Zookeeper Blog • Branding + Design + Advertising

Zookeeper Designs I Lost Me To The Crystal Method T-Shirt

One of the side ventures we’re working on is a graphic apparel line. We have over 30 designs under development and hope to be able offer Zookeeper gear on this site sometime in the coming months. 

Around Los Angeles, “I Lost Me To Meth” billboards are all over town. The anti-meth campaign launched by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs earlier this year spotlight forlorn meth users with a handwritten scrawl that reads “I Lost Me To Meth.”

Isaac took this idea and created this custom type. We screenprinted a few samples this summer.

Pictured here is our good friend and hockey buddy Ken Jordan of The Crystal Method wearing our “I Lost Me To The Crystal Method” T-shirt at the group’s recent DJ show in Salt Lake City:

Stereophonics at the Henry Fonda Showbox

Tuesday night I caught Stereophonics at the Henry Fonda Showbox on Hollywood. Solid show with lead singer Kelly Jones always giving a fine performance. The last time they were on tour in the US was in 2006, and their show at the intimate Doug Fir Lounge in Portland was the best show I saw that year. Photo from Tuesday’s show below:

Zookeeper’s The Neighborhood Group Logo Selected for Logo Lounge 5

We’re extremely pleased to announce that Logo Lounge selected the logo we produced for The Neighborhood Group to be in their new book, Logo Lounge 5, which will be published in June 2009. Over 33,000 logos were submitted for consideration and the final collection “is not only an excellent point-in-time examination, it is full to the brim with inspiration, higher thinking and craftsmanship.”

Zookeeper works by herding together best-of-breed talent to produce breakthrough, award-winning creative and this case was no different. We enlisted the exceptionally talented Jeff Pollard to create this brand identity for The Neighborhood Group, an emerging real-estate company located in Portland, Oregon. Read more about our design intent for the brand identity for The Neighborhood Group here.

Zookeeper Creates Poster for The Crystal Method

The Crystal Method commissioned us to create the poster for their poolside fundraiser. The pioneering electronic music duo of Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland were seeking a look and feel that would build anticipation while promoting a cause they believed in.

We used color, type and original illustration to create an original web and print poster design that conveyed the intimate yet exciting feel the group was envisioning while reflecting their brand identity.

View website

New Taglines

We’ve recently add several new taglines to our portfolio.

A clever tagline describes the essence of your brand to your customers in just a few words.

The ideal branding slogan instantly conveys the concept of your brand. Optimally three to five words, a memorable and successful catchphrase summarizes your company, product or service with the right tone and attitude to make a lasting impression.

Are you getting your brand message across clearly? We can .

Portfolio: TAGLINES

Changes Afoot

As you may have noticed, we have a new brand identity for Zookeeper. Many more details to follow soon on this, including our process on how we created it and what the change symbolizes.

Many more exciting things to announce as well, so stop back soon.

Gone is our old identity, which served us well since I started Zookeeper nearly 10 years ago in February 1999, and featured a giraffe. The photo below I purchased a couple of years ago from Drew Force, who also runs his own design firm, located up in Portland. Drew loves to go to Africa on safari and has taken some stunning photographs that have been featured in his art-gallery shows. I loved the giraffe skull below that he captured and expertly composed. A fitting metaphor for the moment.

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

Just when Dave thought that I’d given up, I present to you yet another Thursday Sketch of the Week. Perhaps, this one needs a name and a story. Or perhaps there is no name or story. I mean look at this guy. Does he look like he has a name? I think he’s mysterious. Mission: Booyah. Status: Achieved.

Zookeeper helps Iwata-Medea increase website traffic by 400%

We’ve been working with Iwata-Medea, distributors of the world’s finest airbrush products, since 2004 on their website. In January 2005, Iwata had 6,000 unique site visitors a month. Thanks to a huge increase in site content and a targeted, consistent email campaign, the number of unique monthly visitors in July totaled over 24,000! That’s a 400% increase for those of you scoring at home.

Want to learn how we can help your business achieve similar results? Contact us today.

We’re currently in the process of a complete redesign of their site that will feature a blog, more interactivity and a freshly updated look. We’ve just uploaded the monthly site update which you can check out below.

Iwata-Medea Website

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

Named after the fictional castle in the animated TV series She-Ra: Princess of Power and not the 1983 Atari video game, Crystal Castles from Toronto bring us this week’s video “Vanished”, a super-cathy, almost hypnotic song. Enjoy: 

“We have hijacked your baby”

Owning a bunch of different domain names means you get a LOT of spam. My junk mail box regularly takes in nearly 5,000 spam emails a week. Last week spammers tried to swamp our comments section of our blog, but we enacted some security measures and cut them off at the pass.

After a while, you notice certain patterns behind their junk mail. What’s become very obvious is that the spammers have a marketing plan. But how do you cut through all the clutter, especially when you are competing against all of the other spams in your inbox? I noticed they had a top ten CNN stories of the day one going a couple of weeks ago. But yesterday, they really took it to the next level. I’ve gotten hundreds of these new ones, with the title:

“We have hijacked your baby”

The message goes on to tell me how I “must pay once to us $50 000. The details we will send later...” Then they are nice enough to attach a “photo.”

Very tricky, spammers. Imagine the havoc you could cause if English was like your fourth language…

Manny Manny Manny

Continuing to get our faithful readers caught up to do date on our latest escapades…

Our good friend and emerging voice-over superstar Mike Vaughn invited me out to the Dodgers-Phillies game last Thursday.

Here’s a photo of newly acquired Manny Ramirez stepping to the plate early in the game. The Dodgers are completely transformed with Manny in the lineup, a totally different team with playoff aspirations. Dodgers fans were always on their feet and cheering when Manny approached the batter’s box:

The Crystal Method DJ Set

Lots to catch up on in the last week…

Ken Jordan of The Crystal Method invited us out to the Blur party last Wednesday at the Henry Fonda Musicbox. The Crystal Method mixed an awesome DJ set that brought the place alive:

Carmen Electra even made a brief appearance – she’s the second one from the left. My iPhone isn’t a big fan of a) dark places or b) movement:

The previous night I was at a surprise birthday party for Ken in North Hollywood that migrated over to The Crystal Method studios. The Crystal Method have a new album coming out later this fall that they previewed – it sounded great and features a couple of incredible tracks by Peter Hook of New Order and Joy Division fame laying down riffs.

Kenny’s cake, as you can see here, was not only a festival of lights, but also had his likeness screenprinted on. You know you’re big-time when they print your picture on the cake:

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week - CANCELLED

Isaac and his favorite stuffed animal, Ponce the Panda, were on vacation yesterday at Magic Mountain. Rest assured though that the Sketch of the Week will return next week with fresh inspiration, taking illustration where it’s never gone before. 

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

My very good friend and creative genius Matt Moore and his band, the Upsidedown, have a new album out called Human Destination. Based in Portland, the Upsidedown, fronted by Jsun Adams, continue to evolve and deepen their sound. They’ll be down here in LA at the Wiltern on October 3rd touring with The Dandy Warhols. Can’t wait to see them again.

Buy the album

“The Road” coming this fall and we’re excited

About a father and son trying to survive in a nuclear winter landscape, the best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy is one of the great novels of our time – I can’t recommend it highly enough. Brilliantly written – and so compelling you’ll want to read it one sitting.

The movie, starring Viggo Mortensen, is scheduled for release by Miramax for Thanksgiving. The Los Angeles Times had details of the filming yesterday:

Article

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

Is anybody else excited about the new Terminator movie? Really? You are? Well then you probably went to Comic-Con this year, saw the new trailer, you’ve got way too much time on your hands and you live in your mom’s basement. Yeah, me too. Sometimes I just have to get my excitement out.

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

So Stereophonics released their new album, Pull the Pin, almost a year ago in England. But can you buy it on Amazon or in the stores here (except as an import)? Nope. What’s totally confounding is that it’s on iTunes in the UK, but not in the US version of the store. Super frustrating. Especially since there is TONS of great music in iTunes UK that Apple doesn’t sell in the US store. Argggh.

Anyway, I’m going to the Stereophonics show next month at the Fonda and expect it to be epic after seeing them two years ago at the Doug Fir in Portland, which was one of the truly great shows I’ve seen. Here’s “It Means Nothing” off the “new” album:

WEDNESDAY: Hump Day Humor

“Set your phasers to loser!”

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog took on Comic-Con last week - and won. Isaac and I watched this Monday, and my abs still hurt. High-sterical. Enjoy.

Here’s Triumph’s speech at Comic-Con:

And here’s our good buddy Mike Vaughn completely freezing on camera, totally in awe of Triumph:

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

So you’re a musician and you want to get featured on Tuesday Music Video of the Week. What do you do?

If you have people wearing oversized furry masks in your video, you greatly increase your chances.

East London Grime rapper Richard Kylea Cowie, aka Wiley, put together this ultra-catchy song, Wearing My Rolex. Wiley is best known for helping to pioneer the British hip-hop sound Grime that emerged out of the late 1990s rave scene. Grime is a fast-flow of rap with a London beat – think of it having been made for a boxing gym with lots of punching and not much room to move. Wiley refers to his music as “eskibeat” but Wearing My Rolex, because of the instrumentation, isn’t considered true Grime music. So it’s Grime, but it’s not, got it?

Anyway, furry masks is all you really need to know. 

We dedicate this one out to Ben and wish him best of luck with his new venture.

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

Alright, so I know it’s not Thursday. Again. But hey, I was told this week that good things come to those who wait, so here you go. I constructed this blue mass of madness with no real intention in mind but the end result is never the less entertaining. I love Fursdays.

Zookeeper Survives First Earthquake

While Isaac was manning the fort here at the office, I was very glad to be wearing all of my hockey gear at a “client lunch” up in Burbank at the venerable Pickwick Ice Arena when our first SoCal earthquake hit a little before noon. Sitting on the bench, the boards started rattling and the lights from the roof swayed for about 10 seconds. Condensation from the roof shook loose and rained down on the ice. Funny enough, the guys on the ice had no idea anything had happened. The quake, with an epicenter in the Chino Hills, measured 5.4 on the Richter Scale. 

Back at the office, Isaac reports he heard a crack sound and his desk swayed back and forth. “It was pretty weird. Everything in the office kind of rattled.”

More reports as events warrant. 

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

Here’s some awesomeness. Your favorite gay Muppets, Bert and the Ernie, put Milli Vanilli to shame, getting busy with some Gangsta-Rap on this Tuesday Music Video of the Week. 

Lightsaber Count…

As if you didn’t see this one coming. Welcome to the Comic-Con 2008 Lightsaber Count. This was our first time at such an event and let me tell you four days is just not enough time! We did pretty well though considering we only lasted for two hours. Imagine how enormous the count could have been? We quickly came to realize there are truly two different dimensions that exist in this world. The Observers and the Dedicated. Guess which dimension these warriors came from…

Triumph The Insult Comic Dog 1, Mike Vaughn 0

Our sources have just sent this video from Comic-Con over...hard to talk when you have a rotteweiler dog puppet in your face, we’re figuring…

Comic-Con

Isaac will have a full rundown of our Friday Comic-Con experience tomorrow, including photos and a lightsaber count. If you’ve never been to Comic-Con before, it’s an experience. As Isaac likes to call them, the “basement dwellers” were all dressed up in their favorite comic, sci-fi or fantasy character costume. Wow.

We were there in support of our client Mike Vaughn, who was there promoting his work as the voice of Spiderman in Activision’s Spiderman: Web of Shadows video game that will be released this fall. You can watch a preview with Mike’s voice here. 

Spidey-Man Needs Security

Our former officemate and good friend Mike Vaughn is the new voice of Spider-Man in the upcoming Spider-Man: Web of Shadows video game by Activision that’s generating quite a buzz down at Comic-Con, currently underway in San Diego.

Zookeeper helped get Mike prepped over the last few weeks for the publicity and barrage of interviews he’s doing.

We’re hearing reports this morning that autograph seekers were hounding Mike at last night’s Activision kick-off party, and Activision was wondering whether they had enough security for him on the floor today. Outstanding. We’ll be in San Diego for Comic-Con tomorrow to lend support and make sure the hoards don’t rip his Spidey suit off.

Official Mike Vaughn Site

WEDNESDAY: Hump Day Humor

A few weeks back we checked out this glorious display of juxtaposed madness also known as Art Show 2008. Meet Mr. Brainwash. What can I say about this fellow?  Well, I would say he’s an up-and-coming artist but by the looks of his first ever showing I’d probably say he’s already on the up. Not many first timers get the opportunity to display on this scale. Goes to show street art is definitely on the rise in popularity these days. The insanity and creative flare is as follows…

Dave commentary: Heavily inspired by Banksy, Mr. Brainwash had me chuckling at every turn. Housed in the old CBS Studios on Sunset, the exhibition was enormous in its scope and creative vision. A must-see between before it closes next weekend.

Iwata-Medea’s Website Updated

Every month we update the 600-plus page site for titan of the airbrush industry, Iwata-Medea. Check out the new front page with a Flash movie. We’re in the process of designing a fresh look for the site that will have full Web 2.0 functionality. Look for that to launch by early this fall. Iwata-Medea.com

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

England’s Primary 1 aka Joe Flory are supposed to have their debut album out sometime this summer. Funky and very catchy, the single “Hold Me Down” was released earlier this year, but we couldn’t find a video for the song yet. So this live recording with a shaky camera will have to suffice. Primary 1 has been compared to everywhere-man Calvin Harris since they are both singers and producers, and have this hot retro disco/pop sound down to a tee that’s all over the place right now.

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

You might be saying, “Today is not Thursday!” and you would be right in saying so. It’s Friday actually and we are presenting to you our Thursday Sketch of the Week a day late. This image took extra time to craft to perfection so I’m sure you didn’t mind the wait.

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

So for reasons I don’t understand, YouTube doesn’t allow embedding of some music videos. Which is a real shame with this video. So we are trying out imeem.com’s embedded version. I think they may place an ad in the video, but to check out Motley Crue’s new vid, well, it’s worth it. I had no idea the Crue was still alive. Or making new music. And this song sounds exactly like they did back in the day. It’s like going back in time, except it’s from right now. Pretty bizarre.

The Gutter Twins at The Roxy

Saw an excellent show down the street on the Strip last night at The Roxy. A collaboration between Greg Dulli, former front man of the Afghan Whigs and current Twilight Singers, and ex Screaming Trees lead singer Mark Lanegan, The Gutter Twins put together a dark, compelling set that rocked. Here’s a shot from the show:

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

What happens when you leave you laptop power cable at work? You go home with some time on your hands and if you don’t end up going out or watching television, you do this. At least I do this...THURSDAY SKETCH OF THE WEEK!!! YEEEAAAAHHH!!!

Zookeeper Launches New Website for Airborne Images

Client: Airborne Images
Industry: Aerial Photography and Productions

“The Hills.” The Super Bowl. The hottest network TV shows. The Final Four. Box office hits. The Academy Awards. The craziest car chases in LA. When the world’s biggest entertainment, sports or news companies need the best aerial photography and images, they call upon Airborne Images of Los Angeles. Shooting primarily from helicopter platforms, the growing company delivers exceptional aerial productions, helicopter services and photography for its clients.

Zookeeper designed the new website for Airborne Images to have a cinematic feel and reflect the company’s vision for creative innovation and precision. Built for ease of navigation, the portfolio site features extensive galleries and an integrated blog, all engineered on a dynamic content management system.

more

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

The Echoplex over in Isaac’s neck of the woods welcomes British rapper Dizzee Rascal on the 24th. One of my fav musicians of the moment, Calvin Harris, and Dizzee collaborated on this just-released hit. Pretty catchy. And it just made it to number one on the UK charts.

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

This week’s Thursday Sketch of the Week is brought to you in part by the back side of last Thursday’s Sketch of the Week. I sure wish I had this much energy on Thursdays. Give him a click. He gets bigger.

WEDNESDAY: Hump Day Humor

The Website Is Down: Sales Guy vs. Web Dude

If you only knew how true this was…

Big shout out to RayRay in the BayBay for the link. High-sterical.

TUESDAY: Music Video of the Week

We love MGMT – we played their interactive “Electric Feel” video back in May. So we’re going back to the well, especially after hearing the girl in this video, Abby Fuller, a recent UCLA film graduate, and I both went to the same high school in upstate NY, Shaker. We hear MGMT flew Abby and a friend back to NYC to be in another of their videos. Big hat tip Stacy for the update.

THURSDAY: Sketch of the Week

I suppose we’ll take a little break from showing all of Dave’s amazing art and I’ll throw one of my own up for this week’s Sketch of the Week. Make no mistake though, we will be back to showing more of Daves personal “vault” work soon. My only intent with this week’s entry was to draw your eye to the image while simultaneously giving you a headache. Mission: Booyah. Status: Achieved. Title: “The Screamer”

WEDNESDAY: Hump Day Humor

Isaac sits at his desk and manically chuckles to himself at various points of the day. I’m not sure if he’s plotting the end of the universe or he just stumbles upon sites like this:

Funny Link for your Wednesday