NattyEm's is Live!

NattyEm's Cupcake Company's new website is finally up and running so check it out! And go order some cupcakes if you're in the Knoxville area :) www.nattyemscupcakes.com

NattyEm's Website Final

My final project for Digital Page and Web Graphics was to redesign a website of our choice, creating at least 10 pages. I chose NattyEm's Cupcake Company, a small cupcake catering business out of Knoxville, TN which is co-owned by Natalie Thomas, Alexander's sister. The website should be live within the next few weeks, so when it is I'll be sure to post the URL. Below are screenshots of each page. Is it bad that I enjoyed all of this tedious work?

HUCK Redesign

Project II for Digital Page- redesign a magazine's cover (including logo), spine, contents page, and the feature spread. I chose Huck magazine, a surf/skate/snow culture magazine published in the UK, and got to learn a little more about Spike Jonze.

Making G's

My first Drawing for Design (draw230) project this quarter was to design two letterforms (uppercase and lowercase) based on the golden proportions with a certain period of art in mind. I made G's based on Optical Art. They're done by hand- yes, I'm insane- in micron pen.

NO PATTERN

Last night, Chuck Anderson from No Pattern Design came to do a lecture at SCAD . I was lucky enough to have him sit in on my Digital Page and Web Graphics class earlier that day where he joined in on our magazine redesign critique. As soon as he walked in, we were all surprised about how young he was, and minutes later found out the he never even went to college. As my first classmate showed her work, Chuck confessed that this was the first time that he had ever been in a college classroom, and witnessed a face-to-face crit. "I don't know if I could handle someone dishing out feedback about my work the way you guys do. The only criticism I've ever had to receive has been over the phone". It was incredible to see his talent later that night, doing professional work for a variety of companies such as Absolute Vodka, Burton Snowboards, Bank of America, and Reebok since he was 18. Now Chuck is only 25, and has firmly established himself as a graphic artist in the design industry. Prettttty imspriational! Take a look at his site.

Digital Page & Web Graphics: Project 1

Fall quarter finally came, and getting back into a routine feels good. First project for GRDS 243 was to make a simple timeline about anything imaginable. Steering clear from extreme sports, I chose something else I love- COFFEE, specifically Starbucks.

Summer Summon

After thinking that taking the summer off from school and work was a wonderful (yet lazy) idea, I have become overwhelmed with the amount of time on my hands and the time I've been wasting. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed my creative hiatus, but it's time to get back in the groove and start a routine before school takes over. For the past couple days, I've been thinking about how much I miss sketching and drawing just for fun instead of for assignments... And since my favorite thing to draw is letters and typography, I decided to start a sketch book of my hand done lettering, completing at least one every day. Since this summer has brought about many, many ridiculous quotes and dumb words, I don't think I'll have any trouble getting started. Tomorrow starts the fun.... no procrastonating allowed.

Off Campus New York

From June 4th to the 13th I was in New York City taking a class called Architectural New York. Every day the 7 of us in the class would visit a different neighborhood in Manhattan with our professor, and view some iconic architecture that explains a lot of New York's history. For one of our assignments, we had to make a presentation on a building of our choice in the city, and supplement it with a hand out. Although I had never seen it, I decided to do the New York Public Library and was super impressed when I saw it in person. Here's my handout:

Icon System

Here's my Vector and Raster Graphics class: 20 icons all containing the same theme. I couldn't help but to do snowboarding :)

House Industries Catalog

Here's my catalog for Type I. The text inside is the content of my research paper.

House Industries Poster

For my Typography I final project, we were required to research a typographer, write a 1,500 word essay, prepare a 5-10 minute lecture, make an 8 page catalog, and a large poster advertising our lecture. A lot of work! I chose House Industries , and since I LOVE doing things by hand, I decided to hand paint my poster, sticking with the concept of my paper that anything hand done gives it an edge! Here are some progress shots I took on my phone. The poster is 18" x 24" done with acrylic paint on plywood.

FINALS are FINALLY over!!

Just finished printing my last project that is due tomorrow! I feel the weight lifted off of my shoulders already :) I am so happy with how all of my final projects turned out, and SO ready for a little break! I'm uploading pictures of my work right now, so check ittttt

Sneak Catalog Peak!

Here's a preview of one of my spreads in my 8 page catalog I'm making for my Typography final.... in the process of finishing it up!

Photoshop V Card

Sadly the first time I ever used Photoshop was just 8 weeks ago, when I began my Vector and Raster Graphics class. We had to create four collages based on a "micro journey". My journey consisted of different friends jumping on a trampoline. Here's my two favorites.

Gradient Blending

Here's an exercise I had to complete for today's class to learn about the gradient and blend tools in Illustrator. As much as I dread doing these exercises, I feel like I learn a lot about the software. How corny, right?



My friend Andy decided that aliens would be cool to chill with, but I don't think this one is really my type.

Ride Ride Ride

All of these thoughts about snowboarding just won't stop, so here's a line drawing I did last spring of my snowboard :)

I definitely have my work cut out for me for the rest of the quarter; write a paper, do a presentation, make an 8 page catalog, and 20"x30" poster on a typographer, AND my 20 icons. Not to mention the tests, but bring it on. Check back, I'll post some progress!

20 Shredcons

New project assigned in Vector and Raster: 20 Icon Set- "create a set of iconic symbols that relate to each other and describe the related group of objects/ideas". The theme I decided on was snowboarding. My icons will cover things from equipment, to terrain park features, to waffles from the Waffle Haus! I've been working on it for the past couple of days, and now I can't get my mind off of snowboarding! Who wants to take a trip to southern Chile? ;)

PBD

Got our Type as Syntax exercise back today in Type I... My professor said grades we pretty brutal, but I can't complain about an A-! For the exercise, the class was given two different texts that we were to transform into a well designed article. The article below was my favorite of the two I designed entitled Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan.

Big Waves, Big lungs

Here's another project I did this quarter for Vector and Raster Graphics. The assignment was to take a magazine headline and manipulate the typography so it "speaks" about the article. I chose Huck Magazine and an article entitled "Big Waves, Big Lungs". The story was about bringing aspects of free diving into surfing in order to conquer bigger waves. For the type, I started out with Minion Pro and messed with it so it would look as if it were filled with air and at the same time have a surfer feel. I also sampled my colors from the image featured in the original article.

AOK Logo

This morning my logotype project was due in my Vector and Raster Graphics class. My friend Wes and I were running around like crazy 20 minutes before class trying to print and mount our pieces, running into all sorts of problems. Once we finally had our projects in our hands, we parked the car and spray mounted them on the side of the road, 10 minutes late for class. Rough morning! Luckily I got great feedback during our critique. The company I chose was All Out Kiteboarding ( check out www.AllOutKiteboarding.com ), since my neighbor John Mapel is the co-owner.

The sketch I started with...

Final

Black/white and 3 color version

Opportunities to Fail

Today my Typography professor handed back all of our assignments that we've done over the quarter, and the room went silent. Grades weren't too awesome, but I did pretty well on our Opportunities in Form exercise. We were to use a couple different fonts he selected to make new, more interesting shapes.

The Hartford Art School

A year ago today- Mother's Day- my mom drove up to Connecticut to move me out of my dorm at University of Hartford... how many mom's would do that?! Even though I transferred to SCAD, my Drawing professor at Hartford really pushed me to become a better artist. Here's a few pieces I did in 2008-2009