Poke the Merch business card

For Anime North 2014 (a convention) , I designed a business card for the blog my friends and I run called Poke the Merch.  Last year we had convention goers ask us for a business card during our giveaway and unfortunately we didn't have cards to pass out at the time.  This year we were more prepared!

The colours of the card are meant to match the colours of our logo and blog. The printed version is fantastic!  The Poke crew couldn't be happier!

Developed in: Adobe Illustrator

Poke the Merch

Poke the Merch is now over a year old and it only just occurred to me that I had never posted the progress of how I developed the logo for that blog.  Since "Poke the Merch" was the original title my partner and I thought of, we decided we wanted a finger in our logo (to emphasize on the poke).

I took several photographs of my hand in certain poking positions.

 

Eventually I vectored over the one that looked best in Illustrator and tried out various designs.  Below are some results.

We used this one in the end as a watermark for our photographs.

This one is used for our banner so it's easier to develop a design around the hand.

You can check out the blog here!

Developed in: Adobe Illustrator

Lighting Effects

Oh, how I miss using light in a lot of my work.  I used to do it a lot back in the old days, so I want to try it again.  I tried out some sample pieces first based off a tutorial I quite enjoyed a while back and from there I began adding items to it, making it my own.

It started off like this:

(Yes, I like the word Fantabulous, despite it being made up)

Then I wanted to create a fantastical night scene out of it because that blue was just gorgeous.

I borrowed a set of cloud brushes from Brusheezy and a moon from Google and combined it with a photo I had taken in Japan a few years back.  Having a weak spot for soft light, I cropped out part of the ocean from my Japan photo first and changed the mode to soft light so it melded with the blue background, immediately creating a night scene.  Afterwards, I split the moon in half and created a reflection in the water with it and then threw some clouds into the scene.  Because the clouds were so gray, I applied an outer glow to it.  Finally I created some speckles for stars and  threw them in the background, and here is the final result!

Developed in: Adobe Photoshop

Music

Music is and always will be a wonderful thing.  It always calms me down when I'm sad or upset, and surprisingly enough, it doesn't take more than three songs to help me simmer down.  So here's a layout for a made up music site, just because I love music.  Originally it was just black in the background, but I added coloured sound echoes/ripples to make it more interesting.  Needless to say, I'm pleased with the final result.

(Clearly a title for the site hasn't been created)

Developed using: Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop

Icons - Because they're awesome

I'm back!  With some icons this time as well!  I keep looking at my Android phone thinking about how I could develop my own.  I guess it inspired me to make some of my own set for different purposes.

Here's a compass I made in Adobe Illustrator using various gradients, and I must admit I'm very proud of this one. A compass would definitely come in handy for someone as directionally challenged like me.   You can see why I made a compass first!  I vectored random shapes in the background to make it look like a map.  It was much better than leaving it a plain blue.

Next up we have music and videos, because most phones nowadays have these options.  The video one is rather straightforward, but I wanted to have fun with the music icon.  I gave the note a set of headphones because it made it more fun!

Finally we have a map.  There isn't much for me to say except I'm extremely grateful phones have map applications.  They tend to be lifesavers for people like me, so I wanted to make a map icon with the other three.

And there you have it!

Developed in: Adobe Illustrator

Magazine layout

Here comes another magazine layout!  Another one for Poke the Merch, that is.

A friend of mine is currently working on a review for these figures, and I just really wanted to create a magazine layout with some photographs we took a while back.  Interestingly enough, both characters (Takasugi and Kamui from Gintama) are crazy, but they look great in natural areas.  Fortunately there are some nice, quiet, green areas in my neighbourhood.

We definitely wanted to capture Kamui (below) in the shade because he isn't able to stand in the sun for a long period of time.  It also worked with his shady expression.

For now, I'm using Lorum Ipsum, but I'd love to add actual text once the reviews are done!

Developed in: Adobe InDesign
Photos edited in: Adobe Photoshop

A Bag Full of Fashion

Here's a typographic purse I did a short while back!

I had to look up quite a few synonyms to fill this pretty thing up, but I managed to do it.  Having recently watched more Project Runway I wanted to create a bag and fill it with a wide variety of terms relating to the fashion.  I had a lot of fun making this.  I think next time I'll do a PS3 controller and fill it with gaming terms.  The gamer in me is itching to try it out at some point!

Developed in: Adobe Illustrator