I have been a terrible blogger. My last post was 5 months ago, and I have been so derelict that I didn’t even bother to a write up about the new theme. So I apologize to the 3 or so people who might actually visit this site from time to time. Now, let’s raise our glasses to getting back on track.

Last semester I didn’t post any of my school projects, so let me start by doing so now. In “Graphic Design 1″ I had an assignment to create a concert poster. The requirements of the assignment were to create the poster according to design specs for a local venue, and promote a band that could theoretically play at said venue. I just had to go with one of my favorite bands ever, Flight of the Conchords.

This posed some interesting challenges. On day one I emailed all of the larger venues in the Phoenix area asking if they had any specs for their posters. Not a single one of them responded. A fellow student had managed to reach someone at Cricket Wireless Pavilion only to find out that they have no real set rules. I wanted to use Dodge Theatre, since Flight of the Conchords has actually played there in the past. Since Dodge Theatre and Cricket Wireless are both managed by Live Nation I assumed that they would have the same requirements.

I was able to find a vector of the Dodge logo online. I only had to add the word “theatre” to recreate the Dodge Theatre logo. I found a typeface called Dodger which is a close approximation of the Dodge font. I had originally thought of doing something rather art nouveau, but found it very difficult to achieve that style effectively. (I aim to keep at it, but it could take years of practice.) Instead I went with something more Art Deco looking to go with the robot theme. For the display text I chose a font called fat free, which comes in an outline version and a solid version. I layered the two, outline over solid to make it look sort of hand drawn, like many Conchords posters. Fat free Solid also reads fairly easy, so I used that for the other text on the page.

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Topics: concert posters, Dodge Theatre, Flight of the Conchords, School

As part of a class I’m taking called “writing for online media” I’ve set up yet another blog.

I decided to write a blog that talks about movies with a focus on movie previews. Rather than make my readers wait for a movie to be released in the theater to do a review, I plan to judge movies based on the quality of their trailer. Why wait for Roger Ebert and the billions of wannabe film critics on the web to do a review when I can critique the film before it is even released?

So please go check out my new blog: I’ll be in my Trailer

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Topics: Movies, School

I am a terrible blogger. The previous post reminded me that I had started a series of posts on the history of sci-fi and horror movie posters. The posts were all taken from a term paper I had written on the subject. Looking back I see that I only got about half way through converting the text into blog posts. Once again, I am a terrible blogger.

Rather than try to squeeze another 4 or 5 posts out of this, I’m repenting by posting the entire PDF, here.

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

This assignment called for a design addressing an “issue” of our choice. I choose the issue of the ever increasing control large corporations have over, well, everything.

My original idea for this project was to place a tightly spaced list of corporations in the background with the world “unelected officials” on top as a semitransparent overlay in another color. The list of corporations I compiled was about half the length it needed to be for the effect I wanted.

I decided to change my approach and go with a Constructivist style. In the end, I think this is a better fit, due to the political nature of the project. I selected Futura because it fits with the look of Constructivist design, but is also a rather corporate looking typeface and it has many different weights to choose from.

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Topics: Corporate Greed, School, typography

My fifth Typography project this semester was to design a 4×16 inch (meant to be folded into 4 sections) typographic poster representing a song. I chose a song called TV Set by The Cramps.

This project is set primarily in American Typewriter along with a few words in Franklin Gothic and a decorative font named Feast of Flesh. The name of the band is in Feast of Flesh as well and the Title of the song is in Banco LT Regular. I choose American Typewriter because I think it is reminiscent of something you might see in a ransom note. It is impersonal without being devoid of “flavor.” I choose Franklin Gothic as a second type family because it is a sans serif and provides a nice contrast in select places.

The composition loosely progresses from left to right in the same order as the lyrics, growing slightly more jumbled and chaotic toward the end, just as the song does.

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Topics: School, The Cramps, typography

The fourth project for my Typography class was to design an informative poster about either a typeface or a type designer. I decided to do a poster about my favorite personality in the design world:  the incorrigible typomaniac, Erik Spiekermann.

Erik Spiekermann’s designs tend to be very clean and well organized so I started this project with a few very simple sketches of basic grid layouts. Since Spiekermann is such a typomanic, and because this was a typography project, I knew I wanted to focus primarily on the type. 26 letters along with 10 numbers splits up nicely into a 9×4 grid. This seemed a good place to start from.

Once I had the basic layout of the type, I collected a few Spiekermann quotes and started looking for ways to incorporate them into the overall grid of type. I soon realized that spreading a quote out over the whole grid of letters was not only impractical, but would lead to a cluttered design. Instead, I only incorporated the name and phrase “typomaniac”.

The poster is set in Spiekermann’s typeface, ITC Officina, in a combination of Serif and Sans Serif. The text for the bio is directly from Spiekermann’s own website.

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Topics: Erik Spiekermann, School, typography

Project 2 for Typography was all about choosing the right typeface for the situation. The challenge was to create logos and business cards for 4 different companies that all fall under one umbrella corporation called Proteus. The companies were as follows:

A nationwide chain of funeral homes

My first sketches were for the funeral home. I figured this would be the most sober (I.E. least fun) of all the logos. I wanted to do something that played on a phrase Stephen King has used to describe death: “going to the clearing at the end of the path.” I did some initial sketches exploring how that might be expressed in a form simple enough for a logo. The end result will probably look like a tree to most people but I think it still works.

I considered using a script typeface for the funeral home logo, but decided it would be better to go with something easier to read. I chose Stempel Garamond Roman for the typeface because it’s simple and elegant without being too ornate for a logo. I did use a script, called Freebooter Script, on the business card to display a company motto. The rest of the card uses Stempel Garamond Roman and Bold to emphasize the name and street address.

A theme resaurant chain, designed to appeal to the same market as The Hard Rock Cafe and House of Blues chains

While sketching for the book store and toy store, I realized that I had 3 out of 4 concepts involving a large upper case P represented by some object with the ascender hanging down to “hold” the secondary word. I decided to take a similar approach in the restaurant logo so each company would have a unique identity, but still be connected by this one common trait.

The bar and grill logo uses a typeface called A Charming Font, which I’m assuming is based on the television Charmed. Though the typeface is originally meant to have a witchcraft/Halloween feel, I think it also works well to evoke the feelings associated with hard rock or heavy metal. To solidify the musical theme of the restaurant, I added extra shapes to the end of the ascender of the P to turn it into an abstracted guitar, and substituted a stylized treble clef for the ampersand.

A chain of video/book stores catering soley to rare, unusual, cult and hard-to-find films

I selected Eurostile medium for the book/movie store logo. I considered Trajan Pro, for its popular usage in movie posters, but decided Eurostile was easier to read and still has a cinematic quality. I was never quite satisfied with the end result however, as I just don’t think the film real “reads” as a P the way I would like. Out of all 4 logos, this was my least favorite.

A chain of retail outlets for children’s clothing, products and toys

For the toy store logo I used 2 display faces, JellyBelly and Lockergnome. Both are suitably playful for a toy store, and they are nicely contrasted. My original sketches had the P formed out of a normal looking balloon, but it suffered from the same problem as the book store logo. Instead I just stretched out the ascender of the JellyBelly P and made it look balloon-like. For the text of the business card I selected Cooper Black. It’s rounded enough to fit with the “fun” of the logo, but still easy to read.

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Topics: Design, Logos, School, typography

I’m taking Typography this semester and our first assignment was to create 4 different monograms from our initials. Here’s what I came up with:

	This design uses Stencil Bold for the uppercase R and Hobo Medium for the lowercase e’s. In my sketches I had many ideas that involved laying lowercase e’s over an uppercase R. I found that the ultra-thick stroke of a Stencil Bold uppercase R allowed for a nice placement of 2 lowercaes e’s.
	This design uses Poplar Black for the uppercase R and Didot Regular for the lowercase e’s. I had several sketches that played around with the idea of laying lowercase e’s over the counter of an uppercase R. The uppercase R of Poplar Black works well for this because it has a small counter that doesn’t compete too much with the lowercase e’s. The thin bar and terminal of Didot’s lowercase e’s makes a nice contrast to the thickness of Poplar Black.
	This design uses Arnold Boecklin Regular. The typeface has a vinelike quality that I found well suited to the intertwining nature of this design.  I think the final result works well, although it’s a little bland. The best part about the design is that it is recognizable even when scaled to very small sizes.
	This design uses Hobo Medium for the uppercase E’s and Cooper Black for the lowercase r. I knew I wanted to attempt a design with back to back uppercase E’s, but I wasn’t sure which typeface to select. I experimented with different faces and settled on Hobo Medium for its playful quality. I chose Cooper Black for it’s thickness, which I think lets the lowercase r show up well at smaller sizes.

We were also asked to take one of the monograms and use it as a logo to design a business card. Here is the result:

I selected this design for the business card because I felt it had the most interesting overall shape. Turning the 2 E’s to an angle allowed me “activate” all sides of the composition and integrate my name and title into the design of the monogram.

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Topics: Design, School, typography

I’m taking Intro to digital photography this semester. So far it’s been pretty redundant for me but I love taking pictures so it’s not that bad.

Our first assignment was pretty easy: take an hour to walk around campus snapping pics and turn in the best 3. (Ok, technicaly this was our second assignment. Our first assignment was a digital self portrait, which I did NOT want to do, and have no desire to show off here.)

I was pretty happy with the shots I turned in:

Another shot, almost identical to this last, was just approved on Shutterstock. Hurray for my measly stock portfolio.

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Topics: Photography, School

Why would anyone post a year in review in May? It’s the end of the school year, that’s why. I just finished Spring term and I’m looking forward to a 3 month break. Of course, I’ll still be working 29 hours a week but at least I won’t have 3 to 4 hours of homework each night.

In the realm of design, I’ve been able to build my portfolio a bit via my Illustration class. I do feel that my skills have improved greatly over the past year. With any luck I’ll be able to pick up a freelance gig or two over the summer.

Of all my pursuits, writing has suffered the most from my busy schedule. This Spring I took an academic argument course which monopolized most of my writing energy without providing any of the enjoyment I normally get from the craft. Writing academic argument is like eating plain white rice, or over-baked chicken. You may be eating but the flavor is lacking.

As far as academia goes, I’ve had a pretty good year. I maintained a 4.0, I was honored with an “Excellence Under the Stars” award for academic achievement in Computer Illustration and History of Graphic Design, and I landed a Bethel Ells Scholarship. I also became a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. Not a bad bit of resume fodder, if you ask me.

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Topics: Career, Design, School, Writing