Floral Decor display cut out: Here’s an event marketing cut out I did. It’s meant to be used at a wedding reception in exchange for a small discount in floral design fees. I chose not to create any information overload with stuffing the footer with numbers and names, who would remember such details after a drink or two anyhow? I added a brightly colored wood card holder in a suitable location, going for style and subtlety.

Children’s Motrin Wobbler: I wanted to create a wobbler that would stand out and also be visually cohesive. The clock area is where the artwork usually ends, but I extended it further up by creating a spoon covering the wobbler arm. Just a nice little detail to make the product easier to click in the consumer’s head.

General Electric Product Promo Sticker: Here’s a sticker for placement on GE cooking range appliances during the promotion period. While there is quite a bit of text on it, the unique shape and bold colors creates a visual distraction from a distance.

Johnny Walker Pavement Stencil Painting: This idea was built for guerrilla marketing at alcohol-approved events, especially ones that are held in closed off streets or parking. While a giant two-story Johnny display would be nice, the cost would not be so pretty. So I took advantage of existing yellow lines on pavement, and just added a washable stencil painted Johnny Walker icon onto it. These would be sprayed strategically throughout the event grounds, with minimal cost in deployment and cleanup.

I wanted to create a strong visual of cancer without resorting to using health care pictures. The word “cancer” is pretty loud as it is, so I opted to use typography to express the cancerous actions.

The piece is centered around the statistic message in the middle, so I created a bold circle that also doubles as the visual for a cell. Then the two elements are combined with the cancerous words attacking the cell in the middle and even eating a bit into the cell. Overall the poster was designed to be luringly striking at a distance, and still show great detail up close.

This design was really interesting to do, balancing the overall flow of the shapes and lines. Yet somehow, it was very sobering at the same time.

First I created a paper texture that is half leather, and half old parchment. Adding in the usual rough edges to make it look less plastic. Then I added tribal elements to the chart and the font, giving it more of a campy feel. Added water stains to suggest camping outdoors and water bottles. I also added various elements such as leaves, compass and knots on a rope. The size of these were as close to life scale as possible, to make it seem like they were scattered on the brochure.

Very fun piece as I love creating interesting textures, but I still have no idea how to tie a decent knot though.

I used mostly Adobe Photoshop for this, with quite a bit of pixel by pixel coloring. Pixel art is actually quite fun for me, ever since the low-bit graphic days, and even during the ascii/ansi art days.

I created a range of monsters based on the level design concepts, then animating each of them by hand in Photoshop as well. Animations such as movement, attacks and death all had to be animated frame by frame.

The weapons were really fun to design, but also a challenge. Since nothing is generated through hardware, I had to create animation sprites that would display quickly on the limited iPhone hardware, and still look good in all situations. Every weapon also had to be different enough so that players won’t be bored by looking at it.

I actually first created game graphics many years ago but stopped doing it after I got into Advertising. Perhaps it would be worth my while to look for a few more iPhone/Mobile projects to do.

The first things that came to mind were hallways and lockers. That’s where kids spend a lot of time chatting with their friends, and where the campaign message might get communicated. I focused on that aspect and designed a flap that looks like a locker door. I started with actual photographs of a locker and then worked my way from there.

The flap opens up to reveal an interesting photo and the important message in the middle, with lifestyle photographs on the inside of the locker door. Pin Buttons were also designed for distribution amongst the students as part of  the campaign, and integrated into the brochure as well.

It was really fun to create this brochure based on visual impact, I love having lots of room for design creativity.

First thing I did was the main character’s design. I decided on a bunny since they have proven to be cute and hardcore in many games over the years. I started the design in Adobe Illustrator, then imported it into Adobe Flash for animating the sprite action sequences. I could have done it complete in Illustrator but it was easier to preview the animation in Flash. Thankfully I had training in character animation, it really helped for this project.

Next was building of the environment elements. I stayed with basic and universally recognizable shapes, to make it appealing to a wide audience. Since iPhone has a global reach, it made sense not to use something that is geographically exclusive.

The design of the background tiles was actually more difficult than expected, because they had to be exciting yet not overwhelm the already colorful objects in the foreground. And since the visual design of the game was flat 2D, I couldn’t use any visual depth techniques such as heavy shadows or depth shading. A lot of time was spend tweaking the various colors till all the background tiles matched all possible combinations of foreground objects.

The control buttons had to be designed so that they do not cause your fingers to block too much of the screen. That is actually a consistent design problem for many iPhone games, every time your finger has to cross the screen it’s generally bad.

I think I ended up drawing close to 200 pngs for this game, can’t wait to do more again.

The first piece I created from a mixture of different traditional Indian floral patterns. I wanted to portray a storm of blooming flowers at Walker’s back, while he calmly continues to “Keep Walking”. Perhaps similar to how a surfer calmly rides on with a giant wave at his back.

The second piece is a more direct take on the “Keep Walking” theme. I had to think of something that would represent walking over all obstacles, since that is what the Johnny Walker brand is about. What better way to ethnically represent that, than to show the classic desert caravan? They walk for great distances under the harsh sun, overcoming all manners of dangers and obstacles. Definitely a right fit for the brand.

While brainstorming, I thought about how hair can be similar to silky black lace, the sensual motion and curves created by long hair. So I experimented with creating long strands of vector hair, placing them just right for a sense of hair flowing and swishing.

The first piece is a large black background, with slightly reflective black hair to illustrate a healthy sheen.

The 2nd piece is covered by matte black hair, similar to seeing something through a mesh or lace. The highlights were removed from the hair since that would detract from the framing effect of the hair.

The 3rd piece is a gift certificate, showing a sense of prestige and authenticity. Went with a visual style that is inspired by branding from American Express and old school government bank notes. The back layer of it is covered by a security pattern layer, with bold Renaissance decals on the front layers.

This was an interesting project as the primary graphic doesn’t take center stage, but instead accentuates the other elements on the page.

First is the letterhead stationery. When brainstorming, crumpling up a piece of paper happens quite frequently. So why not give it some class and fold it into a perfect airplane instead? While it is not on any particularly premium paper, it has near full bleed printing. It also has instructions and fold lines on how to fold it into a paper plane.

Next up is the envelope, which borrows from the traditional airmail border graphic. Conveys a sense of airmail and urgency at the same time due to the hue change. The stamp is optional depending on whether the envelope needs to be actually mailed or not.

The business card is created to emulate the stub portion of an airline flight boarding pass. It follows the same style of information layout, and a wide horizontal bar graphic treatment that is typical of old school flight passes. In the background there is a fine mesh of security texture, to give it that extra bit of authenticity. (had to go through several proofs to get the black levels just right) Then it is topped with an OCR font as is typical for classic boarding pass ticket printers.

While not many consumer product clients would go for these ideas, it certainly flies straight for an Ad agency.

The letter backing was created with strong photography and a custom red tartan background. Creates a strong presence even when folded.

The envelopes were made for mailing purposes, so I focused on the interior of the pieces. A bit like a strong fabric pattern on the inside of a nice jacket.

For the business cards, the type treatment was straightforward, with a full back graphic again for consistency. I believe these business cards stood out the most out of the pieces, as it really grabs attention in a wallet.

Definitely fun pieces, except not every client would pay for this kind of printing costs plus heavier stock. Let me know if you ever feel like splurging and want something with an extra kick. =)

There is an actual spare light bulb attached to the flyer. We’re betting that quite a few people have a burnt out light bulb but didn’t want to go and buy a full pack just for that. We want people to feel that the company is genuinely helpful, leading them to possibly hire the company for additional Christmas decoration services.

In the back, we have a graphic made up of Christmas lights placed into the shape of a house, reinforcing the mental image of the finished results.

The design itself was pretty straight forward in terms of execution, but the conceptual stage was the fun part. Maybe I can start thinking of a promotional concept for selling Halloween lights next.

In the course of playing heavily with textures, it is easy to get sucked into the “too much” trap. The challenge here was to create a visual that has interesting details, yet not too distracting to navigate the information.

For the blog design, I chose a traditional 2 column layout. Dark menu bar up top to separate the heavy texturing that would be above the blog text.

With everything set, I proceeded to the texturing. I chose a mixture of carbonization and dark metal look, it was really a matter of finding which texture grains would work well together. Then I created a bunch of interestingly sharp objects to frame the logo, I think I definitely had some influence from Edward Scissorhands. Textures can be so risky to use sometimes, but fun!

While the textured style may be grungy, I didn’t want to make it too dirty or dark. So I opted for brighter colors, creating a visual style of paint strokes on top of the blog structure. The icons were also custom created to give it a more relaxed and stylish appearance.

WordPress is definitely one of my favorite platforms to design on, everything is easily customizable and the plugins are endless. Best of all, almost any visual design can be implemented as long as it fit the blog structure. Certainly makes it more fun to design for.

I created templates based on the different character classes, each having its own unique environment and elemental alignment. I wanted to convey both a grandness to the environment, yet also include the small mundane pixel details.

Each design had a few fantasy elements that I incorporated, such as one portraying a broken castle wall, looking out into mountain valleys and bodies of water. Dragons flying overhead with towers and battlements in the distance. Another shows the sun setting over grasslands, with old brick buildings far in the distance.

I am a fan of fantasy artwork, so this project was a great opportunity for me to have some fun with it.

I kept the logo design simple with a clean wordmark and subtle leaf accent. Showing a clean, wide-kerning typeface to give it lots of breathing room, similar to a beautifully opening bouquet.

For the business card I selected a rich leafy green color, adding elegant floral decals at the top and bottom. The floral decal represents both flowers and also the lacy designs typical of wedding themes. A spot varnish was then added to the floral decals and to the logo to give it a freshness, similar to dew on fresh looking flowers.

On the back, I kept the background white for contrast purposes. Didn’t want to over burden the business card with colors as well.

Certainly was a fun project as I helped with the interior design of the retail location as well.