Senior Year Fall 2009

My undergraduate career seems to be going by faster and faster. This past semester, Fall 2009, was a hell of a lot of work. I’ve been overachieving like a preppy little schoolboy, but I feel like all the hard work is definitely worth it. My portfolio has definitely grown significantly with six new additions, of which are solid works. My course load this past semester was 20 upper-level credits, 1 massive senior thesis, a 36′ x 8′ Homasote display wall, and the responsibilities of being the President of the RPI Graphics Club. I somehow managed to pull off a 3.93 GPA this semester despite the high work load, which required superhuman abilities to complete. The elusive 4.0 GPA still evades me… aghh! Continue Reading…

I created this poster for my Typography final project. It uses the Bree typeface and was created with Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop CS4. The poster size measures 24×36 inches.

The package label reads:
The vision of this project was to express the feeling of being so deeply captivated by design that you can’t help but stare, only to soon find yourself in complete awe with drool dribbling down your chin. The concept behind ‘Drool Over Design’ is to emotionally connect with the viewer to make them feel and appreciate the particular emotions that only great design can evoke. This crafted artwork expresses
love for design using plenty of drool, grungy textures, and gorgeous typography.

“Design must seduce, shape, and perhaps more importantly, evoke emotional response.”   -April Greiman.

This project was created for my Typography class. The objective was to visually represent my cognitive perception of time over a 24 hour period. I had to document at least 10 typographic exemplars, as well as describe them and explain how they guide me throughout my day. The exemplars are based on a day trip to NYC.

A couple projects I did for my Typography class. The expressive word must “visually represent the meaning of a single word using typographical concepts.”
*Note* – Requires Flash Player 10 or higher.

Full size ‘Scatter’
Full size ‘Dimensional’

The typography assignment was to “Create an upper- and lowercase 27th letter of the western alphabet or the next letterform of a non-western alphabet. Use Illustrator. Create a name for the letter‚ a place in the alphabet‚ and a new sound for it.” The letterform I created encompasses a ‘pl’ sound. I drew inspiration from combining the two letters, p & l, and tried to create a letterform that blended well with the rest of the alphabet.

View the PDF

I recently created a type specimen for my typography course – the font is Fertigo Pro and is available for free.

Download the PDF

I am back at RPI for Spring semester 2009, which will most definitely be filled with a lot of hard work and stress. I am taking 18 credits this semester to stay on track for graduation in Spring 2010. Here is a list of the courses I am taking for Spring 2009:

• Tour of the Solar System – ASTR 1530
• Introduction to Biology – BIOL 1010
• Typography – COMM 4570
• Intro to Management – MGMT 1100
• Rhetoric & Writing – WRIT 2110

I am most excited about Typography, COMM 4570, which is taught by Audrey Bennett. I think the course will be a great way for me to experiment with typographic design, which I haven’t played with too much. I would like the course to challenge me, design wise, and I hope that by the end of the course I have some great work to add to my portfolio.

The final project consists of a Type Entrepreneurship, which lists a couple project choices such as ‘design your own font‘, ‘design a children’s book’, ‘design a set of greeting cards’ or the option to ‘create your own project’. I will probably create my own project, but, as of yet, I have not a clue what that will be. I need to do some serious typography studying before I come up with a solid idea.

I have heard that Intro to Management is very demanding and will probably be like beating my head against a brick wall. The professor, Frank Wright, seems like he will be an interesting and highly endowed teacher. He is always full of enthusiasm and comes off as very intelligent. I think I will do well in the course as long as I am in my seat for attendance at 8:00am! I have heard that Introduction to Biology is rather boring and time consuming. It probably doesn’t help that the professor who teaches the lecture is monotone and slow to speak his words.

I look forward to putting my best effort into the Spring ’09 semester, which may be more challenging than last. I received a 3.93 GPA last semester, all A’s and one A-, but I will try to repeat my success to maintain a high GPA.

Wish me luck!