Paris poster

I threw this together this afternoon, trying to keep my design gears from getting rusty over Winter break. Thoughts? (It's not finished, I still need to add text). It's a poster for an event in Cleveland (that I made up). I used Photoshop effects to create the image of the Eiffel Tower and placed it into my InDesign document, where I designed the headline. (I don't speak French. I plugged it into Google translate).

Efficient design turns into good design

Just as a reflection...recently at work, I was given the project of redesigning a short catalog that would be distributed at a 2015 trade show. (I work for a packaging company now). I was quite excited about the project as it was really the first design assignment given to me outside of the college classroom. (I'm a rookie. College teaches many things...but it can never realistically prepare you to take your talents into the business world). But the problem was I had about a week to finish the entire thing, and since I don't work five days a week due to my school schedule, I pumped it out in about three six to seven hour shifts.

Anywho, not to ramble on, but I was very disappointed with the results and that's probably what caused me to reflect on this. Above I posted a design that I spent upwards of a month working and reworking until I finally had it exactly as I wanted it...but the problem is, I was given that time as a student and as an employee, at best that time has to be cut in half in order to prioritize efficiency. This is a learning curve for me. Do you sacrifice good design for time? Or in the real world, do you have to learn to change your idea of what good design is? Or does working under a time crunch become second nature to you? I tend to design by feel. I know that my work isn't right until it "feels" right to me. As a real-world designer, do you have to learn different methods in order to get the job done?

Wine bottle label comp-up

 As I said I would post earlier, here is an example of one my wine bottle labels comped up on an actual bottle. I bought a cheap bottle of wine, soaked it in hot soapy water to dissolve the old label, and adhered this one to the bottle with rubber cement (rubber cement, one of an artist's best friends). This is a copy of the original drawing, scaled in Adobe Illustrator to fit the bottle.

Kickstarter Project: Art in 95 Days (Fictional) and some wine bottle labels

It's been a busy couple of months and I haven't had the free time to do any updating....I ended up acquiring a new job, and this second to last semester of college has definitely been keeping my busy.

I've included some images that are part of a final for my packaging design project, where we were required to make four labels and a display case for a brand of wine. I have a comp of one of the labels on a real wine bottle, which I'll share later.  I drew the labels by hand with Micron pens and acrylic paint and scanned them into the computer.

But the main purpose of this post is to introduce a new idea for a Kickstarter Campaign project, called Art in 95 Days. (I thought of this idea a couple of years ago, and brought it back up to use for a media design project). In a digital world where so many great artist can turn to the internet to tell their story, it can become difficult, I noticed, to make yourself stand out in the crowd. I have to ask myself...what extra "little things" can I do that will push my work into the spotlight? I can spread the word over social media, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. But the idea of a Kickstarter Campaign allows the public the opportunity of deciding whether or not your artwork is good enough or interesting enough, or worthy enough, for them to invest their money in. It gives the public the chance to consider your work and pick you, from all the artists out there, to support.

That's why I'm considering this campaign. It's an opportunity for me (after all this college craziness ends in the Spring) to put my time next summer into creating as much artwork as possible and allowing the public to experience what I have to offer. It would allow someone the opportunity to look at something I created and think, "That's pretty cool, really. I think I want to see this person grow.".

#tbt: Starving Street Artist

 

For Thursday, this is a throwback from about 5 years ago...there was nothing I wanted more at the time than to storyboard for Walt Disney Studios, so I spent hours practicing my cartooning skills. Storyboarding is still something I dream of doing one day. 

 

This is the front panel for the die-line for a coffee bag that I am currently working on. This is work in progress for sure...any thoughts? I have to use the logo seen here (for Cuyahoga Coffee Company) which makes it a little hard to balance with the graphics and the sans serif type that I chose. (P.s. I apologize for the image quality! This is how it downloaded on Blogger and it doesn't appear there's much I can do about it....)

I'm starting this blog because in late September of this year I suddenly found myself without a job...being unemployed is not the greatest feeling, but it certainly has given me the push to explore new ways of get my name out into the world as a designer and an artist. Hopefully starting something like this is a link to getting my work noticed by the art and design communities...and hopefully developing clients who will be able to use what I have learned for their design needs.

At the moment, I'm a student; I've been a student for about three years now, studying Studio Arts and Graphic Design at Cleveland State University for a year before moving on to Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) where I took up Graphic Design again, and hopefully will be graduating in the Spring of '15. Though, these past three years are not the only years that I've spent focused on my artwork. For as long as I can remember, I've been drawing, and have spent hours upon hours self-teaching myself and being taught by artists outside of college.

Not to go into too much detail on the first post...I'll leave it at that! As this blog develops, I will share artwork and design work as I create, and hopefully, spread the word across the blogesphere for anyone who may be seeking out quality, original designs.