Vector Park

I feel that I am obligated to share this kind of thing when I stumble across it. Vector Park is an all vector website that is extremely interactive and well done. When I came across the site, I spent a solid hour exploring all it had to offer. Sure I had to click and play around a lot, but when I found little nooks and crannies of the site, it made me want to find more! It's a never-ending cycle of adventure. Anyways, I had absolutely nothing to do with the making of this site, but I do think that this is great inspiration for a future project, if I could pull it off!

www.vectorpark.com

Turkey Run Photography

This past weekend, I took a camping trip to Turkey Run State Park with my fellow SIGGRAPH members. It was such beautiful scenery and I could not help but take a couple hundred pictures! I am not the best photographer and do not consider myself one, but I decided I would post my better pictures. Fall is such an amazing season!

Into The Wild

This weekend I will be camping with my fellow SIGGRAPH members! We are heading to the beautiful Turkey Run State Park to freeze and tough out the weekend. This is not what my blog is intended to be about, but I thought I'd let you know that I will not be blogging this weekend.

The title of this blog says it all. My first year of college, I was required to read a book titled "Into The Wild," by Jon Krakauer. At first, I was not a big fan of the book, but the more I delved into it's meaning and found a connection to the book, it became very enlightening. It makes you think, debate your vision in life, and think some more. Those are also my favorite types of movies. I highly suggest that if you have the time to sit and read a book, you read this one, not because I found a connection, but because I believe that everyone can learn a little about themselves through it. If you have any questions about it or would like to borrow it from me, please ask.

As for now, I'm off, into the wild.

Fair Trade Expo

Students For Fair Trade requested for a poster promoting the Fair Trade Expo. I am happy with the concept and how it all came together. This was actually not used for the event because of many mis-communications, but I still wanted to show it because I think it turned out pretty cool.

There is a major problem with communication between designers and clients, and I intend to find the root of that problem, preventing it from happening in my professional career. You can hold me to that!

Say Cheese

I can take pretty sweet pictures on occasion. This has been manipulated just a bit with the lens flare and picture embedded within the camera lens. Let me know what you think because if you all like this, I will continue to photograph and post really awesome pictures!

Shirt Concepts

Here are a couple of shirt designs I made a few months back just to test out a style I had in mind. For the most part I believe these could become pretty cool shirts. I may just print a couple to see what people say about them. Let me know if you want one printed for yourself!

Me As An Elf

Last Christmas, I decided to make some Christmas cards to hand out to family and friends. Not only was I giving them a Christmas gift, but also my calling card. It helped to get my artwork out there a bit more at the same time, taking care of their gift that year. Below is the illustration I had on the card, which is of me as an elf. If you know me, I hope you can catch the resemblance!

Business Card Success

A few months back, I was asked to design a good friend's business cards for her. She is an artistic hair designer, an amazing one at that, and needed better business cards to hand out to current and potential clients. Mainly because her old ones were not up to par and had poor composition. I went ahead and not only made these up to par, but went a little further. According to some of her clients, they like Tasha's business cards more than mine! Is this a bad thing for a designer? I don't think so. And loving them! That is the goal!

(The top image is the front and bottom is the back)

Golfing Gets Out Of Hand

This is almost design related because I was meeting with a friend to discuss some potential business plans, but tides changed and the day became one to remember. Here's the story:

A while back, I went golfing with a friend of mine named Ricky. All was well, until we reached hole 11 or so. We teed off, both of us hitting great drives, and began the long haul to our balls. About half way to our destination, we see a ball skyrocket past our heads. And yes, we were standing in the middle of the fairway and the two guys behind us began to tee off! Why? They said they didn’t see us, regardless of Ricky’s efforts of yelling and my whistling!

They approached us after they both finished teeing off. Ricky began to interrogate the arrogant man with a bit of an attitude because we were almost hit by their balls. With my witty remarks backing Ricky’s questioning, the man became frustrated with us. At that time he stepped out of his golf cart looking for a fight. This left us both in shock. What kind of golfer behaves this way? Unfortunately, we did not get into a fight with the two egotistic men, but we did seem to prove a bit of a point by standing up to them.

Moral of the story: Don't be a dumbass!

A Dragon You Say?

I sketched a dragon a while back. This is that dragon. He has no name, but will soon wreak havoc at the peasant village, so be aware!

Do Something!

Here is a quick illustration I created while bored, at work, one day. Can you catch the irony? I'm a big fan of business men playing air guitar in their suits, so I have paid tribute to the ones who rock out as they take a break from their work. Long story short: Do Something!

Old Self Portrait

Yes, that's me down there, in pencil form! Before last semester started, I decided to draw myself because a book I was reading suggested doing so. I did not expect it to actually come out looking like me, but I think I actually captured some of my profound features pretty well. Also, this was before I took my class on sketching, which has totally made me a better artist! Eventually, I will do another self portrait.

Jack Tom Illustration

My last illustration for class was to be a book illustration highlighting IUPUI's strong points and why it is an "urban university." I decided to take a spin on things and illustrate IUPUI's weaker points (i.e. smoking, cigarettes, construction, smoke stacks and golf carts nearly hitting every student walking on the sidewalk). Don't get me wrong, I love attending IUPUI because the school I am in is wonderful and perfect for me!

The style is based off of Jack Tom, a famous illustrator. This is what the entire class is centered around: illustrating based on different artist's styles. I captured his style quite well, from what I hear!

ChaCha Shirt

A few months back I became an employee of ChaCha, answering your stupid questions and telling you dirty jokes! They held a shirt design competition to promote the ChaCha "Guides" and I entered the following piece into the contest, which should have won. Why do I say that? Not because I think I'm the best designer there ever was, but rather, the other submissions and the design that won the contest was absolutely dreadful and boring. I just don't get it. But hey, there's a great quote for this kind of situation:

"You have to have a healthy respect for every contest you enter. Otherwise, what is the value in winning it?"

Photo Manipulation Posters

Featured below is a series of photo manipulations I created for a class earlier this semester. I tied all of these manipulations together by creating a poster theme on each. It's better for the portfolio, so I hear! Anyways, let me know what you think of them! If you would like a print of one of these, let me know and we can work something out. Enjoy!

Power Point Goodness

Yeah, I can make bad ass power point slides for you! This was actually one tenth of an assignment, but I like to make things look pretty good. It's what I do!

Much better viewed in full screen. Just click on the image to enlarge!

JEL Shirt Concepts

Last spring, my good friend came to me with a request to help her with a shirt design for JEL Career Center, so naturally, I took on the project. I'm big on concept, so when I design something, it usually has a lot of back story or meaning behind it. You may be able to pick these apart, if you have a mind to do so, subconsciously you already know what that meaning is at first glance. You may not realize it, but it's programmed into all of our brains. I'll probably rant on more about these design concepts behind my work, but I'll try not to bore you with it! I promise.

Oh, by the way, the first shirt below was chosen to be the design for the 2008-2009 year! Concept and creativity goes a long way!

Hot Sauce Posters

Last year, one of my assignments was to create promotional material for a make believe hot sauce company called "Baldwin's Hot Sauce." I illustrated a series of posters targeting teenagers by trying to peer pressure them into trying the hot sauce. I bet you want to try it!

Transformation Sketch

First off, this is not my original concept. I wish! I just want to clarify that because I will not take credit where I don't deserve. A book I was reading had this picture in it and I found it really appealing, so I thought it would be really fun to sketch. It was! I hope to someday take this further digitally, by adding color and my own style to this.

All About You Shirt Design

A few months back I was hired to create a shirt design for a salon in Carmel, Indiana called "All About You." They asked me to design around a Paul Michelle promotion that was released a while back, so I am confident that I achieved the same style. The client was extremely happy and everyone loved the shirts, so I'm very pleased with outcome!

Ryan Adams Tribute

I recently was able to make it to Ryan Adam's concert this past Thursday at the Murat! It was absolutely amazing and I suggest if you haven't heard his music, you do so. Let me know if you want more information on him or his music. Anyways, here are two tributes I have made for him over the past year, simple, yet composed with a lot of concept. The second design listed is actually a Typographic design, which means it is all font or text, if you will.

Rapid Sketches

Below are a few sketches from a series, where I came up with a concept or image in my head and then transferred that to the paper as fast as possible. The results follow. Please let me know what you think of them. I hope to do more of these in the future because I enjoy the end result.

Welcome!

Hey everyone,

In spite of recent problems with my website and blogging service, I have just decided to transfer everything to this. As time wears on, you will see me post projects I have done in the past, present projects, or even sketches of what some future projects may look like. This means you may want to check back every once and a while! Hint hint!

I hope to see you around these parts sometime soon!