Soldier Illustration

Got the idea from a book titled: Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers. The book is by Marcos Mateu-Mestre

I was going to use this initially as my center piece for my retro poster, but then opted to use a "photomontage" technique instead.

GRA341: Final Art History project: Retro Ad

The outcome of this assignment was to choose an art movement studied during our time in GRA341 (Art Deco, Art Noveau etc) and re-design an ad to make the style relevant, this creating a "modern-retro" poster.

GRA320 Final Project: Book Cover

So after 14 weeks of Photoshop training, this is what it all boiled down to; a book cover showcasing everything taught not only in this (3rd) semester, but the past (2nd) semester as well. That includes: layer masks, blending modes, colour corrections, establishing a visual hierarchy, colour echoing, typography etc etc etc.

The book I ended up choosing was "Tough Guy: My Life on the Edge", written by notorious NHL forward Bob Probert. I really wanted to show the stress/pressure of being one of the toughest fighters in the NHL and eventually leading to Probert's world shattering/collapsing, as he checked into rehab multiple times over his career. The rough texture not represents the playing surface of an ice rink after a bunch of guys have skated on it, but also the ruggedness of Probert's persona and the position he held as a NHL player. The type, I feel, is representative of this also.

GRA361: Final Website for Adventure Tours Ontario

Check it out NOW!

First fully functioning site built in Dreamweaver!
http://matrix.senecac.on.ca/~gnishida/

Photoshop Mockups

Altered to "home" page a bit, so it didn't look too similar to the "adventures" page. I opted to go with a larger image of a young couple camping for the home page image, just to show the demographics of which the project was trying to target.

Ontario Adventure Tourism

This was poster design I did for a class project to promote Ontario Adventure Tourism. Our target audience is 30-40 year olds with some disposable income that they like to spend on things like spas, wineries, or adventure tours. The idea was to design it with sort of an "Art Deco" or "Retro" kind of look to give sort of a style that an older audience might be able to relate to. The car is a 1959 Ford Thunderbird, it was a pretty awesome car back in the day and it was considered a status symbol for richer people. It also has that retro look to it with the tail fins at the back; you just don't see that style with cars anymore.

GRA320: More Photoshop Composite practice

More Photoshop composite practice. Pretty simple ones, took maybe 40-45 mins to complete. These focused more on the blending mode options for Photoshop layers.

GRA320: Software Training: More Composite practice

This assignment, I felt, went much smoother than the last one. Got through it much quicker as well.

Using both Camera RAW and Photoshop for corrections (Levels, Sharpening, Vibrance etc.), Colour Range to change the woman's shirt colour, eye edits, whitening her teeth and selecting the appropriate typeface for the design.

GRA350: Business Folder

 Having never designed a folder before, this assignment proved to interesting for me. There were a lot of guides that needed to be set up before the imagery of the folder can be brought in. A die-line (where the cuts will be made) had to put in place using a pantone colour that wasn't already in the document, a fold line, pocket flaps and slots for holding business cards also had to be included.

Learning about the significance of die-lines was a great learning experience and getting to see how it's done was even better.

GRA361 Web Software: Dreamweaver Starter template project

First website built in what feels like FOREVER! Working with Dreamweaver's starter pages along with basic HTML/CSS.

Certainly won't win any design awards with this site, in fact, if I saw this site on the web, I'd want to gauge my eyes out, but I'm still happy with how smoothly this project went.

Check it out: http://graemethedigitalmediaartist.com/uploads/GRA361/index.html

GRA310: Final Modern Typefamily Brochures

 Feedback from my professor was relatively positive, so only a few minor changes. The knock out type point size was reduce to a size that's more appropriate for body text. The body text examples were nudged to the right to prevent the text from falling into the gutter and I added the name of the type families to each of the brochures.

GRA350: Crowne Plaza Hotel & Resorts: Final Print

With feedback from my professor being generally positive, we managed to discuss a few minor changes to be made. I scaled the logo way down in order to draw more attention to the image and the headline. It also allowed me to make the headline type larger and open up the image size as well. The body text was also moved up in place of where the logo originally was before so that readers see the information right after the image/header.

Finally size: 7.5x9 inches

GRA320: Photoshop Composite

Working with the "Refine Edge" tool in Photoshop. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes a rather powerful tool to use. Also working with photo filters to give it a warmer feeling.

GRA350: Crowne Plaza Hotel Ad: Initial Concepts

For my Production Design course (GRA350), we were tasked with designing an ad for the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The layout is 7x9.5 in, the images had to be converted from JPEGs to TIFFs, we had to convert the colour profiles from RGB to CMYK and apply any colour corrections to the photos.

These are the 3 concepts that I came up with:

Concept #1: Hotel themed design (Interior of the plaza)

Concept #2: People themed design

Concept #3: Hybrid design of the previous two designs; both people and hotel images. This is the one I'll most likely re-tool for final submission. I like the interactivity of this design; the headline: "we've been expecting you..." paired with people who look like the hotel staff ready to serve you.

GRA310: Modern Type Family Brochures: Revised Concepts

Modified the Bodoni brochure cover; I think this design is better. Added a stained paper texture to all the designs. Although these are "modern" typefaces, their history dates back 200-300 years ago. I went with the knock out type throughout all 3 designs because I feel that it makes a design bolder than black text on a white background.

After finally deciding on a cover for the brochure and after eliminating "widows"...

GRA320: Photoshop Manipulations

So after 2 weeks of Photoshop class (Software Training), this is what we've covered; mostly a review of what we looked at last semester.

For this assignment, we had to change the colour of the car from green to red/burgundy using the "Colour Range" option, re-touch the sign post out of the picture to improve the composition, adjust the colour cast on the bus windows, blur the background while keeping the car in focus using layer masks, apply colour corrections to the photo using adjustment layers (non destructive edits) and desaturate the background and vignette the image to help improve the focus on the car.

Before

After

This one is a personal photo of mine, I took it at the Toronto Zoo. This was our first project; pick your best photo and apply all the corrections/skills we learned in semester 2 to make the image even better. Basically the car image followed the same process as this image did. The hardest part of this project was clone stamping in the beak so that it appears infront of the branches, instead of behind them.

GRA310: Modern Type Family Brochures: Initial Concepts

Initial layouts/designs for the "modern" or Didone type families. I chose Bodoni, Didot and ITC Fenice for my brochure designs.

Typography Mind Map

Found this awesome mind map regarding typography. It's a good way of looking at choosing appropriate typefaces for specific projects. Check it out here: http://urbantaster.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/soyouneedatypeface.jpeg

More sketchbook creations

Pencil Line Art

Final inked image plus freckles.

GRA210 Final Project: Fusion Ware Sales Sheet Mockups

Our final project for GRA210 (Graphic Design 1) is to design a sales sheet for a fictional company called Fusion Ware. Their main business is Firewall servers that focus on the security of internet connections.

So when looking for images on Getty, I primarily looked for computer hardware images like ethernet cables, computer monitors, server rooms, hard drives etc. I also looked for images of parents and their kids. Since the company is about security over the internet, instead of looking for images that would be a cliche such as a lock icon, I wanted to look for images that demonstrated security in a metaphorical sense, such as a parent holding a child in their arms. It would be a bit of a tough sell for the client simply because they are a computer hardware company and not a family-themed business.

Our prof said it was fine to download the free preview image Getty provides you when you sign up, unfortunately, the image resolution is quite low, so the images couldn't be enlarged as much as I would like without pixelating.

Here are my 3 concepts. My prof and I both agreed that the first 2 concepts are the best ones, so I will be submitting both concepts to him as the final product.

GRA270: Minimalist Posters revisions

So after an interesting critique from both my classmates and professor, I've made some changes to my minimalist poster designs. I feel that these revisions are a better solution for these designs. The initial concepts can be found here: http://graemethedigitalmediaartist.blogspot.com/2012/07/gra270-design-process-minimalist-poster.html

Got rid of the bloody hand print as it had more to do with CSI than Criminal Minds. The show focuses on the actions of the criminal, why they do it and figure out where he'll strike next. So I decided to use an illustration of a brain I found online.

Got rid of the shadow simply because I felt it was too distracting; takes away from the lock which is the primary element in the poster.

For Fast Five and The A-Team, I simply removed the type to avoid crowding the images.

Made the mask a surgical blue colour so it would be easier to identify as a mask and I fixed the perspective of the bloody droplets.

GRA241: Remake of the "Birth of Venus" by Botticelli

For our final assignment in GRA241, instead of doing the linocut assignment, we were tasked with taking a famous work of art and remaking it in our own personal style.

I chose the "Birth of Venus" by Botticelli. For the remake, I wanted to have the girl front and centre; I really wanted her to stand out in the piece. To me, she's the primary element that holds the piece together, everything else is secondary. I had a hard time trying to draw the human form of the woman carrying the dress; the dress she was wearing is big and loose so it covers up her form which makes it harder to draw. So I substituted for two doves carrying a white sheet of fabric. Doves symbolize peace and innocence which is another element I wanted to show in this piece. I left out the two characters on the left because I felt that they weren't as significant as "Venus"  in this piece.

Overall, I feel like this assignment was way more fun than what the linocut assignment had to offer. It is the first big illustration piece I've done in a LONG time and I certainly enjoyed creating this piece.

GRA210 Final Poster Concept: King Lear

Not a lot of major changes going on here; primarily just changes in the positioning and the size of the type used in the poster. Initial concepts can be found by clicking here: http://graemethedigitalmediaartist.blogspot.ca/2012/07/3rd-annual-toronto-shakespeare-festival.html

Final Design

GRA230: Magazine Layouts Final Concepts: Rage Against the Machine

So after my prof reviewed my layouts, we agreed on the strongest design for each of the 3 layouts and I re-designed them, I re-designed the magazine layouts taking my prof's critiques into consideration.

Here are my final 3 concepts:

Initial concepts can be seen by clicking here: http://graemethedigitalmediaartist.blogspot.ca/2012/08/gra230-magazine-layouts-rage-against.html

IMAGE Driven

HEADLINE Driven

BODY TEXT Driven

Frankly, I think all of these layouts are infinitely better than what I had before. The design is much improved and they actually look way more professional.

After a few more changes...

These are the absolute final copies.