Cole Ryder
HAO CHA
Hao Cha is an organic tea importer set to launch their retail release in early 2025. Founder Chris Rowe approached me looking for a brand identity that would communicate a love for the natural world, a respect for traditional tea culture, and a playful extroverted logo that indicates a new hybridized process to tea making. We settled on an identity that incorporates gently psychedelic outdoor photography and pairs formal typography with a joyful childlike wordmark. Hao Cha stands apart in the tea section, the vibrant visual design indicating a new kind of tea experience and suggesting a moment of pause and presence.
Thundercat ‘In Yo Girl’s City Tour’ Visual Design
I was hired by Brainfeeder and Really Happening Management to develop a visual identity for Thundercat’s ‘In Yo Girl’s City’ tour that could be easily applied to a variety of marketing materials. The tour was being sponsored by corporate partner SelvaRey rum who had significant say in the visual direction. The guidelines were to feature a photograph of Thundercat, use his recognizable wordmark, develop a “liquid” visual feel that could feature as a connection point to the corporate sponsor, and to keep all typography highly legible. We ultimately landed on a design that utilized a warm expressive color pallete, some of my abstract photography, and loud brutalist typography that was equally readable on low resolution social media posts and large scale poster prints.
MAREUX ‘Lovers From The Past’ Vinyl
Mareux and I had worked together on some past releases and tour assets so there was already a communal understanding of the artist’s visual direction when he approached me to design his debut album vinyl release. The album is sparse and stripped down compared to prior releases, but still contains reverb heavy lush guitar and synthesizer tones. We worked through three initial directions which we called Memory Fade, Polaroid, and Lush Black. The cover art features a grainy and distorted black and white photograph by Kiyana Tehrani and it became clear that the best way to compliment the artwork would be with an understated and minimal approach that was as stripped down yet sophisticated as the music.
MINOR WAVE Publication
In 2022 I developed a body of work photographing small plastic and metal assemblages and then creating visual analytical overlays by making prints and annotating on top of them with pens and paint. I would often rescan that work into the computer and then continue to build on top of it which led to a sort of endless loop system of making. This resulted in a collection of 110 different images that when displayed chronologically charted the slow and methodical development of this visual technique. Wanting to create a home for this work I created a publication that pairs the images alongside essays on transformation, mutation, and collective change. The spacious layout prioritizes the images and allows for clear understanding of the trajectory of the work. The result is Minor Wave a 64p. 7” x 10” zine printed on newsprint
Save the Butterflies, Move the Airport! Summer 23’ Collection
Save the Butterflies, Move the Airport! is an ongoing creative project developed in Los Angeles alongside good friend and director Joey Breese. Having both spent years in West Los Angeles we wanted to create an ongoing art project that would allow us to explore the sprawling landscape of that part of the city. Using LAX airport as our guiding beacon research quickly led us to the endangered El Segundo Blue Butterfly whose natural habitat is nearby. An endangered butterfly felt like it had to be the graphic protagonist in our narrative. We pitted the butterfly and the airport in direct conflict with each other and have built out a wide ranging visual world of protest, activism, and conspiracy. Offerings have included videos, bumper stickers, merch, and community protests/barbecues. We have started bringing the project to Art Book Fairs. Featured below is our t-shirt offering for Summer 2023.
‘Nothing Unexpected’ Graphic Installation
Nothing Unexpected is a graphic installation exploring the unique conditions of Mission Creek neighborhood in San Francisco. The area has been heavily developed and caters to the tastes of tech workers who crave distance from the rest of the city, but still want an urban experience.The project takes language from advertisements for amenity filled luxury apartment complexes as well as performative LinkedIn posts. The graphic language leverages the banality of Figma UI/UX boards where the lowest common denominator rules, bright saturated colors are used without consideration, and generality is preferred over specificity.
New Earth Hotline Book
The New Earth Hotline is an ongoing art project taking place here in San Francisco. Every month I produce a new set of risograph printed 11” x 17” posters with text that reads “Call This # Now - 415 - 952 - 7324”. The phone number is a direct to voicemail line. The vibed out voice mailbox solicits callers to leave a message detailing one thing that they know is true. This book is a collection of 150 of the most interesting messages in the growing archive. The voicemails are arranged chronologically by time across a 24hr cycle allowing us to consider how truth might change depending on time of day.
CCA Visual Critical Studies Symposium Poster Series
The Visual Critical Studies department at California College of the Arts hired me to make a poster series for their end of year symposium. The students wanted the series to feel relatively connected, but with enough flexibility in the system to allow some projects to have a higher degree of individual expression. We settled on the idea of a cut away within the posters that allowed for unique image making connected to the content of the research as well as a simple typographic system that could be customized to further separate any individual poster from the group.
COWBOY THERAPY Playing Cards
Cowboy Therapy is a set of 36 linen “therapy” playing cards. The images are modified old Western landscapes and cowboy paintings with a John Baldessari-esque treatment of individual elements within the works. The cards feature made up sayings such as “Sticks and stones may not break your bones, but they sure as hell can hurt your feelings”, “Don’t stick anything down a prairie dog’s hole you’re not willing to part with” and “So I hear you’re into rope?”.
Liga Sabatina Visual Identity
Liga Sabatina is a San Francisco based Latin American soccer league that plays on Saturday in the Bay View. The league is home to the strongest group of players in the city and serves as a small multicultural oasis with food vendors, music, and drinks alongside top level local soccer. The visual identity relies on a single linear gradient and elements in motion depicted with a dashed line and arrow representing the complex journeys that many players, coaches, and fans have made to eventually arrive here in San Francisco.
Save the Butterflies, Move the Airport! Fall 22’ Collection
The Fall 22 Save the Butterflies, Move the Airport! collection used a significant number of found forms to offer a sense of graphic legitimacy to the work. The visual world building included modifying aluminum parking signs, using the graphic language of existing environmental campaigns, and childlike drawings. Below is a collection of images from that season’s work.