GRA462 Website Mockups: Taken 2

So these are Web mockups I've designed for the movie Taken 2. I'm a fan of Liam Neeson and I enjoyed the first Taken movie.

Believe it or not, these mockups are going into InDesign and an interactive experience will be built using Indesign. Way cool! Had no idea that was even possible. Was certain this was going to be Flash-based or using HTML/CSS. Definitely looking forward to building this project and discovering the interactive side of InDesign. Definitely going to be a bit more ambitious with this project as I have a much better understanding of InDesign as oppose to Flash or Dreamweaver.

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.

GRA270 The Design Process: Minimalist Poster concepts

For this assignment, we were asked to design posters for 5 different TV shows/Movies/Video Games/Book/Song using the "minimalist" technique. Not sure if I got the technique down right, but these are my initial concepts; I feel that the Storage Wars, The A-Team and Fast Five are the 3 strong ones here. Will get feed back from my professor on Thursday.

GRA230: Typography Book cover

For this assignment, we were to design a book cover for a novel from a selected list. I chose the book 'Slaughterhouse 5'. It's a story about a U.S. soldier who gets captured by German soldiers and imprisoned in a disused slaughter titled "Slaughterhouse 5". Synopsis here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five

We had to design 5 covers as rough concepts and then choose the best design and refine it as our final cover.

Initial designs:

Final Concept:

I like the Stencil typeface because it reminds me of the way military units would mark crates for rations, medicine and weapons, given the fact that this book is set during WW2, I figured that typeface would be appropriate. The deep red is a very eye-catching colour, it shows the aggressive, gory nature of the book. The red to black gradient symbolizes the "out of body" experiences the main character has during the story; believing he travels backwards and forwards in time, jumping to all these different scenes including being abducted by aliens to a docile, post-war lifestyle.

GRA210: 4 Elements of Graphic Design/Bad Yellow Pages Ad

So it's the start of another semester at Seneca College. This semester runs some classes as a "compressed course", meaning that instead of class once a week, we have some classes that run twice a week, but for only 7 of the 14 weeks. So with compressed classes, time management is paramount.

So out first 2 assignments in GRA210 (Graphic Design 1) involved once piece demonstrating the 4 elements of effective design (Contrast, Repetiton, Alignment and  Proximity) or CRAP for short. The second one involved selecting one god awful ad from a list and improving vastly on it.

4 Elements of effective design (C.R.A.P project)

Original Bad Ad

Improved Ad

Tribal drawing

I've done tribal designs once before in Illustrator: http://graemethedigitalmediaartist.blogspot.ca/2011/03/adobe-illustrator-tutorial-tribal.html. This is the first time I've drawn a tribal design by hand.

Oxymoron

For this assignment, we were given a list of oxymorons. We had to effectively illustrate both their means using only the type faces provided in the project specs. I chose "Futura" for "Loud" and "Bodoni" for "Whisper". The "black&condensed" weight for "Futura" allows the word to become more bold and recognizable, just like a loud noise. Making it bigger makes it's presence more emphatic. I used "Bodoni" for "Whisper" because the serifs are like little 'whisps'/strokes tapering off the letter, like a person whispering. Also, serif fonts are more personalized than sans serif fonts. So using Bodoni makes "Whisper" seem more personal, like someone whispering something in your ear.

Cheerleader character

Drew this one up awhile ago, forgot to upload it then. Better late than never, I guess.

This was my first attempt at this character. Not a bad attempt, but she didn't look young enough. Ideally, for a cheerleader, an ideal age is in the range of 16 to 19 years old. I wasn't getting that likeness from this character.

Second attempt. This one is more successful than the previous design. Larger eyes, longer lashes and a big smile really contribute to the young, peppy, cuteness deal you get with cheerleaders.

EROS web site mock up

This is the website Josh and myself built for EROS, a tea and coffee shop trying to make an impact on the coffee market. 

Android Menu Design: Options icon/expanded menu

Android Menu icons

Some of the images didn't turn out like I thought that would. Some look like shit, other, not so bad. Definitely got to re-visit this part of he assignment....