Clazie.com/portfolios

While doing this week's homework, there was a paragraph that caught my attention.

"There are plenty of examples of professional-looking portfolio interfaces out there that are anything but boring. For just a few, visit www.clazie.com/digitalportfolios."

It didn't even dawn on me that this is the same site as for our book, which is written by Ian Clazie. Imagine my surprise, when this (first image) opens on my screen. It's basically an add for the book.

I thought, "O.K., maybe there's something showing these 'professional-looking' portfolio designs lower on the page." See the second image, this is what's below. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. Basically it is the resources they used for the book. All of the links are there, but, it wasn't what I was expecting. Pretty big let-down in my book.

Soft - Portfolio Website

Since I'm new to the whole portfolio website scene, I thought I would look up "portfolio websites". I actually found a website called "50 Fresh Portfolio Websites for Your Inspiration | Smashing Magazine".

On that site, I found "Soft" and thought I would take a look. This first image is of their home page.

As you hover over items, they go from black & white to color (as in the first image above), and as you move your mouse from side to side, the camera angle changes (you might be able to tell that the second image isn't quite "square", it's skewed slightly). There are also sounds when you click on links. But, there isn't music playing while you're on the sight (I'm not a fan of those that has a melody playing unless it goes well with the purpose of the sight).

The third image is from the "film" section of their portfolio. It's a cute little movie and I absolutely love the character who plays the lead. 

The site has some nice tricks, but it is fairly clean and eye-catching. I think it is tastefully done, but yet has some fun features. Hope you enjoy checking it out.

Blog change from GDS 273 to GDS 293

This blog was previously used for my Illustration class, but will now be used for my Portfolio Seminar class. Thank you for taking the time to check it out!

Class Final Projects

This post is simply a compilation of all of our final projects. This project was one we got to choose out of a list to illustrate. Therefore, you will see a huge difference in what everyone chose to do. I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed doing them. I'm putting the images in alphabetical order by our first names. 1-Amber Walters, 2-Angela Norman, 3-Bissie Buscombe, 4-Burke Stanion, 5-Gary Cosat, 6-Jonny Ashikyan, 7-Katie Balch, 8-Lisa Williamson (me), 9-Susan Coulter & 10-Whitney Coulter. Note that #2 & #9 are drawings and are NOT photos.

 

Classics Illustrated - Hamlet - William Shakespeare

This semester I've shared some of the books from my childhood that used illustrations in them that I have always really liked. This time I'm pulling from a really long time ago, the copyright is 1969. This issue was illustrated by Alex A. Blum. Please note the price was only $0.25 and you can also see my writing as a little kid. Haha!

I thought Ophelia was the most beautiful girl ever and I was so upset when she died in the story. Anyway, I digress... For the time in which this was printed, it was done really well. Note the full color not only on the cover, but the interior pages as well.

The image at right is of Ophelia falling into the water, to her death. As you can see, the edge of the page is even missing from my being distraught and rereading this section so many times. Note the movement that the illustrator give the water with it's swirls and waves around her. Then the use of light colors and making the water look transparent as she sinks.

The last two images I found online. They are in a bit better shape than my "well used" copy and mine is becoming a bit brittle with age so I didn't want to bend it to scan.

The third and fourth ones also show the ghost of the king. See how the illustrator shaded him to make him look "transparent". The third one took up one page while the fourth one was a two page spread.

I think this series was really well done. In fact, I used to have others in the series but don't really know what happened to them over the years. At the time that this one was printed, there were 169 different ones to choose from.

 

Alex Fowkes - illustrator, graphic designer, typographer

I ran across Alex Fowkes in the Advertising Annual of Communication Arts magazine (Nov/Dec 2013). He is listed in the "fresh" section. His typography and retro designs first caught my eye (see my blog for GDS 122) and then his illustrations. The images I'm including here are for T-shirts & removable bicycle mudguard. The product is Awesome & the illustration is, too.

These designs are for Full Windsor, which is a company that carries "Innovative cycle accessories that capture the imagination." Full Windsor uses a monkey (or ape - I don't know which) on their website and the designs also have variations & tribal influenced designs with a monkey skull in them. The t-shirts also have a design across the bottom on the back with a skull at the top center. 

Check out more of Alex' designs on his website.

A Local Company . . . McKenzie Wagner Inc.

While reviewing my process for my Illustration class this week, I discussed screen printing. I enjoyed the experience, but now know that it's not something I could do very often. This made me wonder whether or not any local companies design for screen printing any more. So... I started looking online & came across McKenzie Wagner's Illustration department. Above is a picture of a 5 poster series that they did that were screen printed. These were "developed for the Greater Community AIDs Project of East Central Illinois. Inspired by WWII propaganda posters..." This explains they "dated" look that these posters have, but, I really like that look for these. I think that screen printing was the right way to go in printing this style of poster, anything crisp & clean wouldn't have gotten the same message across.

Then I came across their cover for the 2013 Springfield Visitors Guide - SCVB. It is an extremely strong illustration that definitely gets the "Illinois" point across. Multiple images of Abe Lincoln with key "Springfield" points of interest catch the eye.

They also did the branding for SCVB's Celebrity Citizen campaign. The final designs for this are at left. Again, a VERY strong Abe Lincoln, tall hat and all! Very clean design with subtle hints of color, but overall pleasing to the eye.

 

The 10 images above are all part of the Springfield Grooves" theme that McKenzie Wagner created for the booth and pre-conference promotion to attendees of the
Illinois Society of Association Executives (ISAE) Annual Meeting. "Shag carpeting, lava lamps, incense, bean bag chairs, racks of records and rocking 70s tunes to get meeting attendees’ feet tapping set the flavor of the booth. MW designed a series of ten 70s-inspired album cover parody posters that swapped Abe Lincoln’s face or a Springfield scene for the original images on the covers. The posters were popular give-aways at the booth." The really funny thing is that I actually have some of the original albums that they are imitating.

Feel free to check the rest of their work out at McKenzie Wagner.