San Diego - I Con You Not! Part 1

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since the crew have posted a new blog entry here, but I promise you there have been some very good reasons!

First, since I posted last, I got married :D I'm now officially an old man, and that's not including having kids or my own house or any of that stuff yet. The wedding was amazing, and we had a lot of our own little touches in practically every aspect of it (could you expect anything less from a designer??), from the Stag and Doe:

 

To the invitations that we sent out:

Followed right into the wedding itself, where we came up with creating table numbers based on different things we liked:

As well as labels for both the wine bottles and the tea-themed favours that we gave to all our guests:

I'm particularly proud of the thank you gifts I gave to all my groomsmen. I found a template online to create a papercraft tuxedo, so I ran out to Michaels and picked up the exact colours of the tuxes, vests and bow ties and went to work creating miniature replicas of everything! I added the final pieces to a shadow box and included a small commemorative plaque :) Oh, by the way, everyone also got a copy of Amazing Spider-man Annual #21, the famous wedding issue ;)

Those are just some of the highlights of our wedding :) We were back from the wedding for about a week when we managed to land tickets to the San Diego Comic Con honeymoon! Look for the upcoming post about that trip. Nerds: it was epic :D



Thanks for reading!

Designing Intelligently, One Year Later

Greetings again from the collection of folding tables and chairs that is my office :)


It was one year ago today that I officially launched Intelligent Designs!
One year ago today I was sitting nervously in my first small business class with the instructors from Ontario Office Works Inc. getting primed on how to properly start up, build, and maintain my small business, and it's been one solid ride since.

I post or two ago I mentioned that I wanted to switch up the format of how I write these blog posts, wanting to involved my readers (and their readers, and so on...) in a little bit more of what my process is for what I do, and to give back a little to the numerous businesses that have helped me grow along the way by giving me a chance :) Today is going to be a soft start to this new world order, and I figured that a little bit about OOW and the people there is a great way to start.

Lifted from their website:
Ontario Office Works Inc. started in 1994 to provide assistance to businesses in implementing employment equity in the workplace. Diversity is still an important aspect of our training. In 1995 we started providing Self Employment Support to individuals on behalf of Human Resources Development Canada. We continue to provide self employment support to individuals through the Ontario Self Employment Benefit Program on behalf of the Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities. This Employment Ontario service is funded in part by the Government of Canada.

Ontario Office Works Inc. has helped more than 1,100 people start their own businesses since 1995. We are here to help you explore the possibility of becoming self employed and determine what is right for you!

The staff at the office are amazing at what they do, too. They're a team of bookkeepers, accountants, social media experts, etc., each able to answer a variety of my constant questions and help grow every aspect of my business. Although I've been working graphic design freelance for many years at this point, I had no idea how to do it for myself, and they walked me through through enough of the process that I can now say to other people "hey, it's a little scary, but running your own business is actually pretty easy once you get the pieces sorted out!"

I've also taken them on as a client, and am currently working on a number of visual communication pieces for them, including updating their logo, their brochures, window decals, and their charter, which I feel sums up their business perfectly:

A big thank you to the team at Ontario Office Works for putting me where I am today, and a big thank you to all the readers that keep this blog going.

Thanks as always for reading!

Check One Off The Bucket List

Greetings all!

Thanks for sticking around! I know there hasn't been an update in a while, but that's because weddings are hard :P In the next little while I'm hoping to even out the work-life balance, and am actually thinking of doing a little retooling to the blog here in a hope to involve my readers more in the workings  of Intelligent Designs, as well as to bring a steadier stream of content.

Stay tuned for that :)

But to the post at hand!
This past weekend was Headshots From The Heart, which you all know I was (and will continue to be as long as they'll have me) the official graphics supporter for :) The entire event went off swimmingly, and it was a lot of fun. For the second year running, Kwartzlab hosted the event, and while I would love in this post to tell you all about them, I'm going to leave that for an upcoming update.

But Kwartzlab is awesome because I was finally able to take the Blender TARDIS that I had built and run it through a 3D Printer!!!!! I feel bad for Ben, who represented Kwartzlab while the event was going on, because I was totally geeking out about it and checking back on it every ten minutes :P

Anyway, pictures:

Thanks for reading!

Headshots From The Heart

Who doesn't like playing video games?

Who doesn't like donating to needy and/or sick children?

Who hasn't stayed up all night (at least once) wondering how in this age of computers and horseless transportation that they could save even a moment of their time by combining these two noble ideals into one, beautiful fulfillment?!?!

WELL QUEST NO LONGER!

Headshots From The Heart, the wonderful, twenty-four hour, gruelling butt-numb-a-thon returns this year to help raise money for Child's Play. As with last year's event (where they played through the original), players will play through as much of Borderlands 2 as possible before their eyes start to bleed and fingers grow numb. Every head shot they secure gains them donations, and along the way they will be auctioning off amazing prizes, hosting live interviews, and giving the audience a chance to sit in a rotating chair and try their hands at eliminating the bad guys, one brainpan at a time!

They're still looking for volunteers, looking to fill the LAN party, and looking for general support, so pop on over to the website linked above and see what you can do. It's a good cause, and you know your momma says you should do it too ;)

For the second year running, Intelligent Designs is stepping up as an official sponsor, providing the creative team behind the event as much graphical support as possible. Things like banner ads:

Various logo designs for side projects:

As well as concepts for their achievements! These are super cool: the audience can actually contact the players AS THEY PLAY and pledge money to the cause in exchange for the characters performing and achieving certain goals, such as:

I could go on about how awesome it all is, but you really should check it out for yourself :)

As always, thanks for reading!

Project - Mass Effect Valentines

To wrap up the massive Valentine's Day card rush I had this year, I've been working on a Mass Effect themed card for a client whose boyfriend loves the game franchise.

I was looking for an excuse to try something new with this project (as I normally am with each new venture) and my client was very open to any idea I had. I opted to attempt a coded message style screen, like the old books you used to buy with the special glasses? You know? Yea, you know...

Overall, I'm very happy with this project. I learned a little bit more about 3-dimensionalizing objects and building them out of parts to a new, final project. As this was the first time I tried one of these secret message, I also experimented a lot with the transparencies and realize now that when you create a .pdf, it flattens them :P

Anyway, I hope you enjoy as much as my client! Thanks for reading :)

Blender Update #2

The design is done, and I caught a tutorial on how to turn it into a MagicEye, although that process now is turning a little wonky :P

Thanks for reading!

Blender Update #1

The program is fun. Intuitive, but with a steep learning curve if you want to dive right in. Some wonderful Youtube tutorials help, plus I'm the type of person to just sort of go with it and look up questions when I get stuck :P

10 points to Gryffindor if you can tell what I've spent two days building ;)

Thanks for reading!