One cause, one week

Sevenly is a charitable website that brings awareness to a different cause each week. If you buy a t-shirt designed for the cause 7 dollars goes to that cause for that week. They also have the option of sharing the cause to your friends and family on facebook or twitter. I have recently purchased a t-shirt from this website for the cause of woman abuse. The t-shirts are successfully designed and mostly typographically treated. I would love to be able to design for this charity because they recognized that there is more then one problem in the world and gave all them a chance for help.

Trying a new style

I find illustration one of my challenges. Well not so much illustration but illustrating in a different style I am not use to. Since, I like to draw realism so its really hard for me to draw anything thats not because it looks werid to me.. and I keep trying to add more detail and it just ruins it. However, for one of my projects, which is to make 5 patterns based on a theme, I decided to give simplicity and cartoon style a try. My patterns would be hospital scrubs. Since, most people, especially children find the hospital scary I wanted to make friendly patterns. Therefore, I did a series of teddy bears. Teddy bears getting fixed with Band-Aids, teddy bears getting a lollipop after the doctors, Nurse and doctor teddy bears, get well teddy bears and lastly teddy bears with balloons. All good things that happen in the hospital to keep the experience positive when they see there nurse or doctor.

Calendar problems

For one of our projects we have to work with a first year and design a calendar based on quotes on a theme, using experimental typography. So my partner and I decided to do our calendar on the very well known movie called "Mean girls". Since we are often noticed people use quotes from that movie in every day life, so we thought it would be a perfect movie to do since people love the quotes they would by the calendar! Anyways, as the project goes on I find that my partner and I are working really well together. Her stuff is really nice and it is working really well with mine. Yet, I hear and see other peoples work and there partners aren't trying as hard as they need to be, or they aren't doing work at all...so people complained to the teachers. Resulting in the teachers pulling the first years and second years together and telling the first years that some of the second years feel that there work is not up to pare with ours. First of all I found this extremely rude since we are all learning. But at the same time I just don't think they took this project as seriously as they needed to and rushed it. In the end the professors told us that we no longer had to be partners anymore and we each needed to do 6 but the first years only had to hand in 3 to be marked. So in the end the first years got of the hook for not doing there work and doing horrible work. How is this fair? and how are they suppose to work effectively in a group if when the going gets rough they just go there own way? I found it extremely stupid, since last year we did the same project and we were having the same problems with people not contributing equally and we had to work it out ourselves like adults? not getting the professors to fix our mess. However, They did give us the option to stay with our partners if we thought it was best and that what my partner and I decided to do. Yet, to the people in second year who didn't I am actually very disappointed in them. Yes, it would have been harder but they need to take the leader role and help them and push them.

Drink Book

For one of our projects is to design a drink recipe book. I decided to do a book of 21 shots to play off of the joke of peoples 21st birthday. Where jokingly you are suppose to take 21 birthday shots. (which would kill you)...Anyways for the assignment we only had to do 5 of our own shots and then we could find 5 other pictures from the internet that matched out style. However, I thought it would be easier to just take ALL 21 pictures by self to make sure that they matched perfectly. Which, was where my project from hell began, because I decided to go big.. cause you know what they say go big or go home! Anyways, to garnish and set up 21 pictures was for one very expensive to buy all props and such. As well as, very time consuming, to take and then edit, edit, edit... Other then that things seemed to be going well layout wise and actually creating my book layouts and design. When it came time to print the book I was happy with it after doing a few test prints in class and took it to M&T because I wanted it printed on nicer paper to make my photography look nice. 20 dollars later... I found out that my type, which is really important for a recipe book was took close to the inner margarin by like half an inch. Meaning, when I bound it.. you couldn't read the beginning of the text. Flustered and frustrated I didn't want to spend another 20 dollars on printing this book out again.. but I also didn't want to print it on just normal paper from the programs printers. So my friend Lauren and I thought of the paper that the program offered to sell.. it would cost me 2.75 for 55 sheets of 12 by 18 in pieces of pace setter gloss paper and 55 print credits. Which is a WAY better deal then printing it for 20 dollars.. AND it came out even nicer. RIDICULOUS! So I finally have my book printed after all the stress and I cut all my pages and bind the one edge and let it dry over night. I come back the next morning and take it out of the binding clamp and find that one of my end pages got ripped during the binding process! Stress, stress, stress! If it was specifically on the sheet that the book needed to have end papers/inside covers, I wouldn't be so worried about it. BUT of course on the sheet they are a MUST. So instead of scrapping what I have I carefully glued another paged to the back as if it was originally binded with it. Problem solved! Sooooo, I take it to M&T again to get the last 3 sides cut so that they have nice evenly cut sides. So obviously now that I finally had my inside contents of my book the last thing to do would be the cover. Therefore, I spend all day designing and printing/ testing the cover to make sure the spin was the right size and it would work perfectly and smoothly. Once, I was happy with it I finally printed it on nice carolina paper and take it to cut and mock up. I take my knife to make the first cut and slipped and took a huge chunk out of my left pointer finger. It was so bad that I had to have my professor with first aid take care of it and then go to the security office and and report and have it bandaged. After that dramatic and traumatizing experience, I come back to my book and finish my cover and I am finally happy with my end project.. talk about blood, sweat and tears.

Interior Design (Steven & Chris)

http://www.cbc.ca/stevenandchris/home-decor.html Steven and chris is a talk show by 2 men named steven and chris. They are both interior designers and they take letters and pictures from viewers that are asking for help in designing a room. Then on the show they layout the design they have come up with and talk about there decisions. They like to combine modern styles along with more vintage or old styled looks. This is the perfect show to watch if you need some inspiration on designing your home, or anything for that matter.

The movie Parental Guidance

This movie doesn't exactly relate to design or art in general. However, part of the movie reminded me of how up to date we as graphic designers have to be with technology. Since, in one part of the movie the main character got fired as a baseball annoucer because his boss thought he was too old and they wanted someone who was up to date with the trends. Such as, twitter, blogs etc.. This just reminded me of how our professors are always telling us to do research on the new trends and such.

Sharing something I am good at

I find a lot of people ask me how I colour with pencil crayons, and make it look realistic and almost like paint. The best way is to pick a colour you want to use and another shade of that colour. For example, if you pick a dark blue.. pick a lighter blue but in the same tone range. So think monochromatic. Next you will need a dark grey, black and a white pencil crayons. Use the white to colour out the highlights in your illustration. Then use the grey to define the shadows in the illustrations. Then take your dark blue and colour hard over the grey and blend it out lightly towards the white highlight. Then take you lighter blue and blend it with the fade out go the dark colour and over the white pencil crayon. This should blend the pencil crayon colours smoothly together. To make it for defined go over the white again and had black to the shadows where you feel its needed since the blending washes them out a bit. Tips: * Prima colour pencil crayons are the best for blending * Colour in tight circles to avoid streeks * practice! It takes time to get the hang of it and find your own techniques * Remember you can take these into photoshop and touch them up Here is some examples of some stuff I have done in pencil crayon.