Jason Van Horn — Photography, Design & Marketing

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Nau Instagram Take Over

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Vanlife stop On the road

As marketing professionals as well as cycling bloggers and influencers, my partner Inga and I know how to create visual assets lifestyle brands find useful. Before embarking on a recent road trip to the southwest, we loaded up our rig with apparel and gear from several brands to incorporate them into our photoshoot schedule.

Capturing nature’s beauty as we came across it.

Stopping at locations along the way, (the McDonald’s in Moab, Utah has amazing wi-fi BTW) I’d import and edit photos, working with my partner Inga to draft copy to document our adventures for the Instagram take-over.

Enjoying a morning coffee at a vineyard in Monterey, California

Our journey began at the Sea Otter Classic Bike Festival in Monterey, California, where we visited and networked with our friends in the bike and outdoor industry.

From there we traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada to enjoy a little downtime and experience the rocky environment that surrounds the city, before we set off for Moab, Utah.

Have Coffee, Will Travel Giveaway Campaign

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As a smaller brand, brand collaborations have been one of the largest drivers of site traffic and new customer acquisition for Looptworks. To mark the launch of the Upcycle Coffee kit, we teamed up with a number of brand partners to put on a Giveaway Promotion.

The “Have Coffee, Will Travel” giveaway campaign

Working with Karen at Nossa Familia Coffee, we reached out to complimentary brands with audiences synonymous with the target demographic for the product, and we assembled a prize package that would entice any coffee aficionado.

In addition to coordinating and leading art direction for the giveaway campaign, which included email sends and social posts by all the participating brands, I created all the photography and drafted the copy.

The Looptworks Upcycle Travel Coffee Kit is an easy-to-carry travel kit packed with the essentials for brewing an perfect cup of coffee.

Betabrand Poo Emoji Shirt

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Betabrand is known for a slapstick approach to content creation and storytelling, so when it came to coming up with how to present a shirt literally covered with poop emojis, the brainstorming session consisted of all sorts of lowbrow concepts. One of them consisted of photoshopping studio photos of a model being flushed down a toilet.

Tired of rampant potty humor and I proposed a presentation that was almost a complete 180: let the product serve as the humorous element and do something not at all expected. Instead, we would model the mood in the style of a tv novella or soap opera to create the narrative.

It took some convincing, but the concept paid off, as the internet took the queues provided and ran with as the major blogs picked up the story. (Julie at BuzzFeed, you get me) The launch proved successful, inspiring a number of follow up products.  Although some ‘photochop’ cheese was added to the gallery after the fact, it remains as some of the favorite work I did for Betabrand during my tenure.

Select Web Coverage:

Buzzfeed — This is the Classiest Poop Shirt You’ll Ever Wear

Gizmodo — This Poop Emoji Shirt is Crap

CNet — Poop Emoji button-up shirt makes your wardrobe stink

AdWeek — Betabrand’s Latest Stunt: The Poop Emoji Shirt

The Guardian — The Poo Shirt (or the rise of emoji fashion)

The Verge — Here’s that poop emoji button up shirt you always wanted

Thrillist — This Poop Emoji Button Up Shirt Smells Like Sucess

Daily News — Smiling poop emoji shirt, matching sneakers a hit with online shoppers

 

Collaborative Marketing: Betabrand x Torker

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As a consumer direct, online Clothing Company, Betabrand generally doesn’t invest marketing dollars into print advertising. In my efforts to promote the Bike to Work Collection line of commuter focused apparel, I was always seeking to create opportunities for Brand Collaboration in order to expand market reach and brand awareness.

A conversation with some of the marketing team at Accel North America at the Sea Otter Classic Bike Festival led to an ongoing conversation.

As we were regularly photographing images for the collection, a partnership was proposed: working in collaboration with the art director with the Torker Bikes Brand, my team and I would produce lifestyle photography that incorporated Torker Bikes to create a library of assets for both brands, then co-promote the brands in different channels, extending brand reach for both brands.

Event Promotion: McLaren Short Track Challenge

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The McLaren Short Track Challenge was the featured event at the inaugural San Francisco Mountain Bike Festival.

The one day event was established in 2013 as a fundraiser for the McLaren Bike Park, put on by the SF Urban Riders. As a founding member of the group and board member on the Bike Park Committee, I created all marketing assets. This included event branding and logo, t-shirts, and the creation of all marketing promotional materials.

In addition to creating marketing assets, which included posters and postcard leave behinds, and graphics for our social channels, I led the promotional efforts of the inaugural event and led weekly group rides prior to the event to help raise awareness of the park and the course. Thanks to our efforts, the event was well attended and a profitable fundraiser for the McLaren Bike Park.


PROJECT TYPE

  • Brand Identity
  • Marketing
  • Event Promotion

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Creative Direction
  • Graphic Design
  • SEO and Content Creation
  • WordPress Content Management
  • Photography

View all design and marketing projects

Bosky x Betabrand: Wood Sunglasses Product Launch

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Case Study: Photography & Creative Direction

Bosky Optics is an Oregon-based company that creates sunglasses and snow goggles with natural and recycled materials. For this collaboration between Bosky and Betabrand we had less than a week to come up with a plan for creative direction and execute it.

The concept we came up with? Wood models wearing wood sunglasses! This was a fun concept to run with. To execute it, we had a make-up artist paint our models, then enhanced the photos in post-production.

For this launch, I took an active role in creative direction, scouted locations, and did the studio and location photography with the assistance of our stylist/ photo producer Megan. Our graphic designers helped with post-production and retouching of the wood mannequin effects.

betabrand-product-page

Betabrand STL Tyvek Windshell

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During my tenure at Betabrand, I rarely had time to scout locations for shoots as our release schedule moved extremely quickly. Because of that, we scheduled shoots based model availability and the time of day to capitalize on natural lighting conditions. If we needed a specific setting, I’d use Google Maps to plan locations.

I was looking forward to shooting the STL Tyvek Windshell; during our creative meeting I was given a mood board and a few locations were suggested as possibilities. Fortunately, I managed to get out on my bike to visit the site a few days in advance to find the time the lighting would be optimal. The extra bit of preparation resulted in a great set of images and when we were launching the product, we a lot of great visual assets to work with.

You can view the Betabrand STL Tyvek Windshell at Betabrand.com.

Three-alarm fire in Soma

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While heading to a downtown San Francisco location for a Betabrand shoot, we came across major traffic on Folsom Street. It was from a massive blaze, with fire trucks coming in from everywhere. I’ve never actually seen a serious fire before— it was intense stuff.

Just found SFGate coverage on it here: SFGate. Since I had my camera on me, (as I almost always do these days) I documented it. While I saw at least three injuries, hopefully they all recover.

fire fighters hard at work attempting to contain the blaze
fire fighters hard at work attempting to contain the blaze

Coverage from Kron 4

Article on SFist

 

Cycling tools, part two – vector

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Last week I did a few drawings of bike tools in the sketchbook and painted them in photoshop for a project. This week I decided to draw them as vector drawings (using Adobe Illustrator) for more of an infographic approach.

Tools from my tool box, part two
Tools from my tool box, part two- vector style

Only a huge bike geek would have this much fun drawing bike tools, I know.