Steven Swartz brings extensive experience to the task of helping an artist or organization develop a distinctive and expressive "look" for web and promotional materials of all kinds.  Partnering with talented designers, we can revitalize your visual presentation, from postcards to websites.

A   C A S E   S T U D Y

As the publicity manager for Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., Swartz served as the company's de facto creative director, transforming the look of the company's promotional publications. Working with award-winning designer Michael Aron, a protege of graphic design legend Seymour Chwast, Swartz brought the B&H Newsletter into the visual present. At the time of Swartz's arrival, the Newsletter had not had a design update in many years. Here's how it looked in 1989:

(Click to enlarge) Old design - serif font, dense blocks of justified type, buff-colored paper

In addition to being dense and "blocky," the publication had no internal logic. Most of all, the old design failed to convey the company's position as an innovative and dynamic force in the field. In addition to updating the Newsletter's look, Aron and Swartz organized its content by genre, so opera administrators and string quartet players could locate and focus on items of interest. Here's the Newsletter, as redesigned in 1991: 

1991 design - antique initial caps, sans-serif text font, ragged right margins, pastel stock

By 2001, that design had begun to look dated, and needed to be freshened. Aron and Swartz retained many elements of the previous design, combining Art Deco and modern elements for the new millennium:

2001 design - Art Deco initial caps, 2nd color in metallic ink, white lineal finish stock

The company's press release letterhead went through a similar transformation, with redesigns in 1991 and 2001. In addition, Swartz was instrumental in creating a new, more readable format for B&H's composer brochures, and spearheaded the development of dynamic, downloadable pdf brochures for the company's website. Samples are available on request.