The original premise for this project was to give new Dunkin’ Donuts Franchisees a packet of information welcoming them to the Dunkin’ Donuts fold and giving them the general information that they would need to start up a handful of locations. The pages would be pre-printed and blank so that the department in charge of Franchisees (sorry, I don’t remember the name of this department anymore) could personalize the sheets to each Franchisee.

It’s surprising that this turned out good because it was designed COMPLETELY BACKWARDS. Due to time constraints, the first wave of these info packs were going to go out in a 3 ring binder. The first thing that was designed was the inside pages. I had some ideas about how the entire package was going to look, but initially we were only presenting the internal pages. Because the client didn’t get to see the entire project, they initially rejected my page layouts. Standing on their own, the pages might have seemed a little strange, but in the context of the entire package, it was going to look good. They weren’t buying this, so it was back to the Mac for me.

I had to tone it down and hope that some semblance of design would make it through to the final pages. As with any Dunkin’ Donuts project, I kept to the brand standard colors and used a lot of rounded-corner shapes. Since there were to be two separate pre-printed pages, I needed to come up with a layout that would work for both the introduction letter, as well as all of the interior pages. I was planning on using bolder Dunkin’ Donuts colors for the later parts of this piece. Luckily, I was able to use the Dunkin’ Donuts mustard color for these pages.

The next stage of the project was to create tabs for the three different sections of the package. The hardest part about these tabs was that they needed to work in two different forms. Initially the tabs needed to be visible on the left of the pages. The tabs also needed to work when they were viewed in a 3 ring binder. I decided to use the DD cup logo at an angle so that it would look okay when it was upright or upside down (depending on how you look at the pages.) For these tabs, I used the other three colors from the America Runs On Dunkin’ logo.

After printing up the internal sheets and the tabs, I then formatted the information packet so that the proper people at Dunkin’ Donuts could customize their Word document and print it on the sheets. For the initial group, there wasn’t enough time to create the pocket folder that would hold all of this information. That first group received a 3 ring binder with the sheets and tabs.

After this I began working on the pocket folder. I needed to keep it somewhat simple so that it fit with the previously printed sheets and tabs. I knew everything was going to be flat color created in Illustrator. We presented three different looks to the client. They picked their favorite one and we went to print. For the design that they chose, I added a slew of diagonal lines. These were reflected in the diagonal DD cup logo on the tabs, as well as the outside walls on new Dunkin’ Donuts locations. The folder needed two pockets on the inside. It was possible that there could be dozens of sheets in here, so we went with a box fold for the right side pocket.

Once the pocket folder was filled with the internal sheets and the divider tabs, you wouldn’t have guessed that each of the three steps were designed at different times.

This department was great to work with. It’s a rare day when you show some artwork and they just pick one. Often the client helps to work a design to where it works best for their mission, but it was a nice change of pace for someone to look at a design and say, “That’s the one. Go with it.” (I don’t know if that was the exact quote, but that’s how I pictured it in my head.)

My thought was that it should be an example of how Single Source approaches a project without client interaction.

Looking at this as a designer, I know that it’s tough to judge a designer by the work that he or she does for a client. Clients have their own guidelines and perspectives that they bring to a project. As they should, they’re the ones who pay the bill. But, when you can work for yourself, and push a design as far as you want, that’s where you get to show your true voice.

With this piece, my first thought was that we should subtly show how deep Single Source goes with preparation and planning for a project. The blue prints show a detailed diagram of how to construct the most basic thing in the world: a snowman.

We wanted to stay within the two main Single Source colors (PMS 299 and PMS 655) and silver, to add a bit of a holiday feel. We used spot gloss on certain areas to give it a little extra. On the inside, I went with mostly white along with silver snowflakes. The big, flourished navy text, along with the white, is to show the other side of Single Source. The outside is technical, dark and metallic to show how we work. The inside is soft to show how we are as people.

My belief is that every piece that comes out of our doors, that isn’t for a specific client, should be a “portfolio piece.” A design that showcases a skill that isn’t normally visible with our client work. It’s not that I work harder on self promotion pieces, but I don’t have the limitations that exist in client work. Plus, you never know when a project like this can spur additional work down the road.

Often a client will give you their thoughts on what a design should look like. This is a given because nobody is going to pay you to just go and design whatever you want. The client’s vision is usually different than my initial thought. I’ll design the piece the way they described. But then I’ll go off and try something different. The great thing about where I work is that they allow the client to see both their vision, and an alternate. I’ve worked in places where I’m only allowed to show the client what they specificially requested, no matter how ugly it is. I’m probably batting around .500 with my alternates.To backtrack a little, I spent two and a half years designing baseball caps, websites and other sales collateral for Twins Enterprise in Boston. So when the Patriots piece came along at my current job, it was right up my alley. My original thought was to use a Patriots jersey as the background texture. Then I combined this with swooping shapes using the team’s colors. The most time consuming part of this work (for me) was writing “Grand Prizes” and making it look like the Patriots script. After I designed the initial scratch tickets and the counter card, I had to hand off the project due to additional work that was piling up. So, the next time you’re in a Dunkin’ Donuts, order a breakfast sandwich and check out the Patriots stuff. Just make sure it’s the red and navy Patriots materials. I had nothing to do with the orange and green Chris Berman promotion.

For the following season, we increased the size (8.5″ x 10.5″) and the page count (48!) to include hundreds of additional products. One of the Store Managers and I went through Fenway Park one cold winter day along with Wally The Green Monster and a photo crew. There we took hundreds of shots to include in the catalog. It was a great chance to see a lot of the “behind the scenes” parts of Fenway including the Batting Cage, the Locker Room and Francona’s office. Unfortunately, none of these photos made it into the catalog. The Red Sox were nice enough to give us free reign over a number of photographs they had taken over the previous couple of years. The image that adorns the cover of the catalog is one of these.

One of the biggest obstacles that we had to overcome was software. While I did all of the design work, the aforementioned manager typed in all of the text and prices. Unfortunately, she didn’t have Quark XPress. With the Winter Catalog, she would have to input her edits on my computer while I wasn’t there. For the 2006 Catalog, everything was designed in Photoshop. (I know, I know, don’t do text in Photoshop, but we didn’t have any other option.) Each two page spread was it’s own layered Photoshop file. These files ended up being huge. At the time, I was working on a standard PC, so I spent a lot of time waiting for files to open and save.

The 2006 Red Sox Team Store catalog was, at that point, one of the largest projects I had ever tackled on my own. One of my co-workers photographed all of the merchandise, and I did everything from prepping those photos to handing the files to the printer.

There were two separate parts to this project, a tri-fold that would be handed out initially, and then a folder with additional information for those prospects who were serious about investing in a Dunkin’ Donuts franchise (or five.) The tri-fold brochure was created first with the understanding that it would eventually be flushed out into a full folder information pack. The tri-fold is a perfect example of a design mis-hap that ended up looking great. I had the basic layout of the three inside panels in Illustrator, and then I imported the Dunkin’ Donuts logo. The logo was huge and covered the entire tri-fold. When I changed the removed the fill color and changed the logo to a white stroke, it looked great. My original plan was to scale it down, but I thought that the logo looked good covering everything except for the black text. It helped to unite the three main areas of the inside (brick, pink and orange.)

For the folder, I had planned on continuing this look on the outside, but someone else had the idea of showcasing the “D” door handle that would now be featured on the new stores. I threw a couple of effects on a “D” in Photoshop, and built the folder so that when you opened the “door” it opened up the folder. The outside of the folder looks somewhat like the outside of an actual Dunkin’ Donuts store, whereas the inside of the folder looks like the tri-fold brochure that has already been handed out.

The first line of coupon books that we did in the fall of 2006 was made of different books of shapes and sizes. From check books sized books to over-sized books, from 12 page books to 20 page books, each book was different. After this initial line, Single Source helped to streamline the entire process. Each market was given guidelines to work within.

For each book, we designed the cover, “glamour” shots for each page (images that highlight a particular product along with a tag line) and each coupon. When it came to the glamour shots, I wanted each to be able to stand on its own. The background color of each page was not to be repeated on a different page. This was a challenge because some products don’t look good on certain colors, and I had to remember to use cool colors on the Iced products, and warm colors on the baked or hot products. The glamour shots were built in Photoshop, and the rest of the book was created by using Quark XPress.

Each Field Marketing Manager (the person who oversees each market) would submit their list of coupons to be included in their respective coupon book. Once the creative on each book was assembled, a PDF would be sent back to the FMM and to the Dunkin’ Donuts legal department. After every aspect of the book was throughly inspected, the files would be collected and shipped off to the printer.

Some of the issues that we encountered were that some of the coupon books were mailed directly to the customer while other books would be included in pre-packed mail (Val-Pak for example.) Each mail house has different specifications that must be met. We would try to design the book so that it would meet all specifications. There were a few times when there needed to be an 11th hour change that required us to re-layout the book. Not fun, but it was a good learning process.

With each line of books, we encountered and overcame many different challenges. All in all, Single Source published over 20 million Dunkin’ Donuts coupon books.