Rococo Cocoa

I'm trying my hand at doing one of those graphic-designer-playing-around-with-quotes posters.

This is a not so quick study that I did for my upcoming poster. The best part about this is that it appears I invented a photoshop technique for something: glitter. Go figure. :)

I should have the actual thing finished... soon...ish.

Here is the first draft of a little something I'm doing for my 9-5, an educational software company. The aim was to have a school subject (this one being astronomy) leap off the screen, and hopefully if the head honcho likes it enough, it'll be featured as a full marketing campaign.

I looked at some tutorials on how to get an aurora borealis look in photoshop at design sites Abduzeedo and looking at the art of James White, Justin Maller and God himself, but it took me a hell of a long time to get the fairly realistic look that I wanted. All and all, I think this was a pretty good go at it. I think I have a little refining to do... I'll keep you (all three of you) updated!

I'm changing my blogger theme. It's not this one, don't worry, but will be a fantastic reflection of www.joelamour.com . Now, if to figure this all out...

This must be some record! I blogged not once, but two times in a row.

I, again, have resigned my logo. I'm glad I didn't order those business cards! For this redesign, I refer to one of my favorite design blogs, BrandNew for an image-and-explain format:

So, the reason I switched logos is that the first logo I designed was made from one of my favorite fonts, and the thing is just that... it was a font. It was pretty, yes, but my hand just wasn't in it. So, I took the original letterforms as a illustration and I actually hand drew my initials.

I feel as if my logo says this: that my work is elegant, but still has aesthetically pleasing imperfections that make my work so endearing. Also it shows I know both vector design (graphic design) and hand drawing (illustration), which are the two main services I provide.

Redesign of this blog (and its header) and identity to follow soon. Hurray for change!

I know guys. The three of you who read my blog have been asking: where in the world have the posts been? Well all I can say is I apologize. Just know, as long as I still do art, and blogger is still in business, this blog will be updated... eventually.

I've been designing my new website for a while, and I've even had the web space for a full two months without even loading a coming soon splash page. Silly me. But all that is fixed! I have a theme, and consistent branding, et.cetera.

So this is what my site will look like eventually. A little more variety in the way of thumbnails, though. Stay tuned!

Remember this? If you don't (you don't) let me refresh: I'm designing wedding invitations for my friend Amelia and her fiancee Joe (not me) and we have gone through months of edits, text changes, mother's changes, more mother's changes, more more mother's changes- and now we're here!

They are inviting around 170 people (all with at least 1 "plus one"- that's a lot of people!) and thusly, I'm hand making around 170 invitations. See, that sounds tough doesn't it. But get this- Each invite has 4 separately cut printed components, printed labels, backing sheets that need to be cut, ribbons that need to be cut, wrists that need to be cut...

It turns out that when I'm done with them I will have cut 170 x 6 components to = 1,020 components in all, 4,080 (or therearounds) slices of the exacto. Crazy!

Anyway, I'm keeping track of how long it takes me so that when I charge another wedding invite client, I know I'm getting my money's worth. So, its really a good thing in the end. And think of the ice breaker I have at the wedding! "Hey, you know the invite you got in the mail that was absolutely gorgeous? Yeah, all me baby. Here's my card."

I really want to make a spell check t-shirt. I'm unsure of what misspelled (is "misspelled" misspelled?) word to use. In any event, it would be an opportunity to use times new roman in a good way. How about that. Gonna think about what word to use for a little while.

So, I do some graphic design on the side. As my main job is as a graphic designer for museums doesn't cover logo design, invitations, posters, et cetera, I need to keep up a website showing some of my personal work. Thusly, I'm spending $2000+ on a new fancy laptop and programs that will look all graphic designer-y at meetings and I'm constantly updating this blog with my cool looking shit.

That said I need to brand myself. In the coming months you will see business card designs, letterhead, website proposals interspersed with work I'm doing for clients, and so on.

My point. I've decided that one of these will be my logo. (They're my initials) Do you like one in particular? This will be an integral part of everything JFL Design. Simple and clean. Thoughts? Let's see if I can hit a comment record.

In light of the recent ruling in California, this week's theme is gay love songs. Featuring an illustrated swash album cover care of yours truly. Enjoy!

1. "I Kissed a Girl" by Jill Sobule (the famous one)
2. "Little Boy" by The Aluminum Group (the breakup one)
3. "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry (the experimental one)
4. "Constant Craving" by K.D. Lang (the coming out one)
5. "I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" by the Magnetic Fields (the one thats so cool cause the guy's voice is so deep and he's talking about another dude one)

You know... work is crazy. But now its not, so much... so here's a design that I did for my sister + cousin's team for the upcoming Susan Komen Breast Cancer Walk on Saturday in DC.

Collage reference for upcoming drawing.

I'm going to title it "Self Portrait with Heads from March 21st issue of Entertainment Weekly, Coincidentally the Artist's Sister's 33rd Birthday".

I like long titles.

I recently gave a friend a really good wedding present: I offered to design her wedding invitations for free. It's a great portfolio builder and it helps keep me sane cause the jobs at work right now are boring. Here are the three ideas I presented to the happy couple:



1. Basic Folded
In case you didn't notice, her wedding is going to be in the fall. The wedding is fall themed, so I tried to reflect this in the coloring and decorative flourishes.


2. Swash and Leaf- 've always wanted to use a swash font for something, and since I work in museums, they frown on them case they're not readible to younger folk, disabled folk, and the elderly. But for weddings you can be foofy foofy, so I went with Caslon Swash. I love these envelopes, and if anyone can find them on the cheap I'd really like to know where I could get a bunch. The envelope is binded with a wrinkled paper ribbon that I found really nice. The paper is this really awesome watercolor paper with ripped edges which gave it a natural look.


3. 12 Leaf
12 leaves, and their wedding is in October. Do you get it?

This is the one they went for. There will be some color changes, and like a reply card, directions, all that good stuff. So when I get the final thing together there will be a delightful post on that. I like how the line on the actual invite mirrors the ribbon on the envelope. I'm trying to figure out how to mail all that with the ribbon on the envelope. More on that later.
Cheers!

I'm such a dork that I design my cakes in Adobe Illustrator before I make them. My roomates and I are having a crazy par-tay to ring in the new year, so I decided to make a delicious cake riddled with design.

I really wanted to make a CMYKake (thats the pun, see?) but I don't have the appropriate food coloring. And I really want to make that special. MMM, Printer based cakes.

Cake tommorow! (If it looks good) Have a happy new year everyone!

So I have approximately 13 gifts to give. And this year, for some god forsaken reason, I told myself I wasn't going to buy anything, and that I was going to make everything. I have presents to make for (and I'm thinking out loud here):

1. My mother
2. My father,
3. My sister
4. My brother
5. My
   
6. four
   
7. (count 'em
   
8. four) roommates
9. My friends Carly
10. Lizzy
11. and Laura...

...as well as handmade cards for them and 4 more people. That brings our grand total of things to 26 items. Did I mention I have a cold? Did I also mention I haven't finished anything? Its going to be like college all over again. Yum.

PS. This means at least 11 posts next week with the results. Stay tuned!

SO... I designed the graphics for WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Women's Museum. It was a lot of fun to be part of such a large show. And the opening was some kind of magnificent. The lobby was lit with romance lighting, There were h'ors d'oerves a plenty and people in nice clothes (I always dig seeing my coworkers dress up all pretty since we have no dress code at work. It's usually jeans and t-shirt city.) Oh, and an open bar. That makes us all happy.

The art in the show was amazing and extensive, covering the more known feminist artists, and providing black women artists as well for context, as most black artists around there were concentrated on the civil rights movement.

Afterward, my coworkers, roomates and a couple of other friends went to Capitol City Brewery. Here are some highlights of that evening:

Each person had to add to the drawing for these first two and...


...this was an exquisite corpse. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed. Fun, no? Especially since most of us were soused... :-D

WACK! is on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts through December 16, 2007. Located at 1250 New York Ave, NW, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. General admission is $10.