Blackjack Peninsula Ranch Logo

Here is a logo I did recently for a guy in Texas that owns a fishing and hunting reserve down there. We went through a few different sets of antlers and the end fish was actually a trout, but I liked the bass better for my portfolio. Anyways, he had insane requests that I thought made this particular logo a challenge. Such as the request for three different graphics on one logo. And then the white space above the text was nagging at me, so I went through a few different things before using a piece of land. Hey, it's a peninsula right? Oh, and I thought the way the J flowed into the S in peninsula gave it character. But what do I know?

Bear Graphics' Saturday In The Park Ad

This is an advertisement for a local publication called The Weekender. The Bear Graphics ad was for the upcoming Saturday in the Park Event on the fourth of July. The guitar was actually drawn custom in Illustrator. The pearl look on the headstock of the guitar was actually another picture that I took of ad oily puddle that I dropped on in photoshop, I figured it would be a neat addition. The wood grain on the side was also overlayed. And of course it looks great when it's not a low res jpeg. Below is the mesh lines just to prove it is a vector drawing.

Blue Moon Band Poster #11

Here is one of my favorite Blue Moon Band posters to date. We took the picture of the lead guitar player's guitar on the night of the previous show with this idea in the works. The idea was obvious but harder was finding a rocket tower image that will print well. And I unfortunately don't have any high res photos of a shuttle take off laying around. So someone kill me for taking this one. I swear a week later I saw the same image in Time Magazine for an ad. So I am not alone. Haha. Anyways. I dropped in the guitar, gave it some falling ice pieces and made some white space for my text. I don't get to use vertical text a lot, but this one needed it as the poster is very vertical. I also pick my battles with the lens flare effect. But in this case, It came out nice. Oh yeah, and another creative way to give the show time.

Blue Moon Band Poster #10

One year after the first poster I created for the Blue Moon Band, we come to the annual show at Red's Pub down the street from the always crazyfun Saturday In The Park Event. The idea was brought together after brainstorming a summer theme and something that brought a fresh idea to the table. And so nothing says summer better than the coined phrase "fresh squeezed blues" and wrapping up that fruit into our little planetary orbiter redefined as the moonfruit. Haha. It works for me. I also really liked the color scheme on this one.

Hawkeye Adjustment Services Logo Spread

This is a spread of a couple of the different logos that I presented to Hawkeye Adjustment Services, a local collection agency. After they had no luck with a couple of other area design firms, a friend of mine turned them my way, and fortunately they picked my designs. I drew the hawkeye graphic while doodling and then vectorizationized it soon after. I played with a few simple fonts that I thought have a professional feel. Nothing really extreme graphically, but the client was pleased and picked two of them for their various uses.

Graduation Invite

Sorry to break up the plethora of posters added to this blogfolio, I decided to put in a graduation invite that I did for my cousin Kassandra. This invite was fun, because I had nice professional photos to work with which always helps. And I got a chance to use another texture out of my personal photo library o' textures. The texture on the front is actually of a large piece of worn steel that I saw about a year ago. The tears and dents are too awesome not to take advantage of. I kind of withdrew all thoughts of pretty pinks and flowers for a typical girl graduation invite, but instead used a grunged yet elegant look with school colors of course. Haha. The backside is an easy type mask with her picture. I also catered the party. Haha. It was fun.

Blue Moon Band Poster #9

So after looking through the multiple event posters that have been done for The Blue Moon Band, you might be asking "why not have one poster and just change the date like every other band on the planet?" Well, that's just it. We've sort of decided that separating them from every other band was a good thing. Plus it gives me a chance to be creative and gives the fans and others something to look for. Honestly, most local show posters that are used over and over again get overlooked when repeated. My opinion. Make your own. I don't care. Another goal was to be as different as possible with each idea. This gives me a challenge each time and thus makes me a better designer, as well as adding a new wow factor for the viewers each time.

So with that said, this is the poster for the gig at Awesome Biker Nights in Sioux City, Iowa. The rider is the drummer of the band Jeff Rhymer. Picture of which was taken at the same time as the photo that was used in a previous show poster. This one was much harder to C.B.O. to tell the truth but in the end I was very happy with it. Feedback please.

Blue Moon Band Poster #8

This is an idea brought to life. I had been thinking about organizing this poster for about a year before fruition. The boy playing the harmonica in front is my oldest boy Cayden in a rented pin striped suit and fedora hat. We took him to a local loading dock that really looks like it hasn't been touched in 100 years. We put the guitar case and suitcase, along with a cardboard sign saying "Chesterfield or Bust" on it. The Chesterfield being the venue of the show. I also added their logo to the suitcase. My boy wasn't keen on sitting on the edge of the dock and a train going by about 20 feet away wasn't helping matters. So I took the pic of him at home and dropped him in. He is a little big, but it works because it's hard to scale anything in the front of the poster as it was. This building actually started on fire a few months later.

Photo Editing For Friend's Family Pic

Here is another example out of only a few that I have done. Which is unfortunate because I do enjoy photo editing and retouching. So a friend of the family had a couple of pictures, taken at different times, and wanted the girl in the front/right added by her family. So, I had to extend the background/building out and make room for her. Then I threw her in there and cropped the picture down to accommodate. Another problem was that there must've been a cloud overhead, cause I had to mess with the lighting on her a bit. And now that I look at it, I think I should've had her facing the other direction towards the middle. Oh well. They were very happy with it.

Chimney Fish Logo Spread

And here is a mock up that I presented to a "never was" client for a local rock and roll band. They never did get back to me and that is sort of disheartening. But hey, time moves on. So. On that note, the fish graphic was custom drawn and then brought into illustrator and redrawn. I wanted pale colors and I tried to use a font that represented the graphic well. I wanted something fun and that had a sort of illustrated look. Too bad though, I would've liked to have a

t-shirt with one of these on it. Below is the idea in pen before the logo redraw.

Blue Moon Band Poster #7

Okay so this poster is yet another Blue Moon Band special. The rider you see is actually the drummer on his bike which I had to change the colors a bit to fit this one. We took the picture next to a house that didn't make the C.B.O. easy. But it all works in the end. I added the fire, changed the road to blacktop and wanted to keep a neat sort of warm color scheme and dull look through out the poster which really allowed the bright blue text elements to pop off. Wasn't extremely happy with the layout of the info, but there was just so much of it and I would really like to play with that more. But what is done is done. Oh and the dead man's hand. Taken on my kitchen counter.

Blue Moon Band Poster #6

Here is another poster for the Blue Moon Band. This one uses the theme of the "Skyline" and runs with it. I've actually taken a texture that I have in my personal texture library and made the moon out of it. Looks perty sweet if you ask me, but you didn't and I apologize. I also brought a different sort of color scheme and typographical scheme to this poster compared to some past. Along with that I brought in the new logo that I had worked up for the band. Also if you look closely you can see the keyboard player and the bass player in the back sorta hovering over the scape.

Blue Moon Band Poster #5

This poster idea came on a squeeze. My dad took some pictures of an old run down house outside of town and we decided to try and use them in a new poster. I was going for a crossroads sort of theme I guess. The street sign is actually a pic of the street sign right outside my house. I just grunged it up a bit and away we go. I like this one for the color and once again the limited use of type. But still informative. Click image to enlarge.

Blue Moon Band Poster #4

 You might recognize the guitar neck from the one I did for the Shayna Baszler website. But since that wasn't being put to good use I decided to make a sweet poster for the Blue Moon Band. Once again, all done in Illustrator minus the wood grain. This poster makes me smile cause it's so simple with the information. Get's the point across and looks nice to boot. Click the image to get more detail on the custom drawn strings. There were so many paths I had to rasterize them just to work. Haha. Whateva.

Geoff Owens Fighter T-Shirt Design

 Just to mix up the poster freakin gallery here. This is a t-shirt design I did for a buddy of mine named Geoff Owens. He's a local mixed martial arts fighter and would kick my ass if I gave him something short of hard funkin core. Enter..... the Skull Spine! With added graphic elements of course. Haha. His nick name is The Ironman. So I had to put together some sort of armored warrior with a hard core skull death kill murder fight theme. You know. So the whole family could enjoy. We went back and forth changing everything from armors to fonts. But in the end, he loved it. I think. And thats all that matters.......that i am pretty sure he liked it. No. Click to enlarge the image.

Blue Moon Band Poster #3

This poster is probably my favorite of any. I will admit that it was really hard to get a trip to the moon for a moonscape picture. So I grabbed one off the internet. I humbly apologize and would like to say to the capturee that your image was the only one on the planet that I would ever want. And you rock. Thank you and I am honestly not a thief. Other than that I altered some tornados and lightning and took the guitar player Bobby Peters to a level he's never been. This poster was rightfully labeled the "Path of Destruction Tour" and got rave reviews. Click image to enlarge.

Blue Moon Band Poster #2

 A fan favorite. My dad and I drove around taking really cool pictures of old abandoned buildings one day and just sort of brainstormed ourselved into a semi-coma. After we woke up we noticed we had this sweet picture of the local KD Station building. I actually took the picture angled so I wouldn't have to do it later in photoshop. Laugh out loud. And I ended up with this that very night. I really wanted it to look like the text was painted on years ago and just sort of faded. If you look closely you can see a Blue Moon Beer logo in the bottom left corner. I hope I don't get into trouble for that. The local distributor said it was cool. That's all this mofo needed. This is also the first use of one of a series of Blue Moon Band logos I worked up. Click to see it big and stuff.

Blue Moon Band Poster #1

 This is the very first Blue Moon poster I had the privilege of doing. My idea was of an old school blues poster that looked like type exploded all over it. You know the kind. The pic is of the world famous Tim Vollmer and his harp. It makes me laugh at how much text was used in this compared to the newer "more to the point" Blue Moon posters. Anyways, I misspelled keyboards and the show rocked anyways. Click image to enlarge.

Kiss 107 FM Skateboard Design

 Okay so somehow along the road I was asked to design a skateboard for a local radio station givaway. They sent me their logo and I basically repeated it all over the freakin place and added some super cool equalizer bars. They loved it as far as I know. And I didn't make anything off it. Except for the fact that I got to design a skateboard. I'd love to do some crazy skateboard stuff. Click to enlarge.

Absolute Properties LLC Logo Spread

 My buddy Adam from Bernard Farms was starting a real estate business and need a logo. He came to his good buddy Eric for ideas. So I started brainstorming and shot him the above examples. I was really hoping to wow him with an assortment of logos as I wasn't given any real direction. I went with pretty typical logo ideas to out of the box as well. I thought they all turned out nice, but nothing ever really blossomed out of the venture. So if anyone wants to call dibs on any of these logos, I can alter and make one yours. Give me a holler. Or just steal my ideas and i'll come hunt you down and bury you on one of the beautiful Absolute Properties. Click the image to enlarge.

Youth Art Month Mock Poster (Addy Award Winner)

 So this was also a school project that I nervously paid $50 to enter in the Addy Awards. And they gave me a sweet Gold Prize Plaque and an even sweeter Best Of Show Plaque. I still don't think it was worth my fifty bones though. Maybe cause now I'm broke. But anywho. It started out as a mock poster for Youth Art Month for the Art Center. We were instructed to pick the theme of one of our favorite artists and incorporate. I picked Robert Crumb cause he's a bad ass. Although I've failed to do him justice, it works. And nothing say's youth art like finger painting. I remember finding a picture of a homeless African boy and drawing his face R. Crumb style, with crosshatch and pointalism or whateva. And then holding my own hand up to my face and "Crumbing" it. Did I just say "Crumbing" oohhhh yeah! The rest I freestyled, cause that's how I do. Click to enlarge. Sorry for the long story. Wish I had the original file so I could fix the shadow. Haha.

Cameo Jeweler's Mock Advertisement

 Also a school project. If I remember correctly, we had to come up with a mock company, logo and theme. Then bring it together into a mock advertisement. The reason I posted this one is cause it shows my very first time-taken approach to Illustrator. That is with the watch. I drew it in about three hours give or take and was proud as hell. It looks choppier than hell to me now, but hey! Click the image for an enlarged version.

Riverfront Blues Festival Mock Poster

 This one was a school project in my first year. The reason I wanted to post this one is cause it was really my first time incorporating my own theme and photography into a project. The picture was take on an old abandoned bridge that collapsed like 3 months later. Phew! The ghostlike dude holding the guitar is my good buddy Slim. We dressed him up in some of my dad's old clothes and blues hat, slapped a guitar case in his hand and promised him the bridge was as sturdy as they come. Haha. Notice I'm standing on ground.

Ferhooglefest '08 Poster

 On this poster a guy in town saw a poster I did for The Blue Moon Band and wanted me to do one for an upcoming birthday celebration for him. Called Ferhooglefest. At first his only request was that I somehow incorporate a bottle of Ciroc and have the bands names, drink prices and date/place/cost. Then after a first draft, I found that the extra white space that I thought looked great was rented out to miscellaneous information and logo galore. But he liked it in the end. And it printed well. I was promised shots too. But couldn't make it cause it was on my son's birthday. Click image to enlarge.

Adam's Tree Service Business Card Spread

 For some reason I was really into reflections at this time. Haha. But anyways, I mocked up the three logos with his typical info and slapped them on a nice display. He looked them over, said he would get back to me. Never did. Haha. He must've liked his cards better. They were one blue construction paper though. Ouch. Whatevas cleva. Click image to enlarge.

Adam's Tree Service Logo Spread

 So a local tree service guy named Jeff wants a new logo. And trust me when I say he needed one. The one he had was a drawing his brother did of a beaver with the company name typed generically. Which is fine. But I wanted to give him something a bit stronger brandwise. So I came up with the spread above. After proposing them to Mr. Jeff, he showed nothing close to interest. Which sucked cause I thought they were pretty damn groovy. So he brought up the idea of changing the color scheme to green instead of blue, which I agree makes complete sense. And he wanted to see what they would look like as business cards. So I got to work.

Elie's Mexican Restaurant Concept

 So the beautiful and talented Sandy Welch decided to take up a dream of hers and start a mexican restaurant. The only problem, no logo or trendy pepper dude. So I took to Illustrator like a crazy patoonia. My dad actually penciled a pepper dude with sombrero and margarita. I brought it into Illustrator and brought him to life really. 110% vector art in Illustrator. Gave you the lines to prove it. Haha. And if anyone says the margarita should be green i'll slap them and then admit defeat. I wish my dad would give me more little vegetable dudes to do. Just speakin from the heart people. Click image to enlarge.

Real Cage Fighting Body Count Poster

 Okay so "Body Count" was also a brainchild of mine. So after brainstorming the name of the event I got photos of my buddy and local fighter Geoff Owens to add to the concept. Playing around with a massacre sort of theme, I ended up with this. As for the typography, I pretty much went against the grain of the previous RCF poster. Also to note, after doing this poster and a whole lot of work for the RCF website, as well as helping promote and set up the events all together, I got hosed. Not a dime. And there isn't a shred of evidence that any of this ever happened. Double You Tee Eff!

Real Cage Fighting Staredown Poster

 Okay so this poster features a great local fighter by the name of Chuck Parmelee in a bad ass stare down pose which was a brainchild of yours truly. I loved the chance to use my own photography with my own ideas. I pretty much had free reign. So I made the concept of "Staredown" along with a grunged theme and wah freakin lah. It's just too bad I didn't get paid for this either. 

Tri State Cage Fighting Poster

 So you're probably noticing a trend here with the mixed martial arts pieces. What can I say. I am a huge fan of mma and am glad that it has followed me into my career as a graphic designer. This poster was done way back when a local mma organization first started. These were pretty much the first champs of what is now Tri-State Cage Fighting after some ruckus about the word Ultimate being used. But after a few changes and tedious c.o.b. I finished aaaaannnnndddd, didn't get a dime. I heard some were printed somewhere to, but oh well. I was honestly hoping to do a lot of cool work with these guys too. Click to enlarge.

Bernard Farms Truck Decal

 Let's mix it up a bit with a decal shall we. This one was a favor I did for a good buddy of mine. He had no idea what he wanted so I gave him a masked logo. With sweet freakin custom vector drawn corn rows. It printed okay, except the blend was a bit choppy. I later did a business card for him with the same theme. Click to Enlarge.

Shayna Baszler Website Intro

 This is the intro to the Shayna Baszler website. There was a lot more besides what i've put on here, but these were the most interesting of the bunch. This one is a classic rendition of the typical death comic scene. Done by everyone in one way or another, but I tried to make it specific to Shayna. This depicts her Skull Throne which gives ode to her famous quote "Another skull for the skull throne" after she thoroughly dismantles her helpless victims. Haha. Sorry. Never got a chance to put her in the thrown, as was also the fault of people responsible for the site. I should send her this stuff though so she has it at least. Never was paid a dime either. Haha.

Shayna Baszler Custom Guitar Neck Design

And here is the guitar neck that was done custom for the Shayna Baszler website as well. I wanted more than just the guitars themselves. I wanted to push myself in Illustrator and work up some detail. Everything is vector including the strings, which were drawn bit by bit. Well, okay the woodgrain was an added touch that i wasn't about to go into. But honestly everything else was drawn in Illustrator. So this is my custom guitar neck with sweet pearl spades instead of dots. Click to enlarge. 

Shayna Baszler Custom Guitar Design

 So Shayna is an incredible guitar player and brings her guitar with her before fights, so having it on the website was a no brainer. Her actual guitar is a Flying V that is white, but I did both colors for reasons that escape me. But the important thing is that these babies were drawn 100% in illustrator. And she loved them.

Shayna Baszler Playing Card Design

 This was a piece design specifically for an area female mixed martial artist by the name of Shayna Baszler. I was always a huge fan of hers from watching Bodog Fights and eventually Elite XC. So doing her website was awesome to say the least. This was a propaganda style piece reminiscent of a Shepard Fairey work (hardly), that was eventually made into the cover of playing cards for the site. And unfortunately I think the site is pulled down due to another person's failure to cooperate with people associated.

Cecelia Park Barber Business Card

 Here is a business card I did for my aunt's barber shop. They had no logo or anything. I just decided to give them a graphic that gave the viewer all they needed. This one was done in Illustrator. Click to enlarge.

Babcock Locker Logo Spread

 A logo spread anyone? This was a spread for an area meat company that was need of a logo. The middle one was supposed to be a t-bone. People always ask me. But they didn't pick that one anyhow. They went with the bottom one. And I liked the first one. Haha. Click to enlarge.

Judd's Fedor Punch

 This label was unfortunately the last of the series, but hopefully we can get Judd's Brewing House back up and running some time in the future. This was honestly a commemorative piece specifically for the great fighter Fedor Emelianenko. This brew was another cider but packed a hefty punch. Thus the name. I honestly wish I could've spent a bit more time on it. But what do you do. We also made sweet t-shirts out of this one.

Judd's Irish Stout

  I got over creative with this one and started adding images that just did not make sense. Such as Bruce Lee as a focal point on a mostly Irish themed beer label. I through in the sweet bar code again too. 

Judd's Midnight Ale

 At this point I went the route of ditching the neck labels. So Judd's Brewing House brewed a super dark ale and we wanted to give it an original name so we came up with Judd's Midnight Ale. I thought it was a nice touch. And it gave me a chance to use the crest again and also design an atypical shaped label as well. Click to enlarge.

Judd's Apple Jack Cider

 I'm starting to realize how long ago I did these, cause I would do things different today. Haha. But this one is of Judd's Apple Jack Cider. Man I love a good hard cider. And this label gave me a chance to give old Judd's Brewing House a custom crest. The label itself is admittedly similar to an actual beer label that I admired, but made it my own. If you look closely you can see the Apple Jack logo is actually a mask of the cereal. Click it to enlarge.

Judd's Oktoberfest Brew

 And here was the second homebrew that the World Reknowned Judd's Brewing Company had me do. It was a delicious Oktoberfest, and we kept the theme from the Nut Brown Ale. I also added a sweet barcode and disclaimer info. Click to see full size.

Judd's Nut Brown Ale Beer Label

 This is the first of a series of beer labels I did for my buddy Judd. He was brewing some homebrews for a while when we got to discussing possible labels for them. They look unbelievable on the original bottles. And the rest is history. Click on it to see full size.

Los Amigos Menu

 And this is the menu that I designed for Los Amigos as well. These printed really nice also. Took forever to do though. And I made a measly $100 on it. Never again. And once again, click the image to get a real look at each page.

Photo Editing For Los Amigos Restaurant

 So here is a taste of the very little photo editing that I get to do. It was for an area restaurant called Los Amigos and the wanted this old photo from Mexico restored so they could have a poster of it in their restaurant. Not sure if they ever did it though. Please click the picture to actually see the difference. If you want. 

Smash Fight Wear Logo

 This is a logo that I designed for the Smash Fight Wear company in New Jersey. Joe from Smash gave me a drawing of the skull and I redrew it in Illustrator. I then went crazy and brought in the razor wire element which kinda gives it a hardcore sense.