Website Creation

Another step towards graduation is the creation of a website, have you ever researched where to create a personal website? It seems like there is an endless amount of sites that allow those of us with little to no coding skill to create beautiful custom websites. For starters there is behance, wix, squarespace & weebly.

I originally signed up for wix as it seemed like everyone was using it, turns out I strongly dislike wix. I dislike everything about it, I am unable to do what I want to create the basic site I wanted, I couldn't alter basic forms & the worst part was the loading screen. I always know when I go to a wix page because on every computer I try it always has the same annoying loading screen with the million little circles going around and around. I ended up deleting that account and never publishing the sad site I had created.

My next thought was squarespace though I didn't need to sign up with them as a friend of mine tested out their services & I got to watch as she learned what was & was not possible with their layout. Behance seems nice & have a profile on there though I wont be putting much effort into once I have a little more free time.

 

One site that I found and simply adore is flavors.me. Not only is it simple to use, but it allows for easy set up, automatic search engine optimization, & the ability to 'plug in' other pages. So this process book is included right in the site & whenever I update here, it updates there as well, & my LinkedIn Profile connects as well so as long as that is up to date so is my site. It helps cut down on worry and effort that can best be spent somewhere else. Now all that's left to do is upgrade to premium to get my own domain name & create a custom page with my portfolio pieces on it.

Expanding My Portfolio

Currently I am looking down the barrel of a gun called graduation. I only have this and next quarter to prepare, it seems as though it's a million miles away and also just a step to the left. Right now I'm looking at three essential step to graduate on time and with the best prospects available.

1) Get an internship

2) Redesign my Portfolio (again)

3) Finish creating my personal website that matches all of my collateral

In some regards I feel I've ben progressing along quite nicely. I've nearly finalized my letterhead for cover letters and I'm nearly done redesigning my resume to match. However I didn't realize how large of a task recreating my portfolio would be, new pieces must be made, old ones must be updated & finding a way to elegantly display it all is turning out to be more difficult then expected.

Perhaps the largest project I am taking on is creating a series of book covers. I created one last year that I have always been extremely pleased with its outcome, however I've sense realized it would be a much stronger piece if it was a series instead of a stand alone.

[Referance] [Smoke] [Font]

The original cover I created in Photoshop with the help of some stock photos and a beautiful type face. I used Bathing Beauty - 1 by mjranum-stock as reference for the woman, smoke stock photographs (used for all of the covers) came from the talented ISOStock. The final element used is the Champagne & Limousines type face by Lauren Thompson, which is also used for all of the covers. The second and third covers also used stock from mjranum-stock's gallery. The final step is to purchase some high gloss paper, print them out, place the covers on real books and then have a photo-shoot.

[Referance] [Smoke] [Font]

[Referance] [Smoke] [Font]

Shadowed Realms Logo Redesign

When I first started attending The Art Institute of Michigan I was asked to create a logo for Shadowed Realms LARP which is based here in South East Michigan. I was given a reference image of a dragon necklace to use as a template for creating the logo, the request was that a dragon be holding the letters S and R (the companies initials). At the time I was relatively happy with the results, I felt there was room for improvement but I wasn't sure how to go about it at that time.

Two and half years later I revisited the project out of inspiration and a desire to see how I had improved. I'm pleased with the end results and feel it is an excellent example of my growth over the last couple years. It has been said nothing is original and all truly excellent artists draw inspiration from what has already been done. I would say that is certainly true for this logo if nothing else, I spent a great deal of time researching dragons and type faces to try and create the perfect combination. Ultimately I created more of a serpent then a dragon which ended up fitting perfectly with my chosen font of Initials With Curls.

One of key things I had to create was a stronger color pallete. I had the one previously given to me (of green and gold/yellow) but I wanted one that seemed more natural together then vivid green and iridescent yellow. I also needed a palette that had more then two colors without relying on black and white to add depth. A little experimenting and tweaking resulted in the following:

Uncut Magazine Final

(This is a project from back in 2010)

For those who are interested here is the final version of Uncut Magazine from its original conception.

Uncut Magazine Contents

(This is a project from back in 2010)

After several weeks work this was the final interior of Uncut which I turned it. All font credits are under the first image as that is a collective of all the different type faces found in the magazine.

[Add][Font 1] [Font 2] [Font 3] [Font 4] [Font 5] [Font 6] [Font 7] [Font 8] [Font 9]

[Image 1 Link Lost] [Image 2] [Image 3] [Image 4] [Image 5] [Image 6] [Image 7] [Image 8] [Article Written by F. Blackburn]

[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3 Link Lost] [Faded Dragon Logo] [Add] [Article Written by V. Flamand]

[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3] [Image 4] [Image 5] [Icons] [Article]

[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3] [Image 4] [Image 5] [Image 6] [Article]

[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3] [Image 4] [Add] [Article 1] [Article 2]

[Image 1] [Image 2] [Image 3] [Image 4] [Article]

[Image 1-5] [Image 6] [Article]

[Wedding Images] [Wedding Images 2] [Article]

[Cosplayer] [Construction Images] [Article]

[Cosplayer 1] [Cosplayer 2] [Cosplayer 3] [Cosplayer 4]

[The Guild] [Image 1-6] [Image 7] [Article]

Uncut Magazine Advertisements

Before starting the contents of my magazine we needed to design three different add types; a full page, a column, and a horizontal. Naturally the adds had to be relevant to the type of magazine we were creating, you don't see adds for burlesque style clothing in magazines like Martha Steward or Cosmo Magazine. I decided to do two extra adds as well to help round out my magazine as I had more pages then anyone else in my class. 

In an attempt to stay relevant to the magazine I choose to highlight two designers and one upcoming event. I included a smoke free add as I am against smoking cigarets and had the idea for a while. The final adds is a really company located here in Michigan, I found it while trying to find something to create an interesting add on.

     

[Earrings] [Spider] [Watch] [Ring] [Font 1] [Mask] [Font 2] [Font 3]

[Cartoon] [Cosplayer] [Wig] [Brush] [Brush 2] [Font 1] 

[Cigarette Lost Link] [Smoke] [Font Helvetic]

[Girl] [Texture] [Font] [Logo Link Lost]

Uncut Magazine Covers

(This is a project from back in 2010)
Every magazine needs a cover and that's just what we had to create for the third part of our magazines. Though we actually had to create several covers for comparison and critique. I based my cover around such magazines as Cosmopolitan and Redbook.

Cover 1: [Girl] [Background Image] Cover 2: [Girl] [Background Image] Cover 3: [Girl] Cover 4: [Girl] [Background Image Texture] [Font 1] [Font 2] [Font 3]

At the time my favorite cover was the second though after the critique and a few changes ended up using the fourth as the cover. In part because there was a matching image that would work beautifully for the back cover.

[Girl]

Uncut Magazine Table of Contents

(This is a project from back in 2010)

After we created our masthead we had two assignments decide on our color palette and design our table of contents. For the color palette I wanted colors that could match the different sections of the magazine while meshing well together. After researching a lot of photos for reference palettes and tweaking of what I created I ended up deciding on a semi changing color palette. The two color columns in the middle would change depending on what the cover image was, only the color not the saturation, tint, shade, or contrast.

Although I didn't choose the four mast head concept as seen in my previous post, I did quite enjoy it's visual effect and the possibilities that went with it. After cleaning up the font (it had quite a few rough edges not easily seen in the images provided) I came up with three ways for it to look.

[Font]

After some experimentations on how it would look best of the page and another group critique it ended up looking like this.

Uncut Magazine Mastheads

(This is a project from back in 2010)

Our semester long project for Digital Layout & Design was to create our own magazine. After deciding what our magazines should be about we sat down and had to come up with a variety of possible names. I choose to do a magazine centered on the subcultures of Steampunk, Cosplay, Renaissance Reenactment and LARP.

For my magazine design and concept I am very much attracted to the idea of creating something that caters to a certain subcultures of the world that are not well known but are strong in numbers and beliefs. The magazine would have combinations of fantasy and anime, it would involve cosplay and con events, costume making and tips for finding props and spotlighting makers of custom items and the like. Also it would have sections dedicated to LARPing and medieval/fantasy reenactment and recreation. It would include patterns for corsets and dress and tutorials and articles on style and what was and was not realistic back then. There would be highlighting larps with pictures and summaries and showing of pensic and the SCA. 

Possible magazine titles:

1. Dragons lair
2. Costume central
3. underworld
4. Out there R’ Us
5. Hidden Gem
6. Different
7. Sub-world
8. Uncut
9. Unknown
10. Highlight
11. Highlighter

I ened up choosing Uncut after a critique/brainstorming session with part of the class. After we decided on our magazine titles we needed to start creating idea's what the masthead would look like. After some searching for very special fonts and experimenting these were what I came up with.

[Font 1] [Font 2 Link Lost] [Font 3 Ariel] [Font 4] [Font 5]

After a little tweaking I choose the third concept  to be my mastheads, the color around it would change to match the colors of each issues cover.