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Buildings communities and building brands

With the advent of a new school year upon us, it’s time to say goodbye to Trig Innovation’s inaugural summer intern, Ethan Creasman. Ethan, it won’t be the same without you.

Ethan is a rising senior in the fine industrial design department at Appalachian State University in Boone.  In addition to a stellar record of academic achievement during his first three years at ASU, Ethan brought to Trig an award-winning portfolio of work performed through other internships and corporate-sponsored studios working in conjunction with the school’s ID program. We were excited to have him on board, and we were not disappointed.

From the beginning, we found that Ethan had a few qualities that are simply not teachable:  an independent spirit, a deep well of creativity, and an indefatigable work ethic. All of these qualities helped us to realize a goal we had envisioned—creating a community that would encourage creativity and collaboration in the world of design.  Ethan spearheaded The Napkin, our new online community hosted on Facebook and a place where young designers can get together and collaborate in the spirit of helping each other get better at the craft.

We gave Ethan this project on day one, and within three weeks he had taken The Napkin from concept to fruition (this leads us to believe he’ll have a big role in product development one day!).  He did a great job building the venue, and he’s done an even better job in kick-starting the community, which now has a few dozen members (and growing by the week). It’s really great to see a very talented young designer bring a community together and build a lasting legacy in the profession.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be running a series of pieces on Tangents about Ethan’s other breakthrough project of the summer—a branding exercise with longtime Trig Innovation/Studio Hagler partner Parklife Communications.  We asked Ethan to take the lead on a project that’s a little bit outside of the Trig wheelhouse of product design, branding, and market research in support of hardware, tools, home improvement products, and medical devices—branding for a business-to-business services company. You’ll see in the coming weeks that Ethan definitely left his creative mark, not only for Trig, but for one of its key clients and partners as well. Parklife and Trig are both beneficiaries of some stunning creative work.

Thanks again, Ethan, for all of your great work this summer. We’re certainly excited about you becoming a welcome addition to the world of professional industrial designers next year.

For other branding identity projects by Trig, check out the Payback Partners case study and the BruVue Brand Identity and Website Design case study