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.