Final Porfolio: Eight

Magazine Spread: Missouri Conservationist

"Time in the Woods"

11 x 17

4 hours

The article comes from the Missouri Conservationist, and we were instructed to shoot our own photos. I knew that with the nature of the magazine, the layout had to be natural and organic feeling. The article mentions the colors of fall and so the trees at this time are wonderful for photographing. I took a semi-arial view photo of a tree from my porch and also a photo of thousand hills state park. There was not too much body copy in this article, which is why I decided to add in the photo on the right, without it the layout was too minimal. The colors of the layout work fantastically.

Final Porfolio: Seven

Call for Entries Self-Mailer: Society of Illustrators

17 x 22

8 hours

My concept for the Society of Illustrators' 53rd annual book was "Get Aroused," how exciting! I feel that it may need to be played up slightly more in the design, but I really wanted the play on words to be the most prominent aspect. Get aroused can have a double meaning, as does get used, and I used them both in the concept. I used red because it is a 'sexy' color, and I just had to take what I could get with the illustration for the poster, but I think that the one I landed on works well. I wanted to design the side with the information so that each panel worked both individually and as a larger design.

Final Porfolio: Six

Beer packaging and Label Design: Angle Ales

19 hours

The idea behind the concept of this beer series is degrees of flavor.

30 degree blonde ale

60 degree raspberry

90 degree pilsner

180 degree amber ale

270 degree brown ale and

360 degree stout

I wanted to try an innovative package for the beer carrier, and so I created the template for a hanging beer. It was not without its trials, but it ended up working out and can hold 6 beers filled with liquid.

Final Portfolio: Five

Audio Book Redesign: Catch-22

5 hours

The audio book design was not completely unlike having to design a cd, but it had its unique challenges. I designed Catch-22 because I had the idea from the start of using the theme of language from the book. The cover has a repetition of the book title with letters omitted because of the part in the book where the main character omits words from soldiers letters. Naturally I worked the air force symbol into the design as the book is centered around it. The challenges involved the large number of chapters that I needed to place somewhere (42 to be exact). I am pleased with the clean look of the design, and plan to read the book soon.

Final Portfolio: Four

Promotional Campaign: Red Barn Arts Festival

Redbarn Poser

13 x 19

Redbarn newspaper ad

10.5 x 10.5

Redbarn brochure

duplex, 8.5 x 14

Redbarn web banner

3.5 x 9.5

17.5 hours

'Welcome to our neck of the woods' is the tag line that I stuck with. It sounds pretty small-town and so I felt that it fit with the event. The photos were all taken by myself at the event, and I found that the people surrounding the event were just as important as the arts and crafts being sold. Red Barn is a very important event to Kirksville, and so I tried to make it show some of the town's personality. I made the design the same throughout all four pieces and found that I could alter them each a bit and still make them a cohesive design. It may have taken a while to finalize the graphics, but I believe that it came together well.

Final Portfolio: Three

Advertising Spread

Clubhouse Music Venue

11 x 17

3 hours

The changes that I have made to this spread since midterm are the logo in the bottom right hand corner and slightly darkened the color of the type on the right side. This took an hour.

This layout was meant to utilize the found photo in an attempt to find a concept for a client that worked. This time I found something that I was interested in, music, and discovered a topic that this photo would work with. The spread is actually an ad for the music venue and I found that the repetition of the photo made an interesting texture and works well with the subject matter. I mimicked the lines on the opposite page and added the color from the sky in the photo to the text to make the spread more unified. This spread took about 2 hour total.

Final Portfolio: Two

Magazine Spread: National Geographics

"How Safe"

11 x 17

3 hours

Once again, this spread is making it's second appearance with some minor changes to improve it. I have altered the color of the background, and while it is still yellow, I have dulled the intensity. I have also made the copy of the short article on the left side of the layout so that it would be the first thing read, even though the type is smaller. These changes took around an hour. Everything else has stayed the same.

With little body copy to work with I new that the photo element that I chose would need to be interesting. I really wanted to get a shot that included water because I felt that one of the most important aspects of the story is the need for individuals to wash all fresh foods. With the full page photo, I wanted to give the right page more breathing room with about 50% negative space. To finish it off, I added in the top page break line and the lines to separate the text boxed.

Final Portfolio: One

Magazine Spread: Time Magazine

"The Secret of Feeling Full"

11 x 17

4 hours

This layout appeared in my midterm portfolio. Since then I have made some minor tweaks, spending an additional half an hour making it look as good as it gets. Otherwise, all is the same...

This spread involved a good deal of body copy, and so it required more attention to the type-how big or small, number of columns, and so on. The type size is slightly larger on the left page, by .5 point. The initial layout of the text took around two hours to work into this format. I knew where the photo/illustrated elements were to go, but still had to create them. I chose the open mouth on the photo because it is the beginning of any process that deals with food or digestive hormones. The graphic element of the digestive tract was decided upon because the nature of the side bar was digestive hormones. I believe that this layout looks professional, and after having figured this out I felt more confident in my spreads.

good news.

final portfolio: to be blogged soon. be excited.

(untitled)

Redbarn Poser

13 x 19

Redbarn newspaper ad

10.5 x 10.5

Redbarn brochure

duplex, 8.5 x 14

Redbarn web banner

3.5 x 9.5

This post is untitled because I have gotten sick of seeing the name of this project. Red Barn. It was slow to start, but alas, I prevailed and knocked out these layouts. The concept has been around from the beginning, the actual design of these pieces took a bit longer to form in my mind and so on the paper/computer.

'Welcome to our neck of the woods' is the tag line that I stuck with. It sounds pretty small-town and so I felt that it fit with the event. It took around 1.5 hours of brainstorming to land on this particular concept, having looked through my photos and noticing that I had just as many if not more photos of people than crafts at the festival.

Once I had the concept, I perused the photos I had taken and selected a diverse group of them that showed a variety of things that take place at the event. Once selected I resized/cropped them to fit in a format that I had decided upon for the photos for the outside of the brochure as well as on the other 3 items to be designed. Doing so took close to 3 hours.

Once I was finally able to wrap my head around the massive amount of copy for the brochure, the next step was to lay it out in a readable, cohesive manner. This process took a total of 3 hours.

I realized after going back to the way that the photos were laid out that it was a bit difficult to work with and looked a bit awkward, so it took my a good amount of time attempting to either work with it as was or tweak it to make it look more pleasant. I ended up discovering that the layout as a whole would look much lovelier when the photo was changed to a duotone involving red. I also needed a better way to make the concept on the whole more understandable. I did so by drawing stylized trees. Awesome. Getting into the newspaper ad and the web banner, I realized that the full tree layout would not fit as well, and so I did COBs on some of the individual photos to add to the design. The final layout process for all 4 pieces took 10 hours.

So, adding it all up, I have spent 17.5 hours looking at these layouts (not including the countless and unmeasurable hours spent thinking about it alone). I am pleased with the concept, but am aware of a few issues that need to be resolved.

Thank you and goodnight.

Society of Illustrators

My concept for the Society of Illustrators' 53rd annual book's call for entries came a little late in the game, but I am very pleased with the concept. I feel that it may need to be played up slightly more in the design, but I really wanted the play on words to be the most prominent aspect. Get aroused can have a double meaning, as does get used, and I used them both in the concept. I used red because it is a 'sexy' color, and I just had to take what I could get with the illustration for the poster, but I think that the one I landed on works well. I wanted to design the side with the information so that each panel worked both individually and as a larger design. So there it is, finally.

Midterm Portfolio.six

11x17

4-color

full bleed

And finally, this is my latest spread. The article comes from the Missouri Conservationist, and we were instructed to shoot our own photos. I knew that with the nature of the magazine, the layout had to be natural and organic feeling. The article mentions the colors of fall and so the trees at this time are wonderful for photographing. I took a semi-arial view photo of a tree from my porch and also a photo of thousand hills state park. There was not too much body copy in this article, which is why I decided to add in the photo on the right, without it the layout was too minimal. The colors of the layout work fantastically. This layout, in total, took between 3.5 to 4 hours.

Midterm Portfolio.five

11x17

4-color

full bleed

This layout, like the last, was meant to utilize the found photo in an attempt to find a concept for a client that worked. This time I found something that I was interested in, music, and discovered a topic that this photo would work with. The spread is actually an ad for the music venue and I found that the repetition of the photo made an interesting texture and works well with the subject matter. I mimicked the lines on the opposite page and added the color from the sky in the photo to the text to make the spread more unified. this spread took about 2 hour total.

Midterm Portfolio.four

11x17

4-color

full bleed

The main idea in this spread is the photo. It is a photo which was found and needing to be utilized before knowing an article to use it for. I found that, especially today, finding articles on going green is so easy to do, as it is a topic that is discussed a lot. Once I knew what kind of article this fabulous photo would work for, it was a matter of 'landing' the client. Well, they really wanted me to work on this for them. I had a look at the design elements and principles and started playing with the idea of positive/negative space. At first I used a straight checkerboard of the photo, when that didn't work I took away squares in a more random order. On the side with the copy I attempted to mimic the positive/negative aspect with the text in the green pull quotes. This layout took close to 4 hours total to complete the spread, with revisions. the layout has enough breathing room to look uncluttered, and the elements are effective.

Midterm Portfolio.three

10.5x16

4-color

full bleed

Another spread. This spread involved a good deal of body copy, and so it required more attention to the type-how big or small, number of columns, and so on. The type size is slightly larger on the left page, by .5 point. The initial layout of the text took around two hours to work into this format. I knew where the photo/illustrated elements were to go, but still had to create them. I chose the open mouth on the photo because it is the beginning of any process that deals with food or digestive hormones. The graphic element of the digestive tract was decided upon because the nature of the side bar was digestive hormones. I believe that this layout looks professional, and after having figured this out I felt more confident in my spreads.

Midterm Portfolio.two

10x14

4-color

full bleed

This spread is left more open-literally. With little body copy to work with I new that the photo element that I chose would need to be interesting. I really wanted to get a shot that included water because I felt that one of the most important aspects of the story is the need for individuals to wash all fresh foods. With the full page photo, I wanted to give the right page more breathing room with about 50% negative space. To finish it off, I added in the top page break line and the lines to separate the text boxed. Pleased.

Midterm Portfolio.one

13x19

two color

no bleed

For the Native American Heritage Month poster, I first wanted to decide the feel that I wanted to put into it. I decided that a respectful, very tradition-oriented concept would be the best fit and began to search for a true Native American quote that would fit well. After searching for 2 hours for the quote, I landed upon 'Tell me, and I'll forget, show me and I may not remember, involve me and I'll understand" because it brought forth the concept of involvement. I wanted this poster to make people want to understand about those individuals who have been living in this country before we arrived. Serious stuff. I believe that with the use of scale, line, and the grid the design works in the way that I hoped it would.

Oktoberfest!

I had a lot of fun shooting photos for this spread, jumped around in some leaves. Unfortunately, I couldn't discover a fantastic way of integrating them into the layout, so for now there is just a lovely shot of the tree in my backyard (which I rather enjoy). While Thousand Hills is fabulous, it just looks too brown and drab at the moment. If I am able to catch some deer in a photo, I will, but unless that happens, I will continue searching for that last little something that this layout needs. It took about an hour to shoot, and about two hours to produce the layout.

Professional Photo-Progressional Design?

More like digressional design. Meaning the last one got just about no attention. I will have to make it up to the poster later. I spent the last two days [in "free" time of course] brainstorming and searching for articles, businesses, and events that the photo I have chosen could relate to. The first part of this assignment that I worked on was the magazine spread, took me only about two hours to finally land a design that I was happy with and then another hour to complete it. Then I moved on to the two page advertisement spread. This design came to me quickly, perhaps because of its similar style to the first spread, however different. The ad took about two hours to produce, which has left little time for the third and final design using this photo--the poster. So, poster, you are finished only in content. Apologies but my eyes simply refuse to stay open no matter how much I know they should.

Rapala

Bait shop ad. Don't hate it, but definitely need some work. #2 will be drawn/illustrated.

Final Food Spreads

These posts are getting less interesting. Sorry. Here are my final spreads, I reshot the peppers and moved a few things around. I am very satisfied with how they look. Total, it took around 3.5 to 4 hours per spread.

A quality photo

Not sure if this will work as a professional image or not. It is professional, but it may have been modified too much for what we were asked to find.

Spread 'em.

Here's three spreads I have found. Fabulous.

Yes, one has a black background, but I really enjoy the left side, how it breaks up the photo and the name. The top one I think connects the photo and the headline in an interesting and thoughtful way, and the middle spread I just like because of the high contrast black/white/red.

modifying health spreads

Shot some photos. Made an illustration. Fun times putting everything together. Need to reshoot some peppers in water, but over all I am pleased.

Food.

I am quite hungry. Maybe it's all this talk of food, whether it's food-born illnesses or not- sounds good to me.

The first article has little body copy to work with, and so it was a good opportunity to up the size of the headline and add a glamour shot on the left page. The image that will eventually be placed on the entirety of the left page is a photo of a pepper, maybe two, splashing into water [since the article does mention washing the food]. I created the layout mostly breaking out from the fold. It may be hard to tell with the spread lacking the photo, but it's gonna be gooood.

The second spread is an article about the hormones that your body produces that can make you feel full. I added two words to the title--"The Secret to Feeling Full (is out)". I want the mouth on next to the title to lead you to the side bar, which will be in the current blank space, and will likely include illustrations of parts of the digestive system, but it's possible that I will change my mind and use imagery of food.

stress spread. final?

As I have been watching my housemates work on type grids all week, I thought that I would use typography in this spread and stay away from photos for the time being, as I am sure I will be incorporating them soon enough. It took between two and two and a half hours to tweek and get the spread as I desired it to be. After viewing the printed copy, I can tell that it looks a bit simplistic, and maybe a bit amateur, but I am about 70 percent satisfied. I think that the balance of the two pages is working well with the horizontal yellow lines (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVrrAP-ntMc), and I think that the framing boxes help, but I realize that I use framing more often than I perhaps should. It's just so nice to give the space depth!

Catching up...

Last class we looked at the magazine spreads we had designed for the article, Stressed out! Let the most frazzled win! First issue is that the headline is set, and it's a little hard to work with. Next problem, professor decides to place the article into Modern Lifestyles Mature Living. This made it difficult to want to use photos I take because I do not have models to use who, I'm sure, are this magazines definition of "mature". This made me hold back concept-wise because I was mostly worried about the difficulties I would run into trying to execute them. Not to mention--loads of type to work with. A few ideas bounced around in my head, a lot of them, though, I felt cliché. The headline begs for some sort of race or contest, but I feel like it may be hard to find two older individuals willing to run a track looking "frazzled" or find a stock photo of two "mature" people playing tug-o-war. In the end, I have begun working on a more type-based design. We'll see.

a three hour tour

forgot--here is my 'gilligan list':

Helvetica

Baskerville

Futura

Palatino

Georgia

Done and done.

Dance:

Words I would use to describe what I wish I could do, but can't because I am a viscom major. I kid. Dance was the topic of this next poster, more specifically a performance of different dance groups from Truman State and the like. Immediately I decided to come up with a concept that would have a pop culture reference, which in my mind would be fairly easy to come up with a multitude of them, but finding a good one for the design would be a bit more tricky. After about an hour of brainstorming and googling, I landed on the age old question-are we human or are we dancer? Ha. I decided that the headline would be the dominant element, as it is a reference that any radio-listener would catch. I took around twenty minutes to draw an image of a dancer whose arms/hands resemble the form of an 'A' and so I designed it to replace the 'A' in DANCER. Overall, I would say that I spent close to 2 hours on this comp. Prior to creating this comp, I had to revise my Native American Heritage Month Poster. I had redrawn the image using charcoal, which took about an hour to two hours, less than before having already created a grid which was helpful to my schedule. Once that was done, all I had to do was scan it in, and place it in the grid that I had created. All of these revisions rounded to about 3 hours. Still have some work to do, some tweeking, but I am becoming more pleased with the overall design.

Native American Heritage Month (yay)

Having received our new assignment of promoting the month of November as Native American Heritage Month (or American Indian Heritage month, as the term "indian" is not really politically incorrect), I began searching for a concept. Dreamcatchers having been deemed puke-worthy, I was at a loss. But alas, I found my way to web page that included native tribal quotes, and settled on an inspirational phrase from a tribe unknown to the site creators and to me. "Involve" is the word that caught my eye, and so I searched for a corrisponding photo. Found one! Splendid. Pencil drawing ensued, and I came up with a decent graphic that interacts with the quote. You could see it--if blogger would stop being lame and let me upload the image.

part three

Ah, part three. This time I have been given slightly different instructions-a twist-for this time I have an 11 x 17 format for my design. As soon as I saw the content for the Latin party/salsa dancing lessons, I knew what I would create. One hour, done. Design elements to include scale, direction, and some value. Rock climbing club, not so quick. So, I do what any worn out designer would do, vector art! By pen tool tracing over a found photo, I have created my second poster in just under two hours. Using elements including line, shape, and direction. Perhaps not my most brilliant work to date, but it'll do. It'll do.

Part Two

Second day of Viscom boot camp brought another two flyers assigned. This time the subject matter entailed pottery and Germany; joy! Having recently seen Inglorious Basterds (twice), the latter was inspired partially by it. Who knew that Germans use the thumb instead of the ring finger? Anyway. I was pleased with the concept, relatively displeased with the design. The Pottery flyer=boring. Mine anyways. The word "fun" may be on it, but fun it was lacking both in the input and output. I recognize that I should allot a greater amount of time in which to complete these designs, yet my schedule simply does not comply. Again, I must work faster. Think faster.

flyers: part one of sixty

Viscom bootcamp has commenced.

Assignment one, given on Friday, included the re-design of some heinous designs that 9-fingered professor Nelson has found around campus. Delighted to know that nothing I would produce could be worse than the originals, I spent my weekend with the creative wheels turning. In my mind. Finally, Sunday night, I felt I was ready to form my designs. I began with a flyer related to Greek language, as I felt I had gotten a handle on a concept. If my memory serves me, it took around two hours to "crank" it out. I later returned to this design and added a gradient to the type, which added just what it needed to look truly complete (and so, for the moment I was truly complete). The concept for the second flyer, though, I had mulled over for day(s) to no avail. It took another twenty minutes to decide, and from then it took around two hours to fully produce. Feeling good, I think.

I proudly brought my designs to class, sufficiently pleased with myself (though quite tired). My classmates were not as impressed with my designs as was I. What's that my professor is always saying, "Work harder"?