Client
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Services
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Brand Identity
Print Design
Web Design
Penrose
Synopsis
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Initiated and hosted by Austin marketing firm JDI, Penrose is an intimate gathering of the most intriguing people in the science world — researchers, inventors, founders, entrepreneurs, executives, artists, and storytellers.
As the lead designer I was in charge of crafting the event’s branding, with future, reoccurring gatherings and other kinds of events in mind. And the most important part? An attention-grabbing physical invitation to the main yearly event.
Direction was to keep the brand restrained and minimal, while still evoking themes of the location: Marfa in West Texas.
Invitation 2024
The mixing of these two unexpected media (thread and paper) has always fascinated me, so I was stoked to use this technique on this project. So, first things first: Finding a local embroiderist. Thanks to an Austin Chronicle article from 2021, I discovered the artist Erin Guevara-Inman.
Erin has experience embroidering paper, and provided direction on choosing the appropriate paper weight that would still work with letterpress. Letterpress was done by Alisa Marrow of Percolator Press, including the dot matrix guide for the embroidery portion.
The invitation was composed of four pieces: the embroidered invite, a typewritten letter from JDI’s CEO, a illustrated map of Marfa, and a bellyband to hold it all together. Once stacked, the wordmark belly band covers the same debossed wordmark on the invitation.
Over 300 invitations were produced and mailed to hand-selected potential attendees.
Process
I initially pitched two other concepts: One used vellum for a layering effect, and the other would use an eyelet for some type of hide-reveal interactive element.
I mocked up something fairly simple to communicate the use of each of the three materials. The embroidery concept started with only a couple of stitches (final invite has 28 total). But the embroidery idea really captured the team’s attention.
Once the direction had been chosen, I spent some time settling on the embroidery spot illustration. It needed the right balance: something realistic within our time constraints, within our freelancer budget, and an appropriate nod to the event’s setting (without being appropriative).
My dot matrix sketchbook was very helpful in iterating on this.
Website
The website was likewise minimal in design, reusing assets from the invitation. My colleague Talia Bromberg assisted with the design of interior site pages which incorporated more colors from the brand palette.
The website evolved as the event approached, and a password-protected opt-in attendee directory was added after the event.
Event 2024
The event’s home base was the Hotel St. George in Marfa, Texas.
As attendees checked in, they were greeted with many pieces of swag, including a scarf from a local business (Garza Marfa), customized with the Penrose logo. Photography credit Shanna Gerlach
Invitation 2025
For the following year’s invite, the ask from year one remained: Make an invitation that people would be loathe to throw away.
It was time for letterpress AND gold foil.
Ideation
I was excited to revive an unselected concept from the 2024 brainstorm: incorporating a hide-reveal interactive rotation into the invitation.
I immediately revised one large thing from the initial version (mocks below): Why did it need to be a circle? The Penrose logo is almost a perfect square. And once turned 45 degrees, two squares make the perfect shape for an 8-point compass rose.
Process
I dove in on the illustration, having a pretty good idea of how ornate I wanted the compass rose to be. Like the previous year’s invitation, I wanted a nod to the event’s setting without being appropriative.
The central graphic was the four-pointed star from the Penrose logo, and the floral filagree is a West Texas purple flower called the Davis Mountain Mock Vervain. I left spaces for the Marfa-themed ordinal corner illustrations; I knew I wanted to pull in my colleague Shanna Gerlach to help brainstorm which pieces of Marfa we wanted represented.
Max of Koch Printing in East Austin did the incredible letterpress work. I really cannot recommend him enough.
The two separate letterpressed pieces were manually hammered together with a brass eyelet. This allowed for the right amount of tension between the two pieces: The invitee could rotate the pieces freely, but not so loose that it was wiggly.
More details coming soon.