Gift Bag

I made another pattern, this time using the photo retouched flowers and some photoshopping onto a picture of a gift bag I had laying in my room.

Flowers and Photoshop

I’m about to start working on designing some packaging for a side project.  But in order to get the elements together, I needed to work on my photo retouching and manipulation skills.  The project is a box for a girls flower pressing kit.  This is what happens when you work at a craft store…

Here are some examples of what the original photos looked like and what the end results were with the hours and hours of retouching.  The one above went the fastest though, since it was previously a white flower it was easier to separate the colors from the background.  The last one was me messing with the filters.  These are two that I’ve never used before, the halftone dots and the plastic wrap.  Kind of bizarre, but I like what it did to the colors.

Expanding my graphic design portfolio

I will at one point get a website and blog completely for my strictly design and photography projects, but for now here they are!  Using more of my hiking pictures I’ve been trying to design magazine spreads for travel magazines.  The first two are continuing with my series of Arizona pictures.  I love how the first one turned out.  That is a shot of the beautiful Devil’s Bridge in Sedona.  The next one is the start of my 7 wonders of Arizona.  Unfortunately for the article I am writing, I didn’t get to visit all of the 7 wonders.  My trip was only a week, so we didn’t get to see the Hoover Dam, or the famous Monument Valley.   Well, we did but that was from my zoom lense, and a 4 hour drive away.  The last one is from my trip to Watkin’s Glen last year.

I have several more in the works, just have to get satisfied with the type.

Magazine Madness

I’ve been searching desperately for an in-house design job.  Unfortunately with a portfolio filled with Children’s illustration, I don’t qualify for alot of the jobs I’ve applied to.  So I spent this week trying to build up a Magazine portfolio, using illustrations I’ve done, and photographs I’ve taken.

The first three pieces are all editorial illustrations I did for my Illustration Methods class.  Since they don’t fit with my current Illustration portfolio, but I still really like them, I am including them with my Design/ Editorial portfolio.

The last three are the ones I’ve been working on this week.  I took almost 2000 photos on my trip to Sedona, Arizona at the beginning of the summer.  I came up with a fake magazine to practice cover layouts (which I just learned there is already a Passport magazine).  Then there is an interior spread of Butte Point and Snoopy Rock (look closely at the one on the right side) and then a children’s educational spread about cacti.

Finished Poster

There was so much type to put on this poster.  The director sent me files of posters done in the past, and I couldn’t believe how much information was put on them. For starters, they listed every day that the production too place, which meant I would have needed to find a way to list out “October 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17- 8:00 Sunday Matinee -11 and 18th 2:30.”  Hopefully he accepts my simplifying of the copy.

But one thing that really surprised me was how happy I was to be working on this until 4 am this morning.  I haven’t been very happy since graduation, because I miss my friends and being in the city.  This made me feel like I was back in school in the studio, working toward the deadline.  And I’m incredibly pleased with how the image and everything turned out.  So now I just have to wait for auditions to be completed this week so I can work on the brochure and program.

Buggy the Burrfish

Last weekend my little cousin came to visit me, so we made a trip down to Baltimore to see the Aquarium, and then went to Washington DC to see the monuments and museums.

I love fish.  They are fascinating and come in so many different shapes, colors, and textures.  In one of the tanks there were several tropical fish, but one fish caught my eye and made me laugh as I sat and sketched.  That fish was this little guy called a Spotted Burrfish.  This fish looked so happy as he played peek-a-boo with me, as I tried to capture him on paper.  He would swim out with this big smile on his face (which is mostly due to his anatomy than actual emotion), and stare at me for 5 seconds, then turn around and swim back to the corner where the wall hides part of the tank.  Then about 30 seconds later he’d repeat himself, wiggling his little tail fin and swim back to where I was, then hide again.  He continued to do this.  I don’t know if it was a game, or he was blinded by the tourist’s camera flashes so close to the glass.

New Website!

I just completely redid my portfolio website.  Check it out at http://www.tracidibble.com.

This was a headache to do, but I think it looks great, and hopefully I found all the glitches.

Here’s a sneak peak at it.

Laptop Skin

I have a job interview on Monday for a Jr. Graphic Design Position.  Its at a Wallpaper company for their new line of wall stickers and decals.  Since I really want this job, I have been researching their catalog and discovered they are missing a vital market, Teenagers.  One product they create is a line of Laptop Skins.

I came up with a DJ/Music themed skin to try and sell myself more, because I would love to work for them.

Desert Mouse

I just recently got back from a trip to Sedona, Arizona.  I guess my mind is still back in the desert, because this little guy has been hopping around my head.  He is a pygmy desert Jerboa.

Thought he was adorable.  Next up will be a jackalope.

Revisions

I graduated, and even after my last class was over, I had to redo a couple of projects before portfolio reviews. My mother goose stamps from first semester was the piece that was dragging my portfolio down, so I started over from scratch.