These are a series of mockups that I did for an attendee of our workshop (and mother of a former wedding client) Leisa DeThomas. Leisa and her daughter Kristen are starting their very own wedding photography company called “Captivating, Inc.” and they’re trying to come up with a logo.
These designs were mostly an exercise, showing Leisa how to use Photoshop to design logos and vary the concepts to show off different aspects of your taste and personality. I liked them a lot so I posted them here.
Leisa is on her way to making her own logo, so these will likely be “concepts” forever. In any case check out Leisa’s Flick page and show her some comment love for all of her stellar photos!
I’ve been working behind the scenes with my good friend Dan Wilburn, who’s developing a new “animated” comedy series called “Life Sandwich”.
This piece is just a promo for the show, but we wanted to come up with an art style that blended some South Park style paper cut-outs with photographs. I really liked the idea of using crumpled newspaper as the medium and I think it suits the overall feel of the show.
Right now the show is stuck in development limbo, so no official word on when it’s going to be released, but I’ll be sure to post about it as soon as it does!
If you are remotely in my age group then you are a Terminator fan on some level. I was such a huge Arnold Schwarzenegger fan growing up in the eighties that all you had to do was make him a killer cyborg and I was indefinitely enamored with him. I did not however expect the epic grandeur that was James Cameron’s T2: Judgement Day, and it was my favorite movie/story for many years following.
So… without further hesitation, the other TV show I want to talk about is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX – Fridays 8PM)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (or TSCC from here on out) is not a James Cameron creation, however it stays true to the story of T:2 and picks several years after the film left off in 1999. TSCC follows a teenage John Connor (Thomas Dekker) and his mother Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) as they focus on stopping Skynet from ever happening while trying to stay out of the path of any machines sent back to kill John.
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Network television is in a sad state right now. In the aftermath of the popularity of Tivo, and now streaming sites like Hulu, there just isn’t as big of a push for live viewership as there was when television was in it’s golden-age. Ad revenue for these conglomerates is dropping like flies and that translates into punishment for writers and viewers of great television shows.
Nowadays, a show that gets 3 million viewers might scrape by and make it 2 seasons before getting cancelled, and such is the case with the two shows I want to bring to your attention, the first show is called Life.
Life (NBC – Wednesdays 9PM)
I don’t know how else to put this except to say Life is a great show. The premise of Life is really original. A cop named Charlie Crews goes to jail for a murder he didn’t commit. He is cleared 12 years later by DNA evidence and goes back to the LAPD as a detective… and oh, he’s been given $50 million dollars for his troubles.
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I recently had the pleasure of creating a logo for a colleague and friend of ours, Alice Park. Alice and her husband have created an organization called NAPCP – National Association of Professional Child Photographers (try saying that 10 times fast). The organization was created for photographers who specifically work with children and they provide resources and help connect photographers and parents to one another to foster a safer, trusting working environment for both parties.
Intially, Alice had mentioned that she wanted a “seal” and something that brought about the “Real Simple” look and feel and I was happy to give it a try. I tried to bring in something simple, but clean and official feeling without being too institutional and the following is what I came up with for round 1.
After some further discussion we decided it would be better to bring in some neutral, child-friendly elements and we came up with butterflies and ladybugs, pretty universal non-offensive kid stuff. I created the ladybugs by hand using the Wacom and Photoshop skills, not the kind of element I usually create. Alice also liked a softer shade of blue-green and an “est. 2009″ was added to the seal. What we came up with was this final design.
I’m really happy with the logo and Alice is too. I’m glad Alice put some challenges in front of me in terms of designing some softer, child-friendly materials. It’s always easy to go modern and gritty, but creating something that makes people feel comfortable and safe is always more of a challenge, and more rewarding in the end.
Thanks Alice!
I’m really excited to announce the launch of GoodGameGuys, a community for gamers.
GoodGameGuys has been something that’s been kicked around for about 2 years, and we just didn’t have the time or resources to get it going until now. I went with Ning as the platform because it offers the most features and flexibility for zero-dollars. If things really take off, I plan on moving the entire platform over to BuddyPress, a social networking platform based on WordPress. In the meantime, Ning offers some really great stuff.
Here is the corporate mission statement that explains in detail what we hope to accomplish:
GoodGameGuys is a gaming community that aims to bring gamers together in an environment similar to MySpace and Facebook.
The community hosts advanced features with customizable profile pages, personal blogs, Flickr photo importing, and the ability to interact through chat and forums.
Bi-monthly “Game Together” nights are scheduled via Microsoft’s XBOX Live and the Playstation Network (Wii support available in the future) for popular games such as Halo 3, Call of Duty. More specialized events like meet-ups and LAN parties will be co-ordinated by members, and will happen at various times throughout the year.
GoodGameGuys also brings members the latest in gaming news though the use of RSS. The top-stories from the most popular gaming sites in the world can be easily accessed on the front page of the site.
GoodGameGuys is a great place for gamers to connect, find friends and discuss gaming in a mature but laid back environment, with many plans of expansion for the future.
If you’re interested in gaming at all, or just want to placate me, head on over and sign up 
In the Fall of 2008 I got together with some amazing guys here in Atlanta who call themselves Nightmare Armor Studios. What NAS does is create props and replicas from video games, feature films and anime.
After seeing these guys at a Halo 3 launch event, and later at Dragon Con I got in touch with owner/lead designer Sid Garrand. I offered Sid a free photo shoot since they didn’t have much going on in the photography department. They had just done these beautiful Iron Man suits so that’s what we shot. These images are what we came away with and I’m really happy with how they turned out.
I had a good time working on this shoot and I’m working on doing more photography involving people who do cosplay and build movie props. Sid and his team do AMAZING work, and you should check out their site and keep up with them.
This is something I really love and hope to do more of in the future, I have a website called Cosfolio in the works that will house all of my cosplay photography work.
I decided recently that it was time to grow up and get rid of my Samsung home-theater-in-a-box. I’ve had it for nearly 3 years now, and though it was a good starter setup, my needs have exceeded it’s capabilities.
Enter the Onkyo TX-SR576.
My current A/V setup includes 3 sources connected via HDMI (PS3, 360 and MacBook). Since my Panasonic plasma only has 2 HDMI inputs in the back, I’ve been using a crappy Monoprice analog switch to swap the signals. Besides being annoying, this provided me with an audio problem. Continue reading →
I stumbled upon Brad Kayal’s work while I was trolling Flickr a few months ago. Brad consistently creates amazing work in every medium he’s involved in. This most recent poster really blew me away with it’s simplistic layout and attention to detail.
Whenever I feel like I need a boost of creative inspiration I head on over to Brad’s website, and Flickr page. His posters, photography, websites, and even Flash video games are all strokes of genius. Please be sure to check bookmark him, he’s truly a master.
My cousin, good friend and all around awesome guy decided to dip both feet into the water of the virtual world and get himself a website/blog. We went over to GoDaddy.com and purchased www.coreyhivner.com as a place to hold his blog and later his vast portfolio housing everything from artwork to remodeling to custom bicycles.
I whipped up a splash page based on a old turn of the century poison label. I’ve kinda been obsessed with early plate-based design as of late. I think it turned out pretty cool, Corey digs it too.
Head on over and make sure you subscribe to his RSS feed and keep up with him, he’s full of interesting things.
