Thursday, December 20

Antarctica




This is the cover to this years Christmas card that my fiance and I are sending out. Its a mix cd featuring songs to listen to while you're exploring Antarctica. I hand drew the illustration using Illustrator CS3, loosely based on an image culled from a Google Image Search. The font is Roman Antique from dafont.com. I've always wanted to draw a frozen landscape like one you might see in Northern Canada or Antarctica and I finally did it, I think it did a pretty good job. If you click on the image you can see it really big, because i think it looks better when you see it big.



This is the back of the CD packaging. Its fairly simple, but elegant and effective.




This is the artwork that appeared on the CD itself. I hand drew this map of Antarctica in Illustrator

Monday, November 26

Tattoo


This was done in Illustrator CS3. The logo was redrawn based of of a reference image and the two M's are based on a heavily distorted and reconfigured Arial Black font. The colors are near matches, I chose to go a bit brighter than the typical Cubs colors.
This was designed for my brother for a tattoo I paid for for his collge graduation. Our Mother passed away a little over two years ago and this tattoo was not only a tribute to her, but a tribute to her love for the Cubs, which was passed on to not only my brother, but me as well.
Congrats Ben.

Thursday, October 25

Pierre



This is another illustration for the first issue of 10,000 Tons of Black Ink. Done entirely by hand in Illustrator CS3. I got the reference image from a Google Image Search. 10,000 Tons of Black Ink is being compiled right now, and should be released by mid-December.

Wednesday, October 3

Mix CD Cover



This is another Mix CD cover. I did it all in Photoshop, the layout and even digitally coloring the photo. The aim for this was to give it a "classic" feel, so I attempted to model this cover off of the cover for the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds". It still didn't feel right, so I implemented a technique that usually works out for me, I scanned slightly tattered piece of cardboard and applied it as a texture to give the image a bit of a warmer feeling, driving home the "classic" feel, like it was printed on cardboard like old vinyl album covers. Then I layered and nudged the text element to make them look like they were printed on an offset printer and misaligned slightly. If you must ask, yes this was for my Fiance as well.

Extra kudos should go to me for making the bracelet she's wearing as well, which is a long story I don't want to get into.

Tuesday, October 2

Mix CD Packaging

This is packaging for a Mix CD that I made for my fiance for her birthday, titled "Every River I've Travelled...Has Led Me To The Wabash", it features all traveling songs. This was printed on standard issue cardstock on a color laser printer, then constructed by hand into a gatefold style package. I'll break down each section of the artwork and perhaps at a later date post a completed packaging photo:

Outside Cover:
This image is from a long and arduous Google Image Search. I don't remember the exact search terms but not much editing was done to this other than the scrawled handwriting which I did by hand with a marker on a seperate sheet of paper, then scanned and applied various effects to via Photoshop. The crease for the gatefold would go right down the center of this image. The dimensions were 5.25" by 5.25" when folded.
Inside Gatefold:
I scanned the cover of a leatherbound book to get the texture, then changed the color to a the red that you see. The track listing was scrawled on sheets of legal paper, torn, then scanned and positioned via Photoshop.

Inner Sleeve:
This is another Googled searched image, other than the blueish color and the scrawled text, not much editing was done to this image. This sleeve held the CD and was 5" by 5" when folded, and was slid into the first pocket of the gatefold.

Map:

This was probably the most complex and involved the most amount of work of any part of this packaging. The image was found via Google Image Search, I then printed out the naked image on standard color laser paper. Each location indicated on the map was a place I had travelled to with out my Fiance, they were marked using torn pieces of brightly colored paper. Not only were they marked but they listed, in miles, how far I was away from my Fiance. I attached the markers with some plain scotch tape then added a few hand written notes. I then scanned the whole thing in two parts, and reconstructed them via Photoshop. The final printed size was 10" by 15", it was folded down and slid into the second pocket of the gatefold.

Monday, September 17

Cassette Tape



This was created entirely from scratch in Adobe Illustrator CS3. I got the Dolby Surround logo from brandsoftheworld.com.
This wasn't done for any particular project, more or less for fun, but to also brush-up on technical illustration. The dimensions aren't exact, but nearly every proportion is, including the angles in the sprockets. This was actually built from the inside out, I put together the sprockets and spools then drew in the tape path. I then layered in the remaining elements. The text and information is on a separate layer so that I can edit it easily, should I use this image for anything else.

Friday, September 14

Indian on a Horse



This was handrawn in Adobe Illustrator CS3, based off of an image culled from a Google Image Search. This was done mostly for fun, but may end up in the Literary Writers Network journal.

Wednesday, August 29

Port Awesome "Squid & Crossbones"


Entirely hand-drawn in Illustrator CS3, based off of sketches done on some scratch paper, then scanned.

This is some preliminary artwork done for a blog project that is in the works. The design will eventually be used to promote the blog and be featured on anything from t-shirts to sticker.



Wednesday, August 22

African Man


Hand-drawn in Illustrator CS3 based on a few images culled from a Google image search. Will be featured in Literary Writers Network's journal: 10,000 Tons of Black Ink.

Maggie DeRolf




Top: Logo and business card for Maggie Derolf, Wedding and Children's Photography. Created in Illustrator, Victorian element from a clip art book, modified slightly with color added to it to be used as her logo.

Bottom: DVD Cover for Maggie DeRolf, to give clients hi-quality JPG's. Photos edited in Photoshop, design elements created in Illustrator based off of a Victorian clip art book, final construction in InDesign. This was printed on ViaStone brand Premium Photo Paper, Double-Sided, Matte. The other side was a Victorian pattern. The cover was then slipped into a clear Amaray-style DVD case.

Tuesday, August 21

Erin & Phil's Wedding Invitation



Designed primarily in InDesign CS2 with a little prep work in Illustrator CS3. The victorian design elements are from a royalty free clip art package, each are edited slightly for color and composition. The monogram is a free font, Wedding. The text is Trajan Pro. You're probably wondering why its all crooked, I know, I'll post an example of how it's folded later. Until then, if it helps, it basically becomes its own envelope.

I don't think that this requires an explanation.



Done primarily with hand drawing in Illustrator CS3 based on images culled from a couple Google Image searches.