Saving good causes from bad design.Until recently, I did all my vector graphic work in InDesign or Photoshop. This might be a cardinal sin among designers. Vectors are what Illustrator was MADE for, it’s far more powerful when it comes to making scalable artwork or logos! But I’ve been using Photoshop and InDesign (and it’s predecessor, PageMaker) since I was 10 or 11, and I was afraid. Afraid of all the strange and different tools in the toolbar, afraid of the myriad unfamiliar options and settings not available in InDesign. I’ve always been more comfortable working with raster graphics.
About six months ago, I took a lettering workshop with the Friends of Type at Typecon, picked up a few crucial tips, and made my first Illustrator vector piece. After that, I made a commitment to master Illustrator, or perish in the process. I decided to convert the dozens of files I had for the board game I was designing, Co-opoly, from InDesign to Illustrator. I’m excited about the new directions Illustrator is taking my work, and thrilled to be learning new techniques and tricks every day.
This Halloween, I thought the best way to truly channel Illustrator was to BECOME Illustrator. I chose to embody Illustrator as a superhero, since my motto is “Saving good causes from bad design.”
See the process and final costume!
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Hand lettering design made at the Friends of Type workshop at TypeCon 2011.
Leave a nice comment.And I love it! I’m down at Typecon in NOLA, and having a blast. New Orleans is as beautiful as I remember, but pretty gross and muggy in the 90s – though not as horribly unbearable as I expected. Thank goodness for air-conditioned hotels and workshop rooms.
Lots of cool signs everywhere
Yesterday I went to a hands-on CSS workshop with Marcin Wichary of Google and learned some great new web tricks. Today I went to the Friends of Type workshop and learned some awesome hand lettering tips and processes. I’m going to refine my design over the next few days, but I’ll post it here when it’s finished!
Some of my sketches from the workshop
Aaron and Erik, the Friends of Type
Well, I decided it was finally time for the yearly update of my website! I’m going to TypeCon in New Orleans this week, and expect to be doing a lot of networking with designer-types, so I figured I’d better make my website reflect what I’m up to now.
I not only redesigned the look of my website, but did a refresh of my portfolio too. All the projects featured are from the past year, with the exception of my animation reel and some photography.
I’ve definitely grown by leaps and bounds in web design, from my first lame portfolio on googlepages, to wordpress, to indexhibit, to more advanced customizations of wordpress. The fonts used on my website are Lobster Two and Mako, available through the Google webfonts API.
Those of you who have seen previous versions of my websites, what do you think of the latest?
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