Killing time while working on the DL

A few weeks ago my new business cards arrived in the mail. That is probably not exciting to many people but to me it is. It is not the first time my name has been on a business card, but it is the first time I designed the whole shebang.

Sticking with my usual colors, the Silhouette Graphic theme and my personality, they are bright red and black. I designed them in Photoshop, printed them with Uprinting.com. I am happy with the quality of the stock and the colors.

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I try to keep my photoshop skills tuned up by going through cool tutorials online several times a week, just to see if there is a new trick or technique I can learn. Plus, its quick, easy and fun. The other day I made a quick wallpaper. Nothing fancy. Hopefully soon I will have a gallery up on here to showcase more of the things I have put together. Until then, you can see most of my digital work at silhouettegraphic.com.

I'm still working on the major magazine project. It has pretty much been full time for me for the past two weeks. Problem is, I'm still not allowed to talk about it. It is nothing juicy for the government so don't get your hopes up. The people involved just want to keep it under wraps until they have all their bases covered. Until I can show you what I'm up to, I'll keep putting the fluff up here.

Recent Work.

In the past few weeks I have been uber busy between my full time job at the comic book store, side projects for Silhouette Graphic, and keeping up with the 22 year old social life. I was lucky to get a job designing a tri-fold brochure for a local salon.

In keeping with a ideal I consider very important, I took what I knew about the people at the salon, the feel I get when I am in there, and the overall quality of their work when I started laying out the concepts for the brochure. The salon is a nice salon, high-end products, professional employees who are young but bring their A game every day. The place always feels vibrant and sleek with a high natural energy. I also always try to research as much as I can about a client before taking on a project, so I hopped on Google and looked them up.

After compiling my initial ideas, I laid out the concept in Photoshop and uploaded it to my website where the client was able to review it. It is simple and clean, having just what information the salon needs to get across to the client. They have the prices, the brands they carry, and a listing of their stylists. We tweaked things here and there, and finally got the whole thing printed and out the door in less then two weeks from start to finish. The salon was able to hand out the brochure at Newark Night and will have plenty on their counters for future clients.

The best part about this job is that it was pure persistence on my part that got it. Nothing is going to fall into your lap (well, somethings do but usually that is after a few beers), you have to go after it. I was in the salon a few times and noticed there was no brochure to be handed to potential clients, or even for return clients to take home. I asked one of the owners about it and suggested that I put something together for them. The next day I had something ready to present, being active in soliciting of yourself shows enthusiasm and drive and a lot of people really like that, just don't be pushy.

It turned out there was already another design on the table that they were considering, but going back to how I take the clients personality into account for every project, they loved my design and that's the one they ended up going with. The brochure was a hit, and the client has already come back for future projects.

Yeah Me!

Project 1

I have currently been asked to help design a magazine. This is by far the largest project I have worked on yet and I am absolutely flattered that I was even involved. The magazine content is still on the 'down-low' until they get the name all taken care of with all the legalness that goes into such a thing, so I will fill you in on more details as they come to me.

I will be learning some Adobe Indesign and Illustrator for this project. The whole idea is a little overwhelming and I'm loving it. I work better when there is more pressure so I'm currently riding a work high like you wouldn't believe. I have a logo designed (which I can't show you...) and some mock pages already made up (same there >.>) . I am currently working with a genreal idea and feel of the clients and a few magazines pages they ripped out to show me what they want to see aesthetically.
The more I get, the more I'll show you. There will be a lot of late night googling for ideas and tutorials... >.<

No Pressure Like the First Time.

Hi and welcome to my blog. I am not a avid fan of the blogosphere quite yet however, I have been advised to start one. (It should be noted, that I love to read other peoples blogs, I am just not sure I can type on myself). Let me just tell you, trying to think of something witty, interesting, or even slightly odd to say to spark an interest to the individuals who may eventually read this is more difficult than I realized.
We'll start with the basics.
I am a 22 year old employee of a comic book store who is working towards an art education to become a graphic designer. More about my will be posted on my bio page.
This blog is going to be a journal of what I am working on and other random thoughts that I find appropriate for it.
We will see if my opinion to blogging changes over time. Here's to hoping you come back for more.