Jimmy Mak's

Whether a global brand, start up, or a jazz bar in Portland, Oregon, my approach is the same. Tackle a real business objective, use insights, reward the audience. The challenge for Jimmy Mak's was to position themselves as the authentic jazz venue for existing fans, but also broaden awareness with younger club adventurers. Our creative direction was using an aesthetic inspired by Reid Miles' Blue Note album covers from the '60s to do our own beautifully-aged albums, but swapping the typical cover messages with ours.

Fonts and colors were researched for accuracy, as was photography style and art direction (we even did original images of live bands at Jimmy's with an old school 35mm film camera). The approach signaled authenticity to afficiandos, but was also downright new and cool to younger music lovers. Messages were to the audience: it's not about you. To get this across, we threw some light-hearted shade at other clubs' poser scenes and 3-chord rock while challenging people to come and respect this art form.