Type Face

Font Hybrid

Sake Bottle Idea

One of my favorite brands of sake, but it really needs some rebranding!

Wine Label possibilities

I've been having fun researching this! There are a lot of great options to choose from. Here are some of my top contenders to far:

 

Groovy Tees

Block of Text

I love Decatur. I walk around the square downtown regularly. It was fun to take specific note of the typography for a change. It becomes such a part of the landscape that it's surprisingly easy to overlook. Here are some photos of various signs and random text scattered across the buildings, streets, and various other structures of Ponce de Leon Avenue.

 The open sign for Heliotrope, a small gift shop/boutique

The signage for the Pinewood, a small cocktail bar. Love the clean lines of their logo. 

The iconic painted front of Decatur CD.  

This was on the old Terra Mater building, below the large mural on the side.  

This sign is tucked away between an old house and the Marley tavern. It's interesting because it's in such an odd spot, and the space in the back is very junked up with random scraps of lumber and metal. 

An old Bass barrel sitting neglected outside. I might have to give this a home... 

A fire hydrant in desperate need of painting. This is most certainly NOT up to code. 

There's text even in the sidewalk. 

Pretty nicely made signs, especially considering they sit on top of street drains. 

A different store is in this building now, but the faded old Melrose on Ponce artwork remains. 

Apparently this is where Storm lives.

Inspiration

We're supposed to pick a single piece of art that inspires us to discuss this week, but I find that a very difficult task. There are so many artists and various styles that inspire me, and the list grows more every day. Here are links to some of my favorite artists around the world:

Tara McPherson

Stephanie Pui-Min Law

Naiade

Since my background is in traditional art, I found that I have a real appreciation for artists of all types, be it digital or hand painted or sculpture. I check Behance weekly for inspiration, and I'm never let down. The diversity of artistic styles today is truly mind blowing. Today on Behance I discovered an artist who goes by Bibo X, and his illustration work is phenomenal. He's found a way to create such beautiful, expressive characters that feel hand crafted, even though they are completely digital. His latest project, Weeta, is an especially gorgeous comic. Seeing work of this caliber always inspires me to work harder on my own projects. Here is a page from the story, and I encourage you to see the entire thing here: Weeta

Updated World Peace Day poster

Debating if I need to move the bottom laurel and quote off to the left to counter balance the dove...

World Peace Day

A very quick (~30 minutes) poster for International World Peace Day.

#trending

These days I'm seeing more and more hand drawn typography and vintage-inspired designs. Maybe this is because I'm just enamored with them, though! I'm glad that these designs have become so popular, and I would like to try my hand at working with similar styles of design. Here are some examples below:

What makes a design 'good?'

I might still be learning what it means to be a good designer, but I knew immediately that this was bad. The logo design itself feels very generic, from the basic cutout shapes to the plain, uninspired font choice. Beyond that, the rest of the image is very heavily flooded with Photoshop effects and an overuse of textures. The heavy glow effect and enormous drop shadow are way too over the top. You can see the entire kit of designs by creator Igor Kopayev here.

In stark contrast, this logo appears to have been lovingly handcrafted. The character looks hand drawn, and the text was carefully chosen to fit the theme. Not only that, but if you take a look at the rest of the images in the creator's gallery for this piece, you can see that they really did their homework and created a fully integrated package. The logo was used expertly on various labels and papers and photographed in store to great effect. This work was created by Skinn Branding Agency, and can be seen on Behance here.

Another self portrait

I couldn't sleep last night, and the idea for this photograph popped into my head. I'm not sure which piece I like better. The color on the top one is off here on the blog, it's actually a bit brighter than this.

Timeline of my life

I'm very happy with the final result here! I had this idea when we were first given the assignment. It was a little harder to take all the photographs and edit them than I anticipated, but I'm glad I stuck with it. I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else came up with! This project was very open-ended, so I'm sure there will be some really creative projects.

Self Portrait layout

I have changed this layout so many times. Hopefully this is finally done. Feedback is greatly appreciated!

Resume time... I need help.

So I've come to realize that I really hate writing resumes. This one I threw together at the end of last semester, and it really needs to be redone. Meaning, completely redone. I intended to make a nice, shiny new one, along with matching business cards, over the summer. But you know how it goes, in the summer there's always tomorrow, and my procrastination lead to forgetting about it completely. Maybe that's a good thing though, because now I can bounce all sorts of ideas off you guys! My primary idea involves text made out of logs and an angry bear...

Welcome back, everybody!

Summertime slacking is officially OVER! Time to get focused on the semester ahead. Looking back at previous work, here are some of the pieces that I think helped get me into the GRD program:

The packing project from GRD 3000

Board Game project from Illustration

Stationery from 3200

Infographic Mailer from 3200

 Final from 3200

It's the final countdown! Na-nah Nah Nah, Nana-na na naaa!

This is it, guys! Last day of GRD 3200 tomorrow. I've really enjoyed it and I'm actually pretty bummed that it's over. We've all been so lucky to have such a great group of people, and I'm glad to have gotten to know some of you more personally. Best of luck to everyone tomorrow, and with our upcoming portfolio review on May 7th. No time for summer slacking just yet! 

Also, don't forget your DVD and creative brief for tomorrow!!!

Earth Day poster

This has gone through a few iterations, but I'm finally happy with it! Was trying to go for a construction paper feel while still keeping in line with the rest of my designs for Second Life.

Specialty Item Progress Continued!

So here's my second item, a little tote bag! I don't know how to silk screen, so I did this my own way. I thought I would share my process in case other people want to achieve a similar goal without spending a fortune to have a printer do it. Here's how I made this:

1. Design your image on the computer and print it out the scale you intend the finished product to be. Lay this out on a cutting mat and tape a piece of clear acetate over the top. You'll be using your print as a guide to make a full sized stencil, so make sure your acetate is large enough to cover the print with a bit of extra room around the edges. 

2. Carefully cut out the design using an exacto knife. This is the most time consuming part. Go slowly! Don't worry about things like counters for now, we'll get to those later.

3. Once the stencil is complete, use a repositionable spray adhesive on the back and let it dry for a few minutes until tacky (not wet). Then carefully place your stencil on your desired fabric. Make sure you smooth it down well so there are no gaps for paint to escape. At this point you may also want to place a piece of cardboard under your fabric if you are working with a shirt or a bag. This will keep the paint from bleeding over to the other side.

4. Mix up the paint color of your choice. Here I'm using acrylic paint blended with a fabric medium, but you can also buy regular fabric paints. Either will do fine. Take a sponge, pouncer, or stencil brush and lightly start to dab the paint onto the fabric. Again, go slow and do multiple layers. Too much paint at once can bleed into the fabric, which will make the end result messy.

5. See my close up photo below the stencil? When I removed mine, it was fuzzy around the edges. The texture of the canvas made the stencil not adhere very well, which lead to some sloppiness. Since the bag was white, I salvaged it by using white paint and touching up all of the edges. You won't usually have to do this!

6. Once this has completely dried you can go back and add the counters and small details. For this step I took another piece of acetate and cut out all of the counters, then stenciled them in white on top. The cat's face was very small, so I painted it on with the tip of my exacto knife. Not ideal, but hey, whatever works!

7. Let this dry overnight, 24 hours is even better. This is to ensure the paint is completely dry and free of tack. Now you can turn the piece inside out and iron it lightly on the back to set the paint. I like to keep a piece of parchment paper between the print and the ironing board, just in case.

And there you go! If anyone has any questions about this process, please feel free to ask. I'm always more than happy to help!

Specialty Item Prototype #1

Here is a small prototype item for final critique, a little keychain! I haven't gotten to make anything really illustrative this semester, so yeah, I had to make these. I'm debating putting the website address under the logo... I'm not sure it needs it though, since people will have been to the store before to get one of these. Thoughts? Oh, and the hole is up by her ear so that it hangs straight when held up on the keychain. Again, I don't know if that matters, but I'm a bit OCD and if it hangs askew that would keep me up at night. >.<

Second Life Advertisements

Did some more work on these and I'm happier with where I'm at. The 5.5 x 5.5 received a complete overhaul, with some more photo adjusting to get the cat to 'pop' more. Overall I'm pleased with these, they're kitschy and they get the message across. Just fine-tuning my prints! Still turning out a bit on the darker side, hopefully I can remedy that without making them look washed out.