Creative Studio Identity Design

Alley9 Creative Studio is the small graphic design agency I co-founded. I wanted these designs to be sharp, clean, and fresh. My goal was to create unique, easy-to-read, and informative marketing material to promote our services. These were printed on 14-point (cardstock) cover matte with a dull coating on both sides to give them a high-quality, fingerprint-free texture.

Photographer Identity Design

Along with a new logo and stationery, I designed these business cards for an Ohio Photographer. Robb Shirey Photography was ready for a completely new image. I was hired because my client was seeking a professional design that was customized to match his unique style. These cards were printed using moo.com's "Printfinitiy" printing technology, which has the capability to print a different image on each card in a pack. Click view full size to view the stationery and the back card design.

Research Group Card Design

I designed these cards for an academic research group while I was a student at Purdue University's Computer Graphics Technology program. Imprints was focused on agricultural education for children, so I wanted the design to be youthful and agriculturally-inspired. I kept the design really simple by only using the most vital information. To make the colors pop, I had them printed on high gloss paper.

Etiquette Identity Design

Manners Matter is a partnership between two women who host etiquette classes primarily to young audiences. My client wanted a completely new identity design including a logo, business cards, and a brochure. This marketing campaign was all about bright, springtime colors and fresh graphics to appeal to a younger target audience. Manners Matters' previous branding material was very old-fashioned and outdated, so the client was interested in a more fun, casual design. These were printed in full-color on thick, 14-point gloss paper to make the colors vibrant and bright. To view the brochure, click here. To view my clients' original brochure, click here.

Informational Brochure

I designed this highly informational brochure for the West Lafayette based research company, Akina Incorporated. The client request a clean and professional mailer brochure that could provide partnering scientific, research, and chemical companies with information on various Akina products. The layout and design is lightly colored, bright, and has a clean, crisp appearance. First, I organized the information by dividing all the information into categories. I then manipulated the images to be cohesive and formatted the large amount of client-supplied text. I also created graphics to add visual interest, establish hierarchy, and to increase the organization of the information.

Purdue Golf Event Brochure

While working for Purdue University's Marketing and Communications Department, I managed the redesign of a previous brochure that was used to promote attendance for an annual scholarship fundraising golf event. The previous design had alignment issues and was printed in a light green and white color scheme that lacked Purdue pride. (Click here to view the original design.) To revamp the previous design, I changed the background to a dark brown and created a masculine, geometric gold square pattern for the cover to add visual interest. The fonts are consistent and minimal to increase readability. I traded the low-resolution graphics for high quality vector graphics to give it an expensive and professional style. I also revamped the logo for a more modern look.

Graduation Party Invitation

When I graduated from Purdue, I took advantage of the opportunity to design my own party invitations. I was inspired by printed pieces that appeared to be hand-drawn, and as much as I liked the idea of doodling on each invitation, there were a few too many invitations! Instead, I chose a hand-drawn decorative font and paired it with an inky, tattoo-inspired graphic. I enhanced and manipulated my old photos to look cohesive and used the gold and black color scheme I knew my friends and family would recognize.

Large Recruiting Banner

This is one of my favorite pieces. I designed this recruiting banner while working as an in-house Graphic Designer for Purdue University's School of Technology. This banner was printed on a 7-foot canvas and featured during a college recruiting fair. I used the Purdue black and gold colors along with an inspiring photograph and bold, easy-to read text. I created the textured gold column on the left by modifying a Purdue photograph and using various Photoshop filters and image adjustments.

Imprints Advertisement

I designed this full-color poster to advertise a presentation for Imprints, the research group I was a member of as a student in Contemporary Problems in Applied Computer Graphics. This design reflected the bright, youthful logo and adhered to our marketing campaign. This was placed in strategic locations throughout Purdue University to increase awareness and promote attendance to Imprint-hosted events.

Creative Studio Logo

As I mentioned previously, Alley9 Creative Studio is the design agency I co-founded. I designed this logo to be contemporary and clean. I modified a simple font to create visual interest by overlapping the letters and slicing the text on an angle. I placed the 9 below Alley because I wanted to logo to be in a square format which is easily applied to different media. I chose a monochromatic color scheme and added a subtle gradient for a modern, metallic feel.

Photographer's Logo

This is a logo design I created for Robb Shirey Photography. The client has a wide range of photography subjects, so he wanted a professional, clean, unique logo that would speak to different age groups. My client contributed to the unique idea of using a four-leaf clover as the identity mark. The photographer uses the clover image as a watermark for his printed and online images as well as throughout his printed business material.

Imprints Logo

Imprints was the name of an academic research group I contributed to as a student in Applied Problems in Computer Graphics. I designed this logo by vectorizing a photograph of a hand. I chose bright colors because I discovered through research that children in our target audience were more visually stimulated by orange and red. I used a gradient in the handprint to incorporate more color variations and depth.

Polyscitech Logo

I designed this logo for Polyscitech, a biomedical research subdivision of Akina Incorporated of West Lafayette's Discovery Park. My client wanted a clean, modern, and simple logo, but still detailed enough to show off one of their best-selling polymer formulas. I kept the text simple and clean so that it could be scaled to fit many different formats. This logo will soon be featured in their new website.

Manners Matter Logo

Manners Matter is an etiquette company from Kankakee, Illinois. The classes taught by Manners Matter focus on dinner table etiquette, so my client requested a dinner plate logo. I formatted text to fit nicely inside the dinner plate and paired it with appropriate simple silverware.

J Forest Photography Logo

I created this logo for a photographer. I designed the logo so that the colorful shapes would form an organic "Forest-like" theme. I traced a photograph of the aperture of a camera to render these shapes. It is forest-y and photograph-y.

Tech Pride Logo

I designed this simple logo while I worked for Purdue's School of Technology Marketing and Communications Department. The client wanted a logo for an annual golf event that was simple enough to be embroidered onto clothing and apparel. The Tech font is technology-inspired, but I modified it to increase the blocky style. The Pride font is more curvaceous and compliments the first ultra bold font.

Banter Logo

This logo was designed for a social media statistics company, Banter. The graphic I designed for the logo is a hybrid pie-chart-speak-bubble. The text is clean and modern to reflect the company's image.

Mexican Restaurant Logo

This logo was designed to be Mayan-inspired and traditional to represent an authentic Mexican restaurant. This logo didn't make it all the way through to production, but I still wanted to feature one of the initial concepts.

Liquifly: Photo Manipulation

I used two stock photographs to create this desktop calendar. I used my Photoshop skills to blend the images together to give the appearance of a woman wearing a liquid dress. The calendar was featured at the very top of SmashingMag's Desktop Wallpaper: October 2010 contest. SmashingMagazine.com is a hugely popular blog that offers free resources and advice to web and graphic designers.

Click here to view the original sources or download various sizes.

Graphic Novel Vectorization

I manually vectorized the cover of a Pitt graphic novel (no automatic tracing!) To do this, I used the pen tool in Illustrator to create each and every single teeny tiny shape and line. I was a student in Vector Imaging for Computer Graphics when I created this, so it took me almost 50 hours to complete this project. My hard work payed off though, and I even was voted Best in Class.

Rock Band T-Shirt

I designed this t-shirt using Adobe Illustrator, a large sticker, and textile paint. The White Stripes band members were designed on the computer in a vector format. Next, the design was transferred to contact paper and the design was cut out and placed on a white shirt so the front side could be inked. The back was completed in a similar fashion, but instead of painting solid black textile paint, I stamped small red circles to create a texture.

T-Shirt Design

I entered this design into an international t-shirt contest. I won! My design was chosen over more than 125 entries submitted by other designers. The target audience included affluent, self-directed investors, mostly male, and aged 35 and older. The t-shirt was designed to promote the book, The Small-Cap Investor: Secrets to Winning Big with Small-Cap Stocks, by Ian Wyatt, Chief Investment Strategist at SmallCapInvestor.com. This shirt design was worn by Jason of IWearYourShirt.com.

Charcoal Sketch

I used pencil, different strengths of charcoal, blending stumps, and even erasers in this sketch to create textures and shading effects.

Flaxfit Website

I created the mock-up and composition of this website for Akina Incorporated, a freelance client from Discovery Park. This site follows the original branding, style, and color scheme for the Flaxfit product packaging. Click here to visit the live site.

HTML Portfolio 1.0

This is my previous online portfolio. Single-page portfolios inspired the design of the website, because I liked the idea of having each piece featured together on one page. I wanted a 5-second website. I wanted viewers to get a feel for my style in a short amount of time. I updated the design of this portfolio to add more user functionality and to clean up the design. Click here to visit my previous portfolio.

Flash Portfolio

I coded and designed this Flash online portfolio. This used xml to make image-uploading and editing really simple. The background would change colors in a subtle way and included interactive icons.

Flash Game

To implement this Flash interactive video game, I designed the front-end graphics, created the storyline and character development, and also completed usability testing and analysis. In the game, the user controls the main character using the arrows on the keyboard. To pass the first level, the player must kill vicious fish to avoid being eaten. Extra points are given to the cigar-smoking hero when treasure is collected or special weapons are used. Click here to play the game.

Group Project - Commercial

I contributed to a four-person group project by writing the script for this commercial to promote the upcoming television season for The Custodian. I also edited the video footage and also implemented a 300 style by altering the colors and adjusting for high-contrast lighting effects.

Graphic Design Blog

I started a graphic design blog last year to serve as a resource for other graphic designers or art aficionados, and to keep myself current with trends and tools. I search the web (or my brain) for helpful design resources or inspirational images. Once my topic is developed, I write the content for the blog and upload the resources to share with others. Initially created on a whim, my blog is quickly working its way toward 100,000 views. Woo Hoo! Click here to read my blog.

Project Blog

I wrote 100% of the content for this blog. I created the blog to serve as a method of delivering press releases and maintaining a marketing presence for the CGT capstone course group, imPRINTS. Click here to visit the blog.

Poetry

I wrote this personal collection of poetry during a Creative Writing course at Purdue University. Click here to download the collection.