designer / illustrator
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ethyca

ethyca patches

/illustration

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/the mission

 

The folks over at Ethyca happened to stumble upon some of the other patches I’ve made over the years, and reached out to see if I’d be interested in collaborating with them to make a set of patches for their employees. Heck yeah! Sign me up!

The initial request was to create five patches: Year 0/Launch for folks who were there when the company launched, Year 1 and Year 2 patches to celebrate workplace milestones, a Welcome patch for new hires, and a Work Ethic patch for folks who go above and beyond.

 
 
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/stage 1

 

I’ve never felt so grateful to live in Huntsville, Al (or to have a NASA engineer as a husband) as I have during this project! I was able to go visit the Space and Rocket Center and chat with my husband and his co-workers about what makes NASA mission patches feel super unique and authentic. Part of the science is hiding little details that relate back to the missions.

 
 
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/stage 2

 

So, as I worked, I tried to make all of the designs tie back into the meaning of the patch in some way. Year 0’s patch resembles a zero, Year 1 has a “1” hidden in the highlights of the launching rocket, Year 2 has a “2” on the planet’s surface, the Work Ethic one plays with a sense of scale, and Welcome resembles an astronaut staring out of the capsule’s windows as they make their descent onto the new planet.

 
 
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/stage 3

 I think the best part of this whole project was getting physical copies of the embroidered patches! I love that the folks at Ethyca went above and beyond to make them feel like proper patches by having them actually stitched. It’s those little details that really make a project feel special.

This project was awarded a Gold ADDY the local AAF-NA American Advertising Awards in February 2022.