Emily Carr Cabarets

I was on the planning committee for the Emily Carr cabarets (school-sponsored fundraising events/parties) and was responsible for the design of the posters for the two major cabarets for this past school year.

The first poster was for our cabaret that happened around halloween. Some of the other members of the committee submitted drawings for the person/characters which I then re-traced in Illustrator. All typography and layout was done by me as well in Illustrator. For the second cabaret which was just before valentine’s day, I designed and conceptualized the entire poster to coincide with the 90s theme of the party.

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Tagged in: Design, ECUAD, Illustration
Category: Personal Work

Imploding Existence

My second foray into audio was for my Emily Carr Foundation Media Arts class. We were assigned a project to create a 2-minute “experimental” audio piece (re: no music). Utilizing Zoom’s H4 Recorder, we were instructed to record some sounds. We then had to bring these sounds into Audacity to compile and create our final audio piece. Additionally, we were not allowed to utilize anymore than three sounds.

I recorded myself saying part of a passage from the beginning of Tool’s Third Eye, which is actually part of a skit by comedian Bill Hicks. This recording was then layered multiple times upon itself and each instance heavily modified using Audacity’s editing tools and effects to create an extremely atmospheric and psychedelic piece. There’s some pretty heavy bass near the end when it’s reaching it’s climax, so CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED: watch your volume/subs.

File Link: Imploding Existence

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Tagged in: Audio, ECUAD, Media Arts
Category: Experiments, Personal Work

Morning Mist

An old audio project from my time at Guru Digital Arts College. One of the few projects from that time that still holds up fairly well. If I remember correctly, the title comes from my walk/bus-ride to school that day which was extremely foggy. This was made in Acid Pro, I believe, utilizing the sound libraries that come with the program. It should also probably be noted that I had no sound program experience before this and I think the Acid Pro segment of the course consisted of two full day classes (if that…) including the creation of our final project…

File: Morning Mist

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Tagged in: Audio, Guru Digital Arts
Category: Experiments, Personal Work

The Bank Ultra Lounge

In fall of September 2005, I was contacted about working with a local entertainment industry company about designing a branding scheme for a new lounge/nightclub they were opening up in downtown Edmonton, AB. The owners were designing the club to appeal to an older, wealthier crowd who treated the clubs they go to as an extension of their personality and lifestyle. The project involved designing a logo for the club, all print collateral from launch through the first six months of business, as well as designing/developing a website on MediaShaker’s Shout content management system.

The logo utilized LettError’s Federal font, currently the most accurate representation of the American bill’s typeface, to provide a subconscious indication of money. The thick, bold characters of Federal were then contrasted by the heavily kerned, lowercase tagline composed in Univers Ultra Thin Condensed. The typography was supplemented by the development of a secondary branding mark, a dollar sign enclosed in a thickly outlined circle, integrated into the logo as well as much of the club’s branding collateral. Finally, the brown utilized throughout the club’s interior design was carried through to all print and interactive collateral.

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Tagged in: Flash, Identity, Interactive, Print, The Bank
Category: Client Work

DJ Junior Brown

DJ Junior Brown is an extremely well-known, Edmonton-based DJ. He was preparing to release a new cd of mixes and was in need of a new website as well as cd cover/insert artwork. Working in co-ordination with Zaar Marketing, I designed the logo, all of the cd artwork and then integrated these visual themes into the Flash-based website. The website was driven by Actionscript 2.0 and featured an XML-driven photo gallery for ease of maintenance by DJJB.

Project Link: djjuniorbrown.com

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Tagged in: Flash, Identity, Interactive, Print, Zaar
Category: Client Work

Headplay

Headplay is a high-definition personal cinema system that integrates with just about every media type and system available today including iPod, usb drives, flash media, xbox/xbox360, pc, nintendo wii, and sony playstation 1/2/3.

Headplay approached me in the spring of 2006 about helping integrate some Flash functionality into their website to maximize their website’s point of sale potential. This included developing flash video players, mini-games, as well as interactive sales pitch and tutorial videos. All graphics for this project were supplied by Headplay’s internal design team.

Project Link: Headplay

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Tagged in: Flash, Headplay, Interactive
Category: Client Work

Edgeworth Properties

Edgeworth Properties Inc. is a multi-million dollar land investment company that sources, evaluates and purchases undeveloped land in the direct path of urban growth. Edgeworth approached me in early 2006 about developing a presentation and sales pitch utility for their meetings with potential clients and investors. With satellite offices around the globe, the utility had to be easy to use, driven completely through the keyboard’s arrow + enter keys (for further integration with wireless pointers), as well as maintain a certain amount of flexibility for changing or developing new presentations as the company grew and acquired new projects.

For example, Chapter 2 of the first presentation contains about 12 slides of graphs about Alberta and it’s economic boom, some of which Edgeworth would remove depending on where they were presenting and to whom they were presenting to. To maintain the ease of this type of maintenance, the entire presentation engine is driven through XML and Actionscript 2.

The presentations were a resounding success and have helped Edgeworth amass well over $22 000 000 in sales.

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Tagged in: Edgeworth Properties, Flash, Interactive
Category: Client Work

Bridal Fantasy

Bridal Fantasy is one of the largest bridal shows in Alberta and has been wowing brides since 1980. Featuring the latest trends in flowers, formals, gowns, destination wear, hair and make-up, a fashion show, lifestyle stage, sections on home decorating, cooking, career management and preparing for the wedded life, Bridal Fantasy is a great resource for all couples looking at marriage. In early 2006, Bridal Fantasy was looking for a website to match their nationally launched Bridal Fantasy magazine.

In coordination with Zaar Marketing, the bright colors and strong photography of the magazine were utilized to develop a template of aesthetics that could be used to brand the website while maintaining harmony between their offline and online media. These aesthetics were then paired with a standards-compliant, xhtml-strict code-base to create a visually stunning, search engine optimized website.

Project Link: Bridal Fantasy

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Tagged in: Bridal Fantasy, Interactive, Standards, Zaar
Category: Client Work

IABC Edmonton

For both 2006 and 2007, I donated my time to help the International Association of Business Communicators’ Edmonton branch design small print booklets for their yearly summer awards gala.

For 2006, the theme of the party was “Magnetic Poetry” and each of the pages featured a selection of images styled like the poetry magnets you find on your fridge. If you organized the words together for each section group, they formed an inspirational quote related to design and marketing.

For 2007, the theme was “iCommunicate” so I developed a highly tech-stylized background elements and cover for the booklet.

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Tagged in: IABC, Print
Category: Client Work

LucentDreams Animation

Kai Pedersen, a traditionally trained animator and widely acknowledged 3D artist, approached me a few years ago about developing a logo for the animation company he was starting up.

Utilizing this juxtaposition of his traditional skills with his 3D talent for the basis of the identity concept, I tried to portray a very dream-like scene with the logotype via the swirling, cloudy shapes. Representing the idea behind lucid dreaming, the eye is open, observing everything around it. To enhance the symbolism of his 3D/classical animation talents, I juxtaposed the sharp, clean lines (typical of 3D rendered elements) of the blue with those of the jagged, rough areas of grey (typical of hand-rendered elements). The combination creates a feeling of shapes forming and dissolving before your eyes, as if walking through a dream.

I continued the use of the above mentioned juxtaposition into the logotype where I used a very clean, rigid font (Trajan Pro) and combined it with the rough-sketch underline below the name. The small arm on the top of the “A” in Dreams and the jagged underline is simply a throwback to the free-form, hand-rendered elements found throughout the logo.

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Tagged in: Identity, LucentDreams
Category: Client Work

FS Skate and Snow Brochure

FS Skate and Snow was remodelling their store in West Edmonton Mall to better serve their customers by more effectively displaying their large volumes of merchandise better. With this in mind, they set about to design a brochure to highlight their new store layout, highlight the benefits of dealing with FS Skate and Snow and attract a few premium brands that they had yet to acquire to their roster of merchandisers.

Coordinating with Zaar Marketing to produce the brochure under an extremely tight deadline, the 24-page collateral piece met and exceeded all of the client’s needs and expectations while helping to strengthen the FS brand with their distributors.

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Tagged in: Devji, FS Skate and Snow, Print, Zaar
Category: Client Work