Caroline Royce Design

It's been quiet around here...

2011-05-25T17:23:00.004-05:00

Hiya. I sure have been having a busy few months, what with getting my portfolio all polished to show to the world and starting a new job while also looking for others. Whew!

Now that I'm more settled, you can expect some posts in the coming weeks. I'll probably stick more to featured pieces instead of doing a post for every single thing I do. 'Specially since I'm about 4 months behind at this point.

In the meantime, check out my shiny new official website! Which featured in great detail my aforementioned portfolio in full:

:TRANSMISSION: Holiday New Wave dance party

2010-12-22T15:42:00.004-06:00

I made this the same day I made the Smiths posters and also the Thanksgiving Eve poster. So, it had barely been thought about as far as a name goes. I sent it to Jake and he said it was fine as is (so I never got to add on the official title--"Christmas Wrapping", which woulda looked awwwesome....).

You know me, I can never be away from retro for long. I decided to make this look jazzy, hip, modern, but also nostalgic and warm. Classic mid-century modern colors are that crisp teal blue with bold red and seafoam green. Since we're talking about "new wave," I figured I might as well make the colors flow together because that's what I do for music. It started to look like a painting from that era and also had some resemblance to Alexander Calder's mobiles. (Too lazy to find anything specific but this should be sufficient). I love the colors. It's so fresh and bright and festive. Hopefully the night (which is actually 6 hours from when I'm typing this) will be as rad. Yes, I'm calling my own work rad!

:JAGER: "Bubbles"

2010-12-22T15:32:00.006-06:00

I got a message last Monday from one of the dudes who runs Clubhouse Jager (which regularly hosts Transmission every week) saying they needed a flyer for New Year's Eve. I was like "totally!" because despite my strong ties to them, I hadn't been asked to do a poster for them before (they do tons of stuff besides Transmission, of course). They wanted something elegant and minimal, that felt nocturnal. He also included a few pictures of twinkle lights but when they're super out of focus. The effect was easy enough to create in InDesign, and from there, I just had to figure out the type. I've been using Coronet a lot lately, ever since I acquired it. It's retro, it's classy, and it's versatile for a script. I liked how it has a slanted feel, so I decided to go with that for the rest of the copy. Plus as one might tell from looking over my most recent work, I'm getting tired of generic alignments. All the type together also created kind of an arrow effect. Doesn't really have any significance, but it's cool.

I also did the ticket design for this event (much like last year's Transmission event), but my Creative Suite is unavailable and I didn't make a .jpg of it. It basically looks exactly like the poster; you're not missing out.

:WEDDING: Emily & Derek's Invitations

2010-12-06T14:05:00.004-06:00

Emily is my big sister. She got engaged to Derek in May and I asked immediately if I could do her invitations. It took quite a while to actually start, because there was some uncertainty about what kind of look and style she wanted. Eventually I just whipped something up and it worked out. She's as traditional as I am un-traditional, so it was interesting to find a way to achieve something that was elegant, formal and classy, while also being modern and a bit hip. Not only that, but this style is a good base for anyone (and it looks good in any color).

I offered to not only design everything, which included the invitation, an RSVP card, and a pair of maps, but to print them all out as well. Wow. That was quite an undertaking. My biggest project ever, and most backbreaking by far.

I got the Epson WorkForce 1100 for my birthday last year and it proved itself to be very valuable for this project. I used nice, heavy 140 lb watercolor paper and it prints like a dream. Archival quality ink, too. I had some issues with Epson a few times, and I'm still a little peeved at them, but not taking it out on the printer. The Printer is a rockstar.

For these types of project obviously it's extra good to have a self-healing cutting mat, a cork-backed ruler, and a utility knife (razor blades work, but your fingers will not thank you.)

Although it does seem to happen no matter what.

Me after 3 hours of cutting out the maps.

Me after 1.5 hours of cutting out the inviations.

After folding, and double-sided printing, and cutting, and lots of BS with epson.... It was an extremely exhausting process, but I'm proud of myself that I was able to pull it off. I did everything myself, and that's pretty awesome. Would I do it again? Yes, but it would have to be for a lot of money.

:HANDSOME DEVIL:

2010-12-04T20:58:00.006-06:00

This project was quite huge, and took about 4 weeks of good hard work to achieve. I'm in the end stages of my Graphic Design degree at school, which means we finally have classes where we make portfolio-worthy pieces. This particular project was a 24-page (I did 30) catalogue on anything we wanted to do, with basically no limitations when it came to the design. It was a good idea, though, to do something we were somewhat passionate about, and had access to images of. I called my friend Nicholas Smith up, who is a very fervent collector of vintage clothing and accessories, and asked if I could use him and his collection for my catalogue. He agreed, and we went to work. It started out as being I would take pictures of entire outfits and feature one per spread, but that was going to be too much work in such a short amount of time. So, I did just ties, and really found no lack of them (he has some 50 ties just from the 1960's alone).

I conceptualized the entire catalogue, took all the photos, edited them, and so on. I love circles, as we all know, and here I took extra care to display what they also meant for fashion. These are vintage ties, and vintage is very big right now. Our society has a way of recycling trends, and things coming full circle and I believe that history is a wheel. There was no other option than to use the circle. Not only to carry that theme through, but to give pops of color to the photos which I decided would be black and white and grainy (a choice I sometimes regretted when I had a picture that looked awesome in color).

It wasn't very hard after making the first spread. If you want a large catalogue to be consistent and thorough and smart, it's actually very simple: make a template and stick with it. I'm pretty proud of myself for this, and I couldn't done it without the help and companionship of my friend Nick.

SEE THE ENTIRE CATALOGUE HERE

(p.s. "Handsome Devil" is the name of a Smiths song.)

:TRANSMISSION: Electric Dreams

2010-12-04T20:39:00.004-06:00

My friends, this is the one that almost made me cry. Yeah yeah, one of my OWN designs made me short of breath. Gave me that little thud in the pit of my stomach. I admit that when this thing all came together, I was blown away by it. Every so often I proclaim a new poster my favorite, or my best. I think this is my favorite and ONE of my best. I'll tell you why.

Jake tells me he has to miss the first two hours of Transmission on December 8, and the DJs from "Numbers" (a monthly 80's dance night now at Club Jäger) will be taking over the first. Numbers is much more synth-laden than Transmission, so it's going to be a synth-heavy night. If I thought my Synth poster was cool, it has nothing on this. Since the night was to be called "Electric Dreams," I wanted the poster to feel surrealistic and futuristic (in fact, Jake said to do something "futuristic" initially). Of course, I couldn't do something futuristic in the traditional sense. I wanted it to be 60's and 70's space age futurism. That was a pretty swell time in design, almost up there with mid-century modern.

Now. I've always seen retro illustrations that recreate that shadowy look, but not a perfectly smooth gradient. Kind of rough-looking, like it was painted on.
Observe the Starbucks 2010 holiday cups:

Anyway. I never knew how to accomplish that affect. I considered emailing design bloggers and asking them, but then I figured, I could probably make a gradient in illustrator and apply photoshop affects to it. I used the "water paper" filter to my gradients and got it pretty close to what I wanted. So, I made some modular white spheres that have no real purpose except to look futuristic and surreal. Without the bases, they look silly. WIth the bases and upside down they look pretty awesome. The wavey colors were just vectors I did in Indesign with transparencies on them. Look a bit like Saturn's rings, only icier.

Univers is a pretty awesome, universal type in terms of achieving modern and retro feels. I took the very thinnest weight, adjusting the tracking, and voila. I didn't really have a plan for the type until I just started playing around with it (this is basically true for everything I do) and when I placed in "Electric Dreams," that's when it happened.

This is my favorite because I fall into it every time I look at it. It's sleek, it's wintry and synthy, surrealistic and different from things I've done, but also along the same vein; it's very much my work. I think it's one of my best because I had an idea, didn't know quite how to execute it, but explored and felt around until I figured it out. It has a built quality that I think is impressive, and I think I used all my elements and the space efficiently and smartly. I explored new techniques and stepped outside my comfort zone (a bit. let's be honest here). I used new colors and type treatments. I think I matured with this one, as I feel I mature with all my posters.

It's simple and straight-forward, but I'm absolutely in love with it.

:TRANSMISSION: Thanksgiving Eve 2010

2010-12-04T20:27:00.004-06:00

This is the big one, alright. Not quite as cool as my last year's one, but still kinda fun and retro lookin'. I did this one up quickly, as I knew I wanted to base it off of this:

but in, you know, autumnal colors.

And of course, I love graphics that represent sound and motion, and circles. I fricken love circles.

I'm afraid I don't have much more to say about it.

:TRANSMISSION: November Spawned a Monster

2010-12-04T20:15:00.002-06:00

Well well well. Here I am again, after an unofficial blogging hiatus. I really should blog as often and frequently as possible. I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on (surprise). Here we go with what now has gone down in history as my favorite Transmission ever. Jake told me we needed a theme night before the infamous Thanksgiving Eve Transmission at the end of November. I tried to think, but he's done everything this year. Then I remembered that a Smiths/Morrissey night hadn't happened in a year, so I suggested it to him and he's like "Yeah! Make a poster that looks like a Smiths album" (Not sure what those look like? Direct yourself HERE).

I don't like using photos that I haven't taken, so I found this funny one I took of Jake last year during a Transmission. Smiths album cover photos usually have little relevance to anything except that they're people Morrissey like. That's pretty much the case here. Jake liked it, but thought it might be perceived as vain if we used a picture of himself. Pfft. Luckily I was on such a designers high I made another one with a picture I also took at my birthday party this year:

Yeah, someone made me Morrissey cupcakes. This still worked out fine for the theme, but I didn't love it as much. This one became the official poster but Jake paraded the other one around anyway.

And like I said, best Transmission ever.

:TRANSMISSION: Dark Entries

2010-10-15T16:58:00.006-05:00

The Cure night almost wasn't going to happen, and this would've been the sole goth-y night at Transmission in October. Luckily, Jake decided to go with The Cure (which meant I got to use the poster I'd already made), and think of something different for this night. Like last year's Transmission Halloween, this one is named after a Bauhaus song. I didn't know the name of the night before I made this, so I just did something that felt like Goth and Post-Punk and minimal. I was really feeling October when I made it, basically. I don't know why, but Futura is a great "dark" font without being grunge, which seems to happen a lot, I've seen (at least with Goth nights in Minneapolis).

In terms of the design itself, I drew inspiration from the following:

Which, when you look at all those, you might wonder if I ever come up with anything on my own. Well, I do. It's not like I keep one image open and constantly look to it when I'm in InDesign. I simply draw bits of ideas from several things and blend it. That's what creative problem solving is all about. When I see something that inspires me, I not only save it to a folder on my computer, but I somehow lock it away in my brain, so that when I need to come up with an idea, I can just open the filing cabinet in my brain and pull something out pretty quickly.

Anyway, the whole Bauhaus movement was also a huge influence here. It makes sense, after all (and I think Bauhaus couldn't have chosen a better name for their band).

This took about 10 minutes and I did it to relax after dealing with a bunch of business-type BS all day. It's great that my escape from work is more work.

:BRIT'S PUB: 20 Years of Brit's

2010-10-15T16:42:00.005-05:00

So this is kind of a cool thing. I got the nod from Jake (obv) to do a poster for this free event at Brit's Pub at the end of October (a halloween party that coincides exactly with their 20th anniversary).

For someone like me (a raging Anglophile), Brit's Pub is a paradise, and I'm always happy to do work for a place like that (who not only PAYS me, but gives me a gift certificate to their bar).

I've been, like, the busiest person ever lately with school and basically feeling like a small business owner. I did a first draft of this poster pretty quickly one day, and it was fine, but, admittedly, shite. It looked gimmicky, and I think part of me knew what I was doing. I didn't have a ton to work off of, as far as guidelines. Jake suggested the Union Jack in black and orange, and the Brit's 20th Anniversary logo. I don't have a copy of the original version anymore, but I kind of made it look 1800's Naval/Pirate-y. I sent it along, and was told to make it "sexier, edgier." In a moment of desperation, I asked Jake to tell me what to do, since I was feeling so creatively stretched.

He told me to maybe do some silhouettes, which I was very hesitant to comply with because I feel like I have done it to death. Instead, I decided to ditch my current fonts, and switch to something sexy and slim, and hell, why not a diagonal alignment. It was hard trying to work the logo in on a slant, but I ended up making work.

If I may be perfectly honest and abandon all modesty, I think this is probably my best typographical work ever. I love the font choices I made, and the two alignments that separate the performers info from the rest of it. The logo is prominently featured at top (another thing they requested) and I still kept the union jack, though smaller, and it doesn't look bulky or tacked on. I feel the alignment (on a slant) makes the whole thing much more interesting but still easy to read. I wish I could use this template for everything. I'm glad to do it for a venue who will display it, and one that I like so much. Not only that, but Solid Gold is awesome, and it makes me giddy to have made something with their name on it.

Stuff like this really makes me proud to do what I do.

:TRANSMISSION: In-Between Days: A Night for The Cure

2010-10-15T16:34:00.005-05:00

This was supposedly Jake's first-ever night dedicated to The Cure, which I find shocking. They're such a great band that has such a huge impact on the night. He first alluded to the night in the Summer time, which excited me, and provoked me to do this poster early on.

The Cure were one of the first bands to do the Goth thing. I wanted to play to that look, since I really LOVE the music they made during that phase. For some reason, Goth is heavily associated with victorian dress, so I made a sort of old fashioned Victorian style poster with a silhouette of Robert Smith (whose hair is really that ridiculous). I had those little vector flourishes leftover from a couple years ago, and figured they'd go well.

I originally was probably going to do something more, with a baroque-style background, just super fussy and ancient looking. But, I think my OCD would get the best of me in that situation and I'd end up editing everything.

:TRANSMISSION: Synth Night

2010-08-19T16:50:00.003-05:00

Finally, I'm all caught up! This is a night that hasn't happened yet. Jake emailed me a couple days ago saying he was doing a Synth Night in September. I mentioned before that I'd had a design all ready in case there was ever a Synth night. Well, he did a Synth night but didn't require a poster so i used the design I'd done for something else (SEE: Eno poster). SO... When another Synth night came up, I felt a brief moment of "Aghh!" but then remembered I'd just seen something the day before that I thought would make an excellent illustration, and just happened to fit really well with the Synth theme:

This is a friend of mine's current profile picture on Facebook. I put that into illustrator, traced the lines (because I wanted that pattern exactly) and used an outer glow effect on them. I then did that with the type. Pretty simple, and still has the Caroline Royce Design mark upon it. I LOVE Synth music.

:VITAMINWATER ZERO: Flourish

2010-08-19T16:27:00.003-05:00

I got an email from local freelance fashion writer/stylist Jahna Peloquin about a fashion show presented by Vitaminwater ZERO. They wanted a poster done, and her description was something "whimsical, elegant, like an abstract sketch of a woman from the 40's" or something. So, I that's what I literally did.

I wasn't going to be able to sketch out what I wanted to by hand. I looked up some images from google and found one. I then used my wacom tablet in photoshop to trace a rough yet elegant sketch of her. I was going for something much like Garance Doré does with her fashion sketches. Photoshop wasn't quite good enough to achieve this look. Plus, it would turn out lo-res and gross. On a whim, I decided to see what would happen if I put the .psd file into Illustrator and did a live trace. The results were surprisingly perfect. It made the lines clean, dramatic, stylish, and best yet: hand-drawn.

The swooping colors were based off of some vitaminwater flavors. It modernized it a bit, and also looks like my work. My boyfriend also pointed out that it looked like a runway. I was like, "oh yeah! duh!"

This was for a big deal client. I didn't get paid, but I did get some pretty sweet compensation:

:TRANSMISSION: John Hughes Tribute

2010-08-19T16:24:00.002-05:00

This is essentially the one year anniversary of me doing Transmission posters. I started out with John Hughes and now I've come full circle. Oh how I've grown!

Anyway, this is a bit of a shame, because it's a pretty poster but because Jake wanted me to use that picture, it's horribly pixelated.

:PERSONAL: Jake's Birthday

2010-08-19T16:20:00.002-05:00

I don't know where I'd be without Jake and his generosity. He has done nothing but put his good faith in me, introduce me to people, flaunt my work, etc... I decided I would try and repay him with a custom poster for his birthday.

Since he is a DJ, and loves him some Bowie, I decided to go with a bit of inspiration from the song "D.J." It's just perfect. I was going for an old headphone ad--probably anywhere from the late 50's-early 70's. It's not super specific. Especially since they didn't make headphones like that in the 50's or 60's. Nor was this song even written in the early 70's (it's 1979, for your information). Anyway, I based it off of a 50's furniture ad, down to the diagonal type. The only issue is the lo-res stock headphone photo. I probably could've taken my own, but that would've been a LOT of work.

:MAD MEN SEASON PREMIERE PARTY 2010:

2010-08-19T16:14:00.002-05:00

Oh I loved this project. They did this party last year and I made a pretty valiant effort of making a poster for them before I realized that it was actually a big deal. Suffice it to say, since Jake is involved in this, I got to do it this year. Score! It's a freakin' show about Ad Men in the 1960's. How up my street is THAT?!

This was also very difficult though. The request was to use the official Season 4 poster, which was only available to me online in lo-res, and since this was going into print... You can see my dilemma. Well, I did what I could and adjusted the resolution as much as it would allow. I figured putting some photoshop filters would be the way to get my aesthetic, and also solve some of the issue with the graininess. It worked for the first one, the second one had to be even bigger, and that posed a huge problem. I'll admit, it didn't look the GREATEST in print, but I know I did everything I could, so I guess there's no use getting my panties in a bunch.

Would Don Draper be proud? Or would be possibly patronize me? I think probably both.

:MUSIC: Summer Breeze

2010-08-19T16:09:00.002-05:00

"Summer Breeze" was basically just another Yacht Rock night. I don't know, I didn't check it out. I figured... Warm colors that were also refreshingly cool. Jake pitched the idea of a couple sharing a glass of wine (second time he brought that idea up) but I thought it might be busy, plus I couldn't find anything to model it off of (you think I just free-hand those silhouettes?!). I stuck a boat in a glass of white wine, and it went over well.

This would turn out to be my last MUSIC gig. Another talented local designer and musician, who is also a friend of Jake's and loves this kind of music, offered to do a poster for the subsequent night, and eventually Jake asked me if I wouldn't mind letting him do all of them from now on. I figured, as long as I get to keep working for Jake on every other project he requires, then I can let this one go. I started it out, gave it a logo, did the first few posters, and that's good enough. I have no problem giving this job to someone who is as passionate about the music played at MUSIC as I am about what's played at Transmission.

:THE NILES FILM FILES:

2010-08-19T16:05:00.002-05:00

Niles is a friend of mine, who is insanely smart when it comes to movies. A columnist and radio host in town, T.D. Mischke, became acquainted with him and he is now a weekly guest to talk film. Basically I asked him if he wanted a poster for this little gig and he said "hells yeah." I wanted to use my Hellenic Rip-off "Hefty" to give it my signature retro style, and did some simple illustrations of filmstrips.

:2010: June

2010-08-19T16:04:00.002-05:00

I made the half circles too big. It's not supposed to look like a pyramid. Just kinda... Abstractly Summery.

:MUSIC: Reverse Transmission

2010-08-19T16:01:00.002-05:00

This one was pretty cool. All the bands I love at Transmission but different songs. I sat at the bar for most of the night talking to Jake and basking in cool music with pals and a glass of wine. I took the Transmission logo, changed the colors, and put a question mark in the middle (Jake told me to do that). From there I just used those colors for the entire thing. Not overly conceptual. Just plain and simple.

:IS THIS PARADISE?:

2010-08-19T15:49:00.002-05:00

"Is This Paradise" is a play my dad wrote years ago that was performed at my church. I was a Freshman in High School. For the church play this year, he recycled this one and I directed it, which also meant I could design the poster anyway I wanted to. I really wanted it to look like an old postcard. I don't have a lot of fancy fonts, so I had to work with what I had. The picture is one I took in New Zealand, though heavily photoshopped to look dreamy and hand-drawn (or however they did it back then). Futura was a given, as it speaks heavily to me of retro style. It's pretty great, and I decided to be cute and put a little date stamp on the side that looks like a serial number of some sort (CRD02-10).

:PERSONAL: Oscillate Wildly

2010-08-19T15:47:00.001-05:00

Old-timey sixties design, mixed with a little bit of cosmic imagery, and an excellent song to match. I love me some Smiths!

:2010: May

2010-08-19T15:46:00.001-05:00

I'll admit, I've gotten very very lazy with these things. It's almost the end of August and I have yet to do July.

:PERSONAL: Asher's First Birthday

2010-08-19T15:42:00.002-05:00

Asher is my cousin Lauren's baby. He turned 1 in May and since I just adore the little guy so much, I thought I would make him a customized poster. Little boys want to be astronauts don't they? And I love Space anyway. I was sitting at a Twins game, and rather than thinking I could make him a little ballplayer, I got the idea for Space somehow. I think something to do with the fact that the Twins play in an outdoor stadium now, I caught myself looking at the sky one too many times.

It's kind of a throwback to the fascination everyone had with Space in the 1960's. And I put his name in the moon, of course. It was hard to get the gradient right but everything else turned out pretty well. I printed it on 140 lb stock with my Epson WorkForce 1100. Beautiful. A mix of lullabies accompanied it. (MY style of lullabies i.e. Bowie, Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, etc...)

:TRANSMISSION: Mind the Gap

2010-08-19T15:31:00.003-05:00

Oh, British Pop. So wonderful, so diverse, so classic and cool. I swear, forever and ever, I had this idea of using a roundabout sign as inspiration if Jake ever decided to do a Brit Pop night. Then Jake told me about the night and I was like "Yes! This is it! I can finally make the roundabout." But then he gave me the title: "Mind the Gap." Which is perfect and all, but it wouldn't have made sense with my idea. So it got scrapped.

Luckily, I love maps of trains; especially the London Underground. I've always wanted a reason to make my own. AND, it fit perfectly with the theme of "Mind the Gap."

I took the actual Underground map and traced over it in Illustrator. It was kind of tedious, and almost back-breaking, but not at all work I despised. I asked for a list of British Pop bands from the last 50 years, and decided each "track" would represent a decade, making each "station," or "stop" a band. Pretty nifty right? The map was oddly sized, though, so I really had to scale it down to fit it in the poster. I gave it a rounded border, and did a nifty visual pun with the Underground Logo and adapting it to Transmission.

I ended up using this project as my final assignment that I presented in my Adobe Illustrator class. Easy as pie, and the teacher loved it. Clean and modern, she said.

:MUSIC: Left of the Dial

2010-08-19T15:26:00.002-05:00

"Left of the Dial" is a Replacements song; and The Replacements are from MN. This was a local music night Jake put on with music. He wanted it to be familiar to people, and suggested basing it off of the First Avenue Logo:

The background is a list of music venues in the Twin Cities. It was going to be stark white at first, but the names of all the venues kind of drowned the title of the night. Although.. I wonder how it would've gone to invert the color scheme. Hm. I guess I'll never know.

:SCHOOL: DAM Club Meeting

2010-08-19T15:21:00.004-05:00

The DAM Club is the design group at school. Every month they have a meeting, and different students design posters for it. I did this one for March (which, I think this meeting ended up not even happening, and it was taking place two days after we got back from Spring Break... And I got the assignment.. You guessed it, right before Spring Break).

Not a whole lot to say. I did this thing with the circles some time before and just plopped it into the poster. I really love it. I just wish I hadn't used those circles now for something that barely got seen. It could be a Transmission poster or something. Meh.

:2010: April

2010-04-01T16:26:00.000-05:00

April Showers, ya'll.

:TRANSMISSION: A Night for Joy Division & New Order

2010-03-31T14:57:00.007-05:00

Here is the one I feel I've been waiting for as long as I've been the designer for Transmission.

I recently wrote on my other design blog a love letter to a very important figure in my life. Peter Saville, who, I've mentioned before, was the graphic designer for Factory Records, doing all the artwork for Joy Division and New Order, as well as many others. If you care to read the other blog I linked to, it would save me from having to reiterate what an impact the album cover for "Unknown Pleasures" had on me, as both a designer and a music fan, both of which are very very important things in my life, especially right now.

I also learned recently that right when Peter Saville was out of college, he asked Tony Wilson if he could do a poster for The Factory Night at the Russell Club (before they moved to the Hacienda), and that's how he got the job. All he did was ask. I could relate to that, because I asked Jake if I could do a Transmission poster, then I did, and he hasn't let me go yet. I kind of think of myself as the Peter Saville of this city, as Transmission is a night built largely upon the music that emerged from the Manchester music scene in the 70's and 80's. Obviously, the scale is significantly smaller, but there are still vague parallels...

That's why this poster was sooooo difficult to conceptualize. It had to be perfect, and I wanted to pay homage to Peter Saville like I have other times. This poster currently is the 5th or 6th try at an idea. The only thing that stuck with me the whole way through was the color scheme. I wanted black to represent Joy Division, and Blue to represent New Order. NOT because they have a song called "Blue Monday," but because their music is such a contrast, melodically, to Joy Divison's. Even though they are comprised of the same people. Obviously, the most stark contrast to Black is white, but I wanted it to be colorful, because New Order is colorful music and Joy Division is not.

Next, I thought about the album covers I knew and loved. There is no direct inspiration for this poster, but I thought something classic-looking was the best approach, since both bands were rather cutting-edge and ground breaking in their technologies and song-writing capabilities. I made one circle out of many circles to begin, and then went from there, creating a pattern, which kind of looks like flowers, but also--as Jake pointed out--transmission signals (Hey! That's the name of the night! And the name of the Joy Division song the night was named after!). The classic type (Adobe Caslon Pro, which has some BEAUTIFUL glyphs), was a juxtaposition to the cold, structured look of something that conveys technology. So, with that, I achieved an homage to the album cover for Power, Corruption and Lies, where the classic painting of flowers is juxtaposed with the colored bars in the corner.

I was at school when I did it, after perusing the Wink Inc site, I came across this packaging:

And I knew that's what I was going to do. Honestly, though, I didn't notice the type on the label so much as the graphic itself. I barely viewed it for a second before I went to work. This poster also inspired in me a deep love for Adobe Caslon Pro, and its amazing Glyph palette.

I hope Peter Saville would be proud of me.

:THE PARALLEL CHRISTIE: DJ Set at Nick & Eddie

2010-03-31T14:51:00.003-05:00

I was sent a message from Ciaran Daly, who fronts local band The Idle Hands about doing a poster for his new DJ night he's doing with his brother, Crisotoir. I said yes, of course, because I've known about him and his band for a while now, and I'm a fan. He looked through my stuff and said he liked the Morrissey and Hall & Oates ones, which I sighed a bit at, because I'm starting to get paranoid that I do the silhouettes thing way too often. He suggested him and his brother's heads, with little ski caps on, since "The Parallel Christie" is a skiing reference, and their whole theme apparently is based around this skiing thing. I told Jake the project I was doing and he said "Don't make it look like a Transmission poster," which freaked me out even MORE, as I have no idea how to do something different from Transmission. I don't make my Transmission posters look like Transmission posters; I make them look like MY posters. So, yeah. I used GeoSans Light, which is a font I have never EVER used before, and i added the decorative border to give it a more retro look. The illustrations were easy enough to do, and voíla. Easy enough, I suppose. It's also nerve-wracking, working for new people. You don't know if they're going to love it or hate it or be confused by it or whatever. I think this has been a pretty successful endeavor. Ciaran liked it and I guess I'll be doing some more work soon.

:MUSIC: Yacht Rock

2010-03-31T14:40:00.004-05:00

"MUSIC" is Jake's new night, which will happen once a month on Tuesdays, and will certainly be digging deeper into artists' catalogues than he would be able to at Transmission. It's not a dance night, it's a "relax and chill with a glass of wine" night. Should be pretty cool. First one is, of all things, Yacht Rock, which is actually a pretty big night at Transmission, which won't be happening this year. And I'm bummed about that, because I had a great idea for a poster. Anyway. Yacht Rock is all about the light, vanilla songs from the 70's and 80's that aren't even good enough to be considered "Guilty Pleasures." I had no idea how I was going to go about this one. Jake helped me out by sending some images and one painfully cheesy video my way. Then we got on the phone and tried even harder to get an idea for me of what to do. Eventually he decided I should just replicate this:

Which, when viewed side-by-side, I pretty much did just copy it. I tried to add my own flair, what with the yellow background. And copying stuff is something that only happens when there's not much else I can do. I had to capture the vibe appropriately, and I'm actually very pleased at how it turned out.

Besides, even the masters copy sometimes.

:PERSONAL: Spring

2010-03-31T14:35:00.003-05:00

The last of my Seasons series. I wanted it to be round, since Summer took squares and Winter took polygons. I was thinking mostly about Cherry Blossom trees. They smell amazing and heavenly and always bloom about late April/early May. Can't wait for it.

:TRANSMISSION: Damn Right, It's Hall & Oates Night

2010-03-31T14:32:00.003-05:00

I know next to nothing about Hall & Oates. They're largely a "guilty pleasure." Jake got in the mood, though, I guess, and he gave me the assignment. Something "not too overworked," as it would only be in the public view for less than a week, and he LOVES the floating silhouettes I do, and as I've pointed out to him, it only works when it's with a recognizable figure. Luckily, Hall & Oates are just distinctive enough. It was an easy-enough poster to make, and I got an "OMG" from him. Hall's hair amuses me greatly.

As for the night itself, it was fun as hell. And I probably never would have admitted to liking them before, but at the moment I can't get enough. Jake is making me a mix.

LOLZ.

:PERSONAL: Hipster Jobs

2010-03-31T14:27:00.003-05:00

It seems I haven't done a "Personal" project in a while. This was inspired after hanging out with my friend Kat at her work, which is a vintage clothing store. Recently we noticed that more and more people were calling and asking if they were hiring. I just thought, "in this economy, of all the places to be hiring, I would think a Vintage Store would be the least likely." So we brainstormed a bit and thought about other places Hipsters were likely to go to for employment that are definitely not hiring. I felt that I had to get Indie Cinemas in there, so I had to make a four part venn diagram, instead of three. Also without it, it wouldn't have worked out. Hopefully people can sense the tongue-in-cheekness of it, and I should point out that I am an unemployed Hipster too. Of course, I'm smart enough to know where NOT to look for employment, but still.

:THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE SOCIETY: Quadrophenia

2010-03-31T14:20:00.004-05:00

For the third installment of The Midnight Movie Society, it was held at a different venue, and showed Quadrophenia. Hadn't heard of it before, but after some light research on google images, I gathered that it's a film about Mods and Mod culture. I LOVE Mods! I would consider myself a faux-Mod, sans scooter and mini skirt. Anyway.

The big thing seemed to be the scooter, and from a few other things I saw around there, it was about the nitty-gritty of English suburbia, about rebellion and what-not. Mods were just the precursors to Punk. So, I threw in a crumpled up paper texture to give it a weathered look. The Mod bullseye was a given, and I did a live trace in Illustrator for the scooter. It wasn't my intention initially to show only part of the bike, but when I placed it into Indesign, it came that way, so it stuck. I opted to do a white poster instead of the black frame I did for the other two (different venue, different style). Much easier with small type, as in print, this was 3.75" wide.

:TRANSMISSION: 3rd Year Anniversary @ Club Jäger

2010-03-13T01:24:00.005-06:00

Holy change-of-pace, Batman! Here's something quite unexpected from me. Wacky alignments, for starters. Big type treatments. I pulled my aesthetic, momentarily, about 30-40 years back.

I'm not going to say I tire of the more modern, 1960s bauhaus approach, I just feel that after a while, people will start to think that's all I'm capable of (and I'm not). And I wanted to see if I could channel an entirely different era of design, while still putting my stamp all over it.

So, I get the message from Jake that Transmission's anniversary with Jager is coming up, and he threw out a few ideas, one of them being "having a big 3," and immediately I knew what I was going to do.

See, I never sketch thumbnails. Never ever ever. I've also never met a designer or teacher who implores you to do thumbnail sketches, because they speed up your process. Well bollocks to that. This is how I design:

1. Get a subject
2. Create the design in my head
3. Execute design in Adobe programs, generating ideas as I go.

I'm a fast worker, especially in InDesign, so I find thumbnail sketches, really, to be a waste of energy. Plus I can never be as precise as I want.

(I will admit that one time thumbnails did get me on track to a great design, but that was in school, and I was required to sketch)

Anyway, last week I was really digging early soviet designs, constructivism, and Bauhaus design. So, I was like yeah, I'm going to do this all angle-y and what-not. Big 3, since that was the main point, and then just playing with alignments, and throwing in some lines.

See HERE for my inspiration. It's a New Order sleeve, but it's ACTUALLY a design by Depero Fortunato, a big name in the Italian Futurism movement.

I made this poster in 20 minutes, because of a couple reasons:

1. That's how I work, and
2. I collect inspiration daily, so I didn't even have to go looking for any. It was there, and ready.

{Tip for designers: Always be curious, always be looking for inspiration. Nothing in this world is new, nothing is original. In order to be creative, you need to steal creatively. Learn about other eras, about the importance of certain design movements. Collect, collect, collect. I have a folder on my computer of more than 500 images, all designs that I've collected, just whatever catches my eye. You can't imagine how much they've helped me.

For more on how my collection process works, see HERE. }

Jake ended up finding a few more reasons why the poster worked for a night (apart from it being based on a New Order sleeve), which was that it was reminiscent of a few other bands that employed the similar style. He also correctly identified that it was 1920's/socialist/propaganda influenced.

:2010: March

2010-03-13T01:21:00.003-06:00

Muddy, muted colors, but with promise of spring to come.

:KING'S WINE BAR: Celebrating Eno

2010-03-13T01:14:00.003-06:00

This one was definitely months in the making--without me even realizing it.

See back in the month of October I went through this phase where I was perfecting the craft of colored lines. The color strategy I originally had with this one went towards the Across The Board poster.

This started out as a fake Transmission poster. I thought if he ever had a Synth night coming up, I could use this scheme, because the lines are abstract and expressive, ambient, but also somewhat cold and technical--much like synth music is. The grey background and thin Futura type were also the same. Then this Brian Eno night came up (and a Synth night at Transmission DID happen, but there was not official enough for a poster).

Brian Eno is like, the godfather of Synthesizer music. He revolutionized it. I remember listening to an interview with him (also back in October) on the radio, where he talked about the Synthesizer being 1 of only 2 reasons he was able to get involved in the music industry (the other being the recording studio). I knew when Jake handed me this assignment, I already had my design pre-meditated, and all I needed to do was fill in the blanks. I think for anyone who knows anything about Brian Eno, they will see how this poster captures his essence perfectly.

:BRIT'S PUB: We Can Work It Out

2010-03-13T01:05:00.002-06:00

I actually made this for Jake, not Brit's Pub officially (I just didn't know how to categorize it!). Basically, this sounded like the funnest night ever, and I was gutted I was not going to be able to attend.

The Beatles are by far the most important thing in my life EVER, so I was stoked I got to do a poster with them. Jake suggested maybe some mop tops, and from there I came up with this concept. It made me realize how much I actually suck at Illustrator. I don't do Live Trace, so the illustrations were done by hand, but, in the spirit of those Swinging Sixties, which was appropriate. I made their instruments into little Rock Band controllers, and finished it out with a sassy Union Jack. At first I really liked the textured background, but now I find it a little much. My thinking was an old poster you might've seen back in the day when the lads were playing a small club gig... Back before they became the biggest band ever.

Then this got put in vita.mn, but someone (I don't know who), made a whole lot of edits to it, which I was not too happy to see.

:THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE SOCIETY: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

2010-03-13T01:04:00.002-06:00

Part II in the series. Concept was about 100x easier to come up with and execute in contrast to the previous one...

:2010: February

2010-03-13T01:00:00.003-06:00

I guess I went a bit gimmicky with this one. It's a heart, see?
(I'm playing catch-up, as you can see)

:2010: January

2010-01-16T19:23:00.003-06:00

The first month of my 2010 calendar series. I'd like to think that each month will have a similar geometrical feel, but I'm going to do them as they come along, so it might actually be interesting to see how I evolve over the year. Stay tuned.

(The typeface is a custom type treatment I did on Helvetica Neue UltraLight)

:ILLUSTRATION: Jake's Christmas Card

2010-01-16T19:19:00.002-06:00

I made a Christmas Card that I was going to send out to everybody, but I also wanted to make something special for Jake, to show him how grateful I was for all the work he gave me in 2009 and also show my appreciation for Transmission (seriously, I love it down there). So, knowing he is a man of tastes that lie very heavily in the Mid-Century Modern era, I threw this little guy together. It evokes the 1960's AND Christmas. I love it, and he said it was beautiful. Luckily we both are fans of that time period. I'm glad it was a success, because as I just mentioned, I'm a beginner at illustration, and I had very little reference.

:ILLUSTRATION: Kat's Birthday

2010-01-16T19:12:00.004-06:00

So, I mentioned in my other blog that I've been taking a lot of inspiration from illustration in the 1960s lately. I love the imperfection and hand-drawn quality of it. Plus it's fun. My best friend Kat's birthday was in the middle of December, and I knew I had to make something special and custom. I thought I could try to do some fancy typography on a card, but what would I write? I figured this was easier, because she's quite a big personality with lots of colorful clothing (pretty much the opposite of me). Plus we both love Retro. I drew this up, and the only thing I did wrong was the legs. They're kinda shapeless, but I'm still not very experienced in my illustrations.

For this I took a lot of inspiration from Shag.

I think she liked it.

:TRANSMISSION: Bowie Birthday Bash

2010-01-16T19:06:00.002-06:00

Across the Board and Transmission are somewhat related in that the two DJs are friends AND they're both heavily influenced by David Bowie. Jake's favorite persona is Thin White Duke Bowie, and he wanted something simple and sexy for this poster. I was a little sad because I wanted to do something with space (yeah okay, I just love that stuff), but it didn't matter. I used ITC Avant Garde (duh) and a picture given to me by DJ SLT. I don't really like using pictures anymore because I feel it limits my creativity. It's too easy to stick an image in a design. I like challenging myself with illustration or vector shapes. Whatever, it's not my poster, it's Jake's. I used the lightest weight of font for this poster, since I was evoking the "thin" white duke. Once I found the right alignment, it was simple after that. I used a crumpled paper texture for the background, which I now regret. Overall, not my best or proudest work, but it could be worse. The most important thing is, Jake loved it.

:ACROSS THE BOARD: Bowie Show

2010-01-16T19:00:00.002-06:00

I was tapped once again to do a poster for Across the Board's annual 5-hour David Bowie Birthday Show. I went out this I did with the original ATB poster; heavy cosmic influence. I think my favorite motif of Bowie's is the whole celestial-being thing. So, I try to play that up as much as I can (it's also a big reason for the Space Oddity poster). Plus, the program is in the middle of the night. I used my Bowie font and the starry background, along with a photo that the DJ actually owns. It was a matter of trial and error as to what to do with the photo. I applied a simple filter on it, and it turned out to be the best thing I could've done. It was a fairly straight forward poster to do, and I'm very fond of it.

:TRANSMISSION: The Smiths/ Morrissey night

2010-01-15T11:36:00.002-06:00

You've perhaps noticed from other personal works of mine that I LOVE The Smiths, and equally so, Morrissey. So, I was waiting for this night for a while.

Morrissey, as an image, is a very inspiring shape. I love his hair and glasses, and I'm constantly illustrating him. Seriously. The hair. I love it. I had the illustration already when I got the assignment, so I simply stuck in a serif font to recall the album cover from The Queen is Dead. Very simple stuff. I did worry momentarily about the amount of literal white space, but then I had to remind myself that having such a stark image such as Morrissey was impact enough. And it got me quite a bit of notice, too. Thanks Moz, you always come through for me.

:PERSONAL: The Seasons

2010-01-15T11:29:00.002-06:00

This is an ongoing thing, and I'm actually surprised I haven't put anything up about it yet. The Summer segment originally started it out, and it was very much inspired by THIS design by Rudolph De Harak. After that I decided to do something each season, and each time a little different. The Autumn one is so far the most different (I haven't decided why Spring will be like yet), and usually they reflect my current mood. I did Summer in PS, Autumn in Illustrator, and Winter in Indesign. I'm not sure why. If you were to ask me which is my favorite, I'd say Winter.

:TRANSMISSION: New Year's Eve

2010-01-15T11:16:00.005-06:00

This one was both easy and hard. Sort of fun, but also stressful. I had been thinking about the New Year's for a while, and how I wanted to use a circle (seriously, I love circles) because of the ball in Times Square. It's a near-universal event that's associated with New Year's Eve. Next, I wanted to pay homage to a graphic designer that has influenced me many times, and was also part of a scene that Transmission is very much based upon, Peter Saville.

The main graphic is almost stolen directly from this. I didn't make it quite as geometrically immaculate, but it works either way. Really the only direction I got from Jake was to use the Transmission logo, which I incorporated into the colorful graphic. I used Helvetica Bold, obv. There are 12 colors used, for 12 months, and the gap is supposed to be December 31. Obviously nobody is supposed to deduce that just from looking at it, but it's there, and it's purposeful. At least I can't be accused of not thinking it out.

I think maybe it was a bit risky to make it so, so simple, especially for a big glitzy night. To be sure, it was met with some hesitation, and the whole thing was almost scrapped, but I was very insistent, and possibly even a little diva. I wanted this to work, and eventually I was able to submit this as my final design. I haven't yet heard anything negative about it, so I'm hoping that it's (still) a good design. I think if I had sat on it longer, I could've come up with something that was still in this vein, but with even more visual impact. I've actually thought of a few things that I could've done, too. Another time, another time.

ALSO I designed the ticket for the event. Another reason I really fought for my original design was because it went so well on the ticket:

:PERSONAL: Golden Years

2010-01-15T11:13:00.003-06:00

Golden Years is such a great song. And I always reserve ITC Avant Garde for anything Bowie.

:TRANSMISSION: Thanksgiving Eve

2010-01-15T11:07:00.003-06:00

I'm a bit behind, it's true. I think this might be my favorite Transmission poster that I've done. It's simple, modern, clean and striking. And it makes sense. Quick description:

The UK band The Big Pink were going to be Guest DJ-ing for the last hour and Jake wanted that to be the focus of the poster. Without making anything too obvious, I decided to use circles (because I love circles) to visualize a turn table (with a BIG PINK circle in the middle). It's also very modern, kinda like a marshmallow couch. I'm also a bit in love with my continuation of the pink circle in all the O's. Yeah okay, so I'm a bit in love with my whole design. Am I wrong?

:PERSONAL: How to Dress like Me

2010-01-15T11:00:00.003-06:00

I must qualify the fact that I am a bit vain. I love the way I dress, even though it is often very simple and casual. Lots of black and grey. BUT my outfits are picked with purpose, and always coordinated. One day I felt like it was necessary to give a rundown of my essential uniform, so I illustrated this little guy and decided to get cheeky. I like my clothes.

:PERSONAL: Everyday is like Sunday

2010-01-15T10:59:00.001-06:00

Morrissey. Enough said.

:THE MIDNIGHT MOVIE SOCIETY: Clue

2010-01-15T10:35:00.003-06:00

The Midnight Movie Society was formed by Jake Rudh (DJ at Transmission) and Vita.MN (the weekly magazine of the Minneapolis Star Tribune). Apparently they had a graphic designer but didn't like the direction so they tapped me. Me! The Star Tribune is the biggest Newspaper in the midwest, and there are hundreds of designers in the city, and I got a personal call. It's not such a bad thing.

But, about the work. I was given about 24 hours to complete this. Probably the first time I've had such a strict deadline. Luckily, I know a lot about the movie Clue. But it was hard as hell to come up with a concept. The only piece of art direction I got really was to base it off the Original Movie Poster. And, as it turns out, I love colored lines. There really wasn't much to go off of in the way of stock images, and I WAS getting paid for this, so I knew I had to create my own art. I went about tediously tracing lo-res stock images. I wasn't worried about perfection because where do I take inspiration from? The 60s. And what is so great about 60s illustration? It's imperfect and non-complex. Next, the lines. At first they were going every-which-way and when I submitted it there was a suggestion to make them all lead to the title, and possibly with little weapons on them. I originally thought about doing something with the weapons, but then I didn't. Anyway, with about 30 minutes to the deadline, and with a rapidly dying computer battery, I was lucky to find an illustration online of the Clue weapons and I did a livetrace in Illustrator. This is the finished product. I'm proud of it, but at the same time, sick of looking at it. It was published in several issues of vita.mn and I got a nice little sum; my first paid gig! It was a very hard, very stressful project. I'd never felt so much pressure to do well. Tears were shed for sure. Thanks to Jake for continuing to have faith in me and get me work!

:PERSONAL: There is a light...

2009-11-04T01:00:00.002-06:00

I. Love. The Smiths. And this is one of my favorite songs of all time. I could listen to it for days at a time. I combined my love of all things British with this set of lyrics. I think subconsciously it was inspired loosely by this. I can't say a lot about this. It was pretty quick (again to avoid homework), but there's still a lot of love in there. Also, I don't know how, but it seems to be one hell of a popular piece on my Flickr page. That's actually good, because I made this with people like me in mind, who'd just loooove to buy a print of this and put it in a cute little frame. Once I get THIS, I'll be able to start a little business.

Stay tuned.

:PERSONAL: Thursday Afternoon

2009-11-04T00:58:00.003-06:00

Lately all my good work has been borne out of an avoidance of homework. Hm. I wonder what will happen when I'm done with school. Luckily, the end isn't anywhere near, so I'm good for now.
My work station is situated in front of a big window, where I can see from our 3rd floor apartment. On Thursday it was a miserably cold and rainy day (though not cold enough for our heat to be on..) and I saw a guy walking on the street, wearing all black, with a bright blue umbrella. I thought that was pretty striking, so I decided to draw it up quickly in illustrator. It's cute right?

:ACROSS THE BOARD:

2009-11-04T00:42:00.003-06:00

I've always been fascinated by Space. The first thing I remember wanting to be is an Astronomer. I was asked by local radio host DJ SLT to create a poster for his show, ACROSS THE BOARD, based slightly off of the Space Oddity poster I did. So, I knew I was going to do (my favorite) the colored lines, which I still maintain symbolize sound, with a hint of "exploration."

Colored lines=music.

He's also, like, the biggest David Bowie fan EVER. I'm not even exaggerating. He's an inspiration to young Bowie fans everywhere, such as myself. David Bowie is also very fascinated with space. It's pretty obvious to anybody who's heard any of his songs. The moon was a late addition, because I felt the poster needed a big striking image, and instead of something abstract, I decided on the Moon. It represents the late hour that his show airs during, David Bowie, and a mutual love of Science Fiction. He requested the stars, which I felt was well-needed. The font is ITC Avant Garde, which is becoming synonymous with the more spacey stuff I've been doing. Overall, I think this is another step for me in my design. I think this poster is as much for me as it is for him. Great fun. I'm real proud of it.

:PERSONAL: Blue Monday

2009-10-20T18:28:00.002-05:00

Not sure why I wanted to portray this very 80s dance song in a retro 60s poster design, but I just did. It was simple, took about 15 minutes. Although, I hoped for a bit more effect on the type. It's supposed to look like it went through an offset press. It's a bit hard to make out.

New Order is good.

:PERSONAL: Space Oddity

2009-10-20T18:18:00.003-05:00

I feel like talking about this design would take more energy than it did to make it. It wasn't hard. On the contrary, it was SO much fun. But it just took a long time, and it took even longer to get a solid concept.

I started with making a stream of colored blocks. But the colors looked stupid and the blocks didn't have a good flow. I tried over and over with them. Then I started making a big color chart in illustrator--I got a bit sidetracked. But it sort of gave me a bit more focus, and I thought I better just do what I know--and I went back to the colored lines. But it wasn't going to be enough of an impact, so I made three of each color.

Wait, wait... I'm getting ahead of myself.

The concept I wanted was a 70s-era Sci Fi cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity. The font again is Avant Garde and the lines give a sense of cosmic journey. The background I fashioned out of photoshop brushes and a paper texture. The little man? Also a brush. But I'm not sure where I got this from, I just think having a little ambiguous character gives it that 70s vibe. Don't ask me why, because I don't have much evidence for that.

It all sort of formed organically. I didn't even start out with this idea in mind. It WAS going to be something different, and I'm glad I changed it. I'm really proud of this. The only thing I regret is that it's not FOR anything. It's simply there to be seen by anyone who comes across it. Designing for personal enjoyment is a double-edged sword.

Although if I do generate enough interest, I'd love to sell this as a print.

And "D.R. Jones" is David Robert Jones aka David Bowie. Duh.

:PERSONAL: Let's Dance

2009-10-20T18:11:00.003-05:00

Most of the work on here IS fairly recent. But I'm now moving into even more recent territory. I can't help but think I'm evolving with each and every design. I think lately I've just been in a good groove.

Speaking of groove. I love David Bowie. I wanted to make a poster similar to the (Good Day, Sunshine) one, with a simple "Let's Dance" and the illustrated red shoes. But, I figured, why not make it a bit more kitschy? Dance step diagrams are great and simple, and yes they are design. Whether you think so or not. I actually used a diagram done by Andy Warhol for reference--which is cool, because Bowie loved Warhol, and he even played him in a movie. So after that was just finding a good balance. With this amount of stuff in a design, it doesn't work to center it, so I had to find a way to even out both sides. And NOT have a big gaping hole in the right-center. In any case, it was fun as hell to do it. You might be able to tell, I love the 60s. It was a great era of design.

:PERSONAL: Her Majesty

2009-10-20T18:05:00.002-05:00

To say I am an anglophile would be an understatement. I am an angloMANIAC. I probably care a bit too much about the British Royal family for being an American. I also love The Beatles, AND my logo is a Queen's crown. Sooo what better way to combine the three than to make a design? It looks like it's screenprinted, jah? Well, that's intentional. Also, putting a half-tone filter on the image makes it look less pixelated... Which it was, because I had to make it so big.
I also made this around the same time as the Good Day, Sunshine one. Can you tell? I love Univers.

:ROCK & ROLL RAY:

2009-10-20T18:02:00.003-05:00

The man is a legend in Minneapolis. And if people don't know him, they should. Ray is a great friend of mine. I wanted to make this for him just 'cause. He needs something epic and intimidating.
Also I LOVE, love love Soviet Propaganda. This doesn't quite hold a candle to the original stuff, but I may work on it a bit more.

:PERSONAL: Good Day, Sunshine

2009-10-20T17:59:00.002-05:00

There's not too much I'll say about this. I just really love designs with big solid shapes; specifically circles. They're minimal but make a big impact.
I made this for my little sister who just moved to college. And this is (one of her) favorite Beatles song. Still, I hope.

Ta-da.

:UPTOWN THEATER: Shaun of the Dead at Midnight

2009-10-20T17:48:00.003-05:00

Ah, Shaun of the Dead. It is my favorite movie ever. Seriously, EVER. I won't go into that here, but I will say I was quite excited when the ultra-cool Uptown Theater in Minneapolis was doing a midnight showing for "-of the dead" month (October). I'm friends with a good number of the employees there, so I asked if I could make a poster. Ohh yeah. I'm not exactly sure why, but I wanted a 60s influence in there somewhere. I wanted to go as far as have the whole thing illustrated in the style of Shag, but I'm not quite skilled enough for that. So, I did it with the title of the film. Good enough.

The blood splatters were my favorite part. I got them a couple different places on DeviantArt, as well as the folded paper background. The movie still was simply taken from a movie cap. It's actually a perfect image, because it has the red tie, which went with the design, and the cricket bat, which, to me, is iconic to the film.

And, I didn't plan this, but if you look at the design from far away, it makes a big "Z." Get it? Z for Zombie!

:TRANSMISSION: she's in parties

2009-10-20T17:33:00.005-05:00

A good rule of thumb is to always keep in mind the format you're designing for. We never print out the Transmission posters; they are always viewed in web. So, This looks pretty cool online. In print, I must admit, it looks pretty boring.

Boring even for me, and I love boring things.

But, I really love this poster. Jake gave me the assignment early on; a gothy Halloween night. He said: Think Bauhaus or Joy Division. I've never listened to Bauhaus, but I decided to use them as inspiration.

When I think of them, I think of the one song I know by them: "Bela Lugosi's Dead." And from the knowledge I gained watching Ed Wood, it gave me enough to know he was a silent film star--Dracula, to be exact. Any student of film should know that, duh. So. Silent film era. I wanted to make a poster that resembled a silent film title card. I googled that, and found this gem:

I also kept in mind what I know about Joy Division's music, which is that it's very minimal and detached; sparse. So, this bit of inspiration was perfect: minimal, dark, ominous and gothic.

I chose a good sans serif that'd been around in the 20s (Futura Medium), and put it on a not-exactly-black background, with a not-exactly-white border. I justified the type because I couldn't help but notice that was also done to my inspiration source. It was a bit too crisp, so I applied a noise filter in photoshop (they can actually be useful sometimes), and used the airbrush tool to give the type a nice eerie glow. It was definitely back to basics on this design.

But again, it only has impact online. Trust me.

:TRANSMISSION: A night of "Celebration"

2009-10-20T17:23:00.002-05:00

I'll come right out and say it; I'm not wild about this poster. Jake combined a Top 40 80s Night with the 'celebration' of Madonna's new album. Madonna=80s icon. That's fair. But also he wanted me to use the album art, which is very UN-80s. It was a bit grungy, I thought. Nevertheless, I got to work, trying to mimmick the album art throughout the poster. It's kind of beaten down and torn up. I also added some paint splatters. That, I suppose, was the one unifying element between the Madonna album cover and the 80s. I seem to remember paint splatters being somewhat fashionable?

I don't know, I only lived two years in the 80s.

Anyway. The graphic took me a good long while in Photoshop. I downloaded several stock paper images off of
Deviant Art (which is invaluable for projects like these) and got down to business. I don't think I did anything wrong execution-wise. I'm just not crazy with the aesthetic. Fortunately for me, people really liked it. But... Those kinds of things are only good in moderation. If you don't like what you do, no matter what others think, you should reconsider what you're doing.

I tried to make the type as 80s as I could. Hot pink with a bit of drop shadow and a little sheen. And to give the whole design dimension, I absolutely had to get the type behind the paper. Just a little.

Since the "Celebration" album art was already so graphic, I guess that's what I struggled with. How to add to something that was already so loud? It was a struggle. This may be the most NON-minimal thing I've done. I think there's possibly too much visual impact.

But. It ain't bad work.

:TRANSMISSION: Generic poster

2009-10-20T17:11:00.003-05:00

I can't remember exactly what inspired me to make this poster. I think it was probably a combination of this:

(which is continuing to influence me.. Not that, what, a month? is that out of the ordinary)
And the acquisition of one of the most exquisite fonts in existence: ITC Avant Garde Gothic.
Seeing that Interpol poster made me want to do something simple, with clean lines that expressed movement AND the illusion of sound. I also thought that I might want to use it for a Joy Division-themed poster someday.

But alas, I got impatient.

I don't have a lot of color in my everyday life. But I do design with it. It's so expressive, and when used minimally, it can have a really strong impact. TRANSMISSION is a night of sound and movement. I like the idea of visually communicating sound waves. So, that's what I did here. It did start out as something slightly more complicated and over-thought, so I toned it down, so to speak. Those damn colored strands were much trickier than they may appear.

I gave it to Jake as a printed piece, saying simply he could do whatever he wanted. It was mostly a little gift to him for letting me do design for him.

And he agreed that it did have a Joy Division essence.

:TRANSMISSION: Transmission a go-go

2009-10-20T16:56:00.002-05:00

I was really, way too excited when Jake told me he was doing a mod night. I already knew exactly what to do, because a few weeks prior I spent a good couple hours looking online, collecting pictures of Mods. And, I had a lot to live up to after the John Hughes poster. I knew I wanted to use this as my inspiration:

I loved the repetition of the photograph, and the interesting movement of the shapes. Admittedly, this IS a poster from the 30's. But, I can definitely see the modernism in there. Swiss designers in the 1930s were cutting edge. Obviously--they are still influencing people.

Anyway, I struggled with the right image to use and to repeat. I made a version with a woman but Jake sent me a photo he liked and that people associate with him. It was tough--being that it was so small, but luckily it worked out. I just wish now I would've put a duotone on them instead of a black & white filter. Oh well.

Working on the type was also a bit of a struggle. I'm self-taught, mind you, so applying strokes and making character outlines for me was a journey. I associate the arrowed-type with the mid-60s. The original font was Bauhaus. One of my instructors said today that every font has a purpose. And while I normally don't like the Bauhaus font, it definitely had its place here.

Oh, and Beatle boots. You can't go wrong with those.

:TRANSMISSION: John Hughes Tribute

2009-10-20T16:42:00.005-05:00

Where to start with TRANSMISSION? I started going there in May, and everything sort of clicked. It's located at a fantastic bar, and the DJ, Jake Rudh plays great, great tunes all from my favorite artists. Started going every week, became a member of the Facebook group and became friends with Jake. I mentioned to him that I do design and if he wanted some flyers I could totally hook him up.

This is the first one I did, and it was sad that John Hughes had to die for me to get my foot in the door, but otherwise I might not have become is go-to gal for design. So. A mixed blessing I suppose.

Anyway. The concept is easy enough. John Hughes movies have a heavy musical influence, and I wanted to use an image that conveyed that. I chose this one of Jon Cryer in Pretty in Pink, because Transmission IS a dance night, and he is dancing (If I would've found anything decent of the kids dancing in Breakfast Club, I would've used those. But I didn't.) It also gave me the opportunity to take inspiration from this poster:

The things that are difficult about a design are never what you would expect. the thing that gave me the hardest time with this particular one was finding the right color pink. I was going to have to eventually turn it into a JPEG and that compressed all the good pink right out of the design, so I had to keep going darker. Not only that, but since I applied a filter to the color on the jacket, it looked darker than the type. But, the color had to be the most eye-catching thing. And I think I struck a balance here.

Stay tuned for more TRANSMISSION posters

:SCHOOL: Mozart Festival

2009-09-04T19:23:00.014-05:00

To start this off properly, I'll begin with a bit of detail on the process of one of my favorite things that I've made:
This was an assignment for my Layout & Design 1 class in Spring 2008. Would you believe it, I actually failed that course the first time around? Yeah.
I started the assignment by making 3 posters for the subject and decided on this one to present to the class for critique:

Which, even a year and a half later, still doesn't look so bad to me. But I can see why is was met with harsh criticism. I didn't think hard enough about the assignment; I was trying to make something fun for me, without considering that the subject matter must help to dictate the style.
Also, somebody compared it to the movie Juno, which made me want to rip it to shreds.
They did like some things about it, though; the color, and the tilted type.
So I worked a good 5 hours on the second draft. For me, and design, that's a lot of time spent working. I generally work fast while simultaneously doing my thinking and conceptualizing. I kept the bright color blue and the angled text. Everybody else in the class who used an image of Mozart used this:

Probably because it's one of the only images of him you can find on the web. I googled "Mozart bust" though and found this amazing silvery one. The victorian flourish is from the site vectorstock.com, so I paid for it, and also the baroque background. It's surely the most high-production thing I've designed. Anyway, here's how it turned out:

My hard work paid off and was received really well. It remains my favorite design because of what it took for me to look past my pride in my initial work and listen, how much patience I put into it, and the risks I made to make it stand out so much.

Lessons I've learned in design:
It's really amazing how much you can learn in a day or a week, and how much your style can change in that time, too. It's amazing how one second you look at something you've made and think "yeah, that's great." and then you show it to someone, they point a few things out, and within an hour you think it looks like utter shite.
I don't think I'll ever stop learning.

Ayo

2009-09-04T14:48:00.001-05:00

Hey. Welcome to the blog. In my posts I'll talk in-depth about projects I've done/am working on.
Check back soon for my work and stuff.