Longtime client Peter Myers of Stand & Deliver enlisted Elixir to design and launch a new website in conjunction with the release of his book As We Speak. The dynamic consulting group includes experts from the realms of theater and media. Through highly customized workshops, either in person or via the web, they coach businesspeople all over the world in the art of communicating more effectively. Stand & Deliver is dedicated to the idea that making yourself heard is not simply a matter of volume, but depends on three critical components: content, state and delivery.

If you’d like to communicate more effectively or significantly raise your game when speaking in front of an audience, check out this extraordinary team of consultants. We have learned much from them. Here are our three freshest tips: Always end a Q & A with  “dessert”, never speak in front of an audience with your hands in your pockets, and never, ever try to create and launch a new website in three weeks.

Looking to reposition itself in the financial marketplace, Opes Advisors came to Elixir for help shaping their brand and perception via new messaging and a visual language. Opes is an innovative financial advisory firm that integrates wealth management and mortgage services to help clients make better financial decisions throughout their lifetimes. Its founders have insight from first-hand experience on how real estate is an essential component of good financial health. Their expertise and life experiences spurred them to build a company of immense integrity and unprecedented approach to financial planning, one that considers the impact of financial decisions now and into the future.

In a marketplace full of hollow promises and marketing mumbo-jumbo, Elixir’s greatest challenge with this project was communicating the truth. With a team of  writers and illustrators, Elixir created a new website and collateral material to tell Opes’ story in both print and online, and further complemented this with a new company Intranet used by more than 400 employees every day. The new site and collateral have helped Opes Advisors to better articulate their unique offer of integrated wealth management, retirement planning and real estate financing services through their mortgage bank. Elixir’s strategy and design included helping the company redefine their brand voice, and a warm look and feel for their new design style.

Check out www.opesadvisors.com. The universe is conspiring to help you.

Elixir was recruited to design the website for Beauty Army, a new subscription service of premium samples for the beauty obsessed. For just $12, members receive six samples of makeup, hair- and skincare products, and more each month. What really sets Beauty Army apart is personalization—once you discover your unique Beauty Profile you can hand select which samples you’d like to receive or let Beauty Army’s team of renowned industry experts choose for you.

The site’s sophisticated and modern design expresses the high-end luxury of its showcased brands, while speaking directly to the beauty-savvy users who frequent the site for tips, techniques, and the latest in beauty products and trends.

Visit the site now become a part of the beauty revolution.

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:

Elixir is excited to be working with the San Francisco Symphony to develop invitations and event materials for its Centennial Opening Night Gala on September 7, 2011. The dinner and concert — Fanfare for a New Century — inaugurate the Symphony’s centennial season. On this occasion, Maestro Michael Tilson Thomas and the Orchestra will be joined onstage by legendary soloists Itzhak Perlman and Lang Lang. Proceeds from the Centennial Gala directly benefit the Orchestra’s myriad education, community, and artistic programs, thanks to which more than 75,000 Bay Area children receive music education each year. The Gala is the grand overture to a week of symphonic festivities, including a free concert outdoors in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza on September 8.

Elixir recently had the pleasure of collaborating with publisher Chronicle Books and Kokkari Estiatorio on the design of a cookbook for this acclaimed San Francisco restaurant. Kokkari: Contemporary Greek Flavors, authored by Executive Chef Erik Cosselmon and Janet Fletcher, presents almost 100 of the restaurant’s most popular recipes and illuminates the Greek traditions that inspired them. Photographs by Sara Remington are featured throughout.

Kokkari’s limited edition cookbook is available for $40 at the restaurant (or via faxed order). We encourage you to book a table and experience the old-country style and wide-ranging Mediterranean repertoire—a “marriage of classic Greek cuisine with a fresh, Left Coast sensibility” — that has earned Kokkari a place in the San Francisco Chronicle’s “Top 100 Restaurants” every year since opening in 1998.

The story begins on the island of Samos.

Crisp linens complement Kokkari’s interior, designed by Howard Backen.

Kokkari’s lustrous communal table can be reserved for private parties.

Incidental photography reinforces Kokkari’s dedication to Greek cuisine and hospitality.

Kokkari’s open kitchen radiates warmth and conviviality.

Simple presentation underscores the restaurant’s delight in color and texture.

At Kokkari, your server debones your fish with a big fork and a little flourish. At home, it’s up to you.

Luck favors the prepared from Elixir Design on Vimeo.

We’ve had the curious pleasure of sharpening over 1,000 pencils this month in preparation for our annual holiday mailing, an Elixir tradition dating back to 1996. This year’s inspiration was a favorite quote, “Luck favors the prepared,” which has been attributed to Louis Pasteur. We had the quote foil-stamped on custom-made boxes—to house a single Blackwing pencil and the shavings we made while sharpening it. We are outfitting everyone on our list with a sharp pencil and a compassionate eraser as we all head into the new year and whatever it holds in store.

If you didn’t receive a pencil (and wish you had), please email Billy Westley and be sure to include your mailing address. Reserves are limited—so don’t shave it too close!

The serendipitous backstory: Jen has a distinct childhood memory of a seemingly magic pencil with replaceable rectangular eraser that was used by a successful and industrious grandfather figure. Having searched for them over the years, Jen was delighted to learn that the pencil had just been brought back into production this Fall by CalCedar. (The original Eberhard-Faber Blackwing 602 was made for over 60 years, from about 1933 until 1998, when it was discontinued.) Many pencil enthusiasts will tell you it’s arguably the best pencil ever made.

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.

prAna brought Elixir in to establish the brand’s visual language and, in tandem, to begin developing prAna’s first direct-to-consumer catalog. The company had built a loyal following among climbers and yoga practitioners who valued the brand’s authenticity. Without compromising the soulfulness that defined its first 17 years in business, prAna wanted to attract a broader audience of outdoor enthusiasts, artists, and other “cultural creatives” to drive significant growth. The management team described prAna’s desired revitalized brand position as balancing “the thrilling tension between mindful living and living on the edge.”

prAna’s primary sales channel was through retail partners in over 40 countries (from REI and Amazon to independent yoga studios and climbing gyms). The company wanted to increase direct sales, via a catalog to complement its website and new retail outlets, including prAna’s store-within-a-store in Santa Barbara—for which Elixir designed various aspects of the in-store experience.

The Fall and Holiday 2010 catalog mailings include many prospective customers unfamiliar with the brand. To infuse the books with the spirit of prAna without sacrificing selling space, Elixir paired product and lifestyle shots with hand-crafted touches. These include hand-drawn shadows behind merchandise; hand-lettered titles and text; and the juxtaposition of illustrations by Jeremy Collins with images from a host of specialized photographers: Andrew Burr, Mario Covic, Jeffrey Cunningham, Tim Kemple, Amir Magal, Ben Moon, Richard Seagraves, Boone Speed, Rich Van Every, and Jeremiah Watt. If you aren’t on the mailing list and would like to receive the Holiday issue, you can sign up here.

prAna’s new Santa Barbara store celebrated its grand opening on October 25, 2010. Here are a few photos of the preparations—and illustrations—that set the scene.

Illustrator Jeremy Collins making his mark in the store.

Signage (designed by Elixir) paired with the company’s new expansive “tagline”—which also lives on the cover of the catalog.

The floor-to-ceiling chalkboard is great for announcing events and engaging the community.

Elixir recently designed the logo for The OutCast Agency, a premier PR firm with offices in San Francisco and New York. Founded in 1997 as OutCast Communications, the company changed its name earlier this month. The agency boasts an all-star clientele, including Amazon, Facebook, Autodesk, Netflix, Yahoo!, Intuit, Jawbone and Salesforce.

Elixir’s solution presents the new name in a clean, direct manner. In application, “OutCast” is designed to recede, letting “The Agency” take the fore, in keeping with the company’s focus on its clients. “OutCast” can also be transparent, as shown on the website—an understated way to represent the agency’s approach to building relationships.