Working on an infographic project for a volunteer project, but couldn’t resist putting some of the nicer pieces into poster art. Drawn in Procreate.
Download the wallpaper version from Smashing Magazine, “Summer Season” in July 2021.
Not created for a conversion, but meant to (hopefully) make you notice and instill fun/feel-good feelings about the brand.
The concept is that the brand is such a helpful and thorough partner, you worry less and have more time to focus on other things (and take time off this summer). Lisa Frank inspired – I had so much fun with these colors!
Sidenote: For really cool “Realistic Liquid Bubbles” in Photoshop, checkout Aleksander Vlad’s YouTube!
A podcast cover that I created for a friend. I drew the illustration art with Procreate.
Check out their podcast, ‘So, Wait… Pause‘ on Apple Podcasts today!
Podcast Description:Ashley and Sean are avid moviegoers who started a new tradition. Once a week, they take turns pairing one good and one bad movie and scrape the internet for the best drinking rules. They discuss the movies, the moments that made them pause, and the drinking rules that hit the hardest. Join them as they share some of the best and worst movie experiences, and start your own movie night with friends.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-wait-pause/id1567337547
The podcast cover artwork that I created for my very own podcast, ‘Cam and Ru Start a Book Club‘. I drew the artwork with Procreate.
Podcast Description:Hello from Cam and Ru! We’re a son and mom duo that happen to be very different people but both love reading. In this monthly podcast book club, we’ll discuss a book’s characters, themes, and authors, while also discussing how these stories relate to our own lives. Please read along with us!https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cam-and-ru-start-a-book-club/id1558741890
I came across a watercolor print in a home goods store and immediately loved the backyard oasis vibes. But I thought the focal point could use an adjustment, and so I fired up Procreate to create an alternate version.
WFH is no small feat, and when my company wanted to offer employees a t-shirt as a small gesture of thanks and team spirit, I set to work on a Zoom-inspired design that would celebrate our success and make light of the setbacks.
A personal passion project, I created this printed calendar as a more personal holiday gift for my friends and family in 2020. I’m an avid gardener, and I love to cook my own food, so I thought creating something that would help me and others quickly identify what products were in season for any given month would be really awesome. The calendar was hand crafted from start to finish – not only did I want it to feel like a quality product, I wanted it to be as functional as it was beautiful.
I started by drawing 60 illustration of various fruits, vegetables, and herbs in Procreate. This was by far my favorite part of the whole process, and I’m still finding ways to use these illustrations across projects.
I then took to Adobe Illustrator to build out each page, a roomy tabloid-sized calendar with room for notes and tasks.
After selecting a print vendor, I bound and added a wall hook to each calendar by hand. It was important to me that this feel like a really quality piece, so I used all metal components with a heavier paper weight.
Ultimately, I created a number of spare calendars that sold out on Etsy (26 in total!). From those buyers, I received a lot of direct positive feedback, and a few left some really nice reviews on my store:
Below are two holiday cards I created for a past company that celebrated a personality assessment tool, Culture Index.
The intent of both cards was to celebrate different personalities coming together.
I created this wedding invitation for a close friend of mine. For the greenery illustration, I converted paint strokes into a custom digital brush for Photoshop, which I then used to digitally paint the leaves.
My first design job out of college was as a packaging artist for a company that manufactures goods for both industrial and retail channels. Like most design roles, the role of a packaging artist can vary greatly between companies, but at this particular company it meant creating, editing, finalizing, and transferring packaging artwork to supplier and shipping partners.
Because the company supplied goods for both industrial and retail channels, this role had a heavy emphasis on communicating how products should first be assembled, packaged, packed into shipping containers (and palletized), and finally shipped to the company’s receiving warehouse. For products that would ultimately find their way to a retail shelf, I would also need to communicate to our warehouse staff how to unpack product from industrial packaging and then assemble (if needed) and repack for stores.
To communicate all of these instructions, I would create highly detailed instruction sheets known as PM References – if you’ve never seen one before, here’s a sneak peek:
While these documents certainly aren’t winning any design awards, they turned out to be a great sandbox for developing a wealth of skills – from photography, illustration, copy layout, and communication in general.
One of the greater challenges was creating product illustrations, instructions, and photography before the final product was actually confirmed. Because the company wanted its products, especially new ones, to reach the end consumer as quickly as possible, I often sorted through endless email chains and a variety of samples to gain a clear understanding of what exactly the end product would be. This process required equal parts Photoshop, coffee, and patience.
Many times the PM Reference documents I created were specific to just one moment in time. For example, I would frequently create multiple assembly instructions for the same product. The first set might be for an international supplier, telling them clearly how to assemble, bulk pack, and ship to the U.S. Then a second set might be for a U.S. warehouse, telling them clearly how to unpack, assemble (if necessary), and individually repack for store shelves, and then palletize for shipment to a store.
But the end goal was always to provide the product to the end-consumer, making them still a critical stakeholder to my role. In fact, while I was thinking through the supplier and shipping perspectives, I was also required to think about the product features and use instructions from the consumer’s perspective – asking questions like, do these instructions make sense without my inside knowledge; are these visuals appealing and clear; have I effectively communicated the product benefits?
Ultimately, my greatest takeaway was an ability to really think about the products I was working with from beginning to end – through the whole product lifecycle. For me, it laid a solid foundation of experimenting with design, content, and user experience. It challenged me to think beyond my own perspective as a designer.
