2020.

Few years in history can be guaranteed to check the person hearing it with an instant, bracing feeling like 2020. In fact I even worked on a campaign about proper disposal of batteries that leveraged 2020 (and the popular notion of the “dumpster fire” ) and all that with great success just a couple years ago. 2020 had its issues, to say the least. 

“… a crucial time.”  

One of the fun things (of many) about desinging for the music industry is the mix of people you get to meet and work with.  Dallas / Fort Worth Headcount Team Leader Chris McDonald and I go way back, having met on the Coachella mesage board back when message boards were still a thing. Eventually he became a booker at Dallas’ Granada Theater which led to him tapping me to make posters for bands like Foals and Cut Copy over the years. With a crucial presidential election coming up in fall of 2020, I reached out with an idea I had: what if we found a band with a following but who hasnt quite blown up yet and got them to do a song about all the different ways one could vote that year. With the pandemic still in full swing, reching out in a fun way to young people about absentee ballots seemed like a fun project and (if nothing else) a great antidote to the cabin fever we’d all been experiencing for months. So Chris found up and coming band (though one might say they have since arrived) Lawrence to pen something that met the moment. They wrote and recorded “time to vote” and we were off to the races. I burrowwed into my affectation for the retro vibes of Milton Glaser and Schoolhouse Rock and in just an hour or two shy of two weeks had written, designed, illustrated, animated, and edited the video you are about to see…

The Before Times

In January of 2020 (right before…well…you know) we were all still firmly footed in what some call “the before times.”  My copywriter and at-the-time conceptual partner Jenna Lazzarone (cracking good copywriter, should you be in the market for one) were working at Sacramento’s 3fold agency, and we had been tasked with a full rebrand Nevada County Transit, a rapid transit system servicing the Northeastern California area including Grass Valley. With our mission in place, we of set off north to the Grass Valley area to research what was working about the brand, what could be improved upon, and how we could find a new way to present Nevada County Transit as a brand.   

A Break with the Tropes of the Past  

At the time, the transit system up in Nevada County was beholden to some well-worn brand elements devoted to the area’s history as a gold rush boomtown. 

Dubbed the Gold Country Stage, it was a sturdy brand that had over time simply not grown alongside the region. It felt more aligned with mid-20th century tourism vibes than the sophisticated and arty town it had since grown in to. Further, the public in the area didnt really have much of a solid perception for what the transit line even was or how it could fit into their lives and lifestyles. 

Simplification was Key  

In interviewing locals about the service, one thing came up more often than anything else: its current map was unwieldy and too hard to parse at a glance. In looking at it you could see why. It’s a classic example of a map that’s trying to say too many things, to express every bend in the road, every detail for miles. What if we took the example of large metropolitan subway lines and worked from there? This would also give us a way to streamline not just the logo but the name itself.  

Exit Gold Country Stage, Enter: Nevada County Connects.

Making the Brand About Connection, Destination and Lifestyle   

I wanted to focus on Nevada County Transit as a consumer brand, since that was the way the public would be interacting with it. What does it feel like? How does it make you feel? What does it do for you? In a city full of brewpubs and art galleries and interesting restaurants, how will it fit in between the rider and those points.  The destination point itself would become an important piece of the logo mark, and we would articulate that out through the brand materials, posters, flyers, fare cards, shelters, and even the fleet itself. 

My goal with the “connects” logo was to tap into riders’ sense of adventure. For that reason, the end of the ”S” pushes off infinitely, giving a sense of an open-ended road with limitless possibilities. This is a concept that was articulated throughout print and environmental materials, as well as on the fleet itself. 

A sleek “supergraphics” style brand extends to the service map itself

We had our mark and a way to articulate it thoughout the brand system, but we needed to remember that one of the original problems we were hired to solve was the map itself. Fortunately, I had a fantastic designer to turn loose on it. Maria “Masha” Ratinova was my graphic designer at 3fold and being a native of Moscow originally, she knew her way around sprawling transit maps. She would take it on like it was the transit map for a large cosmopolitan metropolis, with all the minimalism and simplification that comes with it. Her system map was truly a thing of beauty. 

The system map comes alive

Masha’s terrific work on the map itself cant help but feel like a moving thing, even as a static asset. But she went a step further, tossed it into After Effects and really made it come to life in sprawling motion. We used it on several motion assets across every social channel.