Hello. I’m Caleb Kucera.
I equip organizations with thoughtfully crafted brand identities and assets that help them connect with and impact their communities.
Featured Work
Men’s Style Lab – Identity
Men’s Style Lab – Editorial
River Glen Private Capital – Identity
Boone Valley Brewing – Identity
Connect
Send an email
LinkedIn
About Me
I’m a graphic designer from Des Moines, Iowa living in Austin, Texas. I’ve worked at a small digital agency with big clients [Drumroll], a boutique design shop [Eight Seven Central], and a world-renowned event production company [SXSW]. I assess needs and interpret wants, align expectations, extract context and content, uncover potential, develop meaningful concepts, and test solutions. I design unique brand identities, effective communications, and useful assets.
Men’s Style Lab
Brand Consultancy / Identity / Collateral
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Men’s Style Lab believe that dressing well is about more than standing out from the crowd – it’s about connecting with one’s community.
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After working with Eight Seven Central to develop an initial investor-facing identity and fundraising tools, Men’s Style Lab quickly grew into a major competitor in the curated menswear and styling space. A refined business model and newly identified target market revealed opportunities to tell a truer story through their brand identity.
We began by leading MSL through a comprehensive research and discovery process. We analyzed secondary research and performed basic primary research and usability testing that resulted in 80 pages of actionable insights into the market, the competition, and the MSL brand – from visual and written communication to the online experience. We then helped MSL develop and define their core ideology, providing a solid foundation for future brand cohesion.
With a detailed understanding of MSL’s philosophy and communication goals, we developed an identity and touchpoints that exhibit prevalent brand themes – a subtle sophistication, personal style within a timeless tradition, and the self-confidence to live well that can be found in dressing well.
Men’s Style Lab
Style / Grid
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Men’s Style Lab not only equip men with good clothes, but are also intentional about inspiring men to take ownership of their style while empowering them with the knowledge required to do just that.
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Design by Adam Ferry
Photography provided by Men’s Style Lab
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The centerpiece of Men’s Style Lab’s content marketing effort is the semi-annual Style Guide. With a new, ambitious vision for the future of the Style Guide, Men’s Style Lab looked to Eight Seven Central to elevate the book’s design to the same level of sophistication that distinguishes the rest of the brand’s newly redesigned identity. Part look book, part lifestyle magazine, the publication would require a generous allowance of layout flexibility with an intuitive structure and reproducible styles to hold it all together.
Our response was to construct a versatile grid structure and establish typographic and layout styles that could be quickly applied by any designer while maintaining brand cohesion and visual consistency across future issues.
River Glen Private Capital
Identity / Pitch Deck / Digital
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With interests in agricultural, medical, and financial technology, River Glen Private Capital’s innovative, locally focused approach simplifies private investing.
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Web design and development by Andrew Willoughby
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River Glen Private Capital came to Eight Seven Central seeking to position themselves as a clear, credible, personal, and innovative partner for inventive entrepreneurs and forward thinking investors.
Through a series of in-depth discussions with the RGPC team into the whats, hows, and whys of their business, we uncovered foundational concepts that we could translate visually. The significance of the River Glen name, the company’s history, their unique approach, and their balance of approachability and credibility, informed every aspect of the design from shape and color to the typeface pairing.
The resulting identity, combined with a pitch deck and new website, have helped River Glen reach their positioning and communication goals as they continue to make an impact on their clients, portfolio companies, and local economy.
Boone Valley Brewing
“Roxie” Beer Identity
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Boone Valley is the space in our mind that holds our dearest and most vivid memories. It’s a place full of nostalgia, ‘what ifs’, and experiences that shape us and our relationships. We not only visit Boone Valley to remember where we come from and who we are, but to add another chapter to the story.
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Design by Adam Ferry
Illustration by Curtis Poortinga
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The good folks at Boone Valley Brewing have been brewing and serving award-winning beers in their small-town tap room since 2011. They came to Eight Seven Central in 2015, about to undergo a substantial expansion, and for the first time, to begin distributing their brews regionally. With a growing audience, BVB wanted their visual language to reflect the sophistication of their product.
We began by refining their brand identity and developing meaningful concepts around the fictional Boone Valley and their flagship beer, Roxie. We translated those concepts into concrete visual direction that, through a collaboration with in-house illustrators, resulted in the realization of the Roxie identity and established a stylistic framework through which subsequent beer identities are continuing to be realized – each adding to the story of Boone Valley.
Miscellaneous
Featured Work
Men’s Style Lab – Identity
Men’s Style Lab – Editorial
River Glen Private Capital – Identity
Boone Valley Brewing – Identity
Connect
Send an email
LinkedIn
Thanks
The selected works shown herein are the result of collaboration with the clients, and the talented designers, illustrators, photographers, web developers, and screen printers at Eight Seven Central. Asset photography is courtesy of Eight Seven Central and Phillip Harder.