Poster Design: Philadelphia Flower Show

This promotional poster design is for the Philadelphia Flower Show. The actual event came and went some months ago now, but the purpose of this project was different. As an artist, I have a tendency to over-think the creative process: over-whelming myself into thinking about my execution too much. The result, in some cases, is that I have simply wasted time, rather than spending crucial moments productively. This personal trait of mine isn’t always a negative thing though, I’m simply an idealist, and this will shine in my projects’ final result. I like to have pride in my work, regardless of what the purpose of the task is. This project, on the other hand, I wanted to see how fast I could design a poster for a local event, but still have the final execution be presentable. This final poster design, for the Philadelphia Flower Show, contains all accurate information: contact numbers, dates, location, and even sponsors. The total amount of time I spent of this final poster design totaled less than an hour, and I am pleased with it’s result. The only missing information, I regret not putting in this execution, is a URL address for the Flower Show, which is: http://www.theflowershow.com/. Anyway, this is the final result of my timed execution for the Philadelphia Flower Show.

Cover Design: TV Guide + HBO’s The Wire

This TV Guide cover design was created for a class competition assignment I had in my Advertising: Special Topic course. The assignment was to design a cover for TV Guide that featured the my favorite television show. I chose HBO’s The Wire because I believe the show feature a certain level of truth that can not be found in any other television show, including realistic geographic statistics that exist in the city of Baltimore. Though I did not win the competition, this piece was still a favorite among many in the class, including the instructor.

Logo Design: Personal Identity

Image & Text Ads: NRDC

This ad represents my execution of an isolated image advertisement. I searched high and low for an image that displayed nature in defense mode, somehow or other. I felt a picture with both of those elements would “speak” clearly enough as an image-only advertisement for NDRC, especially when you consider NDRC’s slogan: The Earth’s Best Defense. I felt that this photograph didn’t require any sort of weaponry to appear defensive; it is haunting enough as it is. The face that is carved into the tree makes the tree look terribly grumpy. However, the carving is very convincing. I couldn’t imagine that if this tree were actually able to make facial expressions that this is the expression that it would make. The coloring of the photograph and the natural atmosphere in photo background complement this grumpy tree very well. Overall, this ad is a visualization of NDRC’s slogan, which is the finishing touch on this ad by it being on the bottom right-hand corner, accompanying the NDRC logo.

This NDRC ad is an example of text + image advertising style. In this micro-zoom, color photograph, a single light bulb is screwed into the earth and is shown popped up and surrounded by grass. I like this photograph because it symbolized a fusion of modern technology with nature. This image + text ad is intended to encourage its audience/readers to live eco-friendly: green. I selected a very round font to complement the curve shape of the light bulb. I stylized the second line in the copy to look like a glowing light bulb, complimenting the concept of “good idea!”

Brand Refresh: Divorce Lawyer

This was my first advertising campaign I ever designed. It was created for an assignment in my visual communications course. Considering my previous posts, which were all created more recent, my skills in design have truly grown. However, I am still very proud of this early execution. It still gives me a laugh when I see it today.

T-Shirt Design: Fight for Family

I was asked my by my boyfriend’s mother to design a t-shirt that could be worn by her famliy this year’s annual Philadelphia Susan Koman - Race for the Cure. The requested slogan was “Fight for Family”. While designing this t-shirt I kept in mind that it would be worn by various members of a family, men and women, and ages ranging between 5 to 60 years old. I sketched a “prinken map” to get a feel for what kind of elements I had to work with. So, after a while, I saw that two letter “f”s could blend into being wings. I also thought, that since this was for a marathon, using the number “4″ in the center of the design would be clever (like a varsity jersey). I designed this T-shirt in Illustrator, using a downloaded Hanes textile color swatch, as well as a t-shirt template for printing size and to make a display example. I’m sorry to say that when the t-shirt itself was printed, the designed turned out a bit different than I had expected. I am currently looking for another company to reprint this design. However, I am overall very happy with the result.

Coprorate Identity: Permanent Ink

This logo was designed for a class assignment I had when I was learning Adobe Illustrator. The company name was provided by my instructor, Dannell Macilwraith, as part of the assignment’s directions. I have always been proud of this execution because I created it with little experience in logo design, but still feal that its result is impressive.

Refresh Campaign: San Pellegrino

This series of print advertisements were created as a class assignment for my art direction course. The assignment was to create three print ad executions for any brand of water, in which the class was required to use a creative strategy of utilizing emotive devices to convey the message of the advertisement. In my executions, chose to use the brand “San Pellegrino” water for all three ads. I was already familiar with the long-time, strong existing brand, and felt that as a brand, it could withstand experimental creativity. In all three executions, I selected images of classic Italian icons, and personified a certain type of parody in each. The first and third ads, however, also utilize indirect juxtaposition. Whereas the second ad contains a unique selling point. What I like most about these executions is that they contain different levels of comprehension to be interpreted by the audience.

Layout Design: Anthem Magazine

In this execution, I used a lot of experimentation to come to my final version of this layout. I found this image of this doll so unusual, and thought it had a fantastic profile shape to have as a cover image. I selected the header font because it was unique and contained wide curves, similar to the doll’s profile, but letters that were very bold, similar to impact. I felt this font “stood” up against the image of the doll very well, I even decided to use to again in the copy below, but certainly not as grand in size. The doll’s eyes show the reader the hierarchal direction in where to begin reading the copy. The remainder of the layout design, such as the shapes and lines, were simply just experimentation that just fit into the layout. I don’t have much more of an explanation than that for the various abstract elements featured on this cover. The table of contents was designed to show a continuation of the experimental elements used in the cover layout.

Poster Design: Tom Waits Concert

I have always been a big fan of art nouveau style, especially the posters. While brain storming for this project, I thought of Tom Waits, the musician, and knew right away I had to incorporate him into this execution. I created this concert poster by using both Photoshop and Illustrator. I found the illustration of Tom Waits online, it was originally created by Thomas Boatwright. I edited the illustration colors in Photoshop, and then exported the file to Illustrator. The rest of the poster was created entirely in Illustrator, using a variety of fonts I had downloaded, primarily from Urban Fonts.