freelance

I want to build-up some sort of a freelance design career. For the time being, it'd be great to make extra cash doing work outside of work and maybe pad my finances with an emergency buffer for, well, emergencies.
In the past I had turned down offers to do this kind of work because I wanted as much free time as I could squeeze out of my days, but I think my mindset has changed recently. I want to support myself and this seems like the best road to reach that goal, although it may take some time.

A pro-bono brochure for the fundraising banquet of a nonprofit sustainable gardening organization.
Bright colors and pretty pictures seems to be the norm when you're trying to convince people to give you moneys.
5.5" x 8.5" folded.



"Eating California" sounds pretty filthy, like I can easily imagine a prostitute naming herself California. Buy hey, I'm not a copy writer so it's not my problem.






I kind of like the way this turned out, and although I didn't get paid (it was a favor to a friend), hopefully it will lead to paid work.
I don't have even a sprinkle of business sense, and should really find some. Last time I did work for free (near-free, actually. I was paid with beer), it didn't lead to anything; hopefully this one will pan-out.

comprehensive branding

The last ten days have been crazy in many ways. In keeping with the theme of this blog I'll only discuss the crazy parts of my workdays and current projects. Sorry, no juicy gossip on my personal life.

I've been finalizing large print projects, and consistently working on the Law School's website, that show good examples of the new branding I've been developing; it's best displayed in the covers for each. In a nutshell, one of the most notable characteristics of the UC Davis School of Law is its friendly, collegial environment and the School's administration feels it best to express that in all media. Friendly and professional was my goal for each of these (big pretty photos of people, bright colors, mostly Futura as my only other font option--Berkeley--is more boring), while at the same time slightly tweaking bits and pieces for different audiences.

First is the all-encompassing yearly admissions catalog, made for an audience of undergraduate students interested in applying. This one's been in the works for months (design and photography, mostly) but the last week has been by far the worst. Coordinating drafts and edits to and from Deans and staff members, finding pictures that no one is offended by and shows enough racial diversity, proper listing of faculty names and educational history, and post-production work to make sure it prints properly. I'm beat.
48 pages, 4 colors + 2pms, perfect bind.


















At the same time as all this, I've also been finalizing a brochure that lists all new faculty, deans, and chairs. Nearly all the same headaches apply, but I finished up these two projects just this morning and can take some Tylenol. The audience here is the faculty and deans of all other law schools in the U.S.
16 pages, 4 colors + 1pms, saddle stitch.














The branding on these two publications transfers over to nearly all other projects, the new website included.





This is going to be pretty fantastic when done. I spent so much time taking photos, creating design concepts, and attending meetings with the decision makers that I can hardly believe it's actually being made. I can't wait until it's an actual portfolio piece. Please disregard any Star Wars references you may spot on these drafts.

more recent work

This blog may be a good way to catalog my decent into a conservative way of thinking about design. I remember when it was okay to let creativity supersede everything else, and as a result the work I made was exciting and I was proud to show it off. These days, though, message, brand, and professionalism trump all; "how I can make my projects look sick?" is often the last thing I consider after "is it legible?," "do the photos fit the subject?," "did I use both logos and the tagline?," and "can this be printed within my budget and timeline?"

Most often I'll use a sprinkle of creativity--carefully edited to ensure it doesn't take away from the message, mind you-- to give my projects a touch of personality. In this case it was a combination of metallic gold ink and playing with the sunbursts in the School's logo. I think we produced about 3,000 of these; two inks plus a varnish, sized at 10" x 7" when opened-up.







I yearn for the old days where getting stoned and working away was the best way to remedy a project I wasn't happy with; now watching TV or taking a walk to forget about my work is how I accomplish the same goal. I want to have the energy to dirty my hands and make something more exciting.

Invitation

During the time I was ignoring this blog, I worked on a number of projects--some good and some not so good--that I'd like to show off here and try to make up for a five month absence of posts.

This is an invitation for the School's Prospective Student Open House.
Printed using two colors; I think we made about 1,200 copies.





I was asked to rebrand the covers/front panels of all printed materials so that when compared to each other each piece looks as if it belongs to the same institution; I sadly did a poor job of that in the past. This invite uses the new branding in its most basic form and I like how simple it turned out. Sadly, again, I was told I'd never again be allowed to create something so simple and that more pictures are necessary for future projects. Awesome.





Now here's the best part on the back panel:



This type of thing just totally ruins your day. Luckily I had a great printer and everything worked out.

five months isn't all that long

It usually takes me about a half year after abandoning a blog before I feel guilty and try to make up for it by posting again; I think I must have commitment issues. I'll reminisce about my life since my last post:
I went to Thailand, I moved my office to the middle of campus, I've been working, I watched the entire series of The Wire.
I've been constantly churning things out for the Law School, some of which I plan on posting soon, but my creativity has not been spent much elsewhere.
However, the one thing I'm really proud of that I didn't make at work is my journal from Thailand. The writing could definitely benefit from some proofreading (don't worry, I omitted the entries where I detail all the places I held crying sessions), but I could easily see myself filling up a book worth of these things with my everyday observations. Hmmmm, now there's an idea.



I'm afraid my creative self is dying. This stuff above isn't bad, but I'm never motivated to do anything like it these days; most often in my free time I prefer relaxing to creativity-ing. I'm getting stuck in the Davis Black Hole of Death, I've known it for about four years now, but sadly am not ready to leave quite yet. The job search isn't going as I'd hoped, and out of fear of losing my health benefits (I've had two $1,500+ hospital visits in the last sixty days) I'll need to temporarily relocate to Sacramento where I can find a month-to-month rental (as opposed the one year lease apartments available in Davis) so I can bounce out as soon as I find a good opportunity. I'm not depressed, but I think I'm getting tired. I need to slap myself in the face and punch myself in the eye.

website

www.samsellers.com



I've put up a new website, and need to refine it.
If you have the time, please please please take a look and be brutal with any comments you may have.
I want this to be polished and need fresh eyes for that.
Thanks for your time.

i made this

I feel like my recent process of attempting to create a poster and identity for an upcoming Law School event is worth recording. It will remind me forever (hopefully) that I need to assert myself with more conviction that I know what's right when it comes to design, and to stop being such a push-over when confronted by peers who are better able to verbalize their thoughts and convince me to work on their whims (lawyers-to-be).

The event is an exciting (in the law world, that is) symposium on the limits of the first amendment of the Constitution when enforced in America's public schools (think protests about the Vietnam War and promoting bong hits 4 Jesus). I was eager to create smart illustrations combining the visuals of schools, government, and free speech. My first attempts:




I'd be the first to admit that they're not Earth-shatteringly brilliant. A majority of them ended up looking like promotions for a presidential debate, but I was proud none the less; a good start in my mind. The client agreed that this was a good start, and appreciated my work, but believed that I was running the wrong way and needed to turn around and run in a new direction using photographs.
My mistake #1: I'd like to begin noting where I feel I could have done things differently so as to make this process easier on everyone, but most importantly on myself. Pictures were never mentioned in our initial meetings; my instructions were to make something professional, classy, crisp, and clean. So looking back I should have entered the initial meetings more prepared with samples from similar events to run the gamut of design options.
That never happened and the following two samples were my attempts to implement photographs.



Again, good, but not great. I chose these two photos because they were naturally inclined to attractively work well with text elements. The client didn't like either poster and provided me with photos of classrooms that they requested I bleed to each edge of the poster and place text over. I replied that this would be a bad idea because the end result would be one ugly-looking poster.
My mistake #2: During this meeting, I should have expanded on my knowledge of design, and failed to communicate it to those with less experience than myself. I knew, but failed to state that this solution is uncreative, unprofessional, will look cluttered, and will end up with an amateur feel. I was convinced to do the work when asked to "humor" the client and attempt this poster for their reference.
My mistake #3: I can't believe I didn't say I don't have the time to humor anyone. I instead made the following hideous monstrosity, along with another request via email, later on the same day, giving instructions for a poster which the client strongly believed just might have a chance to possibly look good.



These two posters were both rejected outright by the client. This, I believe, is most definitely because of my mistake #4, that I began spending less time and less effort on each of my subsequent attempts. I followed directions, gave my advice where I felt it would be valued, but didn't feel any closer to concluding this project than I did at its beginning.
My mistake #5 was consistently made throughout this entire process, but became obvious right about here: I needed to set a cut-off point at the beginning of the process and which, more importantly, I needed to strongly enforce. I tried, two posters previous, to convince the client that it was necessary they choose one of the posters I had already created in order to keep our deadlines, but was ignored.
My enthusiasm for doing anymore work with this client was now non-existent, so I suppose it was good that I was emailed a pdf showing a poster that they created and wanted me to mimic.
My mistake #6: I didn't quit the project right then. However, in all fairness, being an in-house designer doesn't give me the liberty to pick and choose my jobs, or quit one when things go sour. Without any self-respect, I copied their design, polished it where I was able, and provided the following proof for the client's approval.



I wanted to tell the client how wrong it is to superimpose an image of a courthouse over an image of an image of a classroom, and to use translucent white boxes so the text is legible, but I just wanted to finish the project and didn't care what I had to do to reach that outcome; I kept my mouth closed.
After accepting a request to have a meeting in my office about this, what I thought was the, final poster design, I allowed the client to watch from behind my shoulder and make suggestions while I worked.
My mistake #7: It shouldn't have come to this point, but I was willing to let someone else believe they knew how to do my job better than me in order to rid them of my to-do list; I hope I never do that again.
After telling me what to do in my office for twenty minutes, and then later telling me in an email to change all fonts to Berkeley Bold, most likely because it looks more intelligent, I was thoroughly destroyed. My respect for myself and my respect from the client were completely gone, I was two weeks over deadline, and I had only the following pile of poo to claim as the reason why everything was worth it (the image on the right is the final poster after an impromptu font-change).

My mistake #8:


I suppose I can say the client is happy with the end result, at least they had better be, but I doubt I can say the same thing for the process we went through to get here. I now know how I don't want to work with a client, as I already have many examples of how I do like to work with them from previous jobs, and don't think I'll ever forget it.
I'm writing this simply to make sure I don't.

an attempt to fill some requests

It's nice that others are pushing me to do more illustrations with my free time just so there's something less boring to fill their time browsing my blog. I hope your bosses are happy.

I wonder how one becomes a courtroom illustrator?

This blog doesn't have enough posts about drawing and/or painting.

new work

I've been moderately busy at work lately.
Following are two posters I for upcoming student events.
For the first I was given full creative freedom and about an hour to complete. For the second I'm still running in circles with what the students want, but like this simple solution.



This is a concept for an entire campaign that's coming up next fall.
Wow, I'm getting started really early.

A study I did this evening toying with an idea I had for my portfolio.