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Mau Sketch

Website sketch. Going to maybe have a sidebar with links, a bio in the main area, followed by some samples of work.

Bruce Mau

Bruce Mau is a designer focused on changing the world. He realizes that our world is heading into a huge pit of disaster and he is determined to get people to change the way they do things. Mau's designs focus on having an impact on people, changing the way they think and do what they do. He doesn't just want to make good design, he wants to change the way people think and do things.

Masthead: First Attempt

I decided on a fashion magazine, so I wanted a word that would kind of encompass that idea. I thought about the word "vain" since people think models are the prettiest people in the world, and looked up synonyms to it, so I wasn't just going with the obvious. The two words I decided on were "Vaunt" and "Gasconade." I eventually went with gasconade, because it sounded more monster-ish.

Here is my very first attempt.

Definitely needs work.

Zombie Costume

I took some pictures of my Zombie makeup/costume for the project and to maybe get a feel of what kind of magazine they would go into. These are the two best ones.

Further Considerations on Magazine Cover...

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do with my magazine cover. Sesame Street Warzone was too literal and just wasn't going to work. I tried to think more broadly. Weapons catalogue? Battle uniforms? My mind was going all over.
Because Halloween was just around the corner, I was thinking about my costume. I usually do a zombie because I'm really good with zombie makeup. Then the thought hit me; the Muppets on Sesame Street are technically called monsters. Zombies are monsters! But what kind of magazine would a zombie look at...

Sketches

My first idea was a warzone on Sesame Street. The cast of Sesame Street would be fighting, either each other or something else.

Then I went onto the idea of numbers vs letters.

Photobomb Project

For our photobomb ad, this is the picture I used (background has been removed).

The original Ad: 

Here is the finished ad. I put in the words "Or snarl like Sam" to add to why I would be on there, even though it kind of made sense otherwise. The ad originally said "Literally," where "Or snarl like Sam" is but I got rid of it to add my line.

Potion Plant Process

I knew almost right away that I wanted to do the potion idea. Too much time spent playing video games. It was kind of a relief because it usually takes me FOREVER to come up with an idea. So from there I did a lot of thinking, and sketched out what I thought would be a great Mana Plant. 

(Plant sketch goes here)

Great place to start out at. Once I got the image traced into paths I started playing with colors and backgrounds. 

This is one of my original designs... Not the first (I think that is on my own computer...) The font I used here was inspired by WoW, it was a look-alike I found awhile ago when I made a banner for my Facebook page. After one of the crits I had opened up the flower more to show more of the bottle in the petals.

This one I experimented with some gradients and fallen petals. I hated the fallen petals, so I quickly got rid of that idea. The gradients dont look too bad, but it wasnt really the style I was looking for. 

Here is some background experimentation. From here I added a pattern in the background. 

The swirl pattern gave me a feeling of magic and power and turbulence and whatnot. I thought it was a very good feeling for magic users.

The drop shadow with the hat in the background came with the addition of the pattern to give it separation from the farther back elements.

After that I had found a new font and put it all together and voila, it was done. On the computer anyway.

There was overflow of the pattern and since Illustrator doesn't have a crop feature like photoshop, I just let it go since it wouldn't print out anyway.

After that I had a great idea for the poison plant so I sketched it out and scanned it in.

Vines surrounding the poison vial, making it hard to get it out. Originally I wanted to put thorns on it too, but that just wasn't in the cards. Haha.

Here it is traced. I wanted a dark purple to contrast with the (what was supposed to be) bright green.

So finished products: 

 Packet front and back

All three seed packet fronts mounted. (Will probably scan this so its better at some point.)

Seed Packet Post Crit

Suggestions:

• Put a subtext on it
• Background texture as opposed to a solid oval
• Falling petals
• More of the potion bottle showing
• Silhouette in the background

After the critique, I decided some more texture on the leaves would be a good idea. So I googled leaf texture and found a free to use leaf on this site: High Quality Leaf Textures.

I'm pretty sure this is the one I used.

PoV

I don't know if you (the reader) are familiar with D&D or WoW, or even if you havent maybe you have heard of Mana and Health potions. They are a staple for any video game. Hit points are your health, and once they're gone, you are dead. Mana has the same concept, when its gone you cant cast your spells. One would assume that someone makes all these potions, in WoW alchemists do it. My idea is to make a plant that will just grow the potion like a berry, so then an injured adventurer could crawl over to the plant and drink down a potion instead of worrying about running out in the middle of the forrest or something.

Mood Board

Mind Map

Logos

Pathfinder Tools

Lynda.com- Illustrator CS6

Vector v.s. Raster

• Well I already knew about that... So it wasn't anything new.

Setting Preferences

• There is a lot of helpful things in the settings menu that I didn't even know could be controlled or existed.
• There are User Interface settings in CS6, which is really nice because if you are used to the older versions of CS, you can turn the interface to the colors the older interface was. 

Touring the Interface

• Unfortunately he is not telling me much that I don't already know. 
• Number of undo's? Why is that important. I suppose it would be a fun game to see who undos the least. I would lose that. :)

Working with Documents

• Oh the snapping! How I occasionally loathe them! So glad he mentioned how to turn that off. (command + u)
• Oh wow! That info panel (in the Window menu), how amazing! I didn't know about all these grid things with Illustrator, other than the rulers. So very helpful.

Locking and Hiding Artwork

• I didn't know how to lock specific sublayers, and that there was a way to unlock everything at once (even though thats kind of something obvious).

Transform and Distort

• I had no idea that even existed. That twisty thing is really awesome. 

Circle Exercise