Nov
9
Photoshop is one of those applications that many people can certainly take for granted, and a lot of designers that have it could probably get away with using something a *lot* less powerful for their every day needs, myself included. However every once in a while (seems like a great while lately), I’ll get to catch up, stretch my legs, and bear witness to the truly awesome power that is Adobe.
Long story short, I was working on a recent cover test for one of my employer’s mail pieces. The copywriter provided headline & body text, and a general idea for an image. The piece had to do with the subject of aging and (ahem) virility, and the original stock photo chosen showed an older couple in bed with a bowl of cereal:
Aug
26
A few years back I got in touch with an old colleague and softball teammate of mine, and it turns out he was living up in New Hampshire and had just helped to purchase a music club called The Stone Church. Naturally I offered up my services as a designer, although I suspected the budget for marketing materials wouldn’t be anything substantial, seeing as they had just spent a ton of dough revamping all the plumbing and electrical systems…
Nevertheless, I went back and forth with him for a couple of weeks on some ideas. In the meantime I caught up on the history of the establishment, as well as what these guys were trying to do for the future. I had it in mind to create something with a bit of a gothic theme, the establishment being an old church and all…
This is another case where I like to say, “God bless Google Images”, because in a matter of minutes from the start of the project I had found *many* examples of stone arches as they related to my design concept. The first version of the logo above used the arch with the more intricate stonework, while the latter (and my preferred) version used the simpler, ‘blocky’ style for the arch.
Long story short, the logo wasn’t used — however I did end up with a fairly nice portfolio item that was a lot of fun to work on. I could definitely envision adapting it to a future project should the opportunity arise.
Jul
16
Sketchbook: JLoGwAfH
Filed: Cartoon, Sketchbook
A lot of material in my lil’ notebook is usually derived from some slice of everyday life or humanity, but the following obviously has no basis in any reality (none that I’m a part of anyway). I present for your approval, the Justice League of Guys with Appliances for Heads:
The reason you’re not seeing this on the shelf of your local comic book store is because I ran out of ideas for unique appliances — unless you’d actually *want* to see ‘Captain Garlic Press’ vs. ‘The Egg Timer’.
And who exactly is beating “Microwave Man” when he can simply melt everyone else…?
Jul
9
Virtu-Health Club
Filed: Design, Multimedia, Web
When I worked for IMP, I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a lot of new product development – not only for the standard direct-mail fare (books, cards, binders, etc.) but for several alternate mediums that the company expressed interest in exploring. One particular round of development called for a fitness product, and it was pretty much left up to the group as to how we would adapt it for the customer. Being huge proponents of ‘new media’, myself and a fellow art director pushed for an online venture. Once we got the managing editor on board and the approval of some higher-ups, ‘Virtu-Healthclub’ was born.
Here’s the home page, guest and ‘member’ editions:
The idea behind Virtu-Health Club was that when you registered at the site and entered your health information, you’d then be granted access to all of VHC’s “fitness tools” – exercise tutorials, calculators, recipes, gym finders, etc. More importantly you’d be assigned a ‘virtual trainer’ who would serve to motivate you throughout your entire regimen.
Over the course of a few months, we sketched out and produced at least 2 dozen Photoshop files for any and all possible screens on the site, created the trainers, and wrote a ton of meaningless filler copy to pull it all together. Take a look at the clip below (courtesy of Rand Interactive) to see it all in action:
As you can see, we had to be prepared for every feature of the site. That meant creating all the various modules (calendars, maps, etc.), icons for all the sections, finding photos of people actually doing the exercises, making up names of songs for the music page, writing snippets of health-driven articles, composing fake emails from the trainers — all this while trying to keep everything consistent and credible for the presentation. Oh, and we also had to think of a possible way that the company could produce the site and not go completely broke doing it.
