Beer Poster

To add to my Beer project tracking, here is my beer advertisement.

Big City vs Little City

I have a friend who went to OCAD a large art school in toronto. She said that most of the classes were based on art history, so she had to do a lot of presentations and assignments based off of at history. She also said that classes were huge and whether or not you attended class the professors didn't care or notice. You were just a number to them. Which is completely different then our small program. We have the ability to have one on one time with our professors and get feed back. Which is a totally different aspect of learning in it's self. We also have a lot of experiences that relate to real life in the industry. For example, we have a project were we design and pitch a organic package to a client. Since, we have such a small program we have the ability to do this. Therefore, I defiantly think our little city learning is better then big city learning. We may not have a lot of expensive equipment to help us design or anything but we learn how to do things by hand and do it without equipment. Which I personally think is better.

Beer Label Start to Finish

Our class was given an assignment to design a beer label. The project was quite open for whatever you wanted to do. I chose to do a irish dark stout beer. I got inspiration from the well known popular dark stout irish beer Geniouss. After looking up the history and heritage behind the label,logo and design system that Geniouss has,I decided to do a rival beer that would be doing the opposite of what Geniouss was. Geniouss's logo is a harp that is a symbol of Ireland based on folk lore. Therefore, I based my logo and design based off of the irish story of the Dullahan. In Celtic folklore, Dullahan is a headless spirit riding a black horse, holding his constantly-rotting head under his arm. His horse wagon's wheels are made of thigh bones, and his whip is made of a human spine, which he uses to slash the eyes of his victims. You cannot keep out the dullahan with locks or gates; they open upon his arrival. What does keep Dullahan away, however, is gold, no matter how much. The only time he stops riding is when he is near the person due to die. He calls out their name, and they instantly die. However.. do not watch Dullahan ride. If you watch him while he collects souls, he throws a bucket of blood on you... A sign that you are the next to die. Therefore, I really wanted to incorporate the horse, the headless spirit and the spin whip. First I started with a silhouette....

After that I decided that the symbol wasn't coming across strongly as a silhouette so I added some but minimalist detail.

This was a good direction, it was a traditional beer label, so i began to work with something a little more modern, and added Gold to the end of Dullahan.

Which lead me to something that looked like this after playing around with the idea of tying the horse and words together.I also pick a font called celtic Garamond since my beer was irish I though making the font look gaelic would be a good idea.

Once, I got the basic idea of what I wanted my type and and symbol to look like I started to work it into a label.

I was sold on not adding any colour to the design, I wanted it to be really dark and mysterious. However, I was convinced on adding a gold leaf texture in photoshop. Which complimented the name and story of the Dullahan.

Which lead me to my final design.

Now it's time to work on the beer package and poster!

Successful Portrait

This is a portrait of a man I did yesterday for my illustration project. The project is to pick a poem or song and illustrate a book for it. I chose to do a poem about a simple man that has 12 verses(In My Eyes by:Poppy). The poem is very symbolic in the writing so I am going to be illustrating the symbolism in the poem in a simple manner and somewhat messy form to go along with the theme of the poem. The first verse of the poem is "He's rough and lacks in etiquette, Society would say. He has no classy attributes, To help him on his way." Therefore, I drew a stereotypical man that society would classify as someone who is rough and lacks etiquette. By drawing him in a white tank top and a beard with a cigar in his mouth.In the medium of ink and water-colour. Which, makes this portrait successful because given the situation it is going to be placed in and the reason it was drawn makes it successful.

Font Match

For this blog I am matching a font to a song. The song I picked was Into the Ocean by Blue October. The song is very dreamy and gives the impression of floating and the feeling of water. So I picked a font that would have the feeling of water and floating.

Echinos Park Script by Måns Grebäck "Into The Ocean" I'm just a normal boy That sank when I fell overboard My ship would leave the country But I'd rather swim ashore Without a life vest I'd be stuck again Wish I was much more masculine Maybe then I could learn to swim Like 'fourteen miles away' Now floating up and down I spin, colliding into sound Like whales beneath me diving down I'm sinking to the bottom of my Everything that freaks me out The lighthouse beam has just run out I'm cold as cold as cold can be be I want to swim away but don't know how Sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean Let the waves up take me down Let the hurricane set in motion... yeah Let the rain of what I feel right now...come down Let the rain come down Where is the coastguard I keep looking each direction For a spotlight, give me something I need something for protection Maybe flotsam junk will do just fine the jetsam sunk, I'm left behind I'm treading for my life believe me (How can I keep up this breathing) Not knowing how to think I scream aloud, begin to sink My legs and arms are broken down With envy for the solid ground I'm reaching for the life within me How can one man stop his ending I thought of just your face Relaxed, and floated into space I want to swim away but don't know how Sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean Let the waves up take me down Let the hurricane set in motion... yeah Let the rain of what I feel right now...come down Let the rain come down Let the rain come down Now waking to the sun I calculate what I had done Like jumping from the bow (yeah) Just to prove that I knew how (yeah) It's midnight's late reminder of The loss of her, the one I love My will to quickly end it all Set front row in my need to fall Into the ocean, end it all Into the ocean, end it all Into the ocean, end it all into the ocean...end it all [Zayra] Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) I want to swim away but don't know how Sometimes it feels just like I'm falling in the ocean Let the waves up take me down Let the hurricane set in motion (yeah) Let the rain of what I feel right now...come down Let the rain come down Let the rain come down Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) (In to space) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) (I thought of just your face) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye) Into the ocean (goodbye) end it all (goodbye)

Homer Watson Gallery

I just got back from visiting a local art gallery called Homer Watson Gallery,with my friend Holland. The gallery was named after Homer Ransford Watson (January 14, 1855 – May 30, 1936) who was a Canadian landscape painter. He was apparently the man who first saw Canada as Canada, rather than as dreamy blurred pastiches of European painting.

This is a picture of myself in Homer Watson's room of work. The gallery was once Watson's house and serves as his personal work gallery along with Preston's high school students work, in separate rooms. The room where Homer Watsons work is displayed as a large body of his realistic oil paintings. Along with some personal belongs such as his hats, paint easel and family china etc. This room remains to be a blast to the past were nothing is renewed and still has the hand painted walls by the artist himself.The first floor of the house serves as a gallery while down in the basement it was turned into an art studio for children art classes as well as parties. These are some pictures of his work and personal belongings below.

While visiting the gallery we talked to Laura a employee of the gallery who told us about the claims that people make about the gallery being haunted. They say that Watson's sister Phoebe still visits the house now and then. They believe it was because she died in the house and she was the one who use to take care of the books involving the house and feels a deep connection to it. Some stories involve children of the art classes asking who the old woman is in the corner or where she went. Laura also told us one of her personal encounters with the ghost. She said that she went into the basement to bring up chairs and she didn't feel alone since the lights kept flickering. When she returned to the basement at a later time of the night the lights would not work and all the tapes were running. So, she quickly turned then off in a panicked and blind state and hurried up the stairs were the door was slammed behind her but not by her. So, after hearing all of these encounters people had with seeing the ghost in the basement, since that is apparently where she's seen the most. Laura was nice enough to take us into the basement and take a look around. However, we did not encounter Phoebe. Yet, it was interesting to see all the old paintings and styles and how everything was once done by hand down to the last detail. As well as, listening to all the creepy stories about the gallery. I defiantly recommend visiting this local gallery.

Hands vs. Computer

I find as a graphic designer we have a lot of strengths and weaknesses and we tend to stick to them and obey them. Since, it’s hard to go out side of your comfort zone. I know that I like to draw in a realistic manner and sometimes realism isn’t the best chose for a project. However, I do find that one of the strengths is that I like to do things by hand and make them literal before introducing them to a computer. Whereas, most people go straight to the computer. In my case my weakness is being able to create something souly on the computer I can not wrap my mind around it until i pencil sketch it out first. I suppose it would have it perks but I find I don’t really like the vector work opposed to something drawn with some character and looks like it was done by hand.