Drawings, 2007.

Some drawings I did in the fall of 2007. Junior year had just started and I had no idea what to do for my own work now that it came down to it. I just started doing super-detailed but unfinished drawings of stuff lying around in my studio, probably a sign that my own frustration was eating me alive. These are pretty tiny, about 2-3 inches across. I decided to get rid of the grain and color of the paper upon scanning them because I wanted them to function on the computer screen the same way they do physically. Not sure if that was the best decision.

Old Photos, part 2

This is a series of b/w medium format photos I did. I took advantage of b/w film's general lenience towards proper exposure and used the flat plane of the front of the medium format camera in order to press it against the glass of storefronts at night. Being able to take photos at night while doing painting and design work during the day allowed me to crank out alot of work for every class once finals came around (didn't leave time for sleep, unfortunately). I like these because I like work in series and because there was at least some cohesion.

Old Photos, part 1

These are some old photos I did for Photo I. I'm pretty terrible at photography, as what I did in that class was basically take tourist photos with super expensive equipment borrowed from the photo department. I didn't continue with photo because what I enjoyed about the photographic process was the darkroom, not the actual taking of photos or the theories/critiques. It's pretty apparent that I won't be able to have free access to a darkroom after graduation, so I figured it wasn't meant to be.

This the first set of stuff that I shot. I shot quite a few rolls of film, but only these came out usable. The rest were either boring or out-of-focus.

Mütter Museum Identity Manual

This is the second large project in Visual Identities, where the assignment was to create an entire identity manual for a Museum of some sort. I chose the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia as my institution. Originally I wanted to make something that referenced the Caduceus but in an altered and perverted form to show both the science, grotesqueness, and downright badassery of the museum. This was a bit too hard and too abstract, so therefore I just chose a recognizable object from the museum and made it into a logo.

These pages are excerpts from the completed identity manual:

The logo with clearspace


Logo variations and colors. Had alot of fun with the variations, not so much with the color data.
A common errors page.

And a Business card template. These aren't particularly clever or poetic, I feel, as I tried to encapsulate the creative direction of the identity through brute force.

I designed stationary and envelopes as well, but they weren't particularly interesting.

topsy the elephant

This is the first large project for Visual Identities, where the assignment was to design a visual identity for a roadside attraction. I chose the museum to Topsy the Elephant in Coney Island (I chose something in NYC just in case I had to go in person to take photographs, which turned out to be unnecessary).

First was the logo, which was a disaster
Apparently it doesn't look like an elephant but a fist with a lightning bolt. I was very sad because I couldn't see anything but an elephant. I eventually stuck to this one because I liked it way too much, and made some other versions just in case:
And the postcard:
Two variations of the front and the same design for the back on both. Had to cut out the punchline for the first card ("Edison > Hannibal"), which is why it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in hindsight

type updates

First update in a loooooooooong time. Honestly I forgot I had this and didn't make much work worth posting that wasn't schoolwork, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to post schoolwork. Anyhow, I've been working on some type design over the summer because it fits well with my pace, and it's the kind of thing that can never really needs to be completed so I can spend as much or as little time on it as I'd like to.

First is a typeface that I started for the type design class a couple of years back (can't find the copy of it at the moment). It came from looking at black letter samples and how they were especially great for papercuts because of how well the letters interlaced with each other. I've seen stencil fonts but not papercut fonts, so this was an interesting jumping-off point for me. I didn't particularly like how the first one looked overwhelmingly digital, as because of time constraints in class I had no time to do proper sketches. I decided to redraw the font completely in my spare time, using the calligraphic pen as the model.only lowercase characters at the moment, and I feel that it's a bit too constrasting and bold. I enjoy the variety of negative spaces but loathe the amount of kerning and ligatures I'd need to make this work. The space is actually a vertical bar that ensures the thing can stay connected without ascenders, descenders, and caps, but somehow neither photoshop nor illustrator renders it properly.




Second is a sans-serif I started because I had no experience making one (I don't particularly like using them). I tend not to like the lowercase g and capitals in sans-serif fonts, as the italic G is awkward to me. It wasn't made apparent to me how difficult a roman G is to fit with proper negative space into a sans-serif because of how simple the other characters were, so to avoid having a sideways pair of glasses or a circle with a fish hook I had to do alot of sketching to eventually settle on this version. It's kind of a hiccup in terms of legibility but I don't think this font is polished enough to be a text face anyways.