Always Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street

Happy Easter, everyone. This is most likely one of the only times I'll ever post something while it's in progress, but I actually would like some feedback this time, especially considering I have little to no direction here. I'll post two of the designs I've been working on for my Earth Day poster. I'm fully open to and encourage any comments, ideas, or suggestions on what I should do from here. I just want them to be simple. I can't be pulling any all-nighters over this thing, so if it's an afterthought, so be it.

I attempted to tie in my brand, too. I'm not sure if it works or not. 

Fantasyland Records: Advertisements

These, contrary to my feelings about stationary, were my favorite project of the semester so far. I love copywriting, matching and fitting text to image, and creating striking posters and print pieces. If I were asked what my strongest area is in design, I'd certainly have to say poster design and advertising. For some reason, this is where I feel the least constrained and able to put forth a more tangible sequence of ideas that usually works for me. I had never done any full illustrations for a project before, and I pulled an all-nighter, nine hours straight just for digital illustration time to finish this, but I'm actually somewhat proud of the work I've done this time. For a non-illustrator without any fancy Wacom tablet (did this completely on a macbook trackpad with the pen-tool in illustrator), they're good enough for me:

Since they fit so strangely on the page, I just made them small thumbnails, so click to enlarge. The idea behind these was to replicate retro-style travel ads and equate them with musical "fantasylands." Each ad fits a specific pair of genres, just some of my favorites that fit into the settings well. I need to do some slight tweaking with them, but overall I'm pretty satisfied, especially for my first large illustrations.

Fantasyland Records: Stationary

I honestly just realized I never uploaded my stationary for Fantasyland. I mean, it's nothing special, but it's the most basic building blocks of my branding so far. I'm going to be re-creating my direct mailer, and hopefully I'll just be able to put photos of it on here afterwards. I'll follow up this post with my print advertisements.

The stationary set included a letterhead (with blue reverse-side print), envelope (with blue reverse lining), and a business card. I'm hoping to refine this stuff a little as well come portfolio time, but this project might get the short end of that. I felt this was one of my most bland projects so far, but, what can I say, it's just stationary.

All Music is Bad and You Shouldn't Listen to Any of It

This blog has completely escaped me. Or perhaps I haven't been posting simply because I'm not entirely proud of my recent work. But we'll see. I have tons of revising to do over the next two weeks if I'm going to have anything to show for myself come portfolio review time. Stress is rising, time is fleeting, and the concept of getting a full night's sleep has become a distant figment of my crumbling past.

But things aren't all bad. I'm going to see some cool bands tonight at WRASfest, a show that I honestly wish my band could have been a part of. Unfortunately, by the time I asked, the lineup was full and set. It's still going to be a great show. HOWEVER, I am playing a show TOMORROW NIGHT at Georgia Tech's Under the Couch venue. It's cheap and should be fun considering the bands we're playing with, especially Omingnome, a Savannah psychedelic band that literally has songs about gnomes and uses crazy projections while playing their set. I'm super excited, and I hope anyone who can join us there will. Here's the flyer I made for the show, with two color versions for some interesting physical reversal:

I'll get some more recent work up here soon enough. Au revoir. 

Holz the Phone

Jenny Holzer's truisms have been deeply affecting me for a while now. Three or four in particular stick with me, and this is one of them. There's so much to be thought about in this statement for me that I end up just getting lost in the very idea of this worldly interconnectivity that will forever be inescapable in our age as technology increases and we become more jaded and integrated into the systems we abide by.

This is a poster made strictly by using type, Helvetica Neue Bold 60pt and Ultralight 1000pt. The forward and backslashes run through consistent letters to remind the viewer of even the interconnectivity of the statement itself. Primary color palette. This is one of my favorite pieces.

Blogging is a Thing

So bad at this. This is why I'm not a blogger and generally stay away from blogs in the first place. I tend to get so caught up in what's physically in front of me I forget to check and remind myself of these sort of intangible things I'm supposed to remember. 

I got a job, on campus, graphic design. I no longer work at a grocery store which is pretty beneficial in the progress away from shooting myself in the face. Not to say the stress will disappear, but certainly the amount of crap I had to deal with there is gone, so that's a plus. Also, I'm doing what I want to do for the most part, and getting paid for it, and learning more about my profession in the process.

As to not leave this post image-less, as I really don't like doing anyway, I'll post a digital collage I used in a page of a much longer experimental sketchbook project that, once I get back, I will scan and upload it in its entirety. I'll follow with some catch-up posts on my work.

This was directly inspired by Beth Hoeckel and uses personally found imagery.

Business Cards

This is going to be a quick post, but here's this awesome link I found displaying a ton of incredible business card ideas.