A long relationship with LandPaths building standard non-profit materials, like year end fundraising campaigns and annual impact reports, meant everyone was comfortable breaking the rules a bit to create an off-the-beaten-path zine for younger audiences. Featuring illustrations from a local Pomo artist, it serves as a less conventional outreach tool for events and schools.

These herbal body products are potent and magical, and the look and feel was developed to capture the natural charisma of both the maker and the products themselves. Brand development has included logo, packaging, website and commerce, email marketing, social media, signage and other point-of-sale.

This independent school’s annual fundraiser is a critical component of their budgeting landscape. Every year’s theme is different, and the parent community particularly enjoys the opportunity to dress up and celebrate. Graphic assets include everything from an event logo, website, social media & email communications, a program guide for the gala itself, and more. Project management tasks included building forms and systems for soliciting and managing donations, sponsorships, and ticket sales; working with the development director on auction and event production; and coordinating with other teams for auxiliary projects.

DowHouse art directed Maker Faire for nearly the entire lifespan of the event, and was responsible for the design of Makey—the robot mascot who’s been seen in Times Square, the halls of Paris City Hall, tattooed on superfans, and beyond. From 2007 through 2019, DowHouse created just about everything for the Maker Faire flagship Bay Area and New York events (ad campaigns—both print and digital, program guides, signage, media decks, apparel, credentials, tickets, wristbands, stickers, buttons, oh my!) , as well as more identity and collateral for the global events and other Maker Media ventures.

Chevoo, a beloved marinated goat cheese, regularly explored packaging and marketing iterations to communicate their relatively unknown product to an American audience. Packaging was updated to extend their line (additional flavors, spreads, and plant-based) as well as to reach customers in new ways. In addition to photoshoot art direction, marketing materials included print and digital ads, coupons and point-of-sale, trade show graphics, and sell sheets.

Marietta, well-regarded and beloved after four decades of winemaking, underwent a recent rebranding and radically refreshed its labels. They came to DowHouse to build out collateral and point-of-sale to support the new look—including shippers, case cards, shelf talkers, technical sheets, accolades and sell sheets, and more.

This wonderful collaboration began first with the Makers in the Library Toolkit publication, an extensive resource for libraries to build and sustain community-driven makerspaces in their communities. After additional grant money was secured, the project was furthered to develop a name, brand, and style guide for the non-profit organization created to support continued growth of the movement.

Like so many organizations, pandemic inspired some radical rethinking. The Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition pivoted their focus from a single Bike to School Day to a monthly Walk & Roll to School campaign spanning the entire academic year. Materials, including flyers, challenge worksheets, and social media graphics, are developed in both English and Spanish. It was such a successful shift that the SCBC has sustained it in subsequent years.

DowHouse collaborated with Julie at the very beginning of her business in 2004, designing the logo, menus and packaging for the then fledgling cafe. More than a decade and a half later, Julie’s has evolved into a valued neighborhood nexus in both Alameda and Oakland; the cafe’s look & feel evolves with it while staying true to its organic roots.

Campo Fina is more than a restaurant and the design that comes with that—menus, matchboxes, signage—has to reflect its standing as a community hub. Campo Fina believes in and creates regular opportunities for gathering, from late night dance parties to an annual summer bocce tournament. That means there are bountiful opportunities to create fresh new materials to pack the house and regularly raise the roof.

The launch of new products at one of the industry’s biggest trade shows, Eurobike, calls for a look book. Yeti has a deep library of gorgeous photography assets, and a strong existing brand identity—which made DowHouse’s job creating their trade show materials nearly effortless.

DowHouse was approached in 2016 to redesign the identity of this non-profit and create graphic standards to help guide a lean staff and volunteers in creating marketing materials. The School Garden Network returned a couple years later to expand the branding into their program identities, and create postcard templates for their many events.

Wolf recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, as well as a transition to a second-generation of family ownership—and was ready for a brand refresh. Wolf's history as a venerated and beloved progenitor of the cafe scene in Sonoma County meant that there was a great deal of brand equity to honor in a rebrand, while also moving to a cleaner and more modern look. Nick and Natasha have a strong sense of who they are, and where they're going, and made the design process a joyful collaboration. The hunt is over!

In addition to redesigning the logo and bag, Wolf's current line includes 8 varieties, with each needing a label easily distinguished on a grocery shelf. Additional packaging has included nitro cans and shippers, as well as point-of-sale bin labels, keg collars, and talkers.

LandPaths brought in DowHouse for help in unifying their marketing materials and outreach communications, with an initial deliverable of a brochure. They were guided towards a deep-dive of internal messaging and mission analysis that ultimately led to their first ever Annual Report, as well as branding guidelines, donor outreach and more—and a far more consistent look and feel. The work continues!

The bike culture magazine was a complete redesign from the initial launch, cover to cover. Organization and wayfinding were of particular consideration, including development of department headers and treatment of feature articles. Creative direction, project & advertiser management, and front-to-back design continued for fourteen quarterly issues, as well as three special editions.

DowHouse’s time with BikeMonkey also included materials for its wide roster of events—posters, logos, apparel, rider guides, and more for Levi’s GranFondo, as well as many mountain biking races.

Front Porch Farm, a farm and vineyard in Healdsburg, California, is the magical creation point of a huge variety of agricultural-based goods—from fruits and vegetables to high end wine to sustainable meats. Their retail distribution includes farmers markets and other direct-to-consumer outlets, as well as a wide variety of events. Their exceptional range of products requires materials with both high flexibility as well as adherence to a vast set of government regulation. Over the years, design has included online and print promotion, packaging and farm products labelling systems, and more.

The independent school in Healdsburg, California, like most schools nationwide, relies on fundraising to build its budget. The parent community greatly benefited from understanding where the money goes, and the school hit its 100% family participation goal for the first time ever.

The Fat Cyclist, aka “Fatty”, compiled his popular blog into two “Best of” editions. Book design is a particular favorite of DowHouse, and Fatty’s existing logo was especially fun to parlay into publication design.

Kim Dow was part of the Occidental Bohemian Farmers Market’s founding launch team in 2002, and drove the graphic identity for its 17-season run—from logo design to signage to print & digital ads to event materials.