Creativity Week 2

 For this weeks creativity post I wanted to look into something that would help me make some fun ideas for my characters- often for gifts for people I'll make them a character based off of their vehicle which in itself is a very fun way to get creative, pushing a chunk of metal into a human based design challenges you to try and incorporate aspects of the vehicle into something more personified. Anyway, after finding a few ideas on Tik-Tok, I also stumbled across a forum on Reddit filled with lots of unique ideas to build characters in writing, so below I will link that for other to look into.

Building character depth (Reddit Forum)

A few people suggested making playlists for your characters, some suggested based on music they would listen to in their world OR music based on their story/vibe- after going on Tik-Tok I found a similar post also suggesting to make a playlist.

The character I went with is more of a workaholic cowboy, so I gathered some of my own personal favorites, suggested songs from Spotify, and then asked a few of my other artist buddies "what music would you think this character listens to". Majority of the playlist is a mix of older and modern country, but leaning more towards older works as they have more story telling aspects to them, you can check out the full playlist below!

Some select songs from the playlist!

Song he would listen to:

Song related to his story:

To the right is the character design, based off a 2003 Ford F-250 Super Duty.

Ad Final

 Before going into the project I had used the notes app on my phone to brainstorm ideas, originally focusing the brainstorm on the E-sports idea I had and the advertisement for my own design services- Afterward I took to Pinterest to gather even more inspiration to help build onto these ideas and have them be more fleshed out, this definitively helped me build better layouts, using older videogame marketing as key inspiration and then going into old military posters to build on a Call of Duty theme. For my non-profit I took to a website called Great Non-Profits, which is a .Org website that displays various local charities, their mission, reviews of the non-profit, and ways to donate, in the end I chose a non-profit located in Chiefland, Florida, that supports minimizing stray cats and keeping cats out of kill shelters.

 Screenshot of the brainstorming page on my notes app, here I do rough sketches that just get a base idea down and add notes where ever I may need to remember a special detail, while they look illegible, it helps me build ideas and get the process going. 

These are some of the images I saw on Pinterest that helped me make my cat based advert- using these I was able to figure a font and layout of my project. Next time I would go for a less cluttered look in my ad, to make the text easier to read, and additionally make the text a little more streamlined to take in. The QR code was created for free, and the photos were used from Istock.

Final:

For my next advertisement, the full page, I decided to go with the Keiser Esports team, as it gives a lot of creative freedom to design and represents my school, I knew from my brainstorm session I wanted it to be very Call of Duty based as it's one of the more popular and recognizable games from today, though I wasn't exactly sure what direction I wanted to go with until I found photos that struck my creative process quite well, I ended up making my own version of these, with the reflections being someone holding a glowing controller. 

 

Final:

For my final advert was my own design services, I knew straight from my brainstorming process how I wanted to lay it out (see top of post) with a handful of my favorite works stacked to fill up the left half of the page and then using clean and bold letters to mark my name at the top, information about my work in the middle, and then ending it with my main forms of contact. I was sure to pick works that showed my experience with color and rendering.

Final:

Creativity Post: 1

 A few weeks ago while deciding what exercise to choose from, I had stumbled across a series of videos on TikTok by Lizi Phoenix, a mixed media artist who sells her creations online. Her most popular series revolves around making zen and stress relieving pattern pieces with watercolor. Last time I had replicated these pieces in my own style on Autodesk Sketchbook which is a freeform platform made primarily for thumbnails and sketches- the app is one of my favorites as it has a complex pressure sensitivity software that most others struggle to replicate, however sketchbook is purely raster based (other than text) and cant be resized too well.

 This week I wanted to revisit the concept but plug it into an app like adobe illustrator and make a vector based piece that'd be easier to edit and modify. After my last project in Illustrator I had gotten quite frustrated with the tools not cooperating. This exercise is about clearing your mind and temporarily disregarding perfection, I thought this would be a great opportunity to further familiarize myself with Illustrator.

Majority of this exercise was super easy, just took time, as you have to work around each shape and have the lines "consume" one another while keeping a good spacing, after repeating this process you get a very neat pattern. To start this piece I grabbed the star tool and created a series of randomly sized stars in various places around the page, including some that pop off the page, as Lizi states, it creates even more unique patterns and makes natural leading lines- afterward I picked a star and stared using the pen tool to create outlines, after making many of these lines it really helped me get used to the pen tool and better understand how it effects anchors and points- along with how some of the smart guides gauge one another. Additionally this was an interesting way to eyeball spacing, while this page has many mistakes it sorta builds your eye coordination on how your lines may be spaced, for the points of the stars if I hadn't made the outer line long enough it wouldn't properly wrap around to make that finished look. One last thing i took away from this was discovering the View>TrimView tool, which took away all the messy edges I had while creating placeholders for certain paths. Below is the final piece, highly recommend the exercise or videos if you are stressed and need something to wind down!

Link to Lizi's page- Click Here!

Last Attempt- Click Here!

Finished Product-

Lettering Choices

 

Creativity Week 3

 This weeks creativity exercise I wanted to study some wildlife and take the time to replicate natural patterns. While looking for inspiration I had stumbled across many vintage fishing advertisements and decided I would research some of my favorite kinds of fish. Fish are very intresting in their patterns as their scales typically reflect a lot of light OR can take on much more muted and muddy color schemes- all depending on where the breed sits in the food chain. 

 The three fish I decided to paint digitally was; A snook, a sturgeon, and a northern pike.

Unfortunately the pike did not get finished, however I still learned a lot in techniques of replicating how fish look, the sturgeon was my first render, it came out less accurate to the actual lake dweller and the colors didn't really impress me. The snook was my favorite to work on, through a very intense series of stippling, blending, and several different blending layers I feel I was able to get an accurate depiction of scales in water. In the pike piece I started to go after the same process to avoid making the same mistake as the sturgeon, hopefully I will finish this practice at some point!

 

Logo Designs

 Here are my logo designs after bringing them into adobe and making them into vector based files, these turned out okay- not quite how I wanted but adobe can be a little limiting if you are new. Additionally my computer kept fighting with the exporting process, still figuring out why that is, as some of the linework files would not show up, or would be cropped weird (despite the thumbnails showing up fine)? Through this process of turning a non vector sketch into an edit manageable vector file I really started understanding the variety of pen tools, tapers, and curvature tools that aid in editing your lines.

Full Color

Line Work

Swapped Color

Three Renders

 After picking through several of my thumbnails I chose three that I felt would be good enough to render into more concise logos- additionally I had still not settled on a name, so while working on these I picked ones set with different names, then after finishing used one that properly matched the mood board and visions made for the project. Each design got a colored, lineart, and black background version.

Bon Temps

Bon Temps is a French saying that is quite popular in Louisiana, it translates to "Good times" the logo I made for this idea was inspired by some of the older Buffalo Exchange logos, which are very fun, and use uncommon styles in their logos. Unfortunately I hadn't realized till after editing all these...I forgot the P, but in the end this wasn't the logo that matched my restaurant.

 

Sticks

Inspired by many of the restaurants that have one word/super simple names, this logo was for me to try out hand lettering a logo and adding some playful aspects to it, with a snapping hockey stick- inspired by the San Jose Sharks (I cannot stand this team, but historically their logos have always been quite eye catching, unlike their team). While this logo was definitely one of my favorites, my final design ended up capturing my goals better.

Hattricks

In the end this ended up being the logo I wanted to give a final polish- my restaurants vibe is going for a higher end sports bar, similar to one you would find in a professional hockey arena. In this design I used a hat to display the name- which is in a script similar to Coors Banquet, while a hockey stick separates the "bar & grille" title.

Creativity Week 2

 While searching for different sites to get creative exercises from, I discovered that Adobe has a series of blogs dedicated to helping build creativity, in both designing and in writing. While going through their different blogs I found one that included several prompts for writers- in the post they break down each prompt and explain how it helps your thinking process. After going through the post, written by Daisy Barringer, I went and picked 3 simple prompts to try, as I am mostly used to creating in a visual sense with drawing and graphic design, I wanted to branch out and attempt at writing instead of what I am used to.

If you would like to try/read for yourself you can find the site here! Just login with your Adobe account, there are 10 different prompts to try!

-Write a six word story-

1. Final note reads: "Meet me tomorrow"

2. Engine stalled- headlights faded, silence remained.

3. Stars flickered, the ship sat lonely.

-Avoid the Letter E-

(Continuation of #3) Dark void hung all around as the ships hum quit, plunging all into a "hush". Our pilot's hand shook, with controls failing to comply, lights blink, dimming and dimming, bit by bit. A call rang out- no signal. Cold unblinking dots sat far upon the horizon, distant and uncaring.

-Look at things from another perspective-

(Continuation of above) Gliding high above the body of blackened waves, I saw the strange floating object- once flickering and radiating signs of life, before it had hummed- now it drifted, no destination, dark and still. No wind carried sound from the platform, and no motion stirred from atop. Just a hollow husk swallowed by the vast stretch of water. I circled once, then twice, the scene almost painterly from lack of movement, the stars above still shone, but the defeated scene below now belonged to the ocean.

(The story from the perspective of a bird)

I got inspiration from one of my favorite poems/stories- Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

50 Names Brainstorming

 1. Cajun Canuck

2. Cajun Canadian

3. Poutine & Po'boys

4. Sticks

5. Roux'd awakening

6. Eh-Creole!

7. Maple me Crazy

8. Gravy Gators

9. Swamp shack du nord

10. Beignet, Done That

11. Poutine Scene

12. Shrimpin' Ain't Easy

13. Bayou Table

14. North & South

15. Epice

16. Le Marche

17. Old Quarter

18. Smokewood Tavern

19. The Locker room

20. The Roasted Oak

21. The Rustic Skillet

22. Roux House

23. Sideline Smokehouse

24. The Barn

25. Playbook Bar n Grille

26. Le petit Cajun

27. The Penalty Box

28. Hattrick grill

29. Blue Line Bar

30. Boiling Point

31. Pinch and Peel

32. The Bayou Bug

33. Tails

34. Wildriver Kitchen

35. Moosewood Inn

36. Tundra & Timber

37. Puck & Pint

38. Slapshot Smokehouse

39. Bayou Bite

40. Bon Temps Bistro

41. Ragout Et Roux

42. Feu Follet/Fifollet

43. The Saddle

44. Backroads Tavern

45. The Hayloft

46. Mudbug Meals

47. The Pine plate

48. Fireside feast

49. Skates & Steaks

50. Tourtiere Time

Creativity Week 1

For this weeks creativity prompt, I wanted to go and look back on older posts and recreate/revisit some of the ideas I had found before. November of last year I had found a website that provides artists with quick ideas to build creativity and avoid art block, the site can be found Here!. The prompt I went with last time was a circle challenge, where you take a sheet of blank circles and turn them into different things, it was quite entertaining to do originally, cause while you go through the obvious choices, later on it gets more difficult to produce ideas, which replicates the "thinking curve" we've discussed in class. Below is what I had created the first time.

This time I did not strictly stick to confined circle shapes, instead I made a few designs pop off the circles, unfortunately I did not color this round of circles. While creating these it became harder to think of circle shapes to replicate, but I enjoyed the concepts in my second version much more than the original. I would recommend this as a good warm up exercise, as you are able to freely doodle without worrying about mistakes, and at the same time your building up your creativity- I used this warm up before doing my 30 thumbnails project.

(The Rolly-poly is my favorite)