The process book I designed from an identity project that I was working on and repurposed as an entrance essay for the Fisher College of Business

1. process book
shay merritté

2. process book
shay merritté
1

3. contents
title page 1
2
3
4
5
6 | 7
8 | 9
10 | 11
12 | 13
14 | 15
16 | 17
18 | 19
20 | 21
22 | 23
24 | 25
colophon
contents
introduction
essay prompt
curiosity essay
early research
type exploration
early logos
later logos
color exploration
logo refinement
message exploration
field exploration
print collateral
2 3
This book was designed and bound by Shay Merritté during
the Winter of 2008 in St.Louis, Missouri, using the typeface
Scala Sans. It was ink and laser printed on 60 lb text Mohawk
Superfine and Strathmore Artist Papers 400 series.
Americanish
Shay Merritté
(314)703-1094
shay@americanish.com
edition .................... of ....................

4. 4 5
essay promptintroduction
One of Fisher’s strengths is its dedication to developing leaders.
Listed below are 10 attributes that characterize great leaders.
Please select the two criteria that best describe your strengths
and provide us with concrete evidence to support your choices.
You may submit physical objects, images, photographs or
photocopies, along with brief descriptions of how the objects
exemplify the leadership qualities you have chosen (i.e. you
might share a picture of time spent doing volunteer work
in another country, along with an explanation for how that
experience has heightened your global awareness). Or, you may
choose to write an essay for each of the two characteristics
you select, describing situations in which you exemplified
these leadership traits. Please title each of your essays with the
specific attribute (e.g. “endurance”) that you have chosen.
• Integrity
• Empathy
• Curiosity
• Endurance
• Creativity
• Global awareness
• Passion
• Vision
• Self-awareness
• Communication & Interpersonal skills
This book is a supplement to one of my answer for Ohio State’s
Fisher School of Business MBA application’s second question:
Focusing on Leadership: Curiosity. Because I work in such a
visual and process driven profession, I thought it appropriate to
show both my working process, and see a small portion of the
work described in the essay.

5. 6 7
curiosity
There are at least 50 recyclable items that come in green
transparent glass or plastic packaging at my local grocery
store, ranging from beer bottles to bandage packaging. I
discovered this fact after working on a branding effort for a
local environmental arts and education non-profit named The
Green Center. After designing their logo and defining identity
elements, I was curious to see if I could create something to
give their print material a unique voice.
One afternoon I was unwrapping a valentine’s themed cupcake
that had been distributed throughout my studio. The red
cellophane that was protecting the cupcake fell on the cover
of a magazine on my desk. When I looked down I saw that
the cellophane had neutralized the red areas on the cover
while making the blue areas appear black and pop against the
neutralized red areas. I wondered if this could be the solution
I was looking for to make The Green Center’s brand unique.
The solution I created was that The Green Center could hide
messages in their printed material that could then be revealed
by holding transparent green recyclable items over the material.
I thought this idea would reference the color green, an element
of The Green Center’s brand, promote recycling and reinforce
the idea of the hidden beauty of nature.
I looked around my studio and found 3 soda bottles of different
shades, and realized I needed to experiment to find a solution
that would work with a range of green items. I immediately
went to the local grocery store to get my hands on everything
transparent and green that I could find, then headed home to
figure out how to replicate the phenomena I had experienced
earlier with the red cellophane and magazine cover.
After consulting color theory books, I discovered that the hidden
messages would be printed in orange and obscured by a green
pattern. Now, I had to find the combination of green and orange
that would work in conjunction with a variety of transparent
green items. After consulting my Pantone color guide, which
lists the universal color codes. I calculated that there were more
than 100,000 different green and orange color combinations.
After several failed weeks of trying to find the color combination
through trial and error, I decided to try a scientific approach.
First I found the most commonly used green items and
averaged their numeric Pantone number to get a common
shade of green. This is the green that would be neutralized
by the transparent recyclables and that would be printed over
the secret messages. To find the color that the actual secret
message would be, I realized that I could use the inverse color
value of the green I was using. This more scientific method
worked and when I presented the final branding elements to
The Green Center, they were surprised and pleased with the
unique branding element I had developed for them.

6. 8 9
early research
Early on in any project, much research must be done, the
papers on the right represent a small portion of my initial
research. These papers are specifically notes from visiting The
Green Center, touring the facilities and speaking with personnel.
Above is the original Green Center logo.

7. 10 11
type exploration
In order to design a visually appealing typographic logo,
I needed to find a typeface that would fit the mood and
mission of The Green Center and that would also be legible.
The pages on the right are the finalist typefaces I was thinking
about using, whittled from several hundred initial options.
Din Black Alternate was chosen as the
base typeface for the new Green Center
logo because it is a clean, modern
sans-serif typeface that is devoid of any
wasteful ornamentation.

8. 12 13
early logos
Although, I generated many ideas for logos, one of the
most promising ideas that I thought of and I decided to
further explore was inverting the ‘e’s in ‘green’ and altering
the counters so they would resemble pine trees. Although
it may be difficult to discern the individual ‘e’s in ‘green’
the word can still be read because people have the ability to
recognize words by their general shape.
Above is a larger example of an early
Green Center logo and a detail showing
what the ‘e’s turned into a stylized pine
trees looks like.

9. 14 15
later logos
The above logos were two of my
favorites that would influence
later designs from this series of
investigations.
Iwent through several different logo design directions, but I
continued to return to the idea of making something using
the negative space of the letters to include iconographic
elements. Around this time in the process I also made the
decision to drop the ‘the’ from The Green Center as well as
abbreviate ‘center’. Both of these decisions were meant to
play with the idea of reduction, using less to achieve the same
result, a message that The Green Center promotes.

10. 16 17
color exploration
Above are the two colors that I decided
on for the final logos along with their
numerical attributes for print and
screen representation.
C: 30
M: 0
Y: 95
K: 0
R: 190
G: 215
B: 59
C: 60
M: 5
Y: 95
K: 0
R: 116
G: 183
B: 74
Initially I did not want to use green in the logo, because I felt
that it would be too obvious of a solution. Furthermore The
Green Center, while although involved with environmental work,
is actually named after the Green family, which I wanted to
emphasize. However as I investigated other colors I discovered
that green would ultimately be the best color choice.

11. 18 19
logo refinement
For the final logo refinement I investigated many different
ways to represent an ‘e’ by substituting it with a tree shape.
At right you can see some of the tree shape explorations and
color organization explorations.
Above are some of the specific
attributes of the final logo.
The letter spacing has been reduced for a smaller footprint,
playing with the idea of reducing our environmental footprint.
The elements of the letterform have been altered to be
harmonious, playing on the idea of environmental harmony.
The ‘e’s of ‘green’ are created from the negative spacing
of other words and shapes, playing with the idea of doing
without, an element of the environmental movement.

12. 20 21
field investigation
After designing the stylized tree shape that became one
of the negative space ‘e’s in the final logo I investigated
different types of shape fields could be created by repeating the
stylized tree shape..
Above are some details of different logo
field investigations.

13. 22 23
message investigation
For an additional brand element I wanted to create a system
of hidden messages that could be revealed by holding
transparent, recyclable green items over The Green Center’s
printed material.
Above are the two colors used to
create the hidden messages with their
numerical attributes for print and
screen representation.
C: 31
M: 0
Y: 90
K: 0
R: 187
G: 214
B: 72
C: 0
M: 23
Y: 100
K: 0
R: 225
G: 197
B: 11

14. 24 25
print collateral
Ithen applied the logo and brand elements I had created to
the print collateral for The Green Center, shown here is a
sampling of business cards and letterhead development.
Above are samples of the print
collateral, showing the details such
as the corners which are die cut and
to show the usability of both sides
of paper, the use of abbreviations
referencing the logo and that the
letterhead can fold into an envelope.

15. This is my daily clothing ensemble
that has become the centerpiece of my
personal brand.

16. Americanish
Shay Merritté
(314)703-1094
shay@americanish.com