In early 2009, I did some pro-bono identity work for a startup named “The Daily Blank,” a satire news site for the Chicago area. The founder, Nick Peters, is a young entrepreneur who turned out to be a great contact.
Less than a year after my work for “The Daily Blank,” Nick was contacting me from Oslow, Norway with a new business he was involved with. The company, owned by Tor Kielland and founded by his grandfather, used to be in the textile business but was now moving into the digital age with a rather pragmatic goal. They were interested in creating products for people within new and merging businesses.
My role in this was to create two logos: One for the newly renamed company, BrightArch, and their first product, Organization Weaver. Read the rest of this entry »
To round out my final semester of undergraduate school, my web design class required a final multimedia project. The project needed to be journalistic in nature with a story about something that had impact on the community. What resulted was a website collecting stories from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender group on campus.
A link to the site can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »
Before I graduated from Eastern Illinois University with a B.A. in Journalism, I had the opportunity to create a departmental brochure for prospective students. This project started out as an assignment, but I quickly took it seriously enough to be considered by the department.
Understandably so, as the department was handing out bland packets of information every semester. The EIU department of Journalism is very well-developed for such a small school. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been a while. I’ve since graduated and began my life as a freelancer.
You’ll see the fruits of the past 4 months pretty soon. I’ve had about a project per month and I’m just finishing up two of them. Once they’re done, I’ll be sure to post them.
Two of my projects have been some web work. I’ve learned a lot of new web skills in the past 6 months and have decided to my own host and start a new blog. I’ll be either making a whole new theme from scratch or
basing it on another theme and heavily modifying it. The site will be grid-based and reflect my personality a little better. It will also be a better format for my portfolio (which has always been the focus). I hope to blog a little more, but it probably won’t be more than once a week. I may need to expand the focus in order to achieve this. We’ll see.
After having gone on numerous rants about how awesome European news design is and having confirmed my love by actually visiting Europe this summer (and therefor seeing these papers in my hands), I have finally made the plunge.
After seeing the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s redesign this summer, I dropped all hesitation. I absolutely loved the look and if one mainstream American newspaper could pull this great look off, I had to try it.
As the new managing editor of The Daily Eastern News, I was able to accomplish, with the help of my advisers and faithful Editor in Chief, a (successful) total redesign of the paper.
Most of the touches are entirely inspired by the international (or modernist or swiss or whatever you want to call it) style most papers around the world now adhere to.
Here is today’s front page.
This page was entirely designed by one of our nightly copy editors/designers. She has minimal experience and yet she was completely capable of producing a pleasant front page with little creative effort.
The redesign, introduced in August, is entirely grid-based. Front page sections are 16 columns and inside pages are 15. This ultimately amounts to 5 columns of text. The additional column on the front sections is in order to allow a wider rail or grid-based white space. Unfortunately, this formula was impossible to impose on inside pages with designers who have possibly never touched Indesign. Read the rest of this entry »
New project from Rock Valley. No theme this time, so I had a (mostly) wide-open brief. Summoning a similar feel to the original Student Life marketing while giving it a little unique twist, I think this is shaping up nicely.
This spring semester has nearly come to a close. Two finals left and I am off to the Netherlands for a month. What a great feeling of relief.
Since my semester is complete, this blog is no longer a requirement. So, at this point, I cannot say if it will continue. I hope to keep it going, but I also know myself well enough that without a serious passion or deadline, I rarely find the motivation necessary. We shall see…
As a side note: Here is my final video project for my class.
Finally, here are the finished May Fest advertisements.
From left to right, clockwise, is an 11″ x 17″ poster, a 24″ x 32″ poster, an 8.5″ x 11″ flyer (ready for fax or copy), and an 11″ x 8.5″ tri-fold table tent.
I really worked on creating a more deliberate design than many of my past advertisements. Often I like to take the approach of throwing anything at the fan and seeing what works, but because I had a very distinct style in mind, I was able to create a more hand-crafted look. Ironically, I think some of the designs almost look like stock art with blanks filled in. I’m not actually sure if that’s a success or not, but I’m fairly pleased with how everything turned out. I would have liked to include some more details on the cyan (some cracked or peeling ink) and maybe added some folds here and there, but I did what I could within a reasonable time. That said, I always feel there is places for improvement and I think everything came out nicely textured and polished regardless.
Earlier this morning I was mentioned on the Charles Apple blog. Charles must be an early riser because I was unaware of this until 9:30 a.m. when my Communications Law professor, Dr. James Tidwell, congratulated me. So caught off guard, I had no idea what he was talking about until I did my daily visit to Mr. Apple’s blog. Since then I’ve received a number of congratulatory words from both students and professors.
To clear things up: Charles Apple asked for submissions for this post. He did not choose me, nor did I get nominated for something. He essentially offered free advertising and myself and 30 others took him up on the offer. Not to diminish the awesomeness of Charles’ mention, though, because the publicity for a Midwestern college student such as myself is extremely helpful.
The second reason for this post (the fortune part) is that I was offered and officially accepted the job of Managing Editor of The Daily Eastern News (Eastern Illinois’ student newspaper). I will take the position in the Fall under editor in chief Tyler Angelo.
Note: The Charles Apple post (probably) didn’t influence Tyler’s choice and yes, my ego is as the picture shows.
As it may or may not be known, I work for a community college in the Rockford area (Rock Valley College) as a freelancer. I was a former student employee during my time there and our relationship slowly evolved into one where I was kept on as a graphic designer when they needed.
As such, we have an extremely trusting relationship and I am given plenty of creative freedom (which I appreciate to no end). So, whenever I’m given a project (usually events for clubs), I take the freedom and really give these little projects my everything. Often these projects have themes and I use these themes as a jumping off point, but beyond that, my designs are rarely regulated.
Currently, I am working on the identity and advertising for Rock Valley’s annual May Fest celebration — a week-long year-end event — and the theme is the circus.
I took inspiration from some old circus posters, but I also discovered a similarity between those and Russian propaganda advertisements, so there’s a bit of that in there as well. Ultimately, I think it’s shaping up quite well. I’ll be adding some more texture and refining details before it’s finished and there’s a lot of detail that cannot be seen from this JPEG, but I’ll wait to post the finished product until after I’m finished and Rock Valley has printed them.
Leave a comment. Let me know what you think.
