Christmas Fun

Hey all. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all.

In honour of the cool poster kicking around places like here and here of the Evolution of Batman, I thought that another iconic comic book character demanded an evolution of his own:

I had this one finished for a little while, but I was giving it away as a gift and couldn't talk about it :P

Thanks for reading!

Christmas Season Update

Merry Christmas everyone :)

I'm sure there are a lot of people in the world with much bigger problems, especially given the current state of the news, the schools, plants, etc.

I'm not here to editorialize though. But I would like to talk about priorities and resolutions. I'm new at this whole business thing, and while I still love it, I'm still learning the ropes about certain things. Like updating here regularly :P

With the business and clients, planning for a wedding, general life stuff and Christmas, things are amazingly busy around here. I actually spent the majority of the morning wrapping presents only to realize that when I was done, I didn't want to work on anything!

But that made me think about my free time, and the projects I want to be working on, and while it will probably make me crazy, I want to make an early resolution to take more time for my projects. I'm sitting on a load of writing I want to do, as well as the board game I gave a sneak peek about a little while ago, and I really should hit these.

I think I can balance it... :P

What sort of resolutions are you planning? Are any of them design related, because that would be awesome :)

Thanks as always for reading. Happy holidays!

News Time Children.....

Anyone who played (or watched their fiancee endlessly play) Fallout 3 will get the title. Those of you who don't, it's not that I don't love you, but put down the book and pick up a controller every now and again ;)

Many apologies for not updating here on a more regular basis. The last week or two have been a bit busier than usual, and while I do realize I haven't every Monday, I just find too many smaller projects on the go that make me say "I'll get back to it shortly", yet sadly don't.

As for those projects, I'll discuss them now in the order they pop into my head:

The wedding planning is a juggernaut of a train that has now clearly left the station. It still has a ways to go, but it picks up speed at every junction. More things get added on, some get dropped, but in the end, it will be well worth it. I'm still working on designing the invitations (and anything else that needs designing), but we're waiting on information from an officiant first. I'll very much be posting about these things in the future.

Christmas also crept up on us pretty quick these last few weeks. Shopping, organizing, making plans and lists, checking them twice, you know how it is. A few pieces have been requested as gifts, which I'm working on.

Oh, an aside for that. I do a number of custom cards for various events, Christmas, birthdays, non-occasions, the like, and if anyone would like some sort of specialized and personalized card for their loved ones, by all means ask! The worst that will happen is that I don't have time and you'll have to buy the card you were going to anyway :P

I've picked up a few new clients as well, and have been doing some off and on work for some existing clients. A shout out to James at White Rock Technology Inc. Dude's awesome. I'll create a post for his work soon. A continued shout out to AJ Auto Repairs too! I hear business is doing well :)

I've hit at least one networking event a week over the last few weeks, which have been awesome, and the open house at Ontario Office Works on Friday was a blast. Pictures should be on Facebook.

That's all for now, if anything comes up, you'll be the first to know ;) Thanks as always for reading!

Sneak Peek!

Aside from the wedding materials, here's a sneak peek of the next project I'm working on. I'm excited... are you?

Thanks for reading ;)

Help The Children, Help The World

Today's project was actually brought to me by Carla. She works as a CDA (Communicative Disorders Assistant) on her way to becoming an SLP (Speech Language Pathologist) and it came to her attention that for some of her kids' speech issues, there aren't a lot of materials to help them elicit the proper sounds.

With that in mind, I present the following: do your kids have issues with eliciting the "th" sound, as in "gather" or "north"? Have they ever seen the Super Hero Squad cartoon? Do they love comics? Then the following is for you!

Thanks for reading!

This Was A Triumph!

Carla, who often works as my inspiration for a lot of projects, wanted to enter the ThinkGeek product shot contest, where you take a picture showing you using one of the products they sell online, and you can win a gift certificate to the site.

Well, these are generally posted on their site anonymously, but because WE WON I thought I'd share. While I technically own every item you see in the picture, I do not own anything owned by Valve :P

Thanks for reading!

Project - Engagement Puzzle

So back in high school, my fiancee became friends with a wonderful young woman named Hitomi who was an exchange student from Japan. She's a lot of the reason we went over for a visit a few years back, and when Carla and I announced our engagement, Hitomi was awesome and made us a personalized Japanese Kit Kat box designed with all kinds of images from our engagement and Facebook.

A little while ago, Hitomi announced her engagement to Zac, a mutual friend of ours who was also in Japan, and we immediately started thinking about what we could do for them. Always wanting to push for a new project, we eventually came to the puzzle idea and I set forth!

This sort of project is always interesting because it really flexes the networking muscles: I had to source out a new printer to create the actual puzzle (most places couldn't print to such a thick stock), I had to contact Zac's dad to source high quality images of their engagement, and I had to put the whole thing together on a tight timeline.

In the end, I'm extremely happy with the results, as were the happy couple. Thanks for reading!

Project - Rustic Wedding Card

So I believe in my last post I commented that I was working on a few little projects that I couldn't necessarily name because the final recipients of the designs read this blog.

Well the dates have passed, the projects are finished and in hands, so I no longer need to protect the innocent! With that I bring you - HOLLYWOOD WEDDING REDEUX!!

*explosion* *screeching tires* *Wilhelm scream*

*cough*

So my sister commissioned me for some decorations for a wedding party a few months ago and the wedding was on the 13th. From what I hear it went beautifully. After the fact, she also wanted to give the bride and groom a special congratulatory card that spoke to the down-to-earth, rustic theme of the wedding, and asked me to step in and produce something.

This was around the time that I was experimenting with moving cards, and I had two ideas right off the bat for this card: a pop up birdcage and a scrap booking look to the outside. My sister agreed on both, and I set to it. Amazingly, Canon paper offers a neat template for creating a pop up birdcage, and it was the cleanest one I was able to find online. (I modified mine a little because it was A LOT of small pieces needing to be glued together)

From there I worked a sort of found object look to the front, including dollar store jewellery for some wedding bands, and the rest is history:

As always, thanks for reading!

One For The Road

Good morning gentle readers.

I just wanted to drop a line to say that the Intelligent Designs blog is still up and running. September was a little slow for business, but picked up in terms of side/personal projects that keep me busy but don't necessarily make money :P

Many of these projects are actually almost over as well, and I will be creating posts surrounding them. I can't really go into the details of these posts at the moment because some of them are gifts or surprises for people who may or may not read this blog, so yea...

Moving on...

September was good for networking and building business contacts. Hopefully October picks up but if it doesn't, I'm going to put some thought into more of my personal projects (that are for nobody but me) and see if they can make some money.

I'll probably blog about that later. Until then, thanks as always for reading!

Project - Zelda Activity Book

Good evening gentle readers!

I might have mentioned this before, but due to my profession (and general level of over the top creativity) I hardly ever see the need to BUY special event cards anymore. Combine that with making Carla a card every year, and you have this project :)

Carla's big into Nintendo, Zelda in particular. So big in fact, that her birthday present this year are tickets to the Zelda Symphony. That's right. Zelda. Symphony. So I figured hey, why not theme the birthday card to Zelda also!

But what to do exactly? I've been making more and more elaborate cards, pop-ups, pull tabs, all sorts of things, so I made a sideway motion and opted to keep the card simple, but the presentation elaborate. One day shortly after that decision, I was in Michael's and saw an activity book and the lightbulb went right off!

So I started working on the important pages, and pulled together a word search, crossword puzzle, and other fun creative pages, as well as some images for colouring, and the rest sort of fell into place.

I learned a few things with this one that I hadn't done before:

First, I spent a lot of time trying to create inexpensive stickers (the last picture above). I explored vinyl and printing labels, when I came across Xerox brand removable decals for windows. They run through my inkjet printer no problem, and when applied to a laminated page, peel, stick and reapply easily.

Secondly, the 2-up pages were larger than 8.5 x 11, which is the max size for my printer at home. I went EVERYWHERE trying to find a printer that would print to newsprint, and nobody would. My last attempt was a small place in Fonthill, and man were they amazing there. Printed the newsprint and didn't charge me an arm or a leg for the setup.

One of the first shout outs for this blog absolutely goes to  Pelham Printing and Promotions Ltd. Certainly my new favourite print house. Cheers!

Anyway, aside from obvious copyright issues, I'm happy to make copies of this, or send over the files ;) As always, thanks for reading!

Project - Gimme Your Best

Hello again, everyone! Today's post is for a project that ties heavily into connecting and social media, so I hope give all the credit to where it's due.

For the team of Gimme Your Best, collaboration is a powerful tool. It makes bright ideas brighter, and pie-in-the-sky ideas doable. Accomplishing these things while keeping a keen eye focused on building a solid community networking really spoke to me, so when Lisa McDonald, on behalf of her team, contacted me needed branding work for their upcoming project I was on board right away.

They're doing so much with social media, I can't even begin to tell it all to you. What I will do, before I pander off on to the design work I did for them, is direct readers to their Facebook page, their Twitter page, and a link to the site offering tickets to their upcoming networking event.

And now, for my small contributions :P

As always, thanks for reading!

Project - Hollywood Bachelorette Party

Greetings gentle readers.

So for the past few newsreel style posts I've been hinting that I was working on a larger project for my sister. Well, over the weekend her sister-in-law and fiancee had their wedding shower, with the theme being "Hollywood Awesomeness".

Donna (my sister) collected up a number of themed items from places like Party Packagers, but commissioned me to go the extra mile and create some great personalized items for those involved. This resulted in the following:

This Hollywood sign hung up over the doors, while a second, larger one was staked into the ground

as you walked in from the driveway. Both we made using white foamcore boards.

This marquee was for the movie All You Need Is Love, staring the bride and groom.

Crafted again from foamcore and several coloured sheets of bristol board.

We created a Walk of Fame for all the members of the wedding party. The bride and groom's star were much larger

and at the end, and were trailed by each member of the wedding party. Donna laid out a red fabric "carpet" too.

I also created an actual movie poster for the event. Hold on, let me get a better image of it...

I couldn't make it to the shower itself, but apparently everything went off great. I got a lot of praise for my work, and apparently had a few of my business cards handed out too! I really love when I can put a number of different design pieces together like this, and when I get free reign to have fun :)

As always, thanks for reading!

Wear It With Pride

So I've been fairly busy with some overflow work from a designer friend of mine, cropping out images for a website that as soon are finished, I'll link over to. That, coupled with not being home most weekends and trying to get some design work for my sister (who is setting up a bachelorette party) for Saturday, have made me fairly busy, and without a lot of time to update.

However! I did start up a D&D campaign DM'd by Jim and in the course of said game, we voted the character "Spooks" (a fire breathing cat) VIP. In honour, I made this:

See the kitteh! See it?! Thanks for reading!

One Can Dream, Can't They?

A little while ago I found a piece of art floating around Facebook that depicted what would be an epic level Lego Zelda: Ocarina of Time video game. Once I saw it, I was totally inspired to take it to the next level and see what would actually happen if it was applied to the actual game boxes. After contacting the artist, Wes Talbott and getting his blessing to use his art for my own project, I set to work. The results are below, and should make at least... 4 people I know wet themselves:

To be clear, neither Wes nor I own any of this property, and Nintendo, Lego, Microsoft and Sony do not support or endorse these ventures. We're just a couple of crazy, mixed up artists with grand hopes :)
Also, as a shameless plug, if you're not following Wes or at the very least checking out his portfolio, you are at a sad, sad loss.

Thanks for reading!

Backburning A Fire Under My Butt

I had a little bit of a realization today, something creative and design related, so I figured I'd share. This may seem more obvious to some, but bear with me that revelations like this take a bit of time for me. I'm kinda slow ;)

So I think I realize why I always seem to have some kind of project or new idea on the back of my mind, and why it always seems to be the project that I'll keep saying "I should really work on that now that I have some free time", and be really excited to but when it comes down to it, I do almost anything else.

I think I need that alternative project to keep me focused on what I'm doing. Let me step that back one: I need to have something that I will never properly finish so that I always have something on the go, so that I always have something creative to do. It's like loving your job because you have a hobby that you hate... I think... out loud that doesn't make sense, but I'm going to go with it.

This is probably why it took me over a year to finish the web comic script, but why I would also attack it with such gusto when I DID work on it. I always had something to do, even little bits at a time. When I couldn't find work, I had something creative to do, and that kept me going. Right now I've got another story I'm writing (which I haven't touched in over a week mind you) that is collecting proverbial dust because of the new business. This is a legitimate reason to not be working on it, but I had a solid hour tonight I could have worked on it, and decided to play some video games instead.

Why? It lets me procrastinate. It gives me something to look forward to. I'm not overly sure what the reason is, but I know that when I don't have a personal pet project, I get down on myself.


Thoughts?

The Subtle Art of Business

It has been quite a whirlwind of things around the office lately (heh, the office. I have an office!) Sorry this post didn't come out sooner, I actually got caught up in some end of the month paperwork last night :) I smile because it seems so weird to say...

Most of the projects that I've been working on (Repeater and the Machine and The Inexpensive Gamer)  are good and finished, with the work all posted up nice. I even managed to find some random work redoing a logo for a business in Cambridge when I was out that way last. I also have two logo jobs for one client that we're in the back and forth stages of, but when they're finished, I'll toss them up here for some cross promotion goodness.

The wedding side project is going well, and I'm looking forward to sharing that. I've got to check in with my sister to see if it's cool to put that stuff up. I don't see a problem, but you always have to watch out for letting out information before it's ready, you know?

Today hopefully will also be a day of business promotion. Once I finish the double job I mentioned, I have no no clients. I'm waiting to go down officially to the Welland Chamber of Commerce simply because it's the off season, and I wouldn't get nearly the bang for my buck that I would waiting until September. We shall see where that goes.

Still writing, more planning at this point. I'm trying to find the happy mental median of doing things to keep the business on track, but doing the creative thing I need to recharge my own mind... and NOT playing the new Borderlands copy I just bought :P

That's all for now. As always, thanks for reading!

And Now For Something A Little Different

Thanks for reading... um... watching!

Project - The Inexpensive Gamer

Good Monday morning to you all.

Today's project comes from helping a friend better brand themselves to do what they love. For a while now my friend Luis has been running his blog about playing video games. In his own words:

Welcome to the Inexpensive Gamer. My name is Ruu, the inexpensive gamer. This channel is dedicated for playthroughs, reviews, and anything else regarding games under $20 (before tax). Working on some colabs at the moment but yes. Let us begin this new chapter of gaming, the inexpensive way.

 So naturally we were talking about our own businesses and ventures, he found out I did logos and design work, and commissioned the following, which will start appearing in upcoming vlogs:

I recommend everyone go and watch at least one of his blogs, if for nothing more than Luis is pretty funny, and while playing his games pretty much says what we're all thinking.

Thanks for reading!

Project - Repeater and the Machine

So this is going to be a link heavy post as there are a number of separate artists that came together to make the final piece possible, and a lot of history behind it.

So a while ago, a good friend of mine and excellent musician Pete came to me and said that he was going to get his musical dreams off the ground and start putting his music online. Now back in the day, Pete was Echo Response, and was contemplating using the same name to start putting his new music online. He was also contemplating the name Repeater and the Machine, and after some consideration, that's the name he went with (ask him the story behind that name, it's cute).

So he had a name, but no logo. Enter your friendly neighbourhood Spide... graphic designer Rob, who worked with Pete to come up with the following logo. Pete wanted a sort of grungy, post-apocalyptic looking design, and I felt like adding the gears to really push the "machine" aspect... and I'm also just a little nerdy:

As it turns out, Pete's aunt Anita is quite the artist, and was cool with donating a print of her work for Pete to use as cover for his first single, "Coma":

So we had the art, we had the logo, we had the song, we were ready to rock! Here's the final "cover", available on cdbaby NOW!:

As always folks, thanks for reading!

Up And Running

Hello again, gentle readers.

Official instructional classes are over, meaning that from today on, Intelligent Designs is now in the business of freelance graphic design and visual communications! It's exciting, and a little nerve wracking, to know that this is it. This is the business. This is what it comes down to. Insert inspiration motivational phrase here.

I've already got some light work lined up, namely from some fellows I'm taking the classes with, but a start is a start and they are just as much important potential clients as anyone else. In fact I'm a little excited to get things going for them, simply because this IS what I want to do. I'll double check with them to make sure I can actually mention them specifically here, so let's hope a little cross-promotion goes our way, yes?

Aside from official work, I also have two wee side projects on the go, which actually just reminded me I have to bolt to the dollar store in a little bit :) Both projects are for a wedding / bridal shower, and the client in both cases is my sister. As a personal aside, I never turn down family help, unless I absolutely have to. I'm quite excited for these projects, one being another pop-op card, the other some amazingly creative ideas from my sister to facilitate the shower. I will definitely post some progress pictures here, or maybe do what I did in the beginning and post a full post when it's over.

NEW FEATURE! I should finally start posting some fun incentives for people to read, apparently my sining and exciting words may not be enough. So I bring you an interesting video concerning the design industry and being paid.

Thanks for reading!

A Bit of This and That

I figure I would keep my keen readers up to date on a few things, as I have some time before my meeting and honestly feel bad that I neglect this blog a bit:

My self employment classes are going well! I can't believe how many subtle nuances there are to having to run your own business though. I just want to create designs and give them to you. I don't often care who you are or what you want to do with them, just let me create! Now I'm concerning myself with financing, promotion... paying the bills... I can see how many people say that to love your work you should have a hobby that you hate (or something like that) because I can imagine a lot of people go this route and begin to not care for their passion as much as they started out. Luckily for all of us, I can't not design, so really this is a means to a productive end.

I'm also very close to finishing a project I've had on the go for far too long now. Luckily this is a friend's side project, and while timelines are a bit of an issue, they've been extremely flexible. Shooting to have this finished by next weekend, and pictures will follow.

Terrifyingly, I'm also writing on the side. At the end of May I finished up the script for the first story arc of a webcomic I'm writing. This was also YEARS in the making: it started off as a Mutants and Masterminds tabletop RPG story that I developed for my friends and GM'd... twice? Someone confirm that... before I had to just write up the ending because the game fell apart. I spent so much time on it though that I couldn't let it end, so I flushed out as much of the story as I could, scoured my contacts for an artist and began building the website. More updates on this to follow, as I'd love to see it take off, but the entire point of that ramble was now that the first part is done, I've moved on to a completely different story!! We'll hashtag this one #Avondale for now.

Also working a commission or two on the side, but those aren't important ;)

WEBCOMIC ART!!!

Thanks for reading!

Free Thoughts While In Class

You do not sell the product itself, but the overall use for it. I sell a brand identity, I sell customer recognition, better marketing, and ultimately yourself to your customers. I am a means to an end: You do not see just a computer anymore, you see the brand (IBM, MAC). Apple has become more than a brand name, it’s a household word, started by a combination of Steve Jobs creating a device to fill a business need, and Paul Rand spinning it to become an icon. Few people realize that they want adhesive medical strips, or that they need facial tissues these days, because brand recognition has trained us to want a Band-Aid and a Kleenex, and that is my ultimate goal: to take my client’s concept or original idea about who they are or what their business is, and help them develop their identity to the point that it becomes synonymous with the service or product that they provide. In a world of less and less “disposable time”, my desire is to help my clients’ consumers recognize the visual brand of their product over their competitors.

Thanks for reading!

Graphic Design As A Condition

A condition? What are you possibly talking about?

Well, let me break it down for you: I feel sometimes that the way that I approach a project, often right from initial concept to final product, is similar to having ADD. That's a fairly bold and sort of odd statement, so let me try to break it down further.

When I'm given an initial design idea, some project that I can sink my teeth into and get creative with, I romance it entirely, and to use an ADD term, I hyperfocus on it. I give that initial design, and often a fair amount of the follow-up work all my attention: everything else I'm working on at the time often sits to the side because I've found something and shiny to focus on. The funny thing that once I get something out, a concept or a rough or something like that, it's fair game as to whether I continue obsessing with the project until it's perfect or drop it off for something else.

Does this make sense to anyone other than me? Can I put on a resume that I promise the most attention and love to any single project at a time? Don't get me wrong, I can absolutely multitask and work several different projects equally, but I often find myself throwing myself into a project that I love...

Anyone else do this? Is it as weird as I think? As a bonus for sitting through a deep thought process while waiting a month for an update, I give you this:

Thanks for reading!

"If It's Passion, It's Worth It"

I was wracking my brain for a creative entry to this entry, something that would encompass what I wanted to say and still be considered witty. I thank an off-hand comment from my friend Pete, whom I am quoting, who said the the above in response to my thoughts about starting my own business. He said it was going to be a lot of work, and I agree, but, well, like the man said.

So I ended up at the Job Gym last week and met with the Ontario Small Business Benefits people (who work with the Ontario government) about the steps I will need to take to make my skills as a designer something that becomes profitable. And what they can do to assist me :) I took a brief meeting with one of the employees to evaluate my ideas, and they didn't see any issues, so if everything goes according to plan I'll start classes in June. Big pro to this: they restart my EI benefits at a decent amount. Hopefully the shine of this info will be toned down by my already having a part time job and supplementing some income.

Anyway, in the meantime I'm still applying for various jobs all over the place, and working on my various side projects. I have a few people actually looking at me to help them with some projects, which is also exciting. Ups and downs, twists and turns!

As usual, thanks for reading :)

How To Win Friends and Influence Business

In my goings around, looking for work and inspiration, I've been playing around with the idea of opening my own business in my head more and more, and I think it's become the most viable option.

I admit that I have difficulty focusing the design beam, being sure exactly what I want to do with my graphic design. Relating to my previous post about hats, I know that there are a lot of different types of designing disciplines, and to be honest I'd like to at least be familiar with all of them. Not saying I want to be amazing at it all, but at least know them.

I know what I like the most though, and its papercrafting. I LOVE creating individualized cards and making items for people that you just can't find in normal stores, and I'd love to turn that into a career. I've been wrestling around with copyright issues and trade marks, etc., and I have some information sessions booked with government funded small business councillors, so let's hope that all the background stuff filters out.

Anyway, I'm thinking of doing packages: building up generic print-related items that vary from event to event (birthdays, weddings, the like) and offering them as customizable themes. In official "design" terms, this is like my other passion, corporate identity, but allows me to be playful and enjoy it.

Thoughts?

Moved In!

I realize that this is supposed to be a blog about design and design related, and I have about a hundred of those ideas and concepts always sort of running around in my head. Right now, I'm thinking about a card for a friend, working on updates for my website, and trying to still find work in the field.

But a designer is still a person, unless the designer is some sort of monstrous, cyberman built for the creation of brilliant and eye catching visuals. *shudder* As I am still just a normal person, I'm sucked into the torrents of other cares and concerns that, despite my best efforts, sometimes override my base needs to just design the world.

One such torrent: having to move.

The infrequency of my updates (which will change!!) has suffered terribly because of this, because the last two weeks have been just caught up in everything else. Last weekend I moved everything into my new place, then took off as soon as the truck was empty to stay with a friend and do some freelance work. YAY FREELANCE WORK!! This weekend I started finally settling in, unpacking boxes while simply moving around far too many others.

That being said, I still love this, I'm still thinking about it, and I promise regular updates from now on, even if they are simple musings because I've decided to stay up until 12:35 in the morning hoping that this last, "Say Anything" style gesture will keep the readers here.

Thanks for reading.

An Overdue Update

My apologies dear readers.

There have been many things going on in the background around here that directly relates to me, my designs, and ultimately my future. I'd like to keep this blog about my ideas of design and the things that I create, but suffice it to say I've been a little preoccupied as of late, and will probably be a little occupied into the immediate future.

Design notes:
- I am still using the design briefs off of the freelance site I mentioned before to generate some new ideas. I'll throw a few of the concepts at the end of the post as well.

- I'm working on an official website for a friend's business. Things are moving this a little slow on my end, but I'll work it all out!

- I am now more considering something in terms of a specialized home business, probably with greeting cards, and things of the like. I'm looking into that today. Wish me luck :)

And now, as promised, designs!

Thanks for reading!

Happy Valentines Day Part Deux

So, my last post was all about Valentines Day an the card I commissioned for a friend.
Over the last few days, there have been some neat little pictures of a Doctor Who themed Valentines Day card card floating around that has been getting a decent amount of press. I like it, its adorable.

Now not to toot my own horn here, but I also made a Doctor Who themed Valentines Day last year, which went into my portfolio and on my website. I want to share it with you here, you know, to stay relevant on the internet ;)

The card is designed like a Z-Card (look it up) with the Tardis on the outside. It opens up to reveal the image, and I personalized mine with a comment about finding my perfect companion.

So yea... I'm a little jealous... *toot*

Thanks for reading!

Happy Valentine's Day!

A few weeks ago a good friend of mine responded to my question about made-to-order geeky holiday cards. Valentines Day was coming up and he wanted something extra special and unique for his main squeeze. Being geeky and a video game enthusiast, he mused "How about a Mortal Kombat themed card?"

The following is inspired by true events. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent :)

I learned a good deal about movable cards researching the Hot Fuzz card, and I wanted to incorporate some of the same principles into this. Almost right away I thought about Scorpion pulling his enemies towards him. Then Pete says "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a female Sub Zero?" And instantly I hit the interwebs, finding cosplay images of the wonderful Marie-Claude Bourbonnais (I'm not linking to her, she does some amazing cosplay, but also a lot of... fetish art... NSFW). I also scored images for Scorpion, a nice background, and download a MK themed font. In the end, I came up with this:

The final card underwent some minor tweaks, working with the idea of Scorpion pulling Frost on a ribbon tied around her, versus a bloody spike in her chest. I also worked the outside with an interesting quote from Sun Tzu about fighting that I thought was applicable to love as well. Here's the final piece, which was met with much love and praise :)

Aww they're kissing!!

Thanks for reading everyone :)

Freelance Concepts 1 - BeeCuz

So while looking for permanent design work, I've taken to oDesk to search through some of the jobs posted there and try my hand at one of my passions: logo work!

I figure that while I'm working on some freelance projects, I can keep my designs and ideas that the prospective clients aren't interested in. I still like them, and because I own them, I'll share them and add them to the old portfolio.

This first concept was for a US gentleman who bottles his own honey. He wanted a more modern, cutting edge logo design, and not traditional concepts. Well, what do you think?

Thanks for reading!