Designer: Michael Ulrich
First things first: A nock is the groove
at the end of an arrow in which the
bowstring fits. Most bowhunters retrieve
their arrows whether they miss or hit
their targets. To aid arrows’ flight detection
and retrieval, The Burt Coyote Company created a
lighted nock, called Lumenok.
Featured on numerous sporting shows, the
Lumenok is a hunter favorite. Unfortunately, its
packaging is much like the hunters the company
targets—camouflaged—when resting on a stand
with other hunting accessories. “We need better
recognition in a room full of other products,” says
company president Curtis L. Price. DG creative
director Michael Ulrich’s first impression was that the
Lumenok “was well camouflaged. An orange nock
against a yellow-red and tan-brown photo made the
whole package fade away.”
To differentiate Lumenok from its competition
and to make the red nock stand out from the package,
Ulrich selected cool blues, greens, and black
for the redesign. He fused two deer graphics for the
package—one for its silhouette, and the other for
its background. Then he blurred the background in
Photoshop to push the silhouette forward.
The designer chose the charismatic Colonna
MT and complemented the font’s sharp angles with
the squared letters of Eurostile. A red-to-yellow
gradient under the logo mimics the lighted nock
concept. Ulrich recommends replacing the standard
process yellow with a fluorescent yellow to make the
name really pop off the piece.
“A word of warning: Process colors are formulated
to be transparent—you layer them to achieve
full-color printing. Spot colors are not; if you’re
going to replace process ink with spot, your printer
needs to discuss options with his ink supplier,”
advises Ulrich.
