News
Dec 25, 2011
Celebrating hope for the coming of the new year.
I'm producing and directing the 5th annual New Year's Eve benefit for Restore NYC. It will be an amazing party at the Fulton in the Financial District.
Below is the promotional event artwork I created. The event theme is "elegant noir" which I define to be classy and classic.
And as a warm-up to the main event, I'm pulling friends together the day before for New Year's Eve Eve...
Sep 3, 2011
9/10/11 event identity
I often do some event planning on the side. This is for the 9/10/11 party I'm holding on top of Yotel. Strong typography with a vibrant dynamic background complementing and enhancing the composition.
Aug 15, 2011
Restore Identity Exploration
We are in the process of revamping our Restore identity to be more reflective of the organization that we've grown into. Restore is dedicated to the freedom and hope of international sex-trafficking survivors in NYC.
The original identity below was created (by another designer, incidentally from Art Center also) about 5 years ago.
Over the past couple of years I've tried to lightly evolve it and strengthen some of the fragility and legibility issues in the t-letterfrom and reversed it out on a vibrant red accented background for a punch of strength. The original identity typeface was Mrs. Eaves, which was a popular font with designers 5+ years ago. Nowadays, it feels a little dated. I've evolved the identity typefaces the past year to use Baskerville as a replacement. It's a more classic font that Mrs. Eaves was based off of.
The identity for Restore should feel the following brand attributes: life-giving, openness, contemporary and human.
The following was one exploration evolving the Restore identity. It's based off of the font St. Ryde - a humanistic sans-serif font with a slight cripted touch.
Aug 9, 2011
Editorial Design Work For Restore NYC
I recently designed a short information book for Restore NYC to communicate in a fresh way the mission and work of the organization. Take a look. This was made possible by my $15,000 Ideas That Matter grant from Sappi Paper.
Read the publication online above.
Jul 26, 2011
Pixelator Portrait Experiments
The Pixelator is an awesome way to play around with Canvas, a fun new(ish) HTML5 technology for creating images on the fly with javascript.
Apr 27, 2011
Empowerment for Good: Focus on Greg Wong from Naked NY on Vimeo.
Empowerment For Good (Flashing Back and Looking Forward)
I just discovered this past week a video that was made about a presentation I made at the 2009 99% Conference about Restore. A lot of the ideas are still applicable and timely as Restore NYC and sex-trafficking have broken into the public awareness this past year.
I'm thrilled to return to this year's the 99% Conference next week (and as a selected 99% Fellow for the work I've done with Restore). This has been one of the most provocative and inspirational events I've ever attended. This is now my third year attending to mingle with the leading minds of creativity and productivity all in one place.
Mar 3, 2011
Mar 1, 2011
When You Grow Up
It's been a while since I shared my illustration / painting skills. Here's a cover design I did for Priscilla Ahn's upcoming new album - When I Grow Up.
I got the chance to meet her recently when she passed through New York and gave a private concert at the Rockwood. She was really sweet and agreed to help us out at Restore by loaning the use of a couple of her songs.
Here was the brief:
When You Grow Up continues in the direction she established on her debut, A Good Day. Her new songs draw from the vitality and innocence of childhood, the moments of playfulness and imagination that fills a young mind and spirit. In this light, Priscilla is looking for a cover illustration that evokes these qualities, perhaps referencing hand-drawn children’s books, Miyazaki’s animations, or the “mori” girl aesthetic.
These were some of my early concept and layout sketches. I like to draw fast and quickly on a smaller scale to work out composition issues and concepts. Then I bring it into the computer to paint and draw over in Photoshop. The level of detail in the rendering is only possible with Photoshop.
Anyways, even if this isn't selected as the final album cover, it was great to draw again, particularly being inspired by youtube videos of her recent performance put on continuous repeate for hours.
My final direction was to depict a quiet moment filled with wonder and the right mori girl look (which I researched for hours). It was also really important to nail the right rendered type style that felt feminine, soft, and a mix of whimsy and fantastical. And I offset the illustration in the context of a raw wooden background (which almost gives the sense that the girl is "living in a tree").
Feb 24, 2011
A Sneak Peek at the Restore Freedom Gala
Tickets are on sale now! get yours at restorenyc.org/events
(You can't get them here, despite what Lance says.)
music credit: "A Mobile Over Your Bed" by Lullatone
Jan 11, 2011
Restore is Seeking Visual Creative and Gallery Installation Team Volunteers
We're seeking to form a dedicated team of visual creatives and designers that can help us create pieces to tell the real stories of our clients, the issue of international sex-trafficking in NYC, and the vision of hope and freedom that Restore is offering. Our first goal is to create and curate installation, art and video pieces to be displayed for our March 24 freedom gala.
The work of this team would shape the experience for the attendees. We were inspired by some art pieces on display at the MoMA and New Museum and want to create similar narrative pieces for the gala. The gala is our high-end event fundraiser with a full program. We are immediately looking to form a dedicated team with strong skillsets and complementary skillsets to create pieces in the next two months. This would be a minimum commitment of 3 hours a week, the bulk of which you would be working independently following creative direction. You should have some availability select Sunday, Monday or Tuesday evenings for a few tbd meetings. Our first creative briefing meeting is Tues, Jan 18th. The team will be led by creative director Greg Wong.
We are looking a mix of the following:
- graphic designers, mixed media illustrators
- print newspaper research help (to search for newspaper clippings on NYC trafficking)
- strong hand typographers
- motion graphics designers to create short video pieces
- experience designers
- gallery production and execution help
We are particularly looking to craft and interpret clippings that can be found in printed newspapers and visual interpretations of our clients life stories.
To apply, please provide the following:
- your portfolio urls or the best visual and conceptual examples of your work
- resume highlighting your relevant experience and education
- any information about what you can uniquely offer
- your available time you can devote to the Restore project on a weekly basis through March 24 (let us know your weekly capacity for time and what nights you could be available for meetings) We will be selecting up to 6 volunteers on a rolling basis through the week based on the fit of portfolio strength and a complementary mix for the team.
If you are not a fit for the short term work, we will consider you for future creative assignments. Please email greg@restorenyc.org to apply.
...
UPDATE: here's the Restore Freedom Gala creative brief with content references.
Jan 6, 2011
Restore 2011 New Year's Eve Fundraiser Bash
For the fourth year now, I produced the fundraiser New Year's Eve Bash for Restore NYC. This year was a spectacular one held at the Houndstooth. We had just under 400 in attendance and raised $21,500 from the New Year's Event, which is more than the last three years events combined.
The money raised from Restore 2011 will go to provide tangible after care services: shelter to 8 women for 100 days, food for 1 woman for 100 days, screening and court advoacy to 100 clients, and 30 hours of specialized counseling.
I had great support from a small team for the past few months. We also held a Restore 2011 Warm Up Happy Hour event at the Coffee Foundry on New Year's Eve Eve and two nights later held a Restore 2011 Wrap Up Chill Session at the Ace Hotel. My approach to creating this event was to cultivate as a highly social experience and create as many access points for different people to interact, create new relationships, and also have different things to spread the word about.
We're looking forward to even bigger and better things next year.
Nov 28, 2010
A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave. (by Nicholas Kristoff)
Nov 19, 2010
Restore 2011
Sep 9, 2010
Gathering Again With Top Digital Influencers
Once again, I'm attending Swagaplooza in NYC.
Swagapalooza is an experiment in viral media. On September 9th, the world’s most-followed bloggers, twitters, and digital influencers will gather in New York to judge five-minute auditions from the creators of the latest, greatest, and most unexpected new products... And to connect with each other.
It was a fantastic event last year with some free cool (and not as cool) swag from different companies looking to get in front of different super socially wired people. The crowd gets really snarky with a live twitter feed shown on stage. I'm attending in the audience. My partner Jess will be presenting Hello Rewind to the crowd. (Thanks for the opportunity, Alex!)
Sep 8, 2010
A Winning Idea That Matters
I just received word from Sappi Papper that my grant entry for the Ideas That Matter contest was selected. the Longitude will be receiving $15,000 for an underwritten design budget to create new retailer and awareness materials for Hello Rewind.This is our partnership with Restore NYC to create laptop sleeves which create economic opportunity for sex-trafficking survivors in NYC.
