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The project began with a client brief and a Zoom meeting with Garrett Haines, founder of LongTail Outfitters, a music apparel store for artists dropped from their label. Before sketching, I researched the brand’s identity, target audience, and the visual language of the music industry to understand what already existed and where there was room to stand out.
From there, I developed 48 thumbnail concepts, exploring both mark-based and logotype directions. The goal was to generate a wide range of distinct ideas without repetition. I experimented with letterforms, abstract marks, and typographic arrangements that gave visual weight to “LongTail.” These thumbnails served as the foundation for identifying the strongest directions to develop further.
Phase 2 & 3
With three directions selected, I moved into Illustrator and developed 12 additional thumbnails for each, 36 total. Two directions focused on logotype treatments, exploring how “LongTail Outfitters” could be arranged through variations in stacking, weight, and spacing, while the third explored a mark-based approach. This phase refined each concept and introduced real typographic decisions rather than rough approximations.
After critique, one direction moved into Phase 3, narrowing the focus to 12 refined variations of the selected logotype. The core form was established: “LongTail” above “Outfitters.” Exploration shifted to finalizing type weight, capitalization, and spacing, with some variations introducing negative space elements for a more distinctive identity. Color options were also explored at a refined level. The final direction was selected to move into Phase 4.
Phase 4
After nearly 100 variations, the final logo emerged through consistent narrowing and refinement. Each critique pushed the design toward a more resolved outcome. Presenting the logo at multiple sizes and in both two-color and black-only versions ensured it worked across contexts. Mockups were the final step, applying the design to apparel, headwear, and accessories to show how the logo functions in the real world.
The assignment was to brand Matthew 5:9, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God,” using only type, color, and non-objective elements. Phase A explored how typographic decisions could shift the meaning and emotional weight of the same words. The first ten designs used the full beatitude, while the second ten condensed it to two to five words, forcing a more distilled approach to the core message. The goal across all twenty was to keep each idea distinct, using scale, hierarchy, repetition, and color to create separate typographic arguments.
Phase 2
Phase B developed the strongest ideas into two poster concepts, each with a distinct visual language. The first used typographic fragmentation, with “PEACEMAKERS” breaking into unreadable pieces at the top and resolving into legibility at the bottom, visualizing peace emerging from chaos. The second took a more illustrative approach, using footsteps climbing stairs built from the word itself, with “PEACE” isolated in color to guide the eye and convey movement toward becoming a peacemaker.
Phase 3
After critique, the selected direction was refined and applied to real-world contexts. The social media series expanded the fragmentation concept, incorporating original photography into the letterforms while maintaining a consistent typographic system. Environmental mockups placed the brand on street banners and signs, testing its performance at scale. Locations were chosen to reflect the message of peacemaking, making the environment an extension of the brand rather than just a backdrop.
The most effective designs came from finding the tension already inside each word. “Domination” uses extreme scale contrast to show power and weight. “Temptation” removes the “i” dot and replaces it with rising smoke. “Retaliation” exposes “alia” as something concealed within the word. “Interrogation” places the text under a spotlight. Across all ten, the goal was to make the type do the conceptual work rather than decorate around an idea, letting form and meaning become the same thing.
Across three sets of twelve designs, the process extended beyond individual compositions to consider how a system of forms can function cohesively. Each set was developed with attention to visual flow, allowing shapes, edges, and negative spaces to align and interact across adjacent designs. This created a sense of rhythm and continuity, encouraging the viewer to read the set as a unified sequence rather than isolated pieces.
Working strictly in black and white reinforced the importance of contrast, clarity, and precision, while the use of multiple typefaces introduced variation in structure and personality. By combining serif and sans-serif forms, the project highlights the unique characteristics of typographic anatomy and demonstrates how these differences can be leveraged to create both tension and harmony within a controlled visual system.
Contact Info
(310)596-0801
I’m Dustin Penchansky, a graphic designer and BFA student at Messiah University with a focus on illustration, visual art, and brand identity. My work tends to be a combination of design and the things I really do care about: automotive culture, sport, movement, and the visual language that surrounds all of it. That personal interest shows up in how I approach every single project, not just as a problem to solve, but as something worth caring about.
What makes my work distinct is that it’s informed by a life lived outside the studio. I’m a competitive lacrosse player, a motorcycle rider, and someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about why certain things look the way they do. Why a car’s silhouette feels fast, why a brand feels trustworthy, why an illustration stops you even when you dont fully know why. That curiosity drives how I build visual identities and develop illustration work that feels both intentional and meaningful.
I’m proficient in Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, and Premiere, and I bring the same discipline I’ve developed as a Division III athlete to every deadline and collaboration. I take feedback seriously and treat every critique as a chance to grow. Some of my best work has come out of listening closely to the people around me and being willing to push past my first instinct.
For clients and employers, that means you get a designer who shows up prepared, thinks critically about the brief, and produces work that has a genuine, real world point of view.
Design, to me, is solving a problem through visual communication. It is the process of creating something so clear and intentional that people understand it without thinking twice. What fascinates me most is that design’s greatest impact almost always happens invisibly. The best work in the world shapes how people think, move, and feel without ever demanding credit. Someone might interact with a logo or a package every single day without realizing that one person carefully built that experience. That quiet influence is what drew me in and keeps me so intrieged with design.
I believe good design earns trust without announcing itself. It clarifies, connects, and turns an idea into something that feels inevitable. My strongest interests are in illustration, brand identity, and typography. After taking a typography course, I stopped seeing type as text and started seeing it as a creative puzzle where every decision about spacing, weight, and hierarchy carries meaning.
A mountain bike logo I created in high school was the moment design became personal for me. I printed it on a hoodie and hung it on my wall. Seeing something I made exist in the physical world changed how I understood what design could be: not just a visual solution, but a way of expressing something real that others can connect with.
Studying design has trained me to look more carefully at everything around me. I want to contribute to that invisible impact, creating work that become familiar and lasting, even if the designer behind it goes unnoticed.