“Art From Ashes” Logo Design

This project started from the beginning of the year and was completed towards the end. The basic premise of the project was to create an original logo for the fictional “Art From Ashes” company that would specifically cater to yuppies and hipsters. For our initial thumbnails and roughs, the color scheme was decided to be similar to that of Iron Giant; deep reds and oranges, contrasting with metallic colors.

The four images shown below are my thumbnails for the project. As I said before, I tried incorporating the required colors with a harsher tone to create a logo that would appeal to the intended audience. Each of the logos are a different style, which I had done purposely to account for the image that would be inserted later. Some of the thumbnails consist only of differently colored text, while others use line and shape to make a memorable logo.

The images shown below are the two final components of the project. The piece on the left was made by another student in his/her art class, then presented to my class to be used in our logs. To make my final, I completed removed the right side of the image and cut out only the head. I then used the the third thumbnail from the above four images in the final of the logo. As shown below, I placed the head to left of the text and connected the line separating the company name and the motto to the head, to provide some kind of interaction between the image and the text.

 

Wedding Invitations

For my second independent project of the year, I decided to make wedding invitations. I started off with four thumbnails, and my peers pushed me in the direction of my third thumbnail, which featured a starry night sky. I then directly translated that idea digitally in Photoshop and Illustrator, using Photoshop to make a “starry sky” manipulation and Illustrator to put all of the pieces together. After the digital version of my thumbnail was reviewed by my peers, I decided to remove the grass and tweak the font in order to make it compliment the main font and be more legible. I also temporarily made a shooting star manipulation, but it was removed in the final product due to spacing issues (except for the RSVP card).

The final wedding invitation differed greatly from the original. Tweaks were made to the placement of stars, star and sky gradient, type of font, and overall layout of text. The final product resembles a wedding invitation the most, being legible, pleasing to the eye, and much more uniform.

Novel Cover Redesign Project

For this project, I was tasked with redesigning the cover of a novel. I chose to redesign Dan Brown’s Inferno by taking elements of the story and mixing it with elements of Renaissance art. Personally, I found the original novel cover not reflective enough of the actual story, and is rather a mismash of artistic references. I also found the style of the novel cover to not be reflective of the tone of the novel itself, which causes discord between the two ideas.

My main idea for this work was to use the spiral shape present in Botticelli’s Map of Hell (the painting being a prominent part of the story) to draw in the reader’s eyes to the cover. The shape would guide them throughout the piece, first from the title to the city and then to the city and water below. Because I included the city in which the novel takes place in and also the painting that was a big part of the story, I feel as if this is a better representation of the novel as a whole as I incorporated both the modern and historic elements of the novel.

Original Cover
Rough
Comprehensive
Final

To improve from my rough to my final, I followed criticisms that were offered to me by my peers. I decided to eliminate completely the bag at the bottom, which was supposed to represent the vector virus that presents itself as a major threat in the novel. I also changed the background to be more reminiscent of a night sky as opposed to the original dark blue to light blue gradient. Instead of drawing waves to represent water, I instead photoshopped the reflection of the city to have a water texture, effectively representing the ocean. Finally, I shifted the title and author to the top of the cover, so that the bottom of the cover wouldn’t be so busy and instead create effective movement from to top to the bottom.

T-Shirt Design Project

This project acted as my final for graphic design. I was told to create a t-shirt design for an artist, with specific requirements but little direction. My class did not go through the critiquing process as usual for projects in that class nor did we have much assistance from our teacher, so it made the process of creating the design quite difficult. Despite this, it allowed room for much creativity, and it also tested how well one can judge their artwork without the opinions of others. Because we were not allotted the same amount of time for this project compared to others, I do not feel that my project is completely finished, but I do believe I had a strong starting point for what I was doing.

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Violette High School

This is one of my projects independent of my graphic design class. In my AP Computer Science class, we were instructed to make a game in Java, and then make a corresponding CD cover and poster. My group decided that it would be a PS3 game, so I used a template for a PS3 cover that I found online to assist the creation process. I started off creating a logo in illustrator to set the tone of the game. Afterwards, I started working on the layout of the cover in illustrator, going back and forth from illustrator and Photoshop to edit the images used on the cover. I used actual screenshots of the game in the back and also used drawings of the characters made by another member of my group on the cover of the box. I was very pleased with the end result, as it looked like a legitimate video game cover.

Because I was pressed for time while making this cover, I did not go through the regular process that I do in my graphic design class for making a digital piece of art. Despite this, I was able to successfully create an appealing CD cover, which is an even bigger accomplishment due to the fact that it is one of my very few projects made outside of my graphic design class without any instruction from my teacher.

Abstract Objects In Unity

For this project, I was instructed to utilize different pieces of paper of different colors and patterns and arrange them on a white background. I was allowed to cut up the pieces of paper in any way I desired, so that my poroject would look more unique. Although this project was done in a single day during my first days of Graphic Design I, it helped me gain a greater sense of unity in artwork and understand how different colors and patternswork together. This project was a great starting point for me to understand Graphic Design.

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Planter Box Project

For this project, I was tasked to design the cover of a wooden box that would contain plants. What made this product attractive to the buyers was the fact that it was completely created by the students of the school, including the seeds of the plants that would be placed in the box. My job was to follow the requirements set forth by the students making the boxes and produce a creative logo and cover that would attract buyers.

My rough initially started off being different from the actual measurements of the box, so I experienced difficulty transitioning my ideas from my rough to my first draft on Illustrator. I primarily worked on the front and back, so here is my progress.

Front of Box Rough
Back of Box Rough
Back of Box Final
Front of Box Final

*The planter box back final has the incorrect font, it should look similar to the font of the logo on the front of box final.

Caligramme

In this project, I was tasked with drawing an animal using words. In my particular project, I distorted the letters in “snail” to create the shape of a snail. I added a swirl in the area in the shape of the shell to create a greater illusion of a snail. I also filled in the letter “s” to provide balance in comparison to the heavy swirl in “ail.”

Hand Drawn Snail
Digitalized Snail