Experimentation #3 | Shapes and Opacity

So somewhere in between working on my website, finishing working on the Seattle City Chickens Poster and Brochure, and trying not to stress out, I decided to work work with shapes in Adobe's Illustrator program, and work with opacity as well. I actually have been meaning to play with all sorts of shapes in Illustrator but haven't had the time to work on them. You could say this is the start of the shape and opacity posters. How I went about making the cubes was just me using the polygon tool in Illustrator and started to make cube designs with them. Each polygon is the same color and has the same opacity of 30%. How I got a variation in the colors was just placing a polygon over the top of one and eventually made this design. I decided to take it into Indesign after I made this in Illustrator and put some type on top of it. You could say this is an informational poster about Cubes. Hope you enjoy this experiment as much as I did.

Inspiration #2 | Valo Brand

About three weeks ago my roomate Collin decided to show me a rollerblading video featuring pro skater Montre Livingston, needless to say I got extremely pumped/excited after watching the video. A little history about me if you want to know why I got so excited and amped for an aggressive rollerblading video is because back in High School that was what I did, I wasn't all into skate boarding because I just didn't feel right on a board with wheels. Ever since I was a little kid I could not stop rollerblading, and it continued to roller hockey then to aggressive rollerblading. Anyways back on topic after watching the video Collin and I decided to go to the local skatepark here in Poulsbo (its kinda of puny) and do a little blading. I had so much fun just messing around at the skate park, not to mention the work out I got from it. So now I decided I am going to be skating a bit more and more and enjoying the fun in rollerblading again. This is my inspiration post of the week, I was snooping around on the internet, looking at what new skate stuff is out and what has changed. I happened to stumble upon a cool new brand called VALO that has gotten much praise for there construction, comfortability, how well they skate. But I really think it is all apart of their aesthetic, their skates literally look like a big shoe with wheels on the bottom and I just love the whole look to their skates, not to mention their well designed website, and most of all VALO's packaging. Did I mention they also have accessories as well that are just as good. This inspired me to want to do get even better at designing things and packaging design. So now the visuals! Enjoy

Heres a Link to their WEB SITE.

Erik Bailey signature skate. EB.1 these are simply amazing looking.

These are also really growing on me as well. The Alex Broskow Gold edition Valo Skate. AB.1 Gold

And VALO's ever popular skate the TV.2 Black.

Cant forget about the Swagger.

And I am going to leave you with a video of team VALO rippin it up in AMSTERDAM.

Amsterdam; Valo Sesh at Olympian from Themgoods on Vimeo.

INSPIRATION #1 | Stranger & Stranger

About four months ago before I had this blog I had encountered a mysteriously awesome bottle of Black Spice Rum at my neighborhood Albertson's that I use to work at during my high school years. This rum is called "the Kraken" black spiced rum but what caught my eye was the wonderfully beautiful design on the bottle, which speaks for the whole product and the design firm it was made by, Stranger & Stranger. This design firm specializes in creating identity and packaging for Beer, Wine, and Hard "A" companies alike, this place would be the ultimate dream job for me. Without further delay here are some of my favorite designs by them. All designs are done by Stranger & Stranger design firm and they have two locations, one in New York and one in London. Link to their web site I would highly suggest to look at all of their wonderful designed products .

THE WHOLE BOTTLE

A CLOSER LOOK

EVEN CLOSER LOOK

MAMONT VODKA bottle was molded by a Real Mammoth Tusk

A lovely wine label for THE WAXED BAT shiraz wine


This beautifully elgant and Modern White Wine Called Ogio is a Favorite design of mine and its a Best Seller. I wonder why? ;]


Lets take a CLOSER look at the Label


An awesome Homage to the Early Hollywood Movie Posters. The Red Monster a California Red Wine, it really speaks for itself.


Love this Cable Car Beer, It Speaks San Fran and it should, It was hand crafted there.


A beautiful Cerveza for Rialto in San Salvador the largest City in El Salvador, San Salvador is know for its Sun Temples hence the design.

Look at those Temples


The Knot Irish Whiskey. I don't think I have much to say about this one except just look at it. IT'S BRILLIANT!


The Spice Tree, a Scotch Whiskey


And Last but not Least, Occasio Merlot Wine. The pocket watch illustration would make me buy this wine in a heart beat.

Experimentation #2 | Oval and French Curve

So after my first experimentation with my ovals I decided to use the ovals and the french curves to create shapes and add personalities to the shapes. Really just having fun with the stencils as you can tell. Nothing really that was planned to look like anything just some fun.

Personal Art | Block Print

About a month ago my girlfriend and I decided to be a little creative and do some block prints for ourselves. I love block printing, the inconsistancy from the block to the paper and all the flaws in the print make them so beautiful and unique in there own stature. This print I decided to do a graphic grizzly bear just because grizzlies are bad ass. I used a refrence from a photo I found on google images and just made it work for a block print. I think I may do another print of some sort of animal this weekend if I have time to get to it.

A link here on block printing techniques and how to get started if you want to do some yourself :}

Experimentation #1 | Oval Stencil

Mostly when I draw I usually don't use any help from stencils. I actually rarely use stencils to create drawings, in a way I think of it as it as a way cheating. The human hand speaks so much more to me as an artist. However I decided to break out of my box by using a stencil of various sized ovals that my french curve set has on the inside of them. This is just a piece of 11 x 17 paper, I used a regular writing pen, I'm not to worried about the archival issue with this because I was just really experimenting, though this was a start of many other themed small drawing I did inside my sketch book. I also can see myself using this in my graphic design to create cool looking patterns and shapes. I throughly enjoyed breaking out of my box and using a stencil to create these little "experiments". You may never know can come from trying something new.

P.S. for those who don't know what archival is I attached a link to the word archival just so you can get an idea of what it means. Also put a link on french Curve to let you know what it looks like.

Sketch Book | Drawing Four

Just a little vampire drawing I did in my spare time at school. All line simply pen and ink line work. AB or O positive?