these gloves.

Evidently, you can add ‘inventor’ to Imogen Heap‘s CV.

Working with a team of developers and fellow musicians, the signer has helped to design the Mi.Mu gloves, which allow users to “more naturally engage” with computer software and control and create live music in a more exciting manner than, say, standing in front of a computer pushing buttons for an hour.

Watch Deezen’s exclusive interview with Heap in her London home below and read more about the gloves and their myriad uses on the Deezen and MINI Frontiers blog. You can find out more about Heap’s Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the gloves on her Web site.

Being back in New York this week for a parade of work meetings, we’ve been exposed to a number of things that are now less-than-everyday for us living in LA. We’ve  been able to spend some time with friends we haven’t seen in months; we’ve gotten to jaywalk again at long last; and—after a disarmingly pleasant weekend—New York showed her true spring self this week with torrential downpours, gale-force winds, and snow in the forecast.

We’ve also logged some significant subway time—mode of transit, not sandwich chain—allowing for one of my favorite New York pastimes, transit ad appreciation.

Having long had our fill of the ageless Dr. Z, we turned most notably to a new campaign for the National Peanut Board by Atlanta-based firm, Lawler Ballard Van Durand. They’ve tackled work for the peanut board in the past that was roughly along these lines—personal + information with a health-minded take—but these ads take everything a step further, visually, marrying the campaign’s facts, figures, and messaging with the powerfully direct photography of Chris Crisman and the elegant, movement-filled illustrations of  Wendy Hollender and Rose Pellicano.

The New York Times recently covered the campaign in detail. The author of the piece, Stuart Elliott, quoted National Peanut Board President Bob Parker:

‘Although “we’re excited about the many studies out recently about the [nutritional benefits] of peanuts and nuts,” he adds, “we feel peanuts sometimes don’t get the credit they deserve.” One goal for the new campaign is to establish peanuts as “a good source of plant-based protein,” Mr. Parker says, at a time when there is “strong interest among consumers in alternatives to animal protein.”’

You said it, Parker.

The campaign repackages the peanut as a natural, ready-to-go super-food, boasting over 30 essential vitamins + nutrients, 7 grams of plant-based protein, and claiming to be the most popular nut in the US.

Were we more prudish, we’d debate them on that last one—the peanut’s technically not a nut, it’s a legume.

To top it all off, in addition to moms on the go, stern-faced little leaguers, and kids rocking out, the campaign also features two real life peanut farmers—Charles Hardin of Georgia and Jeffrey Pope of Virginia.

What’s not to like?

Read more on the New York Times’ campaign spotlight and watch Chris Crisman’s behind-the-scenes on his photo shoots on the National Peanut Board’s blog.

The light through the trees was doing some pretty cool stuff on the wall of the office patio Friday. We thought we’d shoot, play around with it a little, and share.

Light’s the best.