liz gill neilson portfolio

Liz GiLL NeiLsoNGraphic Design Portfolio

coNteNts1. Femlin

2. Birdfeeder Etiquette

3. Earthsea

4. Columbia Music

5. ABC Book

6. Summer Storm Journals

7. Mountain Man Beer Company

8. Arcana Tea

femLiNProject: Art Book

cLieNt: LeRoy Neiman Studio, with Playboy and Dark Horse Comics

my roLe: Designer

A few years ago, I was repairing and archiving some great old drawings of my employer’s that dated back to his days illustrating for Playboy in their early years. He had created two drawings every month for the magazine since 1957; it was an amazing body of work. I suggested that we make a book. We had just finished another book design project together the previous year, so he said, “Ok, why don’t you design it?” One year later, LeRoy Neiman’s Femlin was a sold-out success for Dark Horse Comics in three editions: hardcover trade; limited edition, signed and numbered, in a cloth-covered slipcase; and ultra-limited edition in a cloth-covered clamshell box, with a signed print enclosed in its own portfolio. An afterword was provided by Hugh Hefner.

Two exhbitions followed, showcasing over 300 of the original drawings, at the Franklin Bowles Galleries in New York and San Francisco, for which I designed catalogs and marketing materials.

birdfeederetiquetteProject: Isotypes

cLieNt: Local Birds (Student Project)

my roLe: Designer

I created this series of signage after witnessing several disturbing lapses of etiquette at my

birdfeeder: dive-bombing among hummingbirds, single-species feeder-mobbing, squirrels using

the wrong feeder, and cats attempting to lunch on birdfeeder customers. My hope is that these

simple isotypes, when carefully placed, will prevent such incidents, help birds find their species-

appropriate feeder model, and lead to increased backyard harmony.

birdfeederetiquette

Project: Isotypes

cLieNt: Local Birds (Student Project)

my roLe: Designer

I created this series of signage after witnessing several disturbing lapses of etiquette at my birdfeeder: dive-bombing among hummingbirds, single-species feeder-mobbing, squirrels using the wrong feeder, and cats attempting to lunch on birdfeeder customers. My hope is that these simple isotypes, when carefully placed, will prevent such incidents, help birds find their species-appropriate feeder model, and lead to increased backyard harmony.

earthseaProject: Book Cover Series

cLieNt: Ursula K. LeGuin and Ace Fantasy Books (Student Project)

my roLe: Designer

Shortly after creating these book cover redesigns for the Earthsea Trilogy, I had the opportunity to meet Ms. LeGuin at a book signing. I gave her copies of my designs; she said, “Wow! I could live with these!”

coLumbiamusic

Project: Concert Posters, Programs and Brochures

cLieNt: Music Performance Program of the Columbia University Department of Music

my roLe: Designer

In 2007, the director of Columbia University’s Music Performance Program asked me to design a brochure to draw incoming student musicians to the program. Today I am the MPP’s graphic designer and have created over one hundred posters for the program and its five sub-specialties: Early Music, Chamber Music, New Music, Jazz, and World Music. Concert attendance is way up.

abc bookProject: Handmade Alphabet Book

cLieNt: Student Typography Project

my roLe: Designer and Bookmaker

This book was an experiment in the typography of children’s book covers, designed, printed and bound by myself. Each letter is scanned as it appears in the original source, then overlaid with a black tracing of just the letterform itself on vellum. The imagery on the endpapers and dust jacket are enlarged halftone patterns from two of the letters in the book.

summer stormjourNaLs

Project: CD album digipak, disc and foldout

cLieNt: Noe Venable/Leverkuhn Records NYC

my roLe: Designer

Singer-songwriter Noe Venable asked me to design her 2007 album The Summer Storm Journals around an illustration she had found by Rachel Salomon. I used aspects of the illustration on every surface of the digipak and referenced it in the cd design, using Noe’s own handwriting for the title text on the disc and spine. For the insert, I created the tightly-set look of an old newspaper in order to find space for all of Noe’s beautiful lyrics, using a natural paper background behind the text, in keeping with the softness of the cover art, and the artist photos.

mouNtaiN maN beer comPaNy

Project: Branding and Package Design,

cLieNt: Mountain Man Beer Company (Student Project)

my roLe: Creative Director, Designer

Based on a Harvard Case Study of the ficticious Mountain Man Beer Company of the New River coal mining region of West Virginia, my two collaborators and I were asked to solve a problem: a small regional brewery founded in 1925 had a loyal following based upon a single brew, Mountain Man Lager, but was facing a 2% decline in sales. Our solution was to introduce a new brand extension, Mountaineer, which would be marketed toward a younger generation of outdoorsy beer-drinkers, with the tag line “Let the Mountain Move You.”

As the Creative Director, I first had to research and invent the original 1925 brand, a process I dubbed “retro-branding,” and then update it for the brand extenstion. We introduced a year round Mountaineer Pale Ale, as well as a line of seasonal brews, for which I created mockups, and we presented our product strategy to a panel of critics.

arcaNa teaProject: Arcana Tea Packaging

cLieNt: Self-Initiated Project

my roLe: Illustrator and Designer

After creating my own versions of the twenty-two Major Arcana of the Tarot as woodblock prints and showing them in a gallery setting, I received feedback from several people that the series would make a great line of beverage packaging. I loved the idea, and tea seemed like the perfect context. I re-created the twenty-two block prints as vector images, and built the Arcana Tea product line around it. Portland Tea Master Paul Rosenberg of Heaven’s Tea helped me choose the appropriate teas to pair with each tarot image. The text describing each image is from the brochure I created for the original gallery showing.

thaNk you