Old College Work: Graphic Design
My official major in college was “Design|Media Arts” (yes, I have a Unix pipe on my diploma, along with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature), which meant my classes were all over the place, from typography to web programming to 3D modeling to sound design.
As a result, I have a lot of weird projects laying around. Perhaps they’ll provide some inspiration!
Weapon of Choice
Here are the best 30 frames of Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice video, layered on top of each other and animated:
I used Adobe Illustrator to manually trace each frame of Christopher Walken’s outline. I now know his body… intimately.
Counter-Strike Heat Map
I wanted to see if I could chart player paths in Counter-Strike, so I hopped into a few games as a spectator and took a bunch of screenshots.
I then layered the screenshots over one another using Adobe Photoshop.
Guitar Hero Lenticular
Here’s a lenticular (those little plastic “holograms” on gift cards) demonstrating the operation of a Guitar Hero controller.
Check out those jeans.
I replicated the guitar in Adobe Illustrator, then grabbed a free 3D model of a hand and manipulated it in Maya to form a strumming motion. Then I combined the frames into a flat print using lenticular software and aligned a plastic lenticular sheet over it, enabling the animation effect.
Workshop Poster
This is a poster I made to advertise intro courses I taught for other students on Adobe software. Naturally, I drifted toward Soviet-era propaganda.
Done with Adobe Illustrator.
Icons
Here are some icons meant to evoke abstract concepts, which is kind of a tricky task.
From left to right: “continuous,” “graphics,” “text-centric,” “centered,” “linear,” “mirror,” “interaction,” “void.” Done with Adobe Illustrator.
Durer Woodprint
Here’s a section of Albrecht Durer’s “Saint Michael Fighting the Dragon,” reinterpreted with vector squares.
I started with the densest areas and drew as large a box as I could within the boundaries, then repeated until I had covered all the dark spots. Done with Adobe Illustrator.
Color Cube
This one one of the more painstaking projects. The task was to create a sense of depth using 2D software. It was also an exercise in organization, since I nearly drove myself crazy with the amount of layers I had.
Done with Adobe Illustrator.
Balcony Room
Here’s a 3D replica of Adolph Menzel’s “Balcony Room” (left) made in Maya.
Rendering the mirror was tough. I had to make some assumptions about what was actually going on in the room. Looks like I was pretty far off!