Chaz had a few color palettes and specific font-types that he wanted me to pull from. After researching the varied styles of theses late 19th & early 20th century adverts, I began laying out the front and back of the business card and narrowing down the color choices.

Chaz also expressed a strong desire to incorporate ornamental flourishes — something I love to to do. Using existing ornamental vectors for a basis, I then began editing those ornaments and using the pieces to build more elaborate borders and corners,  exclusive to Chaz’s business card.

Finally, I narrowed down the color palletes to just a few prominent tones and chose their associations. The more elabroate typfaces, such as the one used for Chaz’s name, were hand painted too tone and with gradients to realy make them pop out.

Since typography is one of my favorite avenues of design, I am grateful for the opportunity to work on this piece. I thoroughly enjoyed designing this business card and am proud to have it as part of my portfolio.

SoCal Crawfish Connection is a new seafood restaurant located in Irvine California. The business, owned by the Tran family, was originally a coffee shop that has since morphed into a whole new venture in need of a fresh web presence.

The Site Design:

I was pretty much allowed free artistic rein with this site, while adhering to the clients’ need for a site that was simple, low-cost and easy to navigate.

There was a bit of back and forth on the font choices and placement for the restaurant title within the logo. One of the initial mock-ups had a stamped look that circled the Crawfish, but the clients had come across another seafood restaurant with a similar layout and wanted something a bit different. We finally decided on a font from the Helvetica family and a layout that kept the company’s title off to the side of the main logo design.

Additionally, the use of orange and blue tones really helped to balance the site while catching the eye of viewers.

The Logo Design:

The Crawfish logo was sketched out a number of times and the final design is true to my last sketch. The logo incorporates a subtle cartoon element that I feel gives it a unique, original look without making it appear childish.

I researched a large number of pictures of actual crawfish, and while the logo is not strictly anatomically correct, I tried to remain true to the more memorable charactersistics of the species.

Additional Work:

Outside of the logo and site, I also designed the company’s menu and their first double-sided advertisement/coupon card. The idea behind both was attractive simplicity with striking colors and a more elegant typography.

You can visit the website at www.socalcrawfishconnection.com. The menu can be viewd in PDF format here, and the coupon card here.

Changing Spots is a film by Susan Turley and stars Lane West, Danielle Egnew & Lars Jackson. It is a story about Molly, an actress (played by Lane West) who returns home and comes to terms with her past as a child actor, her relationship with her father and her confrontation with a sexual offender from her childhood.

The Design:

Susan, Lane and I went for a more mainstream look to the poster with the main character in the foreground. The use of the swing set has particular significance in the film, while the stormy backdrop and lighting help represent the darkness of the past.

Additionally, an image of her father (Larrs Jackson) and her girlfriend help to balance out the ominous tone of the poster while providing a sort of “celestial” watching-over of Molly.

This was the original design of the poster. Since then the title logo as well as other fonts were changed by the director to better express her vision of the film. The image itself remains intact, though affected by and orange filter for the website and DVD release. The image above represents my work only.

You may read more about Changing Spots here, as well as view cast info, a film synopsis and trailers.