I’ll be posting some great new pieces that I’ve created for Inktastic, a print-on-demand T shirt company. If you like what you see, let me know. You could wear it!

I’ve posted the first two images for a new project based on the fairy tale “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.” It’s one I’ve wanted to do for a long time; using a variety of dance styles from all over the world to inspire twelve different pictures. So far, Ballet and Disco are complete.

Some simple mock-ups for T shirts, including the Seven Deadly Sins project and some cuddly animals.

I admit to being unusually enthusiastic about office supply stores, and even though I love the desk I currently have, I often
wonder what my ideal workstation would look like. Since I have yet to see such a unicorn for sale, I decided to sketch it myself.

I can see it coming in either black or dark gray material, with customizable shelving and optional backing for attaching pictures, more shelves, calendars, and notices. Maybe even a spot to set up a tablet. The left hand side would have removable shelves, capable of fitting a printer/scanner or a computer tower. The desk would be large enough to accommodate two monitors if necessary. The side drawing table is another modular attachment. The artist can sit at the computer desk and simply turn the
chair to access a clear surface to draw or paint. And under the drawing table is another section for books and reference materials.

Next step is to see how it looks rendered.

Here are some early concepts for a seed packet logo using my “spiral seeds” illustration.

There’s just something about nice weather that makes me want to break out the watercolors. Perhaps oils are for winter? Here is a sufficiently spring-like picture.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone!

That mysterious yellow orb in the sky has reappeared, teasing us all with the possibility of warmer weather. It would be lovely to paint outside, but with the changing weather comes strong winds that threaten to send any upright easels flying. Time to invest in more rocks.

Perhaps it’s both.

A spooky goblin, probably heading out to do the grocery shopping.

This evening, the University of Akron graphic design seniors are putting on their official show. Come by and see all the hard work we’ve done, both in our portfolios and for the set-up. It’s going to be a great night.

I admit I’m having way too much fun on After Effects. Once I got all the pieces together, the actual work is enjoyable. I like synching up the kinetic type with the sound cues, discovering all the special effects options, and playing with the most basic of scale and motion key frame changes.

The bad news is that I’m probably going to have to spring for the program itself, and a super-nice external hard drive of the 1TB plus variety to go with it. My skirmishes with Premiere were also memorable, so there’s another one. And this isn’t even getting into the growing number of Photoshop stand-ins that have been catching my eye lately. I feel like I’m going to need another computer just to carry all these programs (or at least run a few of them at the same time.)

I’ve been interested in game concept and character design for a long time. When I was younger, I’d borrow my brother’s GamePros, EGMS, GameFans, and Nintendo Powers to check out the character drawings, promotional art, and even the ads. Later on I’d indulge in larger and prettier art books from my favorite games, such as Street Fighter, Guilty Gear, and Final Fantasy IV.

Gaming has exploded in recent years, with both large-scale, story-driven, expensive console epics and simpler, fun-oriented smartphone games. Kickstarter and other crowd-funded sites enable both amateurs and experienced developers to get into the game-making business.

The current issue of Imagine FX goes into detail on the subject. I’ll have to pick up this issue.

http://beta.imaginefx.com/shop/magazine/xmas-2013

http://kotaku.com/the-best-box-art-of-this-generation-1464028901

How does box art influence game buying? Probably not much these days. With so many reviews and resources available, consumers don’t have to look at the cover and wonder if the product is of matching quality. Smartphones let someone look up or game or a band right in the store. And then there are those who just order online.

Of course, bad box art is often much more memorable.

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3158260

The discussion of why “bad art” endures is a conversation for another day. Seeing as how a lot of the “bad box art” games were not only popular but led to strong franchises (Mega Man and Suikoden, just to name a few listed in the above article), it would seem that in the days of yore before the internet, the cover did not really matter. Kids would probably see the art and shrug, knowing that the GAME was important.

So is good cover art still worthwhile? Imagine the artists and designers who create it and make the logo and lay it all out only to know it will be ignored. It’s good to know that dynamic, enticing art is still noticed by the gaming set.

The below animation was created for the final project in Digital Imaging II. It was created entirely in Photoshop, as a collaboration between CS 5.5 and 6. Version 6 can do longer animation, which makes me wonder what version 7 will have.

Compiling a process book for junior review is an educational experience, to say the least. First off is remembering how much work went into some of these projects, and how most of it never saw the light of day (or even the printer, until now.) This is a great reminder of how the world of design and illustration works- most stuff gets rejected. Every art book I’ve ever looked through, mostly for video games, animated, and live action movies. contains tons of “unused” material. This is part of the thrill, as you get to see what got cut out, revised, or just didn’t fit the tone of the rest of the movie. A personal favorite would be seeing all the designs for Shelob, giant spider extraordinaire, from The Return of the King. Here was a character who’d been an artist favorite in all the Lord of the Rings art over the years, but only now was going to be on the big screen.

And we’ve all seen giant spiders in films. No doubt the pressure was on to make Shelob THE definitive giant spider. Ten years down the line, it’s time again for the WETA effects time to bring one of the most iconic dragons into theaters- Smaug. In about a month we’ll get to see the result.

I haven’t done any projects yet with spiders or dragons (just snakes and turtles, and it was a zoo-related logo), but the pressure is not diminished when one sets out to draw a memorable traffic safety poster, or a book cover, or even a sweet potato. Often it’s said there’s no more original material- no new stories, designs, nothing. But art consistently shifts and grows, and the best new stuff takes inspiration from the past and keeps building.

I decided to create a new twitter account to focus solely on design. To be honest, I haven’t used my personal one in a very long time, so this will serve better.

So far I’m following a few favorite illustrators and designers of mine (such as Brian Froud) as well as publications (ImagineFX). I expect my list to increase in the next few weeks.

Soon the link will available as an icon in the footer. Until then, it’s twitter.com/jeanciolek.

The next stop for an aspiring designer is to produce physical items to sell. Apart from online sales, such items are valuable to give away to prospective employers, clients, and colleagues (not to mention to family member who would just LOVE to wear student artwork). Sites like ebay and later paypal make it easy to buy and sell. These days, though, there are fulfillment sites that will make the products for you, the designer. All you have to do is the designing and then get someone to buy.

Cafepress (cafepress.com) is certainly one of the older fulfillment sites on the web, at least in my experience. I first heard of this site years ago when I was considering some self-published books. The basic model is that items are produced only as they are ordered, so there’s no need to buy in bulk. Cafepress also has millions of products available- clothing, hats, stationery, jewelry, and more.

Custom T-shirts were popular way before the internet, so it’s not surprising there are plenty of sites online to choose from. T-shirts are an excellent way of advertising a product, service, or group- the wearer willingly pays to be a walking ad. A few sites of note are customink.com and spreadshirt.com.

Welovefine (www.welovefine.com) is a site catering to fans of existing, popular properties, such as Marvel Comics, Doctor Who, and My Little Pony. It’s not what I’m looking for, but it serves as a good barometer for trends, sales, and what people are willing to wear on a T-shirt.

Interest in handmade crafts has also skyrocketed in recent years. Many people are making extra money via their hobbies this way. They can reach a huge market while avoiding traveling and  huge fairs, not to mention the expense and risk of opening their own store. Many of these products are made-to-order by the creator, and sometimes they are one-of-a-kind items.

Etsy.com is huge, catering to buyers and sellers around the world. Handmade clothing, knitted and crocheted creations, soap, jewelry- if it can be handmade, it can be on Etsy. A bit of controversy surrounding the site is that it has supposedly agreed to sell items from larger companies. A lot of the Etsy users dislike this change, as they prefer a site that preserves uniqueness of home crafts, as well as the satisfaction of benefitting regular people directly instead of large corporations.

The faltering economy has led to an explosion of DIY craft sites. Designers looking to provide such products, perhaps to give each one a personal touch, certainly would have to invest a lot of time and personal funds in the process.

One convenient thing about updating globally on a WordPress blog (for those of us who seem to be shunned by local servers) is the ability to switch between themes easily. If a new theme goes wrong, it’s easy to change back to an older but functional theme, and the site is not ruined through experimentation.

I want to have a sliding/rotating set of images on my homepage, so I’ve been looking at some well-done examples.

The most basic seems to be a wide-screen, theater-style image- a long rectangle sandwiched in between the header and footer. Most sites scroll automatically to show off their product/newest features while providing forward and back arrows for the viewer to browse. Non-portfolio sites make good use of this, such as http://www.backyardburgers.com/.

http://www.hm-andrei.ro/#panel-4

This portfolio site has a clever sliding area placed under a pencil-wielding hand, complete with shadows. It creates a visually immersive experience.

http://svenprim.com/- This site shows off its dynamic work with a full-screen slide show, again with the arrows. The menu is reduced to two tiny buttons in the lower left corner, giving over the stage to the art.

Is my work good enough to merit a big, giant slider? I’d prefer to keep it somewhat modest- the more conservative 3/5 of the page widescreen version would work best for me.

Here are a few wordpress sites that stand out to me.

girlamatic.com – A bit of bias here, since I’ve been posting a webcomic on this site since 2007. Around 2009, the creators made the switch to the wordpress template. Since then, many of the artists have moved on to other things, but I still post weekly. The wordpress dashboard includes extra options for creating volumes and chapters for the comic pages, as well as character galleries and customized forward and back buttons.

http://www.twonerdsinlove.net/ – Another personal bias, as I know the “nerds” who run this site. It was set up this summer and is mostly a place for science-based internet news and hilarious reviews. The site owners are slowly but surely building up the customized look. WordPress helped them create a well-crafted, easy to read blog. Hopefully, the beleaguered graphic designer they asked to design their logo will get off her duff and do just that. 🙂

http://www.ghosthorses.co.uk/ – This is a beautiful site, uncomplicated yet tightly designed. I particularly like the spinning logo. The top portion of the page is a great template for image viewing, while scrolling down gets you twitter feeds and news.

http://www.designtheplanet.com/ – If people say wordpress and just think, “blog,” this site will change their minds. A curvilinear menu, the outer space motif, the animated ringed planet- it all comes together nicely and makes a great impression. Even the small planet and rocket ship in the upper right corner dangle like a child’s mobile.

http://captaincreative.com.au/ – Another design site, this one has a great color scheme and identity. With easy links to information and the portfolio, the site has a friendly interface. Designer Brad James has a multi-level gallery with categories for branding, web design, and illustration. WordPress’ category-selecting tools must be useful when he decides which work goes where.

http://www.circa.com.au/ – A restaurant’s website, this reminds me of Web I research- going through local bar and restaurant’s website that we thought we students could improve upon. Circa’s website does have a classy atmosphere and provides a large image of its dining facility. WordPress allows for an elegant, well-designed site that can be completed by a professional but maintained by the client with ease.

mypoorbrain.com – With an almost monochromatic color scheme, this site makes the most of the simple layout to display the work. All the art is displayed on the homepage. Clicking on illustration or design sorts the work into one of two categories- the thumbnails literally move on the page.

http://www.nationalacademy.org/ – This is the website for an institute/museum in New York City. The homepage has a visually interesting layout of overlapping boxes, using dropshadows and opacity changes to create hierarchy among the items. The footer contains a generous menu that backs up the header’s more modest one.

http://sickdesigner.com/ – Here is a fun-looking site that replicates a wooden desktop. The images are not completely photorealistic, but instead serve to pull the reader into the design rather than trick them into thinking it’s a photograph. The ticking wristwatch is a nice touch that injects some animation into the “still life.” Going into the portfolio, the layout changes to an overhead view of computers on the same wooden background. It keeps the theme while shaking things up. Again, the individual portfolio items are overlapping for hierarchy. The menu shrinks and nicely fits into the altered backdrop.

http://www.carolrivello.com/ – I seem to have an affinity for sea greens and aquas. This site has a great and subtle color scheme with a delicate background texture that resembles grainy sketch paper.  The designer, Carol Rivello, includes images with the menu list with lightly beveled tags for a 3D illusion. The illustrations in the footer are a nice touch.

Here’s a general rundown of what I’d like to accomplish for my portfolio site:

1) Giving it a sense of originality and uniqueness. I’m not going to be developing any amazing new php tricks, but I’d like to keep pushing the logo and the design of the site to grab attention. At the same time, I have to keep it simple to let the work show through.

2) Easy scrolling through the portfolio. I used jquery for this last semester on the prototype site. It’s always better to be able to click directly to the next item than to have to head up to the back button. Some mice, such as the one I have with my Wacom tablet, have tiny buttons on either side. One click can take the browser backwards or forwards. Most mice and trackpads don’t seem to have this feature .(I could be wrong about the trackpad- I don’t have one myself.) I would also like to have a homepage with a rotating image.

3) Getting my best stuff up. This goal isn’t directly web-related per se. Obviously one of the best things about a portfolio floating in cyberspace is the amount of work one can post is limited only by one’s file space. One can fit a lot of images into a few GBs. However, a proper portfolio should only feature the best work, not a complete history of artistic endeavors.

4) Knowing web design well enough to troubleshoot my own site and create new ones for others. The true test will be when/if I get the opportunity to do this “in the wild.” WordPress makes updating and posting more sophisticated, but it has limited a few design choices of mine. I have to learn its interface better in order to pull it off.

Weekly blog updates will show up here. The website is coming along slowly but surely. Hopefully this place will liven up a bit.

jeanciolek.com is up and working. Thanks for visiting.