Omniture-Adobe Summit ‘10

March 11, 2010 in Events, Freelance, Graphic design | No comments

For the third year, I was fortunate to be involved with designing for the Omniture Summit, which wrapped up a week ago. Odd to replace the familiar green Omniture branding with the grey and red Adobe preferences.

It’s one of those projects heavy on the production side with a lengthy list of similar pieces, though I enjoyed working with Steve Gustavson and Ben Child from the marketing team mocking up the creative imagery around the new year.

I’m thinking sometimes there ought to be a good balance between projects that are thoroughly creative and energy-intensive on idea, and ones where I can just sit down and push through the production of the design.

With the event finished, I’m hoping to be able to post some photos taken of the actual pieces from the event.

Printed Business Cards

March 3, 2010 in Business, Graphic design | No comments

Ah, the smell of a printing press, something I haven’t experienced in awhile…or enough. Already noticing things I’d like to improve on and ideas to try out for next time, but pleased with the finished product.

March 1, 2010 in Business, Illustration | No comments

This month’s issue of Inc. Magazine features the CEO of Omniture, Josh James, now Senior VP with the Adobe acquisition. It’s such a minor thing, but still a bit of fun that the article portrait uses the little chalkboard drawing I did for them in December as a backdrop.


Business Cards

February 21, 2010 in Business, Graphic design, Personal, Portfolio | 4 comments

Another project that’s been in the works for too long is now at the press. With the production of the snowboard and the approaching SXSW conference, I made a push to finish some business cards. Basically, I adapted elements from my snowboard to maintain that self-promo theme. Funny thing is, I now have both the snowboard and business cards using a kind of logo that I don’t intend on maintaining as a permanent logo. It’s really more of a branding element reflecting the kind of characters I draw, more of a style association than a specific mark. It is an abstraction of my initials, which makes me think more along the lines of creating similar characters or redesigns of my initials without any of them being a standard.

Through the design process, I considered many different print possibilities with the cards—letterpress, die-cut, specialty papers, foils and metallics, emboss, etc. I didn’t want to overdesign, though; the card doesn’t have to implement everything. I did go for rounded corners and a slimmer vertical format. Also, a qr code appealed to me with the interactive festival approaching and I’m hoping it’s not going to be something too trendy. Finally, the press run necessitating a higher quantity than I’m likely to hand out anytime soon, it seemed like a good idea to create some variety from the theme, resulting in the three different designs.

Completed Snowboard

January 21, 2010 in Graphic design, Personal, Portfolio | 4 comments

Posting the photos of my finished snowboard before I have the bindings attached and head up to the mountain. Really excited about how this turned out and my mind is already going on more designs I’d like to try out (with so many other projects on the list). Further reading about the design in the previous blog.

New plans

January 17, 2010 in Business, Events, Illustration, Personal | Comments closed

New year and going out for some new things. On the smaller side is a portrait/portfolio contest by Artists Wanted. It’s one that I don’t really think I’m going to fit too well, but I figure there’s a better chance of something coming of it by entering than by taking a pass. Check it out and vote.

Further down the road, I’ve registered for the South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin. Really excited about this one despite the fact that I don’t quite know what I’m up for. The basic aim is to get out, make new associations, acquire some knowledge that’s a bit out of my experience, and have a good time in a new city (travel is always good). This moves up another portfolio project—business cards. Postings to come on that as they progress.

Signs of the Zodiac

December 23, 2009 in Graphic design, Icons | Comments closed

Balancing out the planetary symbols for the design of the snowboard, I devoted the better part of a day for creating complementary icons for the signs of the zodiac. It helped that seven of them are symmetrical, and that these are among the characters I’m often idly sketching (as evidenced by one of the random backgrounds at the beginning of my website).

Snowboard 2010

December 19, 2009 in Business, Graphic design, Icons, Personal, Portfolio | 2 comments

After a couple years remaining on the list of portfolio projects to accomplish, I’ve finally succeeded in finalizing a snowboard design and sent it to production. Between obligations to client work and a perfectionist block about making the prime design, the project crept along for some time. About a year ago I got involved playing with fermat spirals and checking out surfboard patterns (which I often find to be more interesting in their streamlined design than the cacophony that sometimes clutters snowboards). Unfortunately, by the time I got enjoying those patterns, it was well into January and paying projects took center stage well into spring. Obviously, I’m a bit late this year, but at least there’s still plenty of boardable weeks remaining in the season.

From fermat spiral and surfboard-like stripes, I added a seven-pointed star (again built on the spiral) referencing the pinwheel at the opening of my website. (There is, actually, no particular branding basis for the shape, other than there being many such shapes and characters littering my sketchbooks, e.g. the extremely stylized glyph for my initals jjh on the base of the board). The next leap came with the observation that I ought to employ the planetary symbols created in the fall (thanks Brad), balancing them out with some new zodiacal glyphs at the tail end.

After that it was mostly an overly drawn-out debate on color, there’s simply so many great colors. Partial to blue, that was almost always assumed, but good bright reds, oranges, and even some greens, glow off the snow so fantastically. Still planning to put those colors to work in other snowboard designs (so much fun to do it once, why not go for it again… even if I don’t get to build them all), I went for the blue to tie in with my site and the red because of the striking contrast. I think it works with the blue being on the cyan side and the red having a fair bit of yellow in it, those colors, of course, being complementaries in subtractive color (light rather than pigment).

I’ve been down to Revolution Snowboard Manufacturing where I’m having it built and checked out the finished results of their last design competition. Going to have to watch for the next one. Now I’m holding my breath hoping the finished board looks so good when finished, which I’ll have to thoroughly photograph and post.

Omniture and Adobe in chalk

December 17, 2009 in Freelance, Graphic design, Illustration | Comments closed

The common area at Omniture, known as the Living Room, has a wall-sized chalkboard, which needed some new embellishment last summer. It made for an exellently intense, full day of work away from the computer and a lot of dust (the fruits thereof seen below).

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Unfortunately, that design didn’t stay up for long, and the time came again to disturb the clean black slate with a new design reflecting the Adobe ownership. The concept is to relate the right brain/left brain differentiations with the creative suites of Adobe and the analytic software of Omniture.

A bit of process to near-finished product—

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—and after a bit of restoration, the good addition of ears, and some spray fixative that I’m sure made the day more enjoyable for everyone in the building—

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Scott Gustafson

December 4, 2009 in Events, Illustration | Comments closed

UVU hosted the second illustrator program I was able to attend this week. Scott Gustafson, children’s illustrator, presented a contrasting style to Jon Foster from the other night. These oil or acrylic pieces and series involve weeks and months of devotion to a single project, with so much rich detail. It was interesting that he presented some examples of his early work, the kind many of us would want destroyed once we achieved higher proficiency; though it’s great to see the progression. Like other night’s program, Scott showed the process on a particular piece, pointing out one instance where he would leave a difficult, unresolved spot alone to come back to it later. I can relate to doing that when I burn out on a particular section or project.

Jon Foster

December 2, 2009 in Events, Illustration | 1 comment

This evening, I went to a program hosted by the Illustration Department at BYU by fantasy/sci-fi illustrator Jon Foster.

It was fascinating that although highly proficient with computer software for his work, he doesn’t seem set on any one medium, process, or combination of media. Sometimes entirely computer-rendered, though sometimes he’s combining or entirely using gouache, sometimes oil, occasionally rough and loose, while other pieces are detailed and finely rendered. That odd evolution of pieces and styles while maintaining a consistent steampunk flavor was particularly intriguing.

Where Jon mentioned being focused on figure work (which i can identify with), I was noting that the background elements are often silhouettes.

From the beginning of his program, he was remarking that he had had to move past the caring about outside rating and comparing of his work to that of others’, judging it a wasteful and inhibiting endeavor.

I found it interesting that he not only uses himself as a model, but does so frequently. I always remember that being one of the cardinal rules of scrap—to never use yourself as a model. Even when using other models, he’s drawing from the same small group, but he’s able to make it work and adapt it for the piece.

Green to the Extreme: Omniture to Adobe

October 23, 2009 in Events, Freelance, Graphic design | 2 comments

Omniture Timeline

This past evening was the “Green to the Extreme” Omniture celebration party remembering the past thirteen years and marking Omniture’s transition to an Adobe company. As a contractor, it’s fantastic to be invited and mingle with the sea of green. I have acknowledge and congratulate my friend Brad McCall, of course, for his creation of the Omniture brand.

For the event, I was able to work on a large banner commemorating Omniture’s history to date and really pleased with how the seventy-foot banner turned out. Steve Gustavson and Ben Child of the marketing department had a great concept for having a shape underscore the flow of time (using the signature green, naturally). As the banner is being sliced into year-sections, framed, and auctioned off, I wonder somewhat how much a design I worked on is being sold for all told. And yes, I used Adobe products to create it.

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