I'm published!

Well, only one of my designs is in a book. But still pretty exciting. In the book Creative Workshop: 80 challenges to sharpen your designs skills by David Sherwin I made a design for a wine label.

Always cool to see your name in print.

The book is very cool. It has a lot of fun design challenges. I'm committing to do one a week starting in the new year and posting the results here. I'm not going to do all of them but it should be fun.

Boo Bash 2010

This has been a very holiday-filled week. I designed a Halloween poster and then switch gears to design Christmas cards. Yes, it is coming.

For the last two years I have designed the promotion materials for a Halloween party in Paducah, KY hosted by the 20/30 Group called Boo Bash. It is always fun to do. Here is what I designed for this year.

The Seeds of Paducah

The Paducah Renaissance Alliance wanted to promote their downtown properties for sale to business owners out of town. I created a postcard for them that was printed on handmade paper
encrusted with wildflower seeds. The postcards can be planted and they grow into wildflowers.

"Plant the seeds of success in Paducah... and watch them grow with us."

Adobe CS5 Magic

I just got the new Adobe CS5. For those of you who do not know, that is the software I use for all my designs. I don't usually do this in the blog but it is so amazing, I had to share. In Photoshop CS5 there is a new feature called Content Aware Fill. And it is magic.

To try it out I opened this photo (which I am making a quilt from which will probably be finished in December 2020).

And let's say that for some reason, I wanted to remove the cathedral in the back. I made a loose selection of the cathedral.


Then selected Fill > Content Aware Fill and like magic the cathedral is gone and the sky behind it is almost perfect.

Some quick fixes with the Clone Stamp Tool and we are done!

Ok, I could spend a little more time making the sky look perfect but it is pretty good considering that it took me about a minute. Before something like this would probably take around 20 minutes. Photoshop is magic. No wonder they don't accept photos in court as evidence.

Goodwill Annual Report

I have been quiet in the past few weeks mainly because I was working on a big project. I designed the 2009 Annual Report for Goodwill Industries of Monocacy Valley. It is not bad considering that it is the first time I designed an annual report and I had two weeks to do it. Take a look.

Poster Clash

I'm excited. Today I found out I'm among the finalists at Poster Clash. Take a moment and vote for your favorite (mine of course). I changed the design a little from the last time I showed it here after getting some feedback. To vote go to the Poster Clash page and click on VOTE NOW. You need to register.

2/23/10 update: I did not win Poster Clash. I got to the 32 finalists. I'm pretty happy that I got this far. The poster that was the final winner was the poster that was placed against me in the round I lost so I know my competition was strong. You can see the winner here.

Flip the Switch

I designed a poster for the AIGA poster competition Poster Clash. The theme this year is Change One Thing. The contest has an online voting part and the winners of the online voting will go to a live competition here in Frederick. When the online voting starts I will post it here so you can see all the entries and have no other choice but to vote for mine because it is the best.

I'm not one of those overly concerned about the environment. I know I should. But of all those statistics and tips they always give you about saving the environment, there is one that has always surprised me about how simple it is and how much of an impact it can make. That is to power off electronics when you are not using them. How many times I leave the computer on when I'm not using it? One of the benefits of having a Mac is that it almost never crashes. Sometimes I leave it on for months without turning it off and only turn it off when it is getting slow. I have my computer plugged in to a surge protector along with a few other things. If I turn off the surge protector every time I am not using the computer it would save tons of energy. If you are selfish like me and don't care too much about the environment, just think that by turning off the surge protector you can save about 6% of your total electric bill. So I will change one thing and I will Flip the Switch.

Isn't she lovely...

My niece.

What I do when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Logo Design

I just finished designing a logo for the blog Frederick Maryland Online. And I am running a contest there for couples getting married in Frederick. If you are, go there...

Way to be a poster

Here is a poster I designed for my graphic design class. The girl in the poster is my niece and the drawings are hers too. She saw me doodling and said "Let me do it."
From all the posters in the class, they will pick one to be used to promote the contest. We'll see what happens...

UPDATE: I posted this all over the Internet, discussed it in class and no one told me that I misspelled Tobacco. At least is not as embarrassing as this.

Billboards

For my Graphic Design class I told you I had to design labels for a drink. My next assignment was to design three ads for that drink. The ads could be anywhere. Most people chose magazines. I chose billboards just to be different. Here are my three billboards.

Water+

My first project for my Computer Graphics class was to design a label for a drink. I decided to do water but we had to do three different flavors. I decided to do spice-infused water. I know it sounds gross but I was just thinking of the colors. It doesn't matter if it is a marketable product, it just has to look good. Isn't that what graphic design is all about?

So I present to the world the debut of Water+.


Now I have to do an advertising campaign for Water+.

I'm smart!

When I lived in Paducah I was in the local paper almost every week (ok, I'm exaggerating). I was even in the paper after I left. I haven't reached that kind of fame here yet but my name appeared on the paper yesterday for the first time.


On related news, I just received a scholarship from the same paper, The Frederick News Post. I'm sending them a thank you letter that I designed.

I'm awesome!

That is what my 7 year-old niece said when she kicked my butt in Monopoly last night. I really need to learn to manage my money better.

Today I'm saying I'm awesome because I designed the banner for a local blog and it won the popular vote. US Presidency here I come! I think this country is ready now for a Hispanic woman to be President.

Go check it out at Frederick Maryland Online.

Coffee Break Part 2

I thought I was being so clever and that all of you would be so surprised when I told what my flower was made of. Someone guessed it right away. Valerie, is not a toilet paper roll is a combination of the paper towel roll cut into pieces and a bad camera phone but that was very close. Sorry there are no prizes, just the satisfaction of knowing you were right.

Coffee Break

I did this this morning while I waited for my coffee to be ready and then fixed the picture in Photoshop.

Can you guess what it is made of?

\Just playing...

I was playing around in my drawing program and made this. I think is cute.