Graphic Designer
This week, for advanced design class, we had to complete a 10 page children’s book. I was in charge of writing it, illustrating it and designing it. I had fun designing the book, but not so much writing it. I would have liked to have a bit more time on it, but since I didn’t, here’s a little sample of the final result.
Posted in Blog.
– August 13, 2010
Here’s a little sample of some work that I did for a local organization. They wanted some promotional materials for a fund-raising event they have coming up, and they wanted me to use a retro scheme for it. This is a ticket design for the event (which I encourage anyone to attend, it’s for a good cause people!) and they were very happy with the results, as was I.
(Blank space at the bottom is for numbering of the tickets)
If you live in Las Vegas and you wish to attend the event, you can get some information at:
Check back later for more updates!
Posted in Blog.
– July 29, 2010
Took a short hiatus from my blog, but I am back. I am currently going through my last quarter of school, and I am happy to say that I am graduating on September 23rd! I had a 3 week break from school, out of which I spent a full week getting some rest and the other two working on my portfolio and doing work for some new clients.
I’m currently in advanced design class, and as an assignment I had to create a blog and update it every week. Since I already have one, I figured this would be to my advantage and keep my site up to date.
I have a lot of new things to share, so I’ll start today with the work I’ve been doing for Nevada AIDS Project. I’m currently working on finishing the annual resource guide, and as soon as it is printed I will upload it to share, but for now I’ll just give you a sneak peek of the cover art I did for it.
Check back soon for more updates!
Posted in Blog.
– July 23, 2010
It’s been a while since I’ve updated… Just finished another quarter of school, and I’m happy to say I did pretty well. Last post I made was about this assignment for an advertising campaign in which I had to re-brand a company, write up a creative brief, and create some magazine ads for it. The next part of the assignment was to create some billboards, create another magazine ad, only this time it was to be a full spread, and come up with a concept for viral marketing.
For the billboards, I decided to keep it simple and continued to add that bit of mystery to it, to keep the consistency of the assignment and to generate excitement over the product. I came up with a few headlines, and gave them a nice bright color that kept the brand consistent as well as attract attention. As I mentioned before, I always try to keep in mind that an advertising campaign must be consistent, I think it really helps when trying to establish a strong brand.
Next part of the assignment was the magazine ad spread. Not much to say about it, I wanted something that caught people’s eye and once they stopped to look at it, gave some information.
And the last part was the viral marketing. Now this part I really enjoyed. For this assignment, I designed a website (not coded, just a photoshop design of it). The concept behind it was to have a website/blog that would attract the target audience by having information related to being green, i.e. blog posts, forums, contests about being green. This was a way to make people want to visit the site, not only because it was appealing and it has a good product but also because it was entertaining and relevant to their life style. I was pretty satisfied with what I accomplished with this assignment, it would be interesting to know how this would work if it were a real campaign, but for now I’m just satisfied to know my instructor was pleased with the results.
Posted in Blog.
– March 31, 2010
I have a few things which I worked on for school in the past couple of weeks. At first I wasn’t sure about adding them on the site, but I was pretty happy with the feedback I got from my instructor, so I figured it might be worth showing.
First off, the assignment was to re-brand an existing foreign car company (from scratch), which would be releasing a diesel fueled, hybrid truck. The re-branding was intended to appeal to an American audience. After thinking about the assignment, target audience, and the company’s intent, I came up with the name eo motors. Eo being a latin word meaning to advance, I decided to go with that because of the nature of the vehicle, i.e. a new kind of truck, one that wouldn’t be a gas-guzzler, therefore an advance in technology, a leap forward. After coming up with a name I took on the task of creating a symbol for it. I went with something I believe to be a symbol that would be easy to recognize and remember. I also kept in mind to make something that could be placed on a car easily. My instructor was happy with the results of my first task.
Second part of the assignment was to create three ads. The concept of these was to give people a teaser, just something that will get their attention, and get them interested in the product, without actually showing it. So I created three different ads that didn’t have the pictures of the truck in them. And these were my final results.
Click to see larger image.
Next task, for this week, will be to create billboards for it, so I’ll be adding those along to this post. Any feedback is welcome.
Posted in Blog.
– March 8, 2010
Well, today I attended an event for AIGA at CREEL Printing, and I learned about something really cool. The event started with some representatives from creel talking about certain issues they had come across with printing and mailing, and how they were able to solve it, very interesting stuff, but definitely not the highlight of the night.
After they had discussed two different case studies, they brought up a new technology they’re looking to provide to clients, to better increase marketing. Up until now, I had no clue what this was, and they gave some information about ScanLife, and presented a demonstration of the things it is capable of doing.
I was very impressed with the concept, in a nut shell, it’s a bar code that is to be scanned with phones, and provides whatever information the user (who created it) wants to display. For example: The image on the left is my personal ScanLife bar code, when you use the ScanLife application, it opens up contact information, my name, my e-mail, my website, etc. In the demonstration, they showed its use on a dvd box, when you scanned the dvd box, it brought up a movie trailer, which I found to be a very neat thing to do. You can also make it send a text message, and e-mail, a tweet and a few other things.
Neat concept overall, I definitely think it’ll catch on, especially with the rise of people who buy smart phones. I was only uncertain about one thing discussed in the presentation… They mentioned that this would have a huge effect in direct mail marketing, because it gathers data about who scans the bar codes and it helps determine your demographic. Easy enough… but what confused me was that the representative said that the information would be gathered from the phone, but, what if the phone plan you use, is under a relative’s name and not your own? won’t that just provide inaccurate data? The issue to me doesn’t seem to significant, but I’m sure it is to those who want to use it for better marketing. Other than that, I thought it was an overall awesome concept.
I definitely recommend looking more into it, and download the free app if you have a smart phone. So go on, scan my personal bar code, and save my contact information.
Posted in Blog.
– February 26, 2010
A fellow interior designer approached me for help on making his personal logo. I enjoyed the fact that he had pretty concrete ideas as to how the logo could reflect his style of designing. He explained that he was very fond of industrial design, and was looking for something modern and clean, and lastly he mentioned that he enjoyed bold colors.
Sketches
Being that his style isn’t that of a regular interior designer, I didn’t think it would be appropriate to make a symbol that just showed elements of design like furniture, or drapery, so I set out to make a symbol that contained the initials for Benjamin Designs. I sketched out any shapes and letters that came to mind, and finally decided to go with a couple of shapes that contained the BD in it, subtly, and with a very modern feel.
I then looked for a typeface that was clean and simple. I went with a sans serif typeface, to stick to the more modern feel.
Lastly, for the colors, I used green on the symbol, to have a bold color to get attention, and for the typeface I decided to go with something neutral that contrasted the green, so I used gray. I sent the final draft over, and Ben felt that my design solutions were exactly what he was looking for. So here’s what it looks like:
Posted in Blog.
– February 25, 2010
I am working on redesigning business cards for Nevada AIDS Project. I did design some when I designed the logo, but I have to admit, it was definitely not my best work… far from it, but it was something I rushed and just didn’t get quite what I wanted. I also had some limitations as to what I could do with it. (Those will be all my excuses) But hey, at least I get a chance to redo it and show that I can make something good.
The boss is currently happy with the design, just have to make sure that the gray will have enough contrast and it’ll be printed soon.
On a different note, I uploaded a couple of new pieces to my portfolio, couple of print pieces and a logo concept, so check those out.
Posted in Blog.
– February 17, 2010
So as of right now, my website is ready to go. I still have a few pieces that need to be uploaded to my portfolio, but I will add those in a bit. You can look at my work on my portfolio page, there’s a link to it at the top. I plan on actually blogging now that I have a blog on my personal website, which should be fun. That’s it for now, check back later for anything new, because I plan on updating this regularly.
-Lauder
Posted in Blog.
– February 14, 2010
