There were times when it was really intimidating, too. “I can’t remember a time when we weren’t drawing and making and creating something. “My mom is a fiber artist, too, so she always had her thing she was working on,” Tad Carpenter said. Perhaps that positive outlook is not surprising when one learns that Tad Carpenter’s father, Steve Carpenter, was a creative force as an illustrator, designer and executive for more than 40 years at Kansas City’s Hallmark Cards, and that young Tad “grew up in the halls of Hallmark.” … there is a lot of optimism in that work.” “We don’t do overly serious work, but we’ll design a hair salon or a condo building downtown, and even in those moments there is a lot of positivity in it. “I would say probably everything of ours has at least a wink of whimsy - even the more serious stuff,” Tad Carpenter said. “We had a bunch of more fun and abstract names, and they ended up wanting the most descriptive, simple name solution,” he said, adding that its juxtaposition with “the bright and inviting identity system we landed on is a really nice kind of partnership.”Īcross disparate projects, a certain Carpenter Collective style can be discerned. In the case of Dotte Mobile Grocer, the Carpenter group worked with the organizers on the name itself, as well. In such strategy sessions, Tad Capenter said, designers listen for key words and phrases they can turn into visuals. “It started with a strategy session with all the committee members to really understand the problem and get any vision that they had down on paper,” Jessica Carpenter said. “It’s very reflective of doing a restaurant identity, which we do a lot of,” Tad Carpenter said. The design includes geographic and historical references like Strawberry Hill and the Rosedale Arch. That includes not only the custom wrap for the truck, but a related system of logos, signs, tablecloths, ballcaps, etc. “They gave us a budget right off the bat, and we came back and said, ‘This is what we can give you,’” Jessica Carpenter said. Shepherded by Arc/D doctoral student and now NourishKC Director of Grocery Access Initiatives Matt Kleinmann, and with student and community support, they built the truck and moved legal, political and logistical mountains over the past two years. The project has its genesis in the Dotte Agency, “a multidisciplinary design collaborative engaging neighborhoods to shape the built environment in order to improve public health” created in 2013 by Arc/D professors Nils Gore and Shannon Criss. The Carpenters (plus the third member of their Collective, Chloe Hubler) pitched the volunteer members of the mobile market’s governing council earlier this year to get the job. That was the biggest draw to this project for us – using the skill set that we’ve been given to help our community in some way.” But it feels like this particular initiative could really help a group of people’s day-to-day lives and make them a little easier, and it’s nice to be a part of the team doing that. Design always improves people’s lives in some regard. “Not every project we do can we hang our hat on it and say this is really going to improve people’s lives somehow. “Wyandotte County has some serious food deserts, and this seems like a project that’s really going to help people,” Tad Carpenter said. But Tad Carpenter said there is something different about the job for the nonprofit mobile grocer. Together they’ve created posters for rock bands, identity systems for restaurants and coffee shops - even the overall, interactive design of Boulevard Brewing Company’s Tours & Recreation Center.
Tad Carpenter has been a lecturer in the department since 2009. The Carpenters met while they were students in the Department of Design at KU during the early years of the millennium. LAWRENCE – Husband and wife Tad and Jessica Carpenter strive for optimism and positivity, whether their Carpenter Collective is designing a soft-drink cup for a fast-food chain or a graphic identity for a classy condo project.Īnd now, capping a process begun by colleagues from the University of Kansas School of Architecture & Design, they’ve created an entire brand-identity system for the Dotte Mobile Grocer, which is about to hit the streets to combat food-desert conditions in the central city of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas.
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