Western National Parks Association
Western National Parks Association (WNPA) is a partner of the U.S. Government’s National Park Service (NPS), manages visitor centers inside national parks, and helps visitors learn about nature, history, culture, and recreation. WNPA has its own unique brand identity and…
Arizona Friends of Chamber Music
When Arizona Friends of Chamber Music came to us, the 55 year-old non-profit had suffered a steady ten-year decline in ticket sales and donor contributions, with no end in sight. Making their challenge more daunting, all research indicated they were…
Product video
Often we work with companies that have a product or service that can be challenging to describe succinctly or has a value that isn’t readily apparently without context. In these instances words are essential and supportive, but not enough, and…
Hand painted type – Tucson south side
In Tucson, if you travel south of downtown, you’ll see some of the most beautiful, hand-painted signs around. They are colorful, full of expression, dynamic, engaging, quirky and imperfect. Sign painting is still a respectable trade in Mexico, and in…
Learn by doing
“Mistakes are the growing pains of wisdom” They happen each day, some more costly to you and others around you. Our response to mistakes is what matters, to view it as an opportunity to grow. What I experience often in team dynamics…
Dumb quotes
And we don’t mean that thing Jessica Simpson said, either. Designers have many complaints. Some are worse than others, but one thing that drives us crazy is the inconsistent or incorrect use of punctuation, specifically, quotation marks and apostrophes. Friends…
The three dashes
“Like oratory, music, dance, calligraphy – like anything that lends its grace to language – typography is an art that can be deliberately misused. It is a craft by which the meaning of a text (or its absence of meaning)…
3DYN
3DYN was founded to serve the increasing needs of industries, requiring top-level design, analysis, prototype and production services, without the costly investment of in-house departments. Mark Deadrick of 3DYN, contracted with OpenForm to develop a modern web solution with current…
Making our website fast
What is “fast enough”? For some time I’ve been intrigued by what makes a website or application performant. I’ll spend hours optimizing code, combining and minifying scripts, cleaning out CSS, eliminating requests, tweaking .htaccess files, shrinking image files and testing…
One hour website
Is it possible? As an exercise, our studio decided to try. The goal was planning, designing and developing a website in one hour. And we did it…mostly. For the exercise we wanted a real project. We chose a site with…