Some Dude on the Internet

Sorry I've been quiet lately, school has been eating my face.

Finished a project today, really pleased with it. Portfolio for one of my classmates - all art is his except the logo in the top corner. I did all the layout and design stuff.

The web version doesn't have interactivity, but the version I turned in has working links that allow navigation from page to page. Maybe if you download it and open it with Acrobat it'll work.

PDF HERE

Let me know what you think! I worked hard on this! Oh, there's a process book, too, that I can upload if anyone is interested!

( the rest under the cut )

There are definitely a few things I know I need to work on.

The background images for one thing... I'd love to be able to hammer out another 4-5 of those to work with, make them match up with the more recent ones I did (You can tell which are the more recent ones pretty easily, I think)

It's a typography class, so I've really been trying to focus on getting the text looking good. I haven't spent as much time on the back of the case as I should- but I want to get a better image drawn for it. >_<

This is due early tuesday morning, and has to be completely put together by then. I've been running test prints and stuff for two weeks, so I'm not too concerned at this point about anything going insanely wrong there, but it means my deadline for being done with all the DESIGN work is actually monday evening.

I'm kind of sick of looking at it and have been dragging my feet on it all week, but I know some of you will probably catch some things that could be improved on.

My enormous gratitude in advance!

*Should have gone to bed hours ago*

Can't sleep, gotta design!

Finally I'm fairly satisfied with this. Amazon's going to put a barcode and stuff on the back, I don't think I get much control over that, but it should look okay anywhereish on the bottom.

Didn't end up working on my CD project at all today which is a little worrisome given how much I need to do on it, but this has to be ordered in the mail so that kind of takes some precedence. Now I just need to finish up with the interiors and then it's DONE.

Critique is fine, on design or illustration. Can't afford the time to do major overhauls at this point, but small tweaks can sometimes make big differences, right?

Just thought I'd drop this here before bed. Still far from perfect, but I really appreciate all the input! It's definitely a lot better than it would have been otherwise. =]

(It looks really light on the screen, but it prints a lot darker... also the credits is just pulled from google images. Again, could have done better, but that's basically what he told us to do for the project, and I didn't have a ton of time I could invest in it. >_<)

Here's the sketch I did.

( Here's what it has turned into so far... )

It's a 'Horror Movie Poster' photoshop assignment. I'd love to make it look more... Horror movie-ey. I'll need to put in more text, we're supposed to have credits in there and stuff.
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I think it has a lot of issues, not least of which is that I need to integrate the separate images better. There's definitely a cut and paste feel going on that I'm not pleased with.

I've also been staring at it too long and would love a set or two of fresh eyes on it. It's due thursday morning but it needs to be printed at 11X17" before then which means taking it to office max tomorrow evening. I have other projects I'm working on too, so I don't have a ton of time to give to this project. Otherwise it'd be fun to just goof around with this a lot more and maybe bring it to a totally different level.

But I don't have a TON of respect for this teacher so eh. It doesn't matter too much.

Quick logo design for an acquaintance. I'm a little ashamed to admit I did this 'on spec' in terms of 'I can pay you a little bit next time I get paid, but I can't afford much (but if I end up actually making a record studio I'll be sure to contact you about royalties)' kind of deal. But he's a student (it's for some homework project) and I actually had fun playing with it and the challenge of doing a logo design in just a few brief sessions was a really good exercise for me.

Here it is big
and with a crappy AWESOME crappy photoshop layer style applied (I grabbed this one and tweaked it a tiny bit. Don't judge, I'd already spent way too much time on it.)

My favorite part is that its subtly based on a moon-and-stars silhouette thing; a relationship I'd have pushed further if I'd had the time to spare. Might goof around with it a bit more and use it on my CD packaging.

( design work images )

So... here's what I've got so far. This is super rough and I'm not doing anything really with graphical elements other than the text so far.

I have no idea if that's a good way to go about it, or if I should be figuring out ideas and concepts first and fitting the text in.

This project seems so huge and unweildly. I had a bit of overwhelm earlier going through fonts. I don't even know how to tell what typefaces are good and which are terrible. I have a couple at this point I feel kinda comfortable with (Georgia, Caslon), but... the ones I have available to me right now are very limited.

I'm at this really awkward stage in my graphic design understanding. I know enough to know that everything I'm doing is somehow wrong, but not enough to know how to fix it. I know a little about baseline grids, but not how to use them effectively. I know less is more but I feel like this stuff could have been done by a two year old.

I should try a layout or two without the romanji- just go straight to the translation. See if that works any better.