Shawn's Art Blog

Photo Edit

2012-01-12T16:54:00.001-08:00

So, since my last post a few hours ago, I decided to take care of a commission that I have had for quite a while. I just had to edit an old painted photo back to (at least) close to how it originally looked. I am pretty happy with the result. (posted with permission)

3 posters in 30 hours... GO!

2012-01-12T14:53:00.000-08:00

So, this was what I was up all night last night talking about. We were basically given less than 2 days to do 7 projects for the same class. Among them, were 3 full posters. I think that I did a pretty fair job for being given such little time, and with 4 other projects to do simultaneously as well. You can tell how, as it was getting later, I started losing my mind, and when I lose my mind, I bust out the bad fish puns!

ZuN website

2012-01-12T14:46:00.000-08:00

Whew, more posts from last semester. I felt for some reason that today I would use the first amount of free time I've had this week to update my blog. So, here was my Viscom final from last semester. I had to redesign a website, so I chose the ZuN energy drink website. Check it out, the real one is pretty horrific. For this I wanted to play around with the bottle shape (a rocket) and carry it through the rest of the site. I gave it more of a military feel with metal aspects (thanks to Hazar for modeling!) And for the nutritional facts page, I deconstructed the rocket with various nutritional information. I really liked it, even though it was hell making it.

Cubist Photo Project

2012-01-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

This was the photo project I did for my digital photo class last semester. I wanted to take photos of people I knew and turn them into cubist abstractions. It was originally supposed to be a larger series with each person having 4 photos of the same cubist version, but with different lighting angles, but I didn't have quite enough time to edit all of those, so for now, you just get the best ones. I made the cubist versions by affixing the original photos to foamcore, cutting them up, and stacking sheets of foamboard under the cut up pieces to vary the height of certain areas. Then, I moved a spotlight around the cubist rendition to get various differe

nt angles of light.

Final Portfolio

2011-12-12T05:50:00.000-08:00

So, I feel that personally, mine is kinda redundant since 3 of the 4 final pieces were the last 3 posts that I did. Overall, I think that I have improved in my illustration skills, but I don't think that I am up to a professional level with my hand drawn stuff. In the end, vectoring saved my ass. It is still what I am best at as well as my favorite media. I think that I at least feel comfortable with most of the media now to fulfill a client's needs. AND I WILL NEVER WAKE UP FOR ANOTHER 7:30 CLASS IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!

1984 Book Cover

2011-12-11T19:45:00.000-08:00

So, I'm super pleased with this. You can tell because it is only 9:46 and I am finished with it. I was trying to do a Russian constructivist style for the cover. I felt that I did this pretty well, especially since it is vectored. I do ever so love vectoring. The original intention was to airbrush this, making me the only person in the history of illustration who wanted to voluntarily do airbrush. So, I did the next best thing, try to make it look kinda airbrushed. Overall, I think I captured the book's subject, and I'm really happy with that.

World Record

2011-12-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

It is a statistical fact that everyone, at one point in their life, has owned a shit green refrigerator. At some point, a guy decided to start throwing these... and thus a world record was born... This was the first vector that I was allowed to do for this class, so I milked it for all it was worth. I need to change the background color so that the guy pops more, but other than that, I am incredibly pleased with it, and I think that is the first time I have said that this whole class...

津軽三味線

2011-11-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

Aw yeah I can type in Japanese! Anyway, I was pretty happy with this one... for like the first time in weeks. I am actually ok with putting this one on my blog. This was also my first successful attempt with digital tablet. I ultimately chose digital because I needed some solid colors, with a pink that makes your eyes bleed. Also, I just wanted to prove that I can speak Japanese. Because some people were questioning... ちょと眠い。

App Icons

2011-11-30T21:10:00.001-08:00

So, for Viscom we had to design app icons for mobile devices. I decided to say, screw the system and do 3 things that are totally unrelated. First off, I redesigned the Angry Birds icon, because the original looks like crap and they weren't using the full potential of the roundness of the bird. The second app is for French Toast, a French translator app. I wanted one that fit the square profile, so I went with bread and kept brainstorming from there. The final one is an icon for the Audio Quran. I felt that I needed a serious one, and I wanted to go totally outside of what I normally do. I am pretty pleased with them. At the least, it shows that I can make crap glossy, which is really all that matters in app icons.

Fashion Nouveau

2011-11-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

Whew, my first non illustration post in a while. Just finished this baby on a crazy time line. I was really happy with it though. I wanted to get that Art Nouveau complex style with a more modern digital vector illustration feel. It was nice to go back to an illustration style I am actually good at. Now if only I can convince Rusty to let me vector in illustration class, I'd be golden. I might still fiddle with the typography a little bit, but other than that, it is something that I would want on my wall.

Society of Illustrators

2011-11-06T21:23:00.000-08:00

Well, this one is not wanting to photograph correctly, so I'm trying to stitch them together. Hopefully it turns out well. But anyway, I really enjoyed working on this one, probably because it was totally open subject matter. I experimented with dripping water color in the back, then doing gouache for the main figure, then going over that again with pen. So, it was a multi media work, and I think it pulled together quite nicely.

Midterm Portfolio: The piece that didn't show up

2011-10-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

So, for some reason this one didn't show up on the midterm blog. It was supposed to (I even mention it in the post). But, this was the 3rd line and color illustration. I felt I should include this one since it was an example of a fairly successful illustration that was done with the looseness that is supposed to be present in watercolor. I have the issue of being too tight with my watercolors and this was one of the times that I got the more free flowing effect while still keeping the form true to life.

Life and Death

2011-10-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

Here is the final product of the marker comps I posted last week. I really like how they turned out. I did a mix of gouache and went over it with colored pencil. I have never been finished with an illustration this early before, and it looks 10x better than the one I spent every waking moment on for a week. I just don't know what to do with my night now. I could work on viscom... nah!

The One Grandma isn't Supposed to See

2011-10-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

So, for the 5 project, I feel like I really doped the ball. I started of with the wrong medium and tried to correct it the night before the due date. I think that it is really doomed in any medium other than vector illustration (which we aren't allowed to use). Perfectly clean lines and little variation in color is the only way I see of making it a worthwhile composition. But, it's finished, and it doesn't look absolutely terrible, just not my best. I liked the concept though. Maybe one day I'll fix it the way I intended it to look.

Life and Death Marker Comps

2011-10-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would post these up since I went to the trouble of mounting them, and, lets face it, 1 hour of sleep ain't happinin'. Anyway, I like my first concept the most. The idea was to have three people from two perspectives. One looking into a crib, the other, into a coffin. My only issue here was getting the viewer to read what they were looking into. Also, my limited marker selection makes Hannah and Margret look like they have jaundice and James looks like a racist syrup ad. But, I was really into that one. The other two were more backups. One was an obvious baby carriage and a hearse. The other was more comical, an new roll of toilet paper and an empty roll. The latter was the unanimous choice. So, I just need to recomp them so that they are on the same dispenser and have tile behind them. More from that later.

Midterm Portfolio: MY choice

2011-10-19T02:57:00.000-07:00

Well dang. I already blew my best work and my favorite on the same post. I think I will have to go with the facebook portrait watercolor. I like that it actually looks like me, and that is hard to do, because I kinda look like every other brown haired white guy. But, I think it captures my personality, looks, and great tan. I went back to my using the white of the paper for highlights, which is a method I really like. And I like it enough that it is still my picture, so that makes it good in my book. Fun fact: class starts in 2 hours.

Midterm Portfolio: 1 Digital Color Illustration

2011-10-19T02:50:00.000-07:00

This is a silly one. As hopefully you don't remember, I messed up the day we were supposed to do color digi illustrations, so I technically had none to choose from. So, I stayed up till... now... working on one. In choosing subject matter, I picked what any rational person at 2am would choose, Rambo! And I wanted to experiment again, so I did this squiggly line stipple thing but with the tablet. I am really happy with how it turned out. It was pretty difficult choosing the colors for each section (and took figgin forever) but it was totally worth it. I am really happy with it, and thus, happy I didn't do it correctly the first day, because then I would have slept tonight instead of making a fabulous portfolio piece.

Midterm Portfolio: 1 Digital Illustration

2011-10-19T02:45:00.000-07:00

This is a weird one for me. I wasn't really sure which of these was the best, but I think that I will go with Jimi. I spent a lot of time on him, and I like the style that I used. It kinda shows motion... and Emotion! But seriously, I think that for never using a tablet before (except to make the chef, who will forever hold a spot on my fridge) this one turned out pretty well.

Midterm Portfolio: 1 Gouache Illustration

2011-10-19T02:39:00.000-07:00

This one was a tough decision for me since I didn't have much to choose from, and I am terrible at controlling gouache in a way I want it to work, so I had to sub par works to choose from. I ended up going with the Triple Ds (Daleks, Dirigibles, and Doughnuts). I felt that this one just looked the most finished and showed at least that I was able to punch up the contrast (and paint a f***kin' doughnut!) But, when scanned in, I think the sky works much better and I do like how I simplified the dirigibles for depth. The detail on the Dalek was also more than I was expecting to be able to convey since I was struggling so much with the medium, but I think that, in the end, it turned out.

Midterm Portfolio: 2 Traditional Line and Color Illustrations

2011-10-19T02:28:00.000-07:00

I am assuming that by color it means watercolor, so that's what I'm going with. For me, this one was kind of a no brainer. The belly dancer with fire hands and drips radiating off of her was by breakout piece and... is still kinda the best thing I have done so far. This work did everything that I should have been doing all along, but hadn't. I would say that this was one that I struggled with a lot since it started off having the background that was true to the photo, but I decided that that looked a little crap, and gave it some experimental drips, which greatly worked in my favor. The second choice would have to be Grace Kelly. Even if it wasn't the best thing I have done, it was by far my favorite (and in my opinion, way better than those dice that I threw together in literally 7 min). I put a lot of thought and time into putting it together, and I really like the non local color choice, a decision I made because at the time I just couldn't get white people skin with watercolor. But I think that I used the line in an interesting way that most people wouldn't have thought of (and you said stippling would take too long, so I made that a personal challenge!). Also, just for the lols, I'll post the photo of the belly dancer that the illustration was based off of (which I also took).

Midterm Portfolio: 2 Traditional Watercolors

2011-10-19T02:22:00.000-07:00

With caffeine pill #1 consumed. It is time for the watercolor segment of our show! I'm gonna have to say my best two were the vogue esque woman in monochromatic blue and the old green Chevy. The woman I think was a good move for me away from a super tight control of pigment. I utilized both various strengths in pigment and the white of the page to show a pretty large range of shades. Also, I sold this one, so there is that. The car was chosen because of the varying pigment choices as well, however here, I used like 10 different greens and none were straight out of the tube. I think I handled the sky pretty well too. Also, the car is actually brown, so I am technically using non local color, even though it might not seem like it.

Midterm Portfolio: 3 Traditional line art Illustrations

2011-10-19T02:11:00.000-07:00

Well... it is now... 4:15 am, so that means it is illustration bloggin' time!
For this first episode of Midterm portfolio, I am presenting a bonsai tree that looks pretty kickin' in a scanned in small scale, the stuffed voodoo doll that utilizes stroke direction to imply form, and a portrait of my friend that would have looked even better if not for the accidental Hitler stach shadow that I gave him. I felt that these were some great examples of my improvement from, at least, before taking this class. I also chose these since they are all traditional line art, but they are very different kinds of line art, showing versatility. Ending my personal plug... now.

With Text

2011-10-09T21:33:00.001-07:00

Here is the Abe Lincoln poster with text.

Army of Confederacy

2011-10-09T21:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I have found out three things during this one. It is hard to create the implied people that are kinda blurry in the back ground effect. Line art using gouache is not really my thing. I can't paint a mans chest without a photo. That being said, I think it turned out ok. You can tell that it is Abe Lincoln, and if I told you that the woman was Marry Todd Lincoln you would probably say "Ooooh!", and that was what I felt the most important. I'll add the text on it later and post that.

consciousness is a coffee induced illusion

2011-10-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

So, its finished. It's not that I don't like gouache, I just think that our relationship is that of two bickering cousins. We are both stubborn, and refuse to let the other have their way, and we will keep fighting until someone tells us to stop... or sets a date for us to stop. Anyway, it looks better than it did, and it scans in well. I still like the daleks, dirigibles, and doughnuts idea. The doughnut looks more like a doughnut, and in the end doughnuts are really all that matters anyway. WOW its 3am?!

She's on fire!

2011-09-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Wha!? I had the original AND the print out on time? It's like a new record! I was super happy with how this turned out. I started out actually trying to watercolor the background of the photo I was basing it off of, but she was standing in front of a black doorway and the rest of the background didn't look that great anyway. So, I put a crap ton of water on it, blended the black door out with the sponge brush, and hung it on the wall as I added purple and yellow for MAXIMUM DRIPPAGE! But yeah, pretty happy with this one.

Looks like somone opened a bottle of WINE!

2011-09-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

Finished this biznach! Kinda... my printer crapped out at 1am and decided "I'm gonna eat all yo paper!" So the small print out WILL be turned in, as well as the illustrations that were supposed to be in color, just probably not till tomorrow. But I was fairly happy with this. I think the type turned out nice for how small it was on the page, I just wish that the highlights were a bit more prominent.

The result of taking No droz at 11pm

2011-09-26T03:53:00.000-07:00

So, I took too many caffeine pills and I have nothing better to do this late, SO I'll just update this before class and look like an over achiever. I think this batch of digi line art turned out better than the first. I was being less experimental and tried to make them look good instead. Lesson learned: don't even attempt architecture with this tablet. There is just no saving it, but I spent too much time on it to not put it up. Other than that one, I really liked how they (particularly the people) turned out. I do need to find out how to adjust my tablets settings on a windows though.

Watercolor profile pictures

2011-09-23T06:42:00.000-07:00

So, for this one I had to do 5 watercolors of profile pictures from the facebooks. Much like the digital line art, these degraded as I did more. I was happy with the first three at least, so I have something for my refrigerator.

Digital Tablet Drawing

2011-09-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

So, these are my first ever digital tablet drawings. They started off strong, but you can kinda tell where I started experimenting, and judge right down to the chef what drawing I did first to last. But, I was possibly the only person that did some drawings not from photos, which at least helped me a bit for practicing a more cartoonish style.

Illustrations Refined

2011-09-23T06:32:00.001-07:00

So, these were some of my better line arts that I blew up and put on illustration board. On here, they look about the same, but they look pretty classy in real life.

20x30

2011-09-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

For this we had to do a 20x30 landscape. This project ultimately killed me since at 4:30am I decided that I needed sleep or I would be up for over 48 hours. So, it doesn't look as nice as it could, but it looks ok, ad i plan on presenting a stellar one on wed.

Portrait from Memory

2011-09-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

For this one, I had to do a watercolor drawing of a person from memory, NO PHOTOS! I chose my Uncle Bruce, since he had a large beard I could work with and I was afraid of getting the proportions even more wrong than they turned out. I definitely can only work off of photos... It doesn't look horrible, but I don't think it is that great.

9x12

2011-09-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

So, these were two 9x12 comps that I did on the same night as the large Grace Kelly comp. I spent like 4 or 5 hours on Grace, about 2 hours on the toucan, and at around 3am I realized "oh crap, I have to do another" so I slapped together a watercolor of dice that took about 10 min... that one was of course the best one...

I tried to be like Grace Kelly...

2011-09-20T08:31:00.001-07:00

Well, it seems that I have fallen a little behind in blogging. Gonna try to catch up today. This was a 12x18 watercolor with line art that I did. I really felt that out of all the assigned ones this day, this was the best. I had a good deal of handling with the watercolors and the stippling was a bitch, but I liked the pop art feel that it gave it.

Line art with watercolor

2011-09-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

This was the day I said, I'm done sucking at watercolor... 5 hours later, They started looking better. All you gotta do is take that contrast and punch it in the ass. But I am ready to sleep any day now...

Moon Wok Logo

2011-09-13T12:02:00.001-07:00

This was the final logo that was chosen to develop into a CI and VI design. Everyone loves puns!

Logo design

2011-09-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

These are some preliminary logo designs I did for my Viscom 4 class. My personal favorite was the red and grey cokes and smokes. But, the prof didn't think so... so I did a different one.

Watercolors of buildings

2011-09-12T11:11:00.001-07:00

Still not getting watercolor. This is probably the worst thing I have shown like... ever. Feel free to not look at them or even associate my name with them.

10 Landscape Watercolors

2011-09-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

Discovered that watercolor isn't my strongest media. Like at all... I just wish I could sneak in some oils.

Illustrations of People

2011-09-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

So, today I was re-welcomed into the world of 7:30 am classes by sleeping through my alarm as it went off for 2 hours... hopefully I can do a decent job with watercolor on the next one. Here is the homework that was due today.

Organic Illustrations

2011-09-05T10:54:00.000-07:00

10 Illustrations of organic objects.

Architectural Illustrations

2011-09-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

Architecture. It seems that two of them have been lost from Kirksville to my house in STL, but I will upload those two if I find them.

Illustration exercise 2

2011-08-31T06:58:00.001-07:00

Line illustrations of the same image in 10 different styles

First Illustration exercise

2011-08-31T06:53:00.000-07:00

10 different line illustrations.

China Projects

2011-08-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

So, after about a semester of inactivity, I am back. (last semester was web design so I didn't really have anything I could post). This is also going to get a lot more use soon since I will actually be using it for a class, so follow up!

Anyway, these were two of the projects that got to the completion stage from my internship with TBWA Shanghai.

The first is a poster I did for the Shanghai international film festival.

I wanted to do a vintage, propaganda style photo. Everything is vector illustrated by me with some modified type and then with an photo overlay of rust.

The second one is an ad for Long Pijo or "Dragon Beer". This was a group collaboration project. I did the photography and digital graphics, but the beer bottles and logo were by different designers.

The photo was taken with my nifty spiffy new Nikon D9000 and Huyens 55mm fixed lens. The fire and water were photo brushes with an overlay.

Paintings

2011-01-26T21:38:00.001-08:00

So, since I am taking a web design class, I probably will not be uploading much on here in terms of graphic design this semester. Thus, I thought I would upload some stuff I have done in other classes instead. These were all paintings I did last semester. I went into it not knowing how to paint at all, especially with oils, so I think they turned out pretty good. The first one is "the turtle painting" that some of you said you wanted to see. It was done by taking basically random magazine clippings, collaging them together, then painting it huge. It started off with no real meaning, but after finishing, I found a very odd and subliminal, personal meaning to it (which is very long to explain so you can ask me about it later). The second painting was done by inventing color on a black and white photo. I think this one is the best out of the ones I had done, personally. The last one was a still life of a cologne bottle of Teddy Roosevelt and a dream catcher on my kitchen counter. There was one more painting I still need to upload, but I don't have a picture of it right now, so it will have to wait.

French Fold Design

2010-12-14T08:13:00.000-08:00

For this project we had to make a french fold (ei a folding poster with stuff on the back). I chose to do Conan O'brien because I tend to go more ridiculous the closer to the end of the semester it is. I decided to go away from vectoring since that is what is dominating my portfolio right now, and go with some photoshop graphics. I really like the front side, but the back was not as great as I would have hoped. Overall, I really like how I handled the front and cant wait to hang it in my apartment.

Poster Designs

2010-11-19T08:41:00.001-08:00

So, this is the project I have possibly lost the most sleep over. I did the bottom work then the prof said that he changed his mind after I had already spent a week working on the bottom one, so I had 2 days to make the top one. Lots o coffee being drank after 12, but anyway, I like how they both turned out, and I am actually kinda happy that my prof pushed me to make two.

Newspaper Layout

2010-11-11T21:08:00.000-08:00

So for this one we had to do a newspaper layout. My prof suggested that we use foreign languages, which gave me a good chance to test out those 3 years of Japanese... which kinda failed since I ended up just using the story from an article that already existed. BUT! I vector illustrated all the girls and the couch at the bottom, which I think is pretty damn cool!

Magazine Spreads

2010-11-11T21:00:00.000-08:00

The final piece of the magazine project, actual spreads. I wanted to get a steam punkish feel to it so I grunged up the font a bit (the first good use of Bleeding Cowboys!) but the first one seemed too simple for a punk article, so I did the second one without thinking about repercussions of putting ink blots on the photo, or cutting off the headline at the page end, and it worked out much more nicely.

Magazine Cover/ads

2010-10-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

For this project, I did a magazine cover and ad. I felt adventurous and did 2 ads, both for Roxy jeans. I liked the initial logo for Roxy, but the professor didn't like it, so I had to change it to the one you see now. Overall, I am pretty happy with them.

Thanks Reina for posing for the cover

Thanks Samah for posing for the ads

BRM Card

2010-10-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

This is my BRM card for Sex, Politics, and You. The card is set up so that you can rip the top and bottom sections apart allowing you to send in the top card and keep the bottom card for directions to the art gallery and the sexy vectored lady. The whole card was done using only 2 spot colors (not counting the BRM portion which is black by postal regulation) making the entire work super cheap for production!

Post Card Design

2010-10-01T07:40:00.000-07:00

For this project, I had to make business postcards that used only two colors total for the front and back. I chose to use Trans-Siberian Airlines (a company I made up) because I have always wanted to use Russian for a logo. I got inspiration for this from Lowbrow art, particularly Shag, for the stylization of the people. I like how it turned out overall.

business card designs

2010-09-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

For this project, I was asked to make 2 business cards. One with a normal 3.5"x2" layout and the other a nontraditional layout. The first normal layout I thought was boring by itself (it had blue filled in where the liquid in the beaker would be) so I instead decided to die cut the liquid out and place cellophane between the cards before placing them together. Allowing you to see through the card.

The test tube was simply to get a unique shape that still fits into a wallet. I liked the idea also since there are many ways you could display it whimsically on a desk.

more random photoshop

2010-06-23T16:16:00.001-07:00

Decided to do a quick collage of free stock photos... first the finished product then the photos it contains.

2nd bored project

2010-06-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

The second one I did was just create a movie poster. Since the kids were doing one, I thought I would too, just since I have never done one since high school marketing class. Also because if a movie hasnt yet been made featuring Bruce Willis and Pam Greire, it should.

More bored stuff

2010-06-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

So, I get bored in my class/ study hall when the kids don't need help, so I made an environment and a movie poster. Each took about one day of classes to do.

The first one I took 2 pictures and an ink blob and put them together.

Immortalizing Betty White

2010-06-17T11:56:00.001-07:00

So, I got bored during one of my JBA classes since the kids were being good, and I decided to see what Betty White would look like young again. Gave me some good practice with the liquify tool. I think I smugged it a bit too much when I started falling asleep in the middle of it, but looking at some of her pictures on google from when she was younger, it looks pretty accurate.

The edited photo is on top and the original is on bottom.

Self Promo

2010-05-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

So, for my Vis Com final I had to make a self promotion piece that had at least 4 of my works in it. I chose to make bookmarks and a handy dandy case that they can be mailed to prospective clients in. Pretty self explanatory, I vectored the image of myself on the front of the box and each of the bookmarks has me attempting to be witty on it.

CD Case

2010-05-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Here is the bra case that everyone has been wondering about. Sorry the photography is kinda crappy, but if you are really interested you can see them in person over the summer, WHICH STARTS IN 5 DAYS! Also, this was my first attempt at embroidery... by hand... on lace, so gimme a break :P

CD design

2010-04-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

For this project, I had to redesign a CD entirely. I chose to redo the Dresden Dolls "A is for Accident" CD. While the music was good, the art design was god awful... So I redesigned the cover, booklet, and case itself. I decided to theme it around common household accidents that would seem stupid, but after googling for a list, they were on the top 100 (for infants and adults together). I then redesigned the case out of a bra and thong set that I found at Wal Mart for $10. It was my first ever attempt at embroidery so it isnt that great, but hey, I embroidered a bra, that was way more work than required for this project. Also, because the bra couldn't stand on end, I had to make a box for it too, so I essentially made a case for my case. Anyway, I am fairly happy with the results, I ended up working on this for 14 hours straight one day and was actually having fun with it.

The first photo is the original cover, the following are the booklet spreads and the last is the back of the case case. Pictures of the bra case will be posted when I get it back from the prof.

Thanks to (in order of pictures)
Samah
Jen
Hannah
Reina
Rachel
Katrina
Huyen

collage

2010-03-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

For this project, we had to create two collages and include words in them that opposite each other. My words were decency and corruption. I think I have had more fun doing this project than any other since we had to shoot all our own photography. The skywriting text was a pain to make though... Now if I can just get these bad boys mounted before passing out I will be good. Oh and sorry Mark, once again the composition with you in it was not chosen by the prof to be a better one...

art dept poster

2010-02-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

So, I had to design a poster for the art department at Truman. Vectoring was not mentioned once in the instructions, so I decided to do it anyway, because I hate myself or something. Anyway, the result was Unleash your Creativity with a stylized lion head holding a brush. Yeah... thats about it...

Photo Real Vector

2010-01-31T17:38:00.000-08:00

IM DONE!

So, for this project we had to take a photo that we shot and vector half of it to look photo real, but leave the other half as the original photo. This took SOOOOOO LONG! About 35 hours over the course of one week. I am pretty happy with it since it impressed the prof, so hopefully that means I got an A.
First pic is the original

the second pic is the version that is half vectored (the final) and the third is just the vectored half without the original pic. Hopefully they show up in that order, but blogger kinda sucks about uploading photos with text so hopefully you can distinguish which is which

light bulb vector

2010-01-24T22:03:00.000-08:00

So... vectoring shiny things suck. I did some swapping programs back and forth from Illustrator to photoshop to make this work like the prof wanted it to look (photo real) even though I personally like it before I used the smudge tool to bring the shades together, but here they are

first commissioned work

2010-01-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

So, the delta chi fraternity called me up after hearing that I do vector work and wanted me to do their spring 10' rush shirts. Super excited just to have something artsy on my resume. I am not sure what the quote on the back means other than I think it is from the Wu Tang Clan, but hey, work is work.

2 page spreads

2009-12-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

So here are the two page spreads that I did for my typo final. I love the Katy Perry one just for the vector. Min Wang was horrible and I redid it so many times just to appease the prof that I never wanted to look at anymore of Min Wang's work or biography.

The best vector i have ever done.

2009-12-16T10:25:00.000-08:00

So for my last type project I decided to be an over achiever and VECTOR A HUMAN. I think I am totally crazy, but I am incredibly happy with the result.

Super 77

2009-11-21T12:12:00.001-08:00

I never want to look at a super 77 can again. We had to do 24 different initial comps based off of the text of a super 77 can. After many late nights and one all nighter they are finished along with the box that I constructed to store them in. These are all printed out on transparency sheets so pretend that everything that is white is actually clear.

Fonts

2009-11-21T12:02:00.000-08:00

So, I haven't posted on this in forever. Just haven't been as motivated to since it stopped being a class requirement. Anyway, taking a typography class (yay!). And what would a type class be without making fonts. These are my two fonts Zephyr and Showy. I spent about 2 weeks on Zephyr and 30 min on Showy, so of course Showy gets the higher grade and the most positive comments... I need to start half assing more I guess.

Best Marker Comp

2009-05-04T00:38:00.000-07:00

I felt that this was my best display of a marker comp. This was my favorite piece to work on throughout the semester and I think that interest in the subject matter helped me to create this comp. I felt that the background could have been blended better, but other than that it was a successful marker comp that accurately portrayed the finished product.

Best Design Concept

2009-05-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

So, this is the 3rd time I have uploaded this image (I really like it ) I felt that this showed the best use of the design elements of all my pieces. The larger picture on the left balances out the mass text to the right. The picture also leads the viewer to the large text body by using its organic shape that comes to a point, pointing at the text. Also, the warm colors of the dancers contrast with the cool colors of the background bringing in the attention of the viewer. The abstract shapes of the background add movement to the work and hold interest without overpowering the text. Finally, the use of text boxes point out attention grabbing quotes from the text that will intrigue the reader and make them want to know more.

Best Typography

2009-05-01T06:27:00.001-07:00

This was a difficult choice for me, I did not quite know which method of typography was best for choosing this, so I just stuck with one that shows capability (I.E. text wrapping, using multiple texts) but still was simple enough to not distract from the message. I though that this also effectively unified the type with the photo by giving the whole poster an elegant feel without using that gaudy cursive type that many like to use in more "classy" ads.

Best Creative Concept

2009-05-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

I thought that the car ad was one of my more creative, or at least interesting, concepts. I used an old Plymouth ad and replaced the original car with my vector art. I also adjusted the fonts to match the original ad. I felt that using this ad would draw attention to the car from multiple crowds that would have previously not been interested in the Prowler, by interesting groups that would look back on this ad and remember the original one, and the younger crowd who is going with the current fad of retro goods.

Best Tradtional Copyfitting

2009-05-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

I felt that this was my best use of traditional copyfitting because it was my only example where the copyfitting matched up with the finished product. I really don't like traditional copyfitting, I prefer eyeballing and that has always worked for my type before.

Best Indesign

2009-04-27T06:47:00.000-07:00

No matter how hard I try or how many times I post it, I can never get these two pages next to each other. But, I do feel that this best display of indesign since it shows that I can reproduce a real magazine spread and have both look identical to the original. I also feel that it was my best in terms of final production since all images are to the correct resolution and of the correct file type and all of the spread is in correct color mode. I do however think that I can improve upon this by making the shadow around the large cluster of hotwings more realistic and more fluid to conform with the wrap of the text. Overall however, I feel that this design was successful because of its accuracy to the original and the fact that by doing this it shows I am capable of doing professional design layouts.

Best Illustrator

2009-04-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

I feel that this is not only my best illustrator piece, but my best piece in general for DSP. I have never done something that looked quite this professional when it was completed, even before I went back to fix some of the wonky nodes. I just in general loved everything about this finished product. I felt that I captured the reflection well as well as the changes of value in the lower portion of the car. I believe that I could improve upon this by using a gradient mesh tool to make the changes in value and reflection more seemless.

Best Photoshop

2009-04-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

I feel that this was my best utilization of photoshop since this turned out so well that one of my mom's friends after seeing this wants to pay me to do retouching on her antique photos. I also think that this is the most practical use of photoshop that will most probably be used in our professional careers and that is most practical for general use of touching up our own photos. I beleive that I can improve upon this by repairing the fold that ran accross the tree more seamlessly and by eliminating more of the fadeing in the lower left corrner.

Best Thumbnails

2009-04-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

I feel that the Social Dancing spreads were the best of my thumbnails since I went out of my comfort zone and started experimenting with complex backgrounds and making the tiny comps as detailed and as different as possible (I didn't use the same main picture in any two). As for my weaknesses on this, I feel that I should have tried one comp where one page was not totally dominated by a photo/picture. This is a stage however that I need to work on since hand skills are my weakest point in Viscom, but I am confident that I will improve upon them.

Dance Spread

2009-04-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

This was our final (and my personal favorite) project. I enjoyed just about every aspect of working on this 2 page spread from the thumbnails to the final production on the computer. I do enjoy the subject matter also (I enjoy dancing and my mom was a ballet and theater dancer, so I sorta know the subject fairly well). I also enjoyed doing the vector and coloring of the illustration on the computer. I liked this image a lot and, although it was simple, it contrasted the background enough to pull in the viewer and was organic enough to maintain the feel of movement throughout the comp. I enjoyed this one a lot, and it shows since this is going to be the first Sunday night since the start of the semester that I actually get the 7 hours of sleep that doctors recommend.

2009-04-24T05:30:00.000-07:00

So... I changed my mind; I was not fond of this one. The layout didn't work quite as well as it did on the marker comp and the type didn't fill the page quite how I expected. Also, the map printed out too small and you couldn't read the street names. The vector art and photos turned out well, however. And the orbs I made more 3d to ad depth and pull the viewer in. The type also did not print out as expected and somewhat merges into the background on the printed copy. Overall, I am happy to be finished with this one and just want to keep doing the ballroom dancing project...

I need to buy a new alarm clock

2009-04-15T06:19:00.001-07:00

I seem to have stayed up too late working on these and slept in for class... HOWEVER, I did enjoy working on them albeit the time consumption. I actually combined three of my original thumbnail comps to make this 4 column final comp. I feel that I could have done a better job filling in the back ground with red but I wasnt wanting to use up all of my prismacolor marker, so I just did a light application. The copy fitting could also use some work. I believe that I did it correctly, but I was slightly unsure. I was pleased with the cover of the packet though, I liked the overlapping of Jimny Cricket ontop of the picture of Main Street that is framed within the Disney mouse head. I think I could have done more with the interior however, I was considering adding a map with the attractions pointed out on them, but that fell through due to size issues. Time to start vector art!

Dancing thumbnails

2009-04-10T05:59:00.000-07:00

For this assignment I chose to do a single large picture of ballroom dancers with an elaborate background and the copy text wrapped around them. I was fairly pleased with this project seeing how I enjoy dancing, my mom was a theater/ballet/tap dancer, and I hate fishing, so I really wasn't getting any disadvantage in presenting this subject matter. I believe that I will go with the top left corner thumbnail because it has the best contrast in colors and the background is more fully developed and free flowing. I will probably move the dancing couple more to the left page and also possibly place the title on the left side to pull the two pages together better. The other options were not my favorites because of... well how easy they would be. The bottom left and top right would both just be copies of photos and the middle left the background almost upstages the dancers. I feel that the comp I chose better expresses the freedom and flow of ballroom dancing and ads to the articles theme.

Marcaline thumbnails

2009-04-08T06:36:00.001-07:00

For the Marcaline thumbnails, I basically utilized the Disney aspect of the town, making most of them have a red base for the background and advertising them with classic Disney characters. For my final decision I chose to do the cover of the first thumbnail on the layout of the second thumbnail and replacing the back page with the inside first page of the first thumbnail and replacing the second Jiminy Cricket on the second inside thumbnail with another character that would match up with the color, or another picture of the town.

If that wasn't confusing enough, I was also considering using the map on the last thumbnail, however, I felt that this could be too repetative using the same mouse outline twice in one pamphlet.

Car Ad

2009-04-08T05:49:00.001-07:00

This is the final for my car ad. I decided to change up the font on the title and ad a Plymouth symbol in the bottom left corner to fill up the large amount of negative space. Also, I made the color of the car more washed out than the original vector art to semi match the old ad that it was placed into, while still having the bright red color that makes the image jump from the page. I also changed the flavor text under the picture to be more modern and catch the viewers attention while making the font a somewhat retro style (desdemona). I enjoyed working on this project quite a bit since I love old ads from the 20s-40s and also using one of my favorite cars as the topic also made me enjoy working on the project.

ps. I wanted to upload this quickly to my blog to show that I would have had it done by the deadline if titanium had been working correctly.

Chili Cook Off final

2009-04-01T05:35:00.000-07:00

For the final chili cook off poster, I made some adjustments that differed from the marker comp. I decided to give the chili a grey tone as t0 not bore the viewer or overpower the page with too much white. I also switched the "Chili Cook Off" text with the Greek lettering to make the focus of the work the event and not the frat that is holding it. I could have improved upon this more by making sure the stem of the chili was not chopped by the printer and by giving more of a margin to the text inside the black box, moving it from the edge of the graphic.

Car thumbnails

2009-03-27T06:09:00.001-07:00

Out of these thumbnails, the consensus between my partner and I were one of the top left 2 comps. Both advertise the car as a celebration of a classic car but show how it has been modernized. One of them uses a classic Plymouth ad and replacing the classic car in the ad with the Prowler and using the color contrast to the sepia ad to show its modern qualities and also makes the car pop from the ad. However, the slogan may change to better fit the car and to make the ad more understandable to the everyday viewer. The other favorite shows the prowler outside of a Mel's drive in. The slogan at the top states that it is a tribute to the American Hot Rod, a slogan used by Plymouth when the Prowler was first released. The use of the drive in shows the nostalgic qualities of the car comparing it to the traditional hot rods that are stereotypically placed in front of classic 50's pictures of drive ins. To improve upon this design however I would omit the cars in the background to put more attention on the Prowler. Also, I may combine this comp with one of the bottom left two comps adding a mild classic pin up girl to the hood adding how the car is both classic and sexy.

Student Critique

2009-03-20T06:15:00.000-07:00

I liked this tumbnail because it kept my attention the most out of the ones on the page. The two cows draw attention to the text box and the thought bubbles create a diagonal between the title of the event and the describing text box. There is also no bleed, and the placement of the cows behind the text creates depth, further drawing the attention of the viewer. The first problem I see with this comp is that it does not specifically mention in the title that it is a chili cook off, it just describes the week long event that the cook off is taking place during, which could draw some who know what AG week is away from the ad. Also, there is a large amount of negative space near the bottom of the page that takes the almost disects the poster between the illustration and the foot note text. Also, the comp needs more dark areas. This can be solved by darkening the text color of the title and date. And fiallly, making the text box larger than the title in the thought bubble would make the overall composition seem more balanced and also get rid of some of the negative space near the bottom.

original magazine pics

2009-03-06T06:53:00.001-08:00

indesign

2009-03-06T06:26:00.000-08:00

For this project I took an article on hotwings and recreated it in indesign. I chose this because it looked the most professional of my indesign projects, most proabaly because it was based of a real magazine. I changed some of the margins slightly and relinked a broken link that was in the file. I was considering consolidating the number of different fonts and font colors, but that was how the magazine realy was so I decided not to alter it.
[sorry for the wonky formatting of this post, I'm running off 2 hours of sleep :)]

Photoshop 2

2009-03-06T06:19:00.000-08:00

I had fun with this piece mostly because I was able to use all my own photography to make it. I also enjoyed the message that I made with it combining the message on the billboard (made out of the magazine picture) saying "Do you inhale" with the smoky sky that is a combination of the pen and ink drawing and the posterized effect. I made one major change to the work by adding the posterized effect. Before the effect was added, the picture did not flow together well and looked somewhat like I had just pasted a color photo on top of a black and white photo (what I essentially did) but adding the filter unifed the work better and gave it the look of a finished composition.

Photoshop 1

2009-03-06T06:11:00.001-08:00

I love doing photo retouches. I've taken 2 years of graphic design before this and it is always my favorite project of the year. I also get lots of practice at it since my mom is an antique dealer and has me fix lots of the photos she gets in. I also have been experimenting with various retouch techniques and like combining tools such as clone stamp, healing brush, and modifying the color modes. I was not really sure how to fix the parts of the photo that I did not already correct. I had lots of trouble with the fade in the bottom left corner and making it the same as the surrounding area without using a massive amount of clone stamp that would have made it obvious that I sampled the area next to it. I enjoyed this work alot and was happy that I was able to get rid of the crease lines.

illustrator 2

2009-03-06T06:03:00.001-08:00

I was super excited about doing the Japanese prints in illustrator. I thought that the different shades and almost watercolor like gradients present in them would be interesting to try and recreate. I chose this one simply because I liked both of the prints for this assignment, I just liked this one more for both its accuracy and for its watercolor appearance. I also liked the way that this looked aesthetically. I would probably hang this on my wall whether or not I made it. I made very minor improvements on this before submitting it. I connected a few paths that I noticed were not originally connected and made some of the shapes more organic looking. Other than that, I was fairly happy with this work.

Illustrator 1

2009-03-04T07:07:00.001-08:00

For my first illustrator piece I chose the car obviously because it was my strongest illustrator work. This project gave me a more intense look at how to create vector art and also using gradients on certain portions of the car next to solid colored parts of the car to give a glare, shinny effect. I went back and fixed some of the up close details that needed to be pulled in closer where white spots were still showing, and I also edited the shadow feathering under the car so that I was more accurate to the photo. I liked this one... it took forever, but I'm very happy with the results.

Old Stuff

2009-02-25T07:04:00.000-08:00