Elixir’s invitation for the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is featured on page 144 of the September/October issue of Communication Arts. The magazine’s 52nd Design Annual features 174 winning projects from 4,291 entries.

Celebrating the Great Outdoors, the Foundation’s third annual Bay Area fundraising event, was held on March 28, 2011. The invitation and related collateral were inspired by event designer Stanlee Gatti’s vision for the event—a pop-up, tented forest on San Francisco’s Crissy Field. Elixir collaborated with UK illustrator Mary Woodin to create immersive scenes that emerge on dimensional corrugated cardboard panels produced by Oscar Printing.

Over the past 26 years, the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation has helped craft a remarkably broad variety of solutions to extraordinary environmental challenges. Both innovative and pragmatic in their approach, the organization serves as a catalyst for conservation action and effectiveness. Their myriad of conservation partnerships connect them with key federal and state agencies, top industry leaders, concerned private citizens, and non-profit leadership from the international to the local level. In 2010 alone they proudly awarded 417 grants, leveraging $60 million in federal and non-federal funds to a total on-the-ground investment of $179 Million. Of that total, $18.7 million was invested in California.

Photos from the event:

The National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) held its annual East Coast fundraising event in Greenwich, Connecticut on September 25, 2010. Celebrating the Great Outdoors is the third NFWF fundraiser Elixir has worked on, having developed materials for both the 2009 and 2010 successful West Coast fundraising events in San Francisco.

Elixir designed the Celebrating the Great Outdoors event mark, stationery, save-the-date, apparel, invitation, tickets and program. Most pieces featured photography by Andrew Zuckerman.

Via grants to myriad organizations, NFWF has funded conservation projects in all 50 states and around the world. Over the past 26 years, NFWF’s environmental stewardship has earned it a reputation as a global conservation leader. Currently, the organization is on the front lines in the Gulf of Mexico, working to reduce losses and increase reproduction among threatened species.

Unfolded, the invitation measures 15.5″ x 23.125″. It was printed on recycled newsprint in San Francisco by Oscar Printing Company.

CBS Evening News Anchor Katie Couric was the host for the evening, which included included a BBQ dinner, live auction, fireworks and a range of outdoor activities—from archery to zipline—including an ATV obstacle course, hot air balloon rides, ropes challenge course, trout fishing pond, leap of faith, and target shooting.

Guests of all ages had a soaring good time.

Riding the zipline by moonlight was a memorable moment.

The perfect weather added to the celebration—the only hot air was in the balloons.

We wonder whether this photo was taken from the zipline or from a hot air balloon!

He zipped through the air with the greatest of ease.

Levi Strauss & Co. recently sponsored the Care to Air Design Challenge, seeking “the world’s most innovative, covetable, and sustainable air-drying solution for clothing.” Levi’s awarded $10,000 in prize money on August 16 at the temporary Levi’s Workshop on Valencia Street in San Francisco’s Mission district.

Elixir collaborated with Levi’s and the Workshop’s letterpress gurus to create packaging for a limited-edition kit of air-drying supplies to be given away at the event. The kit featured the solution designed by Dr. Russ Hornstein, neurophysiologist by day & eco-innovator by night. Hornstein, a.k.a. Einspine, won a Top Community Collaborator award.

To read about the six winning entries visit the Levi’s Workshops blog. If you are inspired to install Dr. Hornstein’s elegantly simple apparatus, click here for instructions.

The Care to Air Design Challenge is a great extension of Levi’s Care Tag campaign, which encourages Levi’s jeans and Dockers owners to wash their wear in cold water, line dry when possible, and then ultimately donate to Goodwill. On the corporate level, Levi’s is working to reduce the environmental impact of their manufacturing and to improve global sustainability in the cotton industry.

Elixir recently collaborated with Tipping Point Community on a new film that premiered at Tipping Point’s annual benefit May 6th. The event succeeded in raising $6 million in one evening—100% of which goes directly to 26 of the best organizations serving Bay Area individuals and families in need.

If you are as inspired as we are, visit Tipping Point’s new Volunteer Portal and get involved!

Jennifer Jerde, Elixir’s Founder and Creative Director, was honored to be one of seven judges of Exhibitor Magazine’s 24th Annual Exhibit Design Awards. Winners were announced in the May issue of the magazine and recently published online.

Samsung Electronics won the top honor for the optical illusion they created via mirror-covered ceiling & walls paired with light projections through the exhibit’s glass floor. The design showcased Samsung’s new generation of LED TVs (144 were present on eight floor-to-ceiling columns). Other winners—from an impressive array of international entries—included Teknion, Automobili Lamborghini, Eternit, Autodesk, Audi, SpinVox, Saudi Telecom, Daimler, Herman Miller, Sony, Yokohama, O.C. Tanner and Ewo.

For the second year in a row, Washington DC-based National Fish & Wildlife Foundation retained Elixir to design an invitation, event mark and event collateral for its Bay Area fundraiser. Orchestrated by Stanlee Gatti, the event was held at Crissy Field on March 23rd. Falcon photography was generously donated by Andrew Zuckerman.

NFWF was established by Congress in 1984 to preserve and restore our nation’s native wildlife species and habitats. The Foundation directs public conservation dollars to the most pressing environmental needs and matches those funds with private contributions. Since its inception, NFWF has awarded over 10,800 grants to more than 3,700 organizations in the US and abroad and leveraged—with its partners—more than $635 million into over $1.5 billion for conservation.

Pictured above (l to r): Invitation, Escort Cards, Auction Paddle, Program. Event photographs courtesy of Orange Photography.

Elixir was honored to design the invitation and event collateral for this year’s benefit. The oversize matchbook design includes relevant event information and a temporary tattoo.

Taylor’s Automatic Refresher—the Bay Area’s classic and well-loved hamburger & fries eatery—reopens this week as Gott’s Roadside. Elixir was retained to rename and then develop the new identity. Collateral included a website, menus, signage, apparel and packaging.

You’re invited to help Gott’s celebrate this Thursday, March 25 from 6-9 p.m. at San Francisco’s Ferry Building and again on Friday, March 26 from 6-8 p.m. at their St. Helena and Napa locations. Free cheeseburgers, ahi burgers, Seoul burgers and fries will be served, and Elixir-designed t-shirts will be given away. Visit http://gottsroadside.com/ for directions. We hope to see you there!

Joel and Duncan Gott opened their original St. Helena location in 1999.

A second location opened in 2004 in San Francisco’s gourmet mecca, the Ferry Building Marketplace.

Gott’s opened at Napa’s Oxbow Public Market in 2008.

Elixir is honored to be working with the San Francisco Symphony on an invitation to their sneak preview of Keeping Score: Season 2. Keeping Score is the San Francisco Symphony’s national project to make classical music more accessible and meaningful to people of all ages and musical backgrounds, and a key component of its almost century-long history of music education.

More than five million viewers tuned into the first season of Keeping Score on PBS in November 2006 with documentaries on Ludwig van Beethoven, Igor Stravinsky, and Aaron Copland. Season 2 features three new programs that explore the music and stories behind Hector Berlioz’s symphonic love letter Symphonie fantastique; Charles Ives’s sonic portrait of New England in his Holidays Symphony; and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, a work that may ultimately have saved his life.

The San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas premiere the second season of the Keeping Score television series on PBS on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 10 p.m. (check local listings). Click here to watch the trailer. The programs work in tandem with an interactive website, www.keepingscore.org, a national radio series, and a national model education program for K-12 teachers that helps them integrate classical music into core subjects.