a personal design blog

2009-04-25T11:34:00.000-07:00

Another simple poster for a recent event. Every so often an event at the Law School will motivate me to make a non-standard poster, and this happened to be one of them. Can't exactly say why, it just happens.

My original draft went kind of overboard with the whole "dire economic outlook" feeling I was trying to illustrate, which is why I made the more simple and clean design you see above.

law school posters

2009-03-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

A number of quick, one-off posters put together for student-run events. I usually try and spend as little time as possible on these which explains the stock art and typography I usually employ.
It's funny, this kind of work reminds me a lot of exercises from my typography class in school.

trees continued

2009-03-15T18:21:00.000-07:00

This book is quickly becoming a lesson in knowing when to stop, perfectly exampled by a number of spreads I will not be posting here due to being overrun with a number of bad ideas I thought were good at the time.
However, not all is lost. I've been adding detail upon detail on existing spreads in lieu of actually beginning work on the remaining ten or so that are still left.

cut and paste commentary

2009-03-10T10:39:00.000-07:00

I figure an overview of my experience in San Francisco at the Cut and Paste Competition is in order. I figure this mostly because of how fun, surreal, and nerve-wracking it was. Frankly, if I didn't have such zen-like control of my bowels, I would have been shitting myself throughout the duration of the whole event.
For those not in the know, Cut and Paste is a live, multi-round design competition where eight young graphic artists battle each other by creating 2D images based on unified themes and canvases. The atmosphere is a crucible thanks to the 1,100 people in attendance, gigantic screens where your work is projected live, distinguished judges breathing down your neck, live cameraman projecting your furrowed eyebrows and sweaty forehead on an even gigantic-er screen, and intimidating competitors interested in making you look like a no-talent hack in front of strangers, your friends, and your mom.
I could go on and on, but photos seem more effective.

Credit for these beauties goes to Jason Lewis

So here's how it goes down: months before the event, portfolios are submitted by designers with something to prove, then from there the pool of applicants is narrowed-down and those who the powers-that-be deem to be dope enough are called back to participate in a test round. The test round uses the same format as the real event (15 minutes to create an image based on a provided theme and canvas, no pre-made artwork is allowed), except with a smaller crowd. From there, the best test-takers are invited to compete for real, eight in all, at the gorgeous SF Galleria in front of people who pay $15 to watch and buy $7 beers to enjoy it.
Crazy, I know.
It's comparable to a writer typing away on Microsoft Word in front of a screaming audience which erupts in cheers each time a sick metaphor is laid down, and "oh snap" is yelled if iambic pentameter is changed to tetrameter mid-prose.
Did I mention the screaming?
As you can imagine working on a computer isn't the most physically exciting activity to watch, so whenever a competitor does something above and beyond sitting in a chair, staring at a monitor, and clicking a mouse, it gets a reaction. I remember standing to photograph a spoon for use in one of my pieces, and being washed-over by screams accompanied with shouts of "SPOOOOOON!" from below. As self-absorbed as it may sound, and trust me when I say that for I'm a fairly self-absorbed person, it was hard not to feel like a rock star.

For posterity's sake, and for those curious, below are my submissions.

Test round | Theme: "bliss" | Canvas: t-shirt

Live round 1 | Theme: "metamorphosis" | Canvas: place setting

Final live round | Theme: "the naked truth" | Canvas: underwear

One thing I can be proud of is that I did not confine myself to a single style; I thought I made a respectable showing. Respectable enough, possibly, to win the entire thing and reap the rewards of being a champion: a sweet crown, a Wacom Cintiq, and an invitation to compete in the world championship later this year against the winners of Cut and Paste events from fifteen other international cities.

However, when all was said and done, I walked away tied for third. And while I may or may not have taken a day off from work to sulk about my loss, I realize now that I've got nothing to be ashamed about. Sure, I wanted to win about as much as I want to get the high score on my local Galaga machine--which for your information is more than I've ever wanted anything in my life--but I realize the decision making process by which competitors were either granted or denied entrance to continue in the competition was entirely subjective on the part of the judges and not grounded in any concrete criteria (more or less, all I could do was try and please myself with my work and hope for the best). In my opinion, this is evidenced by the results, where you can see that neither of the two competitors with whom I was most impressed, Emily Glaubinger and Panos Vassilladis, were selected to move on. Obviously I feel I should have won (obvious because I don't think there was anyone competing who could say any differently about him or herself without instantly being struck-down by a lightning bolt from heaven for being a dirty rotten liar). But as I hope you can tell from the previous sections of this entry, I walked away with so much from the experience alone and am terribly grateful and overjoyed to have participated at all. That, and I know Allison Torneros is going to properly represent at the world championship later this year.

And for the record, my fellow competitors are all stand-up, talented individuals; they, more than anyone, made it an experience I'll not soon forget.

Dreams of Trees update

2009-02-10T12:37:00.001-08:00

I've been busy with this book. My plan is to have a first draft completed by the end of the month, and I'm trying to finish-up the general page layout as well as the larger tasks and leave myself with enough time to go back and get all the little details, of which there are a shit-ton.

Below are new spreads, as I think I've already posted many of the olds ones numerous times elsewhere.

whoop whoop

2009-02-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

I just found out I was accepted into the S.F. leg of the Cut and Paste competition.
I could use some support, if any of you weren't already planning on attending.

dreams of trees, continued

2009-02-01T11:52:00.001-08:00

I spent about eight hours in the office yesterday continuing work on my book.

I swear I've got a to-do list on this book about as long as I am. This room is easily the most daunting bullet-point on that list so I figured that if I got on a roll yesterday, there was no good reason I should stop; it was a late night in Davis, the first time I've been in that city past 11:00 in months.
The room still needs a couple of hours worth of work (electrical outlets, another lamp, a ceiling fixture, and finally proper lighting) but considering I did the original illustrations two years ago, I'm happy I was able to imitate the style.

cut and paste

2009-01-25T17:38:00.000-08:00

Today I went to the San Francisco Cut and Paste audition round.
The theme was "bliss," and we were supposed to make the design for a t-shirt.

I find out on Tuesday if I made it to the actual tournament.
I'm crossing my fingers until they turn purple.

dreams of trees

2009-01-04T18:38:00.000-08:00

Not much new has been happening design-wise, there are a few Law School projects I completed since my last post and which I need to display, but frankly I've been kind of lazy the whole month of December.
However, with the help of a friend who lit a fire under my ass, I've begun to do work on my children's book that has been in the back of my mind for the last two years. It feels great to be excited about a personal project like this, and hopefully I can get it polished to the point where I'm happy to begin searching for publishers.
Somewhere on the list of things I want to rework--I'll most likely be showing progress as I move along--is recreating Thomas.

UPDATED:

ORIGINAL:

Originally he was far to small on the page, so working at a higher resolution was necessary. The updated version also fits better with the style of other illustrations. Thomas' joints still move so I'll be able to easily pose him, but I was more careful with my selections around the joints themselves so there won't be any jaggies.
I've still got a big to do list for this project, but I can't wait to get it done.

environmental-type symposium

2008-12-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

This here is an identity for an upcoming symposium about the endangered species act.

Amongst other things, the symposium will discuss climate change and the EPA's role in the act, so I thought it appropriate to combine a photogenic endangered species with another image describing climate change.
Detail:

Don't you just love polar bears? I know I do. I also love orangutans and originally tried to use a particularly thoughtful looking one, but was shot down because the symposium focuses on North American endangered species.

Oh well, it was a good exercise in negative space--and clipping masks--to use the same background image on both a dark colored and light colored animal.

nader

2008-11-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

Ralph Nader is coming to speak at the Law School this Monday.

I know it's way trendy what with the grunge effects and all, and while making this I think I may have been too influenced by the millions of Obama posters and materials I've been seeing for the last year. But in the end I think it looks pretty good.

weather icons

2008-11-10T14:31:00.000-08:00

I probably shouldn't be making two posts so close to each other, but I kind of dig these weather icons I whipped up over the past few hours.

web work

2008-11-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

It's been about six months since work was begun on this project, so it's a relief as well as an accomplishment (I believe) that the new UC Davis School of Law website was launched last week.

There's still a lot of tweaking that needs to be done before I'm prepared to call it complete (and it'd be nice if we had more than one listing in the events column, but what are you going to do?), but for the most part I'm excited to add it to my portfolio. I served as the sole designer, photographer, and art director overseeing the look of the site as it was being coded. Maybe it's just me, but comparing it to all the other UCD graduate school websites makes me even more proud of the way the site turned out. Management, Education, Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine.

Without a doubt, the most challenging part was collecting photographs of students, faculty, and alumni for use on the homepage. I'm not terribly comfortable as a portrait photographer (I prefer to use a camera as if I'm and eyewitness documenting an event or emotion, and not to tell someone to look my way and smile. Cross your arms, put your left hand in your pocket. How about leaning against that rail. No, nevermind, that looks kind of awkward. Perfect. Oh wait, my flash wasn't turned on, do that again.) and I usually feel so nervous that I want to throw up fifteen minutes before a scheduled photoshoot.

And just for the hell of it, following are the multiple drafts I went through before coming to the final design.

Hey, given that this was my first draft, it looks shockingly similar to what is online. Here's what I think happened: I was told I needed to present multiple designs to a committee of staff, faculty, students, and administration who would help decide the final design. This draft is what came out after I'd been mentally stewing on my ideas, and I was quite happy with it. In order to appease everyone while at the same time move forward with the best (in my mind) design, the subsequent designs actually turned out quite horribly. Then in comparison, you'd have to be stupid not to choose this one. It's not that I'm not open to change and suggestions (the final design looks a whole hell of a lot better than this one thanks to helpful suggestions from others), it's just that I was confident with this general layout.

Okay, this one's not too terrible, but I still don't like it.

The colors are pretty hideous, and I don't think it's even possible to present a photo this large. The page would take fifteen seconds to load, and creating an image that stretches 100% vertically presents so many problems I don't event know where to start.

Again with the hideous colors.

Really, now, it looks as if I'm beginning to chop up design elements from previous layouts and pasting them together to create new ones.

They caught on to me and said I was chopping up design elements from previous layouts and pasting them together to create new ones. So this is what I created, and would be very upset if chosen.

Lastly, I was asked to expand on my third draft. Fortunately this design was not chosen because it would not work, period. Given web standards and standard browser size, we would've had to scrap all our work if this design were to have proceeded.

Oh, and I updated my portfolio as well, and will make more updates to it within the week.

time flies

2008-09-26T08:40:00.001-07:00

I'm having a hard time believing I last updated twenty days ago; it kind of seems like it was two days ago.
Hmmm. I guess these last few weeks of waking up a 6 to ride my bike to the Med Center to catch a bus, working all day, then going home only to fall asleep, fully clothed on my couch, at 9 makes life whiz by.
Students are back and provide me with exciting things to look at from my office window, but that's about all from them that I'm enjoying; I like this campus better when its empty.

Enough words from me; onto pictures:

I made a self-mailing thank you brochure to be sent to financial donors of the Law School. Last year (I believe I have a post about it) this same project ended up being a small booklet. This time, though, I used a die and lots of folds to create something more involved. More or less it has a roll fold, with numerous panels that open to reveal information about the programs money goes to support.

It's 5" x 7" closed and about 20" x 14" all open up. 1,500 copies produced.

If you're a student at the Law School and you happen to befriend me, I take a cheesy picture of you smiling and looking happy, then publish it as much as I can.

I made this

2008-09-05T16:52:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping busy lately. Apart from getting through, what can only be described as, an absolutely hellish weekend comprised of a funeral, moving to Sacramento at 3am, cleaning house the next day at 6am, and then moving someone else at 11pm; and also going through what I would call either a mental breakdown or a quarter-life crisis (the jury in my brain is still out on that one); I'm somewhat more stable.
I mean, work is still terrible, but I've just signed a six month lease in Sacramento so as far as I can tell my only professional option, beside the Law School, is a freelance career.

First, these three publications came in sometime last week:

I already cataloged the two magazines in the back on an earlier post (12,000 copies of each), but the third one is completely new to this blog. It's a small brochure to be given out to law students describing a program designed to help them not fail their classes.
It's got a signature fold, and all closed up it's 8.5" x 5.5" while open it is sized at 17" x 11".
I printed 1,500 of these.

It's even got an adorable little pocket to hold pieces of paper, like the school newspaper, for example.

And as far as freelance work goes, first is a website redesign for a Sacramento-area dance studio.
Moon colors were used, while light and fancy were the underlying feelings behind the design.

Last is a kind of ugly--but for some reason one that I totally love--t-shirt design for my softball team.

Really, though, no need to offer any criticism. I know it's horrendous.

freelance

2008-08-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

I want to build-up some sort of a freelance design career. For the time being, it'd be great to make extra cash doing work outside of work and maybe pad my finances with an emergency buffer for, well, emergencies.
In the past I had turned down offers to do this kind of work because I wanted as much free time as I could squeeze out of my days, but I think my mindset has changed recently. I want to support myself and this seems like the best road to reach that goal, although it may take some time.

A pro-bono brochure for the fundraising banquet of a nonprofit sustainable gardening organization.
Bright colors and pretty pictures seems to be the norm when you're trying to convince people to give you moneys.
5.5" x 8.5" folded.

"Eating California" sounds pretty filthy, like I can easily imagine a prostitute naming herself California. Buy hey, I'm not a copy writer so it's not my problem.

I kind of like the way this turned out, and although I didn't get paid (it was a favor to a friend), hopefully it will lead to paid work.
I don't have even a sprinkle of business sense, and should really find some. Last time I did work for free (near-free, actually. I was paid with beer), it didn't lead to anything; hopefully this one will pan-out.

comprehensive branding

2008-08-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

The last ten days have been crazy in many ways. In keeping with the theme of this blog I'll only discuss the crazy parts of my workdays and current projects. Sorry, no juicy gossip on my personal life.

I've been finalizing large print projects, and consistently working on the Law School's website, that show good examples of the new branding I've been developing; it's best displayed in the covers for each. In a nutshell, one of the most notable characteristics of the UC Davis School of Law is its friendly, collegial environment and the School's administration feels it best to express that in all media. Friendly and professional was my goal for each of these (big pretty photos of people, bright colors, mostly Futura as my only other font option--Berkeley--is more boring), while at the same time slightly tweaking bits and pieces for different audiences.

First is the all-encompassing yearly admissions catalog, made for an audience of undergraduate students interested in applying. This one's been in the works for months (design and photography, mostly) but the last week has been by far the worst. Coordinating drafts and edits to and from Deans and staff members, finding pictures that no one is offended by and shows enough racial diversity, proper listing of faculty names and educational history, and post-production work to make sure it prints properly. I'm beat.
48 pages, 4 colors + 2pms, perfect bind.

At the same time as all this, I've also been finalizing a brochure that lists all new faculty, deans, and chairs. Nearly all the same headaches apply, but I finished up these two projects just this morning and can take some Tylenol. The audience here is the faculty and deans of all other law schools in the U.S.
16 pages, 4 colors + 1pms, saddle stitch.

The branding on these two publications transfers over to nearly all other projects, the new website included.

This is going to be pretty fantastic when done. I spent so much time taking photos, creating design concepts, and attending meetings with the decision makers that I can hardly believe it's actually being made. I can't wait until it's an actual portfolio piece. Please disregard any Star Wars references you may spot on these drafts.

more recent work

2008-07-31T10:21:00.000-07:00

This blog may be a good way to catalog my decent into a conservative way of thinking about design. I remember when it was okay to let creativity supersede everything else, and as a result the work I made was exciting and I was proud to show it off. These days, though, message, brand, and professionalism trump all; "how I can make my projects look sick?" is often the last thing I consider after "is it legible?," "do the photos fit the subject?," "did I use both logos and the tagline?," and "can this be printed within my budget and timeline?"

Most often I'll use a sprinkle of creativity--carefully edited to ensure it doesn't take away from the message, mind you-- to give my projects a touch of personality. In this case it was a combination of metallic gold ink and playing with the sunbursts in the School's logo. I think we produced about 3,000 of these; two inks plus a varnish, sized at 10" x 7" when opened-up.

I yearn for the old days where getting stoned and working away was the best way to remedy a project I wasn't happy with; now watching TV or taking a walk to forget about my work is how I accomplish the same goal. I want to have the energy to dirty my hands and make something more exciting.

Invitation

2008-07-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

During the time I was ignoring this blog, I worked on a number of projects--some good and some not so good--that I'd like to show off here and try to make up for a five month absence of posts.

This is an invitation for the School's Prospective Student Open House.
Printed using two colors; I think we made about 1,200 copies.

I was asked to rebrand the covers/front panels of all printed materials so that when compared to each other each piece looks as if it belongs to the same institution; I sadly did a poor job of that in the past. This invite uses the new branding in its most basic form and I like how simple it turned out. Sadly, again, I was told I'd never again be allowed to create something so simple and that more pictures are necessary for future projects. Awesome.

Now here's the best part on the back panel:

This type of thing just totally ruins your day. Luckily I had a great printer and everything worked out.

five months isn't all that long

2008-07-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

It usually takes me about a half year after abandoning a blog before I feel guilty and try to make up for it by posting again; I think I must have commitment issues. I'll reminisce about my life since my last post:
I went to Thailand, I moved my office to the middle of campus, I've been working, I watched the entire series of The Wire.
I've been constantly churning things out for the Law School, some of which I plan on posting soon, but my creativity has not been spent much elsewhere.
However, the one thing I'm really proud of that I didn't make at work is my journal from Thailand. The writing could definitely benefit from some proofreading (don't worry, I omitted the entries where I detail all the places I held crying sessions), but I could easily see myself filling up a book worth of these things with my everyday observations. Hmmmm, now there's an idea.

I'm afraid my creative self is dying. This stuff above isn't bad, but I'm never motivated to do anything like it these days; most often in my free time I prefer relaxing to creativity-ing. I'm getting stuck in the Davis Black Hole of Death, I've known it for about four years now, but sadly am not ready to leave quite yet. The job search isn't going as I'd hoped, and out of fear of losing my health benefits (I've had two $1,500+ hospital visits in the last sixty days) I'll need to temporarily relocate to Sacramento where I can find a month-to-month rental (as opposed the one year lease apartments available in Davis) so I can bounce out as soon as I find a good opportunity. I'm not depressed, but I think I'm getting tired. I need to slap myself in the face and punch myself in the eye.

website

2008-02-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

www.samsellers.com

I've put up a new website, and need to refine it.
If you have the time, please please please take a look and be brutal with any comments you may have.
I want this to be polished and need fresh eyes for that.
Thanks for your time.

i made this

2008-02-05T18:26:00.000-08:00

I feel like my recent process of attempting to create a poster and identity for an upcoming Law School event is worth recording. It will remind me forever (hopefully) that I need to assert myself with more conviction that I know what's right when it comes to design, and to stop being such a push-over when confronted by peers who are better able to verbalize their thoughts and convince me to work on their whims (lawyers-to-be).

The event is an exciting (in the law world, that is) symposium on the limits of the first amendment of the Constitution when enforced in America's public schools (think protests about the Vietnam War and promoting bong hits 4 Jesus). I was eager to create smart illustrations combining the visuals of schools, government, and free speech. My first attempts:

I'd be the first to admit that they're not Earth-shatteringly brilliant. A majority of them ended up looking like promotions for a presidential debate, but I was proud none the less; a good start in my mind. The client agreed that this was a good start, and appreciated my work, but believed that I was running the wrong way and needed to turn around and run in a new direction using photographs.
My mistake #1: I'd like to begin noting where I feel I could have done things differently so as to make this process easier on everyone, but most importantly on myself. Pictures were never mentioned in our initial meetings; my instructions were to make something professional, classy, crisp, and clean. So looking back I should have entered the initial meetings more prepared with samples from similar events to run the gamut of design options.
That never happened and the following two samples were my attempts to implement photographs.

Again, good, but not great. I chose these two photos because they were naturally inclined to attractively work well with text elements. The client didn't like either poster and provided me with photos of classrooms that they requested I bleed to each edge of the poster and place text over. I replied that this would be a bad idea because the end result would be one ugly-looking poster.
My mistake #2: During this meeting, I should have expanded on my knowledge of design, and failed to communicate it to those with less experience than myself. I knew, but failed to state that this solution is uncreative, unprofessional, will look cluttered, and will end up with an amateur feel. I was convinced to do the work when asked to "humor" the client and attempt this poster for their reference.
My mistake #3: I can't believe I didn't say I don't have the time to humor anyone. I instead made the following hideous monstrosity, along with another request via email, later on the same day, giving instructions for a poster which the client strongly believed just might have a chance to possibly look good.

These two posters were both rejected outright by the client. This, I believe, is most definitely because of my mistake #4, that I began spending less time and less effort on each of my subsequent attempts. I followed directions, gave my advice where I felt it would be valued, but didn't feel any closer to concluding this project than I did at its beginning.
My mistake #5 was consistently made throughout this entire process, but became obvious right about here: I needed to set a cut-off point at the beginning of the process and which, more importantly, I needed to strongly enforce. I tried, two posters previous, to convince the client that it was necessary they choose one of the posters I had already created in order to keep our deadlines, but was ignored.
My enthusiasm for doing anymore work with this client was now non-existent, so I suppose it was good that I was emailed a pdf showing a poster that they created and wanted me to mimic.
My mistake #6: I didn't quit the project right then. However, in all fairness, being an in-house designer doesn't give me the liberty to pick and choose my jobs, or quit one when things go sour. Without any self-respect, I copied their design, polished it where I was able, and provided the following proof for the client's approval.

I wanted to tell the client how wrong it is to superimpose an image of a courthouse over an image of an image of a classroom, and to use translucent white boxes so the text is legible, but I just wanted to finish the project and didn't care what I had to do to reach that outcome; I kept my mouth closed.
After accepting a request to have a meeting in my office about this, what I thought was the, final poster design, I allowed the client to watch from behind my shoulder and make suggestions while I worked.
My mistake #7: It shouldn't have come to this point, but I was willing to let someone else believe they knew how to do my job better than me in order to rid them of my to-do list; I hope I never do that again.
After telling me what to do in my office for twenty minutes, and then later telling me in an email to change all fonts to Berkeley Bold, most likely because it looks more intelligent, I was thoroughly destroyed. My respect for myself and my respect from the client were completely gone, I was two weeks over deadline, and I had only the following pile of poo to claim as the reason why everything was worth it (the image on the right is the final poster after an impromptu font-change).

My mistake #8:

I suppose I can say the client is happy with the end result, at least they had better be, but I doubt I can say the same thing for the process we went through to get here. I now know how I don't want to work with a client, as I already have many examples of how I do like to work with them from previous jobs, and don't think I'll ever forget it.
I'm writing this simply to make sure I don't.

an attempt to fill some requests

2008-01-29T17:21:00.000-08:00

It's nice that others are pushing me to do more illustrations with my free time just so there's something less boring to fill their time browsing my blog. I hope your bosses are happy.

I wonder how one becomes a courtroom illustrator?

2008-01-24T00:15:00.001-08:00

This blog doesn't have enough posts about drawing and/or painting.

new work

2008-01-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

I've been moderately busy at work lately.
Following are two posters I for upcoming student events.
For the first I was given full creative freedom and about an hour to complete. For the second I'm still running in circles with what the students want, but like this simple solution.

This is a concept for an entire campaign that's coming up next fall.
Wow, I'm getting started really early.

2008-01-07T19:55:00.000-08:00

A study I did this evening toying with an idea I had for my portfolio.

cover letters update

2007-12-18T08:22:00.000-08:00

I had a chance this weekend to take photos around town of my name for the cover of my portfolio.
Following are five shots from my first roll that I like; I still have two more rolls of film to scan, but as of now I think this concept is working well.

portfolio cover materials

2007-12-10T20:55:00.000-08:00

I just received these in the mail today:

Not the cat, she came in the mail seventeen years ago. I've been waiting two weeks and am totally psyched they finally came. I plan on taking a day to ride around town and photograph them wherever I feel I can get the best shot for the cover of my portfolio.
I'll be sure to post the results when I get them.

symposium work

2007-12-06T17:29:00.001-08:00

This is one of the most exciting and interesting jobs I've been able to work on since I began working at the Law School.
I'm still coming up with concepts, but following are two sample posters/identities/illustrations for a symposium about first amendment rights in public schools. I've been given approval to spend a lot of time on these, which is really nice.

A few more pictures

2007-11-30T16:19:00.000-08:00

I recently bought a new 35mm Canon to replace my old Vivitar.
I've been more excited about taking pictures lately than I have been in some time.

The balloons were Viri's idea when she suggested we go out for a photoshoot.

guinea pig!

2007-11-13T17:13:00.001-08:00

photo shoot

2007-11-06T09:37:00.000-08:00

I need to go on more photo shoots to more exotic locations; Community Park in Davis is so played out.

T-shirt tests

2007-11-02T16:21:00.001-07:00

This last tuesday I visited my two brothers in San Francisco, on tour with a band called Emery. My little brother is their merch guy and my older brother is their guitar tech. I had a totally awesome time and partied on their tour bus, but that's beside the point. The point is that I got a free t-shirt (my little brother is the merch guy, remember?) and I thought to myself that I could do a comparable if not better job designing a shirt if I had the chance. So I decided to give it a try and below are two shirts I created for the band, just to see what I'm made of.

Whenever I see posters or shirts for bands I can't shake the feeling that all the imagery used is completely random and is there simply because it looks cool, or funny, or confusing, or other adjectives I can't think of at the moment. Nonetheless it's a fun exercise to make these things and will most likely continue.

Magazine work

2007-10-29T08:39:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on the new issue of the Law School's magazine; I'll probably be doing that for the next two-three weeks, or forever.
Header text for an article about alumni winemakers:

Header text treatment for an article about the groundbreaking for the School's new building; I was going for translucent text that looks like the sun is shining through it.

This process is much slower than I remember it being last time around. I should probably get back to work.

Environmental Logo

2007-10-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

I was asked to create a logo for a student run group at the Law School. I'm waiting to hear what they think, but I'm really happy with how the tree turned out.

2007-10-19T15:33:00.001-07:00

Sick.
1,500 of these came in today.

I love the smell of fresh ink on paper.

halloween soon

2007-10-19T11:47:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I carved awesome pumpkins. I'm still amazed at how time made them better.

I put them outside and photographed them once a week for two weeks.

so cool.

editorial design

2007-10-18T17:09:00.000-07:00

I've begun designing the King Hall Counselor, a magazine for the Law School Community. I have +-2 weeks to finish 36 pages. Last time around, as a whole, the magazine was much too jumbled from page to page and this time I've given myself the task of unifying each page's design to the others.

You might recognize this photo.

I love having all this blank space just waiting to be filled with text.

One of the inside pages that keeps the lined motif you see on the top of the cover page.

Another inside page that is just waiting to be filled with text, once I get it.

The white space makes me happy.

A draft of one page of a feature article.

The man in the foreground is the School's founding dean, while the man in focus is the current dean soon to step down. I'm not terribly happy with this, but I'll see where it goes when I get the content and a real headline.

2007-10-17T17:11:00.000-07:00

A quick, simple poster, using one of the pictures I took on my weekend trip to wineries, whose results I'm really happy with. I do a lot of posters for student organizations and always use helvetica and a lot of white space so I can spend on them as little time as possible. I think they're some of the more enjoyable projects I work on.

Thank You! Mailer

2007-10-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

I'm making a self-mailable thank you booklet to be sent to all Law School donors over the past year. I wanted to use colored shapes set to multiply and layered on top of each other; whenever I see it, I think it looks amazing.
And to make things better, I could bullshit an excuse; "each bar represents one program featured in the booklet that donated money helps support, so when all the bars come together the 'thank you' message appears."

Not to be, though. I was told the front needed a picture and less colored bars; always with those damned pictures.

I am happy with the insides, which didn't change from my original draft.

New Blog

2007-10-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

I'd like to have a personal design blog to post my day-to-day work. I can't imagine that the work will provide daily inspiration to anyone, but I want to display the progress of what I do and think, and over time that may prove useful to myself or others.