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.