Blog Banner Exercise

   I stumbled upon this tutorial and decided to create a banner for my blog.

http://designinstruct.com/graphic-design/text-effects/create-a-dark-grunge-3d-text-scene-in-photoshop/

    Here is my final version. For the most part I did not stray from the steps in the tutorial, with the exception of creating my text shapes in Illustrator. I also omitted the gradient map adjustment layer on step 18. I wanted to retain the black background to match my blog.

 

   While this was a good quick photoshop exercise for me, I hope to come up with an original banner design in the future.

New Logo!!!

     My project for this weekend was to update/create a new logo for myself. I've been sketching this idea out on napkins, bills, post-it notes, and any other scrap piece of paper for awhile now. This weekend I finally decided to work through the design, and resolve the issues I had with it. After a lot of work, and many revisions that all started looking the same, I finally ended up with something that I liked.

   

     The foundation of this logo is essentially an abstract combination of the letters that spell out my first name, R-A-Y. The "R" is on the left side, the "A" is on the right, and the Y is at the bottom. It's not meant to be obvious so don't feel bad if you can't see it. I'm not set on colors yet, but I'm leaning towards a black and orange color palette. These colors would symbolize my birthday, which just so happens to be on Halloween. Plus I like the idea of a bright orange grabbing someone's attention. I also like that the design is pointing up. It sort of makes me feel like things are heading in the right direction.

 

 

     I'm planning on digitizing this logo for embroidery later this week, and hopefully I can get it sewn on a beanie sooner rather than later. Since I no longer have immediate access to an embroidery machine it may take some time.

    

     Overall, I'm happy with my new logo, and I'm looking forward to leaving my mark. 

First post! This is mostly a test.

 

     Welcome to my very first blog post! I've recently rediscovered some of my old Marvel cards that I collected as a kid. The artwork was very influential to me growing up, and everything I know about the Marvel Universe stems from these collections. Instead of putting them back in storage I decided to put them on display for easy access. The blank generic binders were boring so I created labels for each card series.

 

 

     I tried to stay true to the design of each series. In some cases I was able to match the font, but there were instances where I had to recreate the type in Illustrator. I also incorporated images from the packaging, and created vector versions of logos that didn't scan properly because of their reflective foil stamp. Some labels turned out better than others, but in general I'm happy with the end result.