Well my last post was at the start of 2006, here we are 4 months into 2008! What can I say! Well a lot actually, but I’ve got work to do so I’ll keep this short. In a nutshell (my new favorite expression!) I’m rebuilding the blog from scratch. I’m going to set this up more as a Portfolio gallery then a blog.

For now, as I work on the new gallery, I’m going to give you a link to a slideshow that gives you a bit of a preview of things to come - which will be all the new projects I’ve worked on since the beginning of 2006 as well as some other things like some personal work I’ve been doing off the computer (have to step away from time to time)!!

You can check out the slideshow here!

And don’t forget to look at the portfolio section on my site, there are more things in there! That link is here!

Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this blog but I’ve had a nice increase in clients and some really great projects come my way. All in all 2006 has been a good year business wise but a sad year overall for me; with the loss of my 2 cats my little family has grown smaller. But I’ll be visiting my local pet adoption places over the coming months, see if I can find a companion, I know there are many cats living at adpotion centers that need good homes so my seach will start there.

I hope everyone’s holidays were joyful and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Yep, I’m back. August was sort of my month to regroup, learn some new things, maybe do a little bit of playing outside and of course work. I just completed a print piece for one of my personal clients, a great little company that manufactures hair care products. Actually you may know them, they are the company that produces one the best hair conditioners you will ever use! The product is called Crema, its in all the magazines when they list their top 5 Best Hair Conditioner type of product reviews. This product is a must have in my book!

The company recently reintroduced their entire line of shampoos, conditioners and styling products, all products, with the exception of Crema, have been reformulated and finally recieved the package makeover they deserved!

The project below is a hot-off-the-press 6 page, gatefold brochure used to introduces their full line of products.

As much as I really loved the look of my most recent web site I think its time for a new design. Below is the old site, here for a final goodbye…

So I’m currently in the process of updating my site. I’m going with a completely different, modern yet sophisticated style.

At this point I’m working on a new portfolio section so in the mean time most of the new work will be here in my Portfolio Blog.

Speaking of my Portfolio Blog, I’m going to revamp this soon, new look, possibly a different content management program…

Okay…back to work I go!

I belong to an online community that is currently conducting some fun Photoshop battles. I’ve been watching them for a while, but never had the time to join in. Photoshop battles, and I’m sure many other types of digital battles, are staged all over the internet, they move along very fast and they’re a great way to test your skills against some pretty amazing, and talented competitors.

The battle I joined was billed as : “A New Breed Evolved” and involved 6 teams, each team has 5 members, each member is responsible for one “volley”. The battle goes like this: First volley will start off with a combination of 2 or more animals of your choice. Each following volley must incorporate at least 1 of the animals used in the step before and at least 1 new animal to create their new creature.

I wasn’t easy! I was the first to go on my team. I had no idea what type of animal to make or what animals to combine. It took me forever, but I finally came across a picture of a hamster, then a picture of a baboon - not something you would think could be combined into something very appealing but geeze as soon as I put the baboon snout on the little hamster I was in love. There’s just something about the little guy that makes me what to keep him!

But I knew I had to come up with something really clever. My competition for this volley was a Master, no, let’s be honest, a Grand Master of Photoshop! I knew I really had no chance of winning but heck, he doesn’t scare me (well maybe a little…)!! So I figured I’d try to get some votes by playing up a “cute but evil rodent” idea because the threat to destroy the little cutie just makes him that much more lovable! And guess what, it worked, didn’t get enough votes to win of course, but the fact that someone other than myself and my team members voted for mine over the GM’s piece (which was stunning) made my day!

This was one of those projects where you present the client with a couple ideas, they pick the best layout then work with you to make it even better! Fun times for everyone!

The site is a redesign for an Engineering and Planning Services company on the west coast. They were looking for a site that had a nice clean geometric look to it and was, above all, easy to navigate. They offer clients quite a few different services so each category has a number of subsections.

The home page will feature a nice Flash intro, the main navigation across the top will have drop down menus. Production on the site is being handled by the wonderful and talented folks at JV Media Design - the same folks who were kind enough to bring me on board for this project.

Above is how the interior pages will look, full size views can be seen here.

I’ve given myself the day off on this beautiful Memorial Day - a huge thank you to all the troops past, present and future!

Since I had a bit of time today I’ve been going through my Portfolio Blog updating some of the content, I’ve also added a new page that has links to some of the web sites I’ve been working on lately. You can find the page with the links under the Current Projects heading in the sidebar.

For now I’ve removed the print work, but I’ll be adding that back in very soon. Thinking out loud here…the plan is to have 3 individual pages - one main page for the most recent stuff, then 2 pages in the sidebar, one page will have links to all the Web work and the other page will have any of the Print work I’ve been give permission to show. (That’s actually one of the little things about being an Independent Graphic Designer. I’m working with ad agencies, design firms and web developers as an outside, independent team member and I show only work that I have permission to display.) This way I can archive some of the work and keep fresh content on the main page. That’s the plan!

Since this is a day off I think I’m also going to step away from the computer - gasp! - yep, step away from the compter and work on some of my Clay pieces. I’ve recently switched from Paper Clay (which is more paper than clay - its very light weight) to a real air dry Clay so I have lots of experimenting to do! Ugh…looks like I have some updating to do on that Clay link…I haven’t added anything new since 04! But not now…I’m walking away from the computer now…

See ya!

PS: The one of a kind Art Doll to the right is one of the projects I worked on yesterday! Weird or what?? Her head comes off! The body was made over a small bottle with a cork top, the head sits on the cork. She measures about 5″ tall by about 3″ wide.

I love patterns and textures, so working on this Web layout gives me the opportunity to play with both, which means, as I’m sure you can imagine, I’m a very very happy camper!

So…at this point, what you see here is a basic work-in-progress layout designed to give the client a general visual direction for the site. Right now the content is still being hammered out, tossed out, re-structured, fine tuned, etc, so the links at the top may change, of course all the text will change, but the overall look and feel of the final pages will be very similar to what you see here.
Click to view larger image - lots more detail to see…

This is the latest incarnation of Cat Hair Studios. I have a long standing love affair with the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts styles from the early 20th century so updating this site often is pure fun!

Cat Hair Studios sells Note Cards, Personalized Cards and Home Office items such as tile coasters, garden stakes with tiles, mugs and more all with motifs from my two favorite styles. Some motifs are original and some are recreations of vintage motifs.

The site is located at: Cat Hair Studios and is dedicated in loving memory to the two cats that started it all, Kyle and Buddy, RIP.

This is currently a work in progress. I had a lot of fun with this, especially since I have family in Vermont. Below was the first rough layout I worked up for the home page.

Click on the image above to view the original layout.

I was contracted to redesign this company’s web site which originally consisted of 3 or 4 very basic, plain pages. The logo and product images, navigation and text were to remain as they were on the previous site design but the design itself had to be completely reinvented.

My plan was to give the Web site a look that said “homemade”, so I played off the napkin that sits below the house in the logo, and I picked out colors from the logo to help suggest warmth and freshness. I also picked up some elements from their packaging so the overall look to the site had a complete tie in to the Cottage Hill Farm brand.
After the first layout, seen above, was presented, the client requested some minor modifications but the overall look and feel of the site was left unchanged. Some very minor modifications were made to some of the interior photos on the site but the overall look is as I had intended.

Cottage Hill Farm recently appeared on a segment of HGTV’s If Wall Could Talk, and a prominent link was placed below the navigation, that link will eventually display a video of that segment.

After my design was complete I handed the production fo the site off to another company.

Update! The site is now live! Some of the functionality of the site is still being worked out but the site is live.

The site is located at Cottage Hill Farm

A few months ago I was contracted for a Web site re-design by a local Web Development company Purple Wire, awesome group of people to work with, very knowledgeable, very fun group! Anyway, they asked if I would work with them on updating a site that was developed way back in 1994; did it need a new look….oh yes!

The little moon and stars and heart icons, the logo and the text were picked up from the original site. Originally the client was looking for a site that gave visitors the feeling they were being invited into someone’s living room. New Life Adoption specializes in working very very closely with their clients, every step of the way, and they wanted to showcase that one their new site by creating an environment that felt inviting, warm and friendly.

Below is one of the layouts I submitted which filled all their orignal requirements. What I created was not the living room but the child’s room (and yep, I was going for the wow factor…).

I submitted 2 different layouts which can be seen here: Initial layouts. The buttons on the layouts do not have any functionality so just click anywhere on the page to view the next layout, or click the links at the bottom of the page.

In the end the client wanted to go with very simple layout, but with vibrant color. So the final site will be similar to the second layout, but with quite a few modifications. I think the first layout would have worked extremely well for them but the change from their 1994 site to something so different was above their comfort level. So possibly, when they are ready for another change the first layout will be perfect!

My portfolio is packed full with new projects that I just haven’t had time to add to my main Web site.

I’ve wanted to add new items, and a whole new Flash presentation for them, but new projects keep coming in - THANK YOU! - so time to work on self promotional pieces has be very limited. So… in order to add things quickly I thought I would start adding some new items here.

Great idea huh! Yep, sometimes I’m just full of it…I mean them! Ok, so what should I add…

Actually I have some many new things to add that I’m going to go ahead and just add them in here then go back and write up a “brief” as we say to give an overview of the project, the reactions from the clients and the response to the piece.

My sister and uncle are into genealogy, both have traced one side of our family history back quite a number of generations. It’s really interesting stuff! Since I wanted help them keep an electronic record of our history I thought I would try to make up a little Family Album Flash movie. While I’m waiting for all the photos to be scanned, the names, dates, places and assorted data to be assembled, I thought I would start off by working on a smaller album for my uncle.

It seems that my mom’s family moved around a lot, not to different states, or different cities, they moved from house to house in the same neighborhood! Why, I’m not sure, but they never owned a home, they simply rented houses.

So my uncle (my mom’s sib) decided to put together a little album of all the homes they lived in while growing up. Since he had all the photos and all the data I thought I would try to build a little Flash movie for the family to enjoy.

I just started it a few days ago, and have a very very basic shell posted for my sister and my uncle to review. Its really probably too soon to show them but heck I’m really proud of it, so what the heck!

I have a lot of work to do yet, none of the animations work - for instance the little door knocker that starts the presentation will be animated to work like, well, a door knocker with knocking sound and all. The way the album opens, the way the photos flip over and the way the pages will turn will all simulate “reality” — right now they all just sort of fade in. But at this early stage a working prototype gives me enough to think about - like should the names of members of the family be clickable to a little bio, should one page be a little family tree, that sort of stuff.

In reality this can be a nice simple project or I can really add on to it and let it become one absolutely huge monster project! Ha…I’m not sure if I can do “simple”, simple is hard!

If you would like to watch the progress, here’s the link: Album Prototype