Invitation

My parents are ministers and they are getting commissioned by this woman named Barbara Wintrouble. I don't really know what it is, or what its about, but I know they are excited. So this was a good opportunity to make a logo and design something. It was made in photoshop. Click to make bigger!

Week 4

This was a really fun project. I made it all in photoshop. I made it for my best friend Mariah, she said she wanted fun, and a little creep but friendly creepy, I think I succeeded . Click to make bigger!

Week 3

Front

Back

I made the argyle in Illustrator and the rest in Photoshop. The cat is my friend Roxy. This was a lot of fun!

Chip Kidd

If you asked Chip Kidd what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have told you, Chris Partridge. But instead he grew up to be a graphic design rock star.


Chip Kidd grew up in Pennsylvania and was presented with the tough decision at a young age, to pick art or music. According to Kidd because he didn't take drugs, art was the clear choice. In high school he was an AV geek but enjoyed doing the graphics for the school's news show. He went to Penn State and was accepted into the obscure new program of Graphic Design. Kidd learned graphic design before the field became dominated by the computers. He said this about his experience:

"As part of the last generation of pre-computer graphic design students, I am deeply grateful I was educated during this time. Not that I don't use the computer now- of course I do, and I give thanks to Apple on a daily basis. But I was schooled to solve problems with my hands as well as my head, and one influenced the other constantly, back and forth."


On that same subject I exclusively used a computer in my first graphic design class. We mostly used photoshop in that class, and I wish we had implemented some more hands on design aspects.


Kidd made some good friends in college, one of which is Barbara deWilde, who later became his colleague at Knopf. After college Kidd moved to the big city of New York to make a name for himself. He had a harder start then he had anticipated but one day met a women named Judith Loeser, an art director at Vintage Books. Kidd was given a freelance job for a self help book called "How to Work for a Jerk". His editors hated his sketches and he was ultimately rejected. But Judith liked them, showed them to Sara Eiseman, an art director at Knopf, and Eiseman offered Kidd a job as her assistant. The rest is history. Kidd has been designing book covers for Knopf for over 20 years.


All my information was taken from the book "Chip Kidd: Book One". I have to say that I loved reading and looking at this book. Kidd's work is smart, creative, and well executed. There were a few things that stuck with me, one of which is how much Kidd encouraged graphic designers to learn type setting. I plan do that in one of my projects this quarter. Another little thing I've been thinking about is how much our canvas influences our design. Kidd said that when he's stuck on a book cover, he sticks with this formula: Photo on top, text on the bottom. I wonder if his formula would change if books were shaped another way? I wonder how I would approach something different if I wasn't using an 8.5 x 11; what if it was a 20x 20?


The last thing that really stuck with me was that Chip Kidd said he doesn't want to have a style. He wants to really dive into the book he's designing and come up with ideas based on the book. Now obviously we will put ourselves into things we design, but I think its really important to have a balance of your own style and what the client wants. Even if you have to use 30 drop shadows and the font papyrus.

Find out more about Chip Kidd here.

Auto Pages Flier #4 UPDATE

Ok, here is an updated version of #4. I think I like the green one better, but honestly, Im not happy about either of them. This ad was so tricky, because my boss Ryan wanted the logos be to big and look like there's a lot of them, but also have the text bubbles prominent. 8.5 x11 just is not enough room for all the info he wants. Oh well, there will probably be another update.

Auto Pages Flier #4

This one was a bitch to do. So many logos, so much information for an 8.5 x 11. I used Indesign and Photoshop for all these, and a little illustrator for the text bubble. The entire time designing this ad I hated it. It was so cluttered and gross, but then I added the faded picture of the mountain and it made it a lot better. Strange that adding a big photo to a cluttered ad helped it. I still don't love it.

Auto Pages Flier #3

This one was fun, simple and clean. Just the way I like it.

Auto Pages Flier #2

Week 2

It's week two and I still have not finished my illustrations. I want to do two more. One for Bob and one for Yes please. I'll finish these throughout the quarter. For week two I'm doing some advertising fliers for one of my jobs, The Auto Pages. I'm working on two more. I did these in Indesign. Click to make bigger.

Cataldo- Darling Dear

This one took me way longer then I expected. Listen to Catoldo here.

Polka Dot Dot Dot- Cherry Blossoms

I've now heard this song at least 20 times, and I still love it. Check out Polka Dot Dot Dot here!

June Madrona- An Early Spring

I really loved doing this one. Click the image to see larger version. Find out more about June Madrona here!