Archive for the 'Portfolio' Category
Friends of the Apocalypse
September 4
While I was in college, a friend of mine had an awesome hardcore band named Friends of the Apocalypse. I wanted to make a site for them and he agreed that they’d use it. So I sat down with all of the source materials he could provide and started building a site.
I was quite in love with PHP at the time, so I made the site using PHP to include smaller files and save myself time. When I was redoing the site for inclusion here, that just made things take longer, correcting such dissimilar errors on each page.
The site was made to look messy and jumbled. Their music was rough and with their four vocalists, often chaotic. I wanted to reflect that in their site. You can hear a sample of their music on the site, actually, in the Propaganda section.
Sadly, they broke up the weekend I finished the site and took a couple of hundred photos of them at what became their last show.
Back when my wife and I were in college, she had to create an identity for a made-up company. She chose an Italian Greyhound dog breeder (the same kind of dog that we have) and wanted to add a web site into her list of items.
She designed the layout, talking with me about what was possible (or what I was possible of at the time) and came up with the site. I coded it for her and she passed the class.
Now, though, as I find myself looking through all the things I want to show in my portfolio, this site stands out to me as a more professional, less personal piece. The code was horrible. So, I’ve cleaned it up, spruced up the design a little bit, and fixed some errors and bad practices.
Sheaffersoft
September 3
Chase Sheaffer wanted a simple template and logo for his software company. He and I both frequent the same online forum, so I happened across his post and contacted him on AIM.
He explained that wanted something clean, different, but still well-structured and familiar, even to new visitors. I sat down and sketched a few ideas, then went into Illustrator and created the logo for him. After a few color adjustments and some final tweaking of the type, it was finished. The leaf doesn’t have any personal meaning with Chase as far as I know, but I see it as being a starting point. His company is really going all out now, starting fresh and lively, so it’s new, like a leaf. Over the years, as his company grows, that leaf might start to look more like a tree, which the logo could be easily adapted into. I know, I know, trees come from seeds, not leaves, but it’s a freakin’ analogy. Work with me.
Over the next couple of hours, we knocked out his web template. I went with a green color because a) Chase likes nature; and b) green isn’t as common in software/technology as other colors like red or blue or grey. We kept the structure to a minimum of constraints so it felt open and clean. In fact, everything was kept very open and natural.
OSU-Okmulgee Historic Photo
September 2
While I was in school, someone came across an old photo of the school before it became a school (it was some sort of military hospital complex) and wanted it restored, if possible.
A few of us in one of the Photoshop classes got to take a swing at it. I can’t remember for sure, but I think mine was the one chosen for printing. Like I said, though, don’t quote me on that.
It was a large image, so it had to be scanned in three parts and pieced back together again. It had a lot of detail that we wanted to preserve, too, such as people walking while it was being shot. I spent several days buried in Photoshop to restore the image and prepare it for printing.
After I finished writing my first NaNoWriMo novel in 2004 (with just 30 minutes to spare), I wanted to publish it in some form. I didn’t think it was good enough to get a regular publisher, so I decided to do it myself using Lulu.com.
I created both the front and back covers in Photoshop using stock photography. A large percentage of the book takes place in New York City, Las Vegas, and finishes up in San Francisco, so all three locations are represented on the cover. The handwritten font is used because the storytelling mechanism of the book is papers found in a convict’s cell.
For NaNoWriMo 2005, I decided to write a zombie novel since I love zombies. I met the 50,000-word goal, but didn’t finish the novel yet. I did get around to making a book cover for it, though, to help spur me on to finish it and put it up for purchase on Lulu.com.
The cover was created with stock photography and Photoshop. Yes, I know it’s a bit busy, but the whole idea of a zombie epidemic would be confusing. I wanted the cover to convey this panic and disorder. There are several false clues on the front cover, as well; certain objects that have nothing to do with the cause of the outbreak.
If you want to read what has been written, it’s available in my Novels section.
