i'm being good at updating, so you should be too!

soo... here's what's up these (crazy) days...

• last week i went on a trip w/ the TSU A.I.G.A chapter to minneapolis to visit some friggin sweet design firms (you can find an itinerary of our trip here if you're extremely curious), which was friggin sweet because A) i got to know some really legit viscom girls a lot better and B) we were in a big city visiting friggin good design firms... what else is there to say? highlights: duffy and partners, where i learned about using visual briefs as a "bible" for each project (SO GENIUS!). Target's in-house designers were also extreeeemely cool and down-to-earth... not pretentious like you would expect. so cool. i'm so glad i went, even tho i'll be playing catch up w/ school projects for while...
here's my "visual brief" for the (currently nameless) company i'm designing for:


• also, i've decided to change my capstone project from a grocery store to a bakery... i came up w/ a really sweet logo for a bakery called brownbag bakery, but thankfully my cool classmates (no, they really are cool) informed innocent lil me that brownbag actually has a sexual connotation w/ it or something, and my prof also said (essentially) it sucked. so (after getting an education via urbandictionary.com) i'm in the process of changing the name, probably to ALL RISE PASTRY SHOP. or maybe just all rise bakery. or RISE baked goods. idk. new logos are still in progress, which means i'm quite behind on many things these days... and it's only february. great.
here's some examples of stationary sets i designed for the already-deceased brownbag bakery:


• here's another poster i designed for CCF recently:


• and finally, a confession... i've been slightly obsessed w/ Beyonce this week. "Sweet Dreams" has been in my head every morning for about 4 days straight now... how can you not think she's completely fabulous?! lungs of steel + moves + decent acting skills = a classically awesome entertainer and legitimate diva. here's a pic of her playing Etta James in Cadillac Records. if you can't handle the intensity of the movie, at LEAST listen to the soundtrack, people. it's. so. good.


• wait, one more plug: i set up the facebook page for studio1004 this week at work. become a fan today and keep up w/ the awesomeness of kville's best photog! and his faithful sidekick ^_^


happy living, dear world!

just some recent-ness

Here are some things that have been in my life recently that I thought I'd share....

• First, a poster I designed for a campus ministry. The models are two of my good friends. I'm pretty proud of their awesomeness and also how the poster turned out.



• Melody Gardot continues to be awesome in my book... and in the world's book, apparently. She is getting famous-er by the day, which is great. CBS Sunday Morning ran her story yesterday morning- so inspiring!

• Brunette-dom. I had my hair professionally dyed after I royally screwed up some highlights from a box. I've been a brunette for 2ish weeks now, and I'm really loving it, not sure why. It seems really normal to catch myself in the mirror with dark hair.

• airfare watchdog is also rocking my world (and soaking up way too much of my time...) I'm preparing for a summer backpacking trip thru Europe, and this is the best airfare-update website I've found. You can request emails about low fares into or out of specific airports of your choice. love!

• Don Miller's new project also has me distracted from school-ness. He's interviewing scholars on various topics relating to religion and life. You can request a free trial of the All Things Converge series or also watch first episodes of the interviews. This one's my fave so far.

• I'm designing/creating my own high-end grocery store. It's definitely in the early/rough stage, but I'm thinking of naming it either Num-Nums or Omnom... or Omnonnom. ^_^ I'll keep you posted, of course...

THE GRAND FINALE

a compilation of illustration (near) mastery!!!

The following is a collection of pieces from this semester that I feel highlight what I have learned through practice with the different mediums of illustration. In the end, I feel the most comfortable with gouache, and I hope to continue practicing with it, whether for clients or for my own personal work (hellooo, family Christmas gifts ;) This class has also helped me realize some of my strengths and weaknesses with illustration (and creating art in general), which include the following: I neither enjoy nor hold proficiency in creating photo-realistic illustration; I do enjoy the initial stages of sketching out ideas/brainstorming as well as experimenting with different materials. If I pursue illustration further, I want to continue to develop the sorta Fauvist/expressionistic style that I think comes more naturally to me- i.e. drawings made with very expressive lines, paintings that have a loud use of color but also retain the quality/texture of the paint itself, etc. I really have learned a lot as an artist in this class, and I'm proud of what I've made.

book illustration
6.25 x 9.25 in., gouache and photoshop

The assignment for this piece was to create a book cover for a popular book that has several editions and has thus had numerous book covers through the years. It was a challenge to relate the illustration to the content of the story in a way that hasn’t been done before.




missouri postcard
4.5 x 6 in., gouache

The assignment for this piece was to create a postcard for the state of Missouri using imagery outside of typical Missouri topics (e.g. St. Louis Cardinals, a barn in a field, etc.) I chose this angle of a cow’s mouth to reference Missouri farm culture in a new way.




overheard conversation
10 x 10 in., gouache

The assignment was to illustrate an overheard conversation. I heard a girl telling about a dream she had in which flowers grew out of her fingers. I thought the gouache medium would be great for attaining a dreamy effect.




d.m.v. cartoon
6 x 3 in., pen and photoshop

This cartoon assignment was an introduction to storytelling via illustration, as well as an introduction to incorporating hand-drawn work into computer-aided illustration.



large watercolor
20 x 30 in., watercolor on paper

This was an exercise in large-scale watercolor painting.




cheesy airbrush
12 x 10 in., airbrush on board

We were assigned to choose a “cheesy” character to illustrate via airbrush. I chose a Lisa Frank dolphin.

gouache exercise
7 x 9 in., gouache

This was an initial exploration in the gouache medium.

world record poster
13 x 19 in., gouache and indesign

The assigment with this piece was to advertise a world record from the Guiness Book of World Records on a 13” x 19” poster with a bleed.

adventures in illustration, #798!!!

assignment: illustrate a book cover.
6.25" x 9.25"
open medium

here are some sketches, illustrating various events in the book Lord of the Flies.

i'm not sure if i'm cut out for this type of work... my classmates are confused by my ideas. again.

color comp!

i'll be adding the title of the book in illustrator or photoshop, my dear classmates... save your confusion for someone else. also, i'm going to add a dead fly to the bottom, per rusty's request. sweet.


i think rusty was right.. it needed a little something else...teehee.

i also like this idea a LOT... we'll see how the shell turns out w/ gouache and move on from there, eh?

ta-daaa! i went with the first idea. i'm diggin' the dead fly :D

wh(eye) magazine

i turned this viscom4 project in on monday... what a relief to be done!! the assignment was to come up with an idea for a magazine that has something to do with graphic design...
here's the mission statement for wh(eye) magazine:

"Wh(eye) magazine is directed toward documentary photographers. The purpose of the magazine is to inform these photographers of social injustice issues around the world that need awareness so that they may be able to inform society visually of these issues."

we had to design a cover, a table of contents spread, a department spread, 2 feature spreads, and a promo piece. *whew! here's what i got:


cover

contents

department: wh(air)

feature!

promo piece: 5.5" x 8.5"
doubles as a postcard...

ssoouunndd!!! illustration.

assignment: illustrate sound
gouache or watercolor!!
10" x 14" !!

herrrre are my ideas...

and herrrre are my classmates' comments.
rusty said i could go with the abstract-ish illustration of the jazz band instead of any of the realistic ones, woot! i think i'm gonna do gouache. again.

i originally oriented the piece like this...


but i think this is kinda sweet too...



yeah i like this composition. my classmates couldn't handle the abstraction...





here's color comp #2, done in gouache


final version, 10x14", gouache.

missoura postcard

the assignment is to create a 4.5" x 6" postcard for good ol' MO that has a bleed and no text. photographic reference is allowed. illustration to be completed with gouache or watercolor.

the scenery of Missoura is what i wanted to focus on... i also think farm animals add to the charm of our state... and they're just friggin funny lookin!

teehee. grandpa and grandma would appreciate this :)


the final was done in gouache.