This illustrated poster was created for the attendees of the 2010 CMA Music Festival. The event was originally started in 1972 and was then called “Fan Fair.” Since then the festival has grown larger every year and attracted attendees from all over the country. The Country Music Association wanted to express the wealth of heritage that past and present performers have added to the festival over the years. Their concept was ironically a “family tree” consisting of the names of those many performers. There are over 200 names in this illustration, almost 40 of them drawn by hand.

Friend and colleague Phil Thornton of Phindy Studios and www.wedcandy.com called me late Wednesday afternoon with a proposition. He wanted to sponsor a poster for the purpose of selling to raise money for recent Tennessee flood victims, and asked me if I would create it. I was immediately on board. Phil soon came up with the wonderful tagline “You Can’t Keep a Good Town Down.” Which I think most people will agree, sums up the attitude of everyone in Nashville over the past week. I had a wonderful time working on this and was glad to be able to donate my talents to a great cause. You can buy the poster from www.wedcandy.com/flood. ALL of the money you pay goes to Metro Nashville Disaster Response Fund http://www.cfmt.org/floodrelief/

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Established luxury home builder Jimmy Franks has been developing award winning custom estates for almost 30 years. Familytree helped him take that wealth of experience and give it a cohesive brand that would speak to his upper class audience. Metallic inks and tactile papers reinforce the brand’s attention to detail and commitment to quality.

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Familytree was honored to be asked back on to this project for the second year in a row. Designing an entire magazine is no easy task, and without a centrally located staff, things can get trickier. To combat this problem Familytree set up a collaboration site using Basecamp. This allowed a remote staff of 8 writers, 2 photographers, 2 editors and our publisher to seamlessly share files, notes and proofs.

The result?

Well the proof is in the pudding. Familytree managed to finish the project on time despite there being a 2 week scheduling conflict in the middle of production. That’s the kind of thing that would kill most projects. Or the kind of thing that would end up in rushed work with sub-par results. We didn’t skimp on concept or design. Take a look for yourself. You can see the entire project here.

For the 4th issue of Nashville Arts & Entertainment magazine, Familytree was asked to come back on to the project for the second year in a row. Familytree provided art direction, graphic design, and even some photography to this year’s issue. We also worked closely with the editor and publisher to make sure that everything was on schedule and looking great.

The Nashville based indie film Make-Out with Violence was put together on a shoestring budget, but from it’s highly developed visual style you would never guess it. Although the film was already hitting the film festival circuit and had a well developed visual brand co-director Andy Duensing asked Familytree to put together a poster with a totally different spin on the established visual style. The idea was to create a special edition poster that would mesh with current branding, but was also very different. Pulling from comic and graphic novel influenced art this was the final outcome.

KEXP Seattle has been a providing creative inspiration during work time for the staff of Familytree before Familytree even existed. Obviously then it was an honor to be able to donate creative talent to such a great radio station that is listener supported and non-profit.