Biography book cover proof

And here it is, the proof! I think it turned out pretty well. While I was making it, I decided that I really liked the idea of parts being unfinished and having her face have the most detail for emphasis. I will probably add even more detail to her face--blending the shadows and adding highlights to make it have more depth. I changed the background from grays to brighter blues (too depressing otherwise). The spine design is there as well. Click for bigger images.

Wine label proof

This one was surprisingly fast but turned out well. The outline was an auto-traced sketch in Illustrator, and the colors were added in Photoshop. The fur effect was achieved by layering color and then using the smudge tool. I used complimentary colors to achieve an interesting contrast on the cat. Next I'll add the handwritten type and small copy.

Click to embiggen.

Foellinger Auditorium poster proof

This is the proof for a 11x17 inch poster of Foellinger Auditorium. I tried to do a scratchboard style by putting a black fill layer over my reference image and then painting on a mask layer.

I still need to adjust the symmetry of the image with the text and add color (like a watercolor style). I will also add some more details, finish the fence on the right side, etc.

Holiday card: Proof

Here's a proof of the holiday card. I still have to design the inside, back and envelope!
This part alone took me like... 8 hours. But I like it!

Something I learned doing this illustration was for adding the glowing highlights from the fire. In a separate layer, I added highlights with a brush the same color as the fire, then changed the blending mode to "soft light" to give it a subtle glow.

Newspaper editorial proof

This is supposed to be printed in grayscale (halftone), which makes designing hard for me. Typically I'd want to do a line drawing if it's supposed to be black and white, but it seems like a lot of editorial pictures have an emphasis and shape (although those, like from the New York Times, are also in color...). Anyway, I'm not super proud of how this one turned out. But, I think it gets the point across.

Instructional proof

Here are the illustrations for the origami step-by-step instuctions. I just need to lay them out on a page, I need InDesign to do it, which I only have at school, so I'll have to do it later.

I think I'm also going to make the blue lighter, because otherwise it creates a strange phenomena of making the black lines appear to be lined in gray.

Travel silkscreen poster: Proof

For the proof, I decided to go with Mount Rainer. Although I liked the Mount Shasta image perspective a lot, I was having trouble only being limited by three colors. The colors in this proof are grey, blue, and brown (which looks like black when overlayed with the others).

I'm not sure if it's good that the Mount Rainer font is different than the Amtrak logo (gah, I have to find that?). I also tried to play around with the reflections' registration being off, but it's not so obvious because the registration isn't that tight to begin with...

Saul Bass MoMA handout proof

This is the proof for the fake MoMA flyer we designed for class. It was a good exercise--I learned how to use the text box feature and gridlines in Illustrator.

I think it turned out pretty well--how about you?

Product illustration: Proof

Previously, I have posted on the inspiration and concept of this design for my product illustration. The above are some thumbnails of images I was playing around with to get the composition down. I liked the first because it is a unique view of the bridge, but it leaves little room for copy and the product isn't featured well. The middle thumbnail (my mom and i wouldn't actually be in the illustration, we were just in the bridge reference photo) was a different view, but I didn't like how the bridge tower placement ended up with the figure. The last one fixes this problem by creating continuity with the figure and towers, and it solves the problem with copy in the first image. So, I took the third and did a mock-up of the illustration.

This shows the overall style I would use in the final version--illustrated except for the product. The final will have more line details and shading/highlights in the illustration; also the left side of the figure will be a continuation of the right. I may also add some bushes just in front of the figure so it doesn't seem like he's floating, and the style of the copy might change.

Silhouette illustration: Proof

Click on the images for larger versions.

This is another step of my silhouette illustration project; I have previously discussed my concepts and style inspirations. To make this proof, I first positioned the plane reference image in Photoshop and drew the smoke cloud, sketching the letters in by hand (using a tablet). Then I took my scanned sketches of Victorian objects and traced them in Photoshop by hand and then auto-traced it in Illustrator. Everything was put into Illustrator as vector images, and I positioned and tweaked all the objects into place and copy was added.

My favorite is the first. The second and third both have outlines around the cloud; the former has the objects in black and the latter has the objects in a larger stroke.