Branding, Graphics & Web
Elephant Sanctuary
About
I’m Tom Crossman. I’m a renaissance man; a creative who can handle every aspect of a big project; the big idea, presentations, design development, and execution. I’m very hands-on, but also work with talented freelancers.
I grew up in shadow of Disneyland. It was my first design school. It taught me master planning, traffic flow, architecture, graphic design, and most importantly, the language of fun.
My retail career encompassed sales, buying and store management. My move to the creative realm started with a freelance display position at FAO Schwarz. One thing led to another; I climbed the corporate ladder, and after 4 rungs, became the VP Creative Director at FAO Schwarz. After 10 years, I was recruited to be a Marketing VP at Toys’R’Us.
Good design is good business, and I’m the rare creative with a business perspective.
Discover
We discover your message. We weed out what’s most important to your audience to determine what will ultimately make your business successful. We convert your idea into a real, tangible, visual message. We get to know you. We invite you to lay out your ideas, notes, and napkin scribbles on the table. We research your industry, mission, target market, corporate (or non-corporate) culture, competitive advantage, values, strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and goals. And I’ll understand the design direction in your business category. For instance, the dental industry has a very different flavor from the retail business.
Design
The idea, or concept, is 90% of a design project. Projects vary, but typically we’ll propose multiple concepts; 2 or 3 for a store, and up to 10 on a logo project. And the concepts presentations are executed in very tangible presentations, so you can understand the idea completely. Your feedback then directs us on how to continue, and I’ll come back with updated concepts or new ideas
Deliver
Deliverables vary based on the type of project. 5 – 25 working drawings may be required on a store design project. On a graphics project, final artwork in various formats is needed, or a style guide needs to be created.
Clients
We work with Big Companies and Innovative Entrepreneurs!
We frequently work with start ups, providing store and interior design, corporate identity, and websites. We also work with very established companies on many different types of projects.
