A lovely bunch of coconuts for the Cure

Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness Poster Series

This is a poster series that I created for my Adobe Illustrator Elective. If it's not obvious enough the icons on each poster are representative and the hint is to keep them juicy, or lovely, or breathtaking. These posters aren't necessarily informational but they are taking a lighter approach to such a heavy issue. They also worked well as a series of posters. 

Mirror, mirror..on the book?

Artist book. Seven sins. Aka: the longest/tedious project ever for an elective class. This book consists of the seven sins as road signs and a photo/graphic to represent that sin. The covers are mirror to signify a look into yourself as to what sin you see. The original assignment was to create 5 editions of the same book. So essentially I had 5 times more work than an average project. Lets take a look at the steps it took me to accomplish this book, shall we?
1. A trip to Home Depot to get mirror cut, whom couldn't cut mirror so they sent me to Lowe's who broke 3 pieces of mirror and left me with 5 rough edged pieces to sand down myself.
2. Midor-ing the white wood trim to frame the mirror (which meant I had to bring home 96 inches of this wood to use my parents saw over Thanksgiving break)
3. Printing the images created for the content of this book. (the worst mistake made: printing the 35 pages on $73 worth of 11"x17" cardstock instead of 8.5"x11". Ouch.)
4. Assembling the mirror and wood frame onto the book board. Obviously this was difficult considering my first time cutting and sanding wood on this small of a scale. The measurements were not exact so it took a bit of finagling. Its also a lot more difficult than you might think to sand mirror to make a nicer edge than what the Lowe's guy left me with.
4. Drilling holes in the covers and pages. Actually a pretty easy task, but time consuming when you consider the 35 pages had be individually poked.
5. Finally I got to bind the books using a coptic stitch. The most monotonous task and the most rewarding considering you actually see the final piece. 

Now mix this with the flu and the stress of about 7 other projects, and you'll understand the miserable disaster I have been lately. Things are slowly starting to come around with most of my classes so I'm getting out of this rut. To be honest, I think my crafting skills were lacking toward the end of this project but I was so anxious to finish that I wasn't caring much. And due to the impressive effects that this flu/cold has had on me, I haven't made it to this class to even turn it in yet. Oh the joys of college!

Stealin' the Show

Senior Show Postcard 

Concept

UPDATE!

I'm finalizing my concept for review on Friday. I ended up sticking with the crisp white background. After multiple attempts at painting the canvas, we discovered a little paint doesn't do justice but too much can look sloppy. So white it is. I'm not opposed to either although I spent a good bit of time on that painting. Nonetheless, here is my poster and the ending of my Senior Studio class!

I've started the Senior Show project to promote the end of the year celebration for PCAD. As you can see, the idea is to run through the list of things we have "accomplished" (metaphorically) and then use the popular idiom, now we're ready to steal the show. This concept is just the beginning idea that will be further explored. Considering this represents the entire school, I thought it would add a great quality to use a canvas texture in the background. I wanted to take that even further by beginning a hand-rendered painting of this text. Then I'll be able to scan in the canvas to use as the postcard and poster imagery. When I approached my teacher with the idea, he agreed that it would give it a great quality. He also suggested printing the canvas with the text to paint over. (Apparently he has a printer that can do this.) Its been a while since I've been able to paint for a project, so I'm very excited. I'll post the final once I finish. 

For now, its just about time for Thanksgiving break!

 

Connecting the Dots

Connect Session logo ideas for internship

During the summer, I was asked to create a logo for the connects sessions that Sheetz would hold for employees. Apparently the last logo was overly art directed and took 18+ months and nothing ever really came of it. When it came up again, they threw the job to me. I feel like these we're more of a brainstorming process but I doubt any of them would get used. My work seemed to be much too clean for their style. However, I do feel like I had a good exploration during the process of this. I thought I'd share a random thought from the summer, considering this past week in classes has been less productive project wise. (After a full week of projects being due, I seem to be at the beginning again in all my classes, not too interesting at this point.)

Green Machine

Postcard

Invitation

Back of Invitation

Content of Invitation

Junior Achievement of Central Pennsylvania 

presents the "Go Green" Gala Event

The long awaited JA postcard. This series of material has been the bulk of my work so far this semester. When they first presented the project, we weren't sure how to take the idea of "Go Green" being the theme for such a classy upscale event. I feel like this has a good combination of both. My idea was to use the black tie attire and combine random green leaves in an unexpected way. This way you understand that it is still an upscale event, yet you're going green in a fashionable way. I have a few other items coming, including the poster and the invitation package. I present to the client on Tuesday, so I'll let you know how it all goes.

It's a safety dance.

Type in motion. Using the lyrics of a song to make a motion video that fits the style of the song. Oh how I love the Safety Dance.

Ps if this doesn't work, try it out on youtube here.

i love letterpress.

two paper dolls

two paper dolls

unknown

This is the kind of thing that inspires me.
This is what I want to do.
I love letterpress.

Mapquest me.

FINAL!

Psychedelic Map
Adobe Illustrator

This class is a 3 hour elective that is basically sophomore level learning. The best part: when you already know the program and can play in class to make something like this. To make it even better, I still have 2 weeks left to finish this. I have no idea what else I'm going to do, but its fun exploring.

Wobblers

New Wobblers at Sheetz!
I successfully finished my internship at Sheetz and look what I have to show for it. I helped out with a lot of the M-T-Go materials for Sheetz. They asked me to create New wobblers, including shape and size and colors. All they gave me was the info to include and they chose this.
I must say I freaked out a bit when I saw it in stores.. one of those "OH MY GOSH I MADE THAT" type of things. I also did a lot of the boring nutrition facts for some of these items too but I am quite proud of this little number here. (Small but mighty).
If you go to Sheetz, check the M-T-Go stands for these nifty little things.

Here We Go Again...

A little update on my personal logo.

Heading into my Senior year, we were asked to update our personal logos so we have fresh look at our sophomore project. I'm really fond of the thin fonts right now and I think this works well in combination with the meaning of the logo, and the large shape of the bubble.

This project starts off lots of new ones, so keep a look out for new projects. I'll most likely be posting in the next few weeks to get my Junior Achievement project that has really opened up this past week.

Old Time Sippin' Whiskey

AJ Jenkins
Kentucky Straight Bourbon
Packaging Design

FINAL PROJECT for PACKAGING!
(can you tell i'm slightly excited?)

For A.J. Jenkins Kentucky Straight Bourbon, the packaging must meet high standards. This old time sippin’ whiskey comes from a company whose bottles are timeless and their distilling process is rare. Targeting men, usually above the age of the 30, this old classic label gives the satisfaction of a good whiskey reminiscent of the 1800s. The ribbon is tightly wrapped around the bottle, attached with a personalized wax seal. On the shelf, this bottle would show the craftsmanship of a classic, enhancing a consumer’s likeliness to purchase a newer brand that engages all the values of the aged whiskey. As a brand, A.J. Jenkins stands true to their traditions by selling their old family brewed whiskey in a new market, with a modern outlook. This packaging project became a success when the label shape took place and the research of the classic bottles was introduced. When packaging this whiskey, the bottle would be much more personalized to the shape of A.J. Jenkins and reproduced with the hand crafted seal of every bottle.

A Sweet Taste of Luxury

Godiva Chocolates
Valentine's Day Box collection

Godiva Chocolates
Point of Purchase Poster
Valentine's Day

Finally finished with this project! Its been a long process to finally complete Godiva's Valentine's Day packaging. This project included: creating a diecut and layout of the box, point of purchase poster, & wrappers for individual chocolates. So tomorrow I turn in two mounted pieces, the box itself, a photo of the box (above) and the wrappers. I'm sick of Godiva, even though I've never had a piece of their chocolate..

My idea for this project came from researching luxury items and their packaging. Vera Wang's products are a solid black with black emboss glossy type. I loved the simplicity of that design and tried to use the black for that sleek appearance. Pink, being my favorite color, was the obvious choice to match with black. Bows have shown up a few times in other Godiva packaging and interested me considering the many years wearing them as a cheerleader. The diamond was another addition that added that touch of class and elegance to tie everything together and give it a bit of shine.

As much as a pain in the butt that I make this sound, I really enjoyed this project. When things started clicking with my ideas, I was so excited to put it all together. Assembling the box was time consuming because I'm a huge perfectionist. I can't lie though, I did enjoy it.

I also wanted to say that as far as I've come in my college career, I can tell I have much more confidence in my work. I feel better talking about it and describing my ideas because I have more knowledge behind my decisions and I really am confident in the work I'm putting out. Tell me what you think :)

Design-a-thon-a-rama

Brochure for 24-hour Design-A-Thon

This was the most frustrating and exhausting thing I've ever done. 24-hours to colloborate with 3 other team members (whom I didn't get along with) and come up with new brochure focusing on gaining newer, younger members for the Lancaster Heritage Center and Quilt Museum. So instead of creating one brochure, we all did our own (since we couldn't agree). I am very proud of my accordion style fold and cover design for this. It turned out pretty nicely considering how much of a hassle that weekend was. As always, I enjoy any feedback.

PS. Spring break.. i need you.

Limeade Packaging

Caribbean Limeade Carton
FINAL PACKAGING Image

So I finally got my carton put together. I'm pretty stoked about that. This image doesn't quite do it justice but I am getting a better one (from a photo major with a really expensive camera). In this image, you can see the way that limes would line up on the bottom when placed on the shelf.

Please let me know your thoughts. I had a class critique with a packaging expert who works for Hershey. He said that mine has a good bit of potential, chose it as top three in the class.

Caribbean Limeade, man.

Caribbean Limeade
Clover Farms
Packaging

Why hello all. Its been a while. I've been hard at work on my portfolio and this will certainly be added as well. I'm in a new Packaging class this semester, our first project: redesign a carton of limeade. Of course I kept my simple design, with a slight bit of flair and included the appetite appeal of the limes. This layout is the full carton, I just put the real one together and a photograph will soon be posted. But if you can see the front side, you will realize that once they are lined up on the shelf, the half limes that appear on the front will appear full in a row. This is another eye catching idea that will help notice the brand and what the packaging is actually for.
I'm personally really enjoying this class, and this project. Up next: Godiva!