Super-Sized Squirrel

You may have noticed a trend on this blog (not in the last couple posts, but in a bunch of my cat drawings) that I love drawing really obese animals that look more like toys than anything living in the wild. The following is no exception.

I put together a t-shirt design for my peer mentoring program. We have a thing about squirrels (they're in all of our program newsletters), so it was a no-brainer to draw this up:

Embrace the squishiness!

Here's a picture of mentors wearing the shirt with my design on it:

MAPS Re-branding

Ooligan is not the only rebranding I've worked on this term. I wound up reworking one of my own designs for the MAPS team, a group of peer mentors that I am responsible for organizing. Conveniently, this means I can change the look of our brand whenever I want, because I have the power (please read that in a He-Man voice because I think he says that).

Anyway, long story short, I had to update the logo to make it digital-friendly. It lost a bit of it's character, but it's sleek-looking! Also, I learned what kerning was.

Original:

Revamped:

A fancy button I made that connects to a fancy webform:

All of the revised work fits with Portland State University's visual branding guidelines, which is probably important if this mentor group is going to have any longevity. Hooray for learning graphic design things!

AmeriComics, Part II

Just in time for Independence Day, here are some comics reflecting on my AmeriCorps term of service:

 

I learned a lot this year!

 

One of the mentor leaders did work with a student to get her several thousand dollars in scholarship money. So awesome.

 

Advising at Portland State is a bit of a mess. I'm sure students have similar experiences at campuses all over the country. We need better advising systems so students aren't taking classes they don't need!

Materials: Micron pens

Friday Afternoon Comics: AmeriComics

Welcome to the first installment of something that will hopefully become a permanent fixture of my sketch blog: Friday Afternoon Comics!

I created the comics below as a response to some personal reflection questions in my AmeriCorps mid-year report. For those of you unaware of AmeriCorps, it's like the Peace Corps, but within the United States. There are AmeriCorps programs all over the place focusing on different themes and missions, this year I am working in a program called Oregon Campus Compact at Portland State University. Our focus is on student retention through mentoring programs. I've gained a lot of great knowledge and experience serving so far.

You don't really need to know any of that to read these, but they probably make a bit more sense if you do.

AmeriComic 1:

 AmeriComic 2:

Materials: a pen!

I am pretty good at writing in ALL CAPS.