Here Be Dragons!

For my Book Design class this term, I had to design an entire book (it was awesome!) so here are the cover comps I came up with:

This first one had some nice elements, but it looked a bit old for the target audience of this book (middle-grade level readers).

I really liked this design as well, but it looks like an adult book.

This one was the clear favorite of my peers. It was by far the most age appropriate, and since it's a book for younger audiences, I could get away with having an image-based back cover. The author photo and bio is much more of an adult book element anyway.

Here's the final! I made some suggested improvements, like handlettering the text on the cover and adding the dragon's arms to hold the banner. I obviously redrew the front and back illustrations as well, and added some cracks around the dragon butt to add to the illusion of the dragon breaking through the back of the book cover. My classmates liked where the colors bled outside the lines in the comp, so I replicated that in the final. I moved the ISBN box to a more sensible place as well.

I had some trouble finding reference images for the dragon's butt, but as multiple people reminded me, dragons aren't real so I could draw it however I liked.

Dancing Cats

Continuing the week of cuteness, here are more cats (if you need more cats drawings, just scroll through past blog posts). I was supposed to have a finished spread for the SCBWI-Oregon conference, but grad school got in the way, so I only finished the line art. This summer I need to color it in. Of course, nothing I do is going to compare to Jon Klassen's work, but a girl can dream.

Initial sketch:

The text from the spread I picked to illustrate: 

"Eight cats tap...tip bowler hats in pink tuxedos, canvas spats"

Left page refined sketch:

Right page refined sketch:

Left page line art:

Right page line art:

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!

Ooligan Press Blog Branding

I've completed my first year of grad school. Crazy! The next few months are going to be relatively light, responsibility-wise, so expect to see new material pop up in your news feeds on a regular basis. Unless I get really lazy this summer...

Anyway, what follows are some blog badges I created for the student-run publisher I work for, Ooligan Press. We're working on rebranding the Press and changing up the website, and my silly little doodles are part of it all.

First time around I created everything in Adobe Illustrator, which made everything graphic and clean, but these were missing the hand-drawn/human element that is an integral part of the press' identity.

These initial badges aren't bad, but our digital and social media department lead was looking for something that is obviously made by the human hand. So I went back to the drawing board (literally), and came up with these:

You may notice I was roped into creating a few more badges. This is not the last you'll see of the Ooligan-related work I did this term.

All of the Cats

Here's something I did a few months ago for the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) in Portland. They needed a half-sheet sized catalog cover to promote classes and events offered in February and March of this year. To the surprise of no one who has skimmed through this blog, it features cats.

The Valentine's Day image was the front cover and the St. Patrick's Day cats occupied the back cover.

Type Specimen: Adobe Caslon Pro

One of our assignments for my book design class this term was to create three type specimen sheets. Here's the final one I made (and my favorite), for Adobe Caslon Pro:

It was tough to find a limerick that wasn't too ribald for class, though I quite enjoy the one I found.

Type Specimen: Rockwell

One of our assignments for my book design class this term was to create three type specimen sheets. Here's the second one I made, for Rockwell:

Type Specimen: Century Schoolbook

One of our assignments for my book design class this term was to create three type specimen sheets. Here's the first one I made, for Century Schoolbook:

National Poetry Month

To celebrate the end of National Poetry Month, here is a line drawing of one of the all-time greats: Emily Dickinson.

This piece was published in the Winter 2014 edition of the Portland Review, along with a drawing of Edgar Allan Poe (which will show up on the sketch blog in the near future).

Birthday Goose

Made this for my sister's "golden" birthday last fall. I'm glad she understood my weird humor.

Front of card

Inside of card

Mr. Tea

A fun 80s mashup between Mr. T (who pities fools) and Mr. T (who has tall teeth) at a tea party (naturally). This piece was part of "Jibbart Jabbart: A Mr. T-Themed Art Show & Experience" at the PhilaMOCA in Philadelphia.

Line art

Picture from the show (c/o Ben and Amy Leach)

My art on the wall! (c/o Ben and Amy Leach)

Another view (c/o Ben and Amy Leach)

Spaceman

Created for a high school color guard t-shirt. The theme this year was based on the movie "Sunshine."

Line art

Hipster Camper

I will get around to coloring this in one day. For now, here's the line art:

Cat Pig!

This little guy was christened "Cat Pig" by my classmates. I like making cats look like potato footballs.

Birthday Cat Pig!

Is It Public Domain?

The final chart I made for my copyright class last term (this one is a fancy flowchart!):

Fair Use & Copyright Infringement Chart

Another chart I created for my copyright class last term:

Copyright Basics Chart

A copyright chart I put together for a final project last term:

George Washington in Boxers

Happy April Fool's Day!

Line Art

With color!

Cat Noir Finals

Here's how the final pieces turned out! If you're in the Portland area, you can check them out at Gallery Mini on SE 8th and Main St.

I definitely created the "cartooniest" work on display in the gallery. I'd like to go back in and work on these pieces a bit more because I really like the concept. I was just a bit rushed to complete them (which was entirely the fault of my time-management skills).