B&J Jones Brewing Co.

I made up an imaginary brewery! Some family friends are turning 40 (the couple's birthdays are both in December) and my gift to them was a personalized beer bottle label. They are huge beer lovers. I found inspiration Foothills Brewing Co. by using a similar color scheme. Here it is! I'm pretty proud!

Three P's in a Pod

In the past few weeks I have been commissioned for two different logo designs. I'm pretty excited about both but was expecting to be stressed with these additions to my already overwhelming workload. Surprisingly, I didn't have too much of a problem getting things done... with a few less hours of sleep than usual (which isn't saying much). 

The first P is for a new website being put together for KU students interested in the 2012 election campaign called PoliticalFiber. It is the first one I'm actually getting PAID to do. I sent them a bunch of sketches... here are just a few. With the first couple here, I tried to show the idea of a strengthened community through close connections and continuous lines. They didn't have a color palette chosen either so I played with bold, strong chroma hues to relate to a younger audience. I also threw in a few displaying the more literal form of "fiber" as in wheat... relating to Kansas. They ended up choosing one of those and with multiple tweeks, you get the 4th and final logo. (I didn't get to choose the font, so don't laugh. Its optima.)

The second P for my aunt and uncle's family... more of a monogram rather than a logo. They asked me to combine their initials (for Todd, Lori, Barrett and Tyce) to create one "more fancy" image for a letterhead for their famous Christmas letter and a "fun" one for other things involving the kids.

The Fine Pint!

My recent project was a photo essay/narrative on public typography in the world of beer... Mmmmmm!
The implications of typography in our environment are usually unnoticed, especially to the untrained eye. But as graphic designers, we have been taught to search for the typographic detail surrounding us everywhere ñ studying, analyzing and even creating it.



Therefore, being assigned to choose an immediate part of my environment to specifically dissect, I chose one of my favorite things, BEER. Sifting through liquor stores, breweries and bars I photographed as much of the typographical detail as I could find. Using these photos to illustrate a narrative to accompany my thoughts about public typography in the world of beer.

the cover – spine and back included

A special thanks to John Lowery at Boulevard for the tour and Nicholas Stahl for your help and inspiration.

Love this cover!

If you aren't a member of designers.mx you should really join. I am seriously inspired by all of the work that people are putting up. You do have to be invited to be a "mixer" but thats ok, because you can just listen to the mixes while looking at all of the beautifully designed covers. 

[My goal for the next few months is to get to be invited}

I am really into this cover/and the mix by Justin David Cox.  From a glance it appears to be a photo, but NUH UH! its a hand drawn image with a sweet burlap texture. very smart.

The Graphic Imperative: Advocacy Posters

 “The poster is the prime field for experimenting with visual language. It is the scene of changing ideas and aesthetics, of cultural, social and political events.” – (Pierre Bernard, French designer | Grapus)

Our first project of the semester was to create a pair of advocacy posters. Possible themes for the project included dissent, liberation, racism, sexism, human rights, civil rights, environmental and health concerns, AIDS, war, literacy, and tolerance.

Among our research resources was an on-line exhibition The Graphic Imperative: International Posters for Peace, Social Justice, and the Environment, 1965-2005 (www.thegraphicimperative.org). The Graphic Imperative was a select retrospective of forty years of international sociopolitical posters. The 111 posters in this exhibition emphasized the issues of our turbulent times and endeavor to show the social, political, and aesthetic concerns of many cultures and divergent political realities.

Of the pair of advocacy posters that I was to design one used type and image and the other used type as image. I was to chose: 1) the actual advocacy group that would sponsor the message 2) the specific issue/message of the poster 3) the targeted audience that the poster seeks to address and 4) propose the remedy or action for the specific issue/problem.

typography as image version

typography & image version

first stage of motion project

During class the first day, I realized that instead of searching for an old poster or artwork to scan in, I would just use some of the ones I had used for a project in the fall of 2010.  When stumbling through tons of old files, I found a beauty of a spread... from a presentation in my history and philosophy of design class.

With tips from my professor, J. Shellhorn, I was able to whip up a quick clip of the image in motion.  The funny thing is that the chapter in which this image was found is titled, "Graphics in Motion." How convenient?!  This is the first stage, a few more hours of quality editing tomorrow... will post that later.


Untitled from Noel Rivard on Vimeo.

motion graphics: project one

Yesterday was the first day of my summer motion graphics class, and we were given our first assignment. I am so glad to have a project again! Doing creative things on my own is fun and all but I love having the challenge given to me.

Anyways, the project is to take sort of graphics poster, or in my case a spread in a book of Bradbury Thompson's design works, and make it move.  The end goal is to visually describe the story of the poster through the bringing things in and out of the frame and positioning the elements to create a loop that will eventually show the poster as a whole.

I will post videos as soon as I get my project going... so stay tuned!

A Fresh Start: Back in the Blogosphere

After successfully accomplishing my first year in the graphic design program, I feel that I need to really start getting my name out there.  So I got a twitter account, cleared my facebook profile of all (if any) incriminating photographs and updated some portfolio sites... the only thing missing was a new blog! My original one, http://www.1styeargraphics.blogspot.com, needed a revival.

The purpose of having a new blog is to use the type tips and tools that I've been given to create a more professional, pleasant viewing experience for my followers.  I fully intend to post my upcoming summer projects (a few freelance branding opportunities, wedding stationary for some friends, an identity system of an elementary school, and even some painting experiments). But I also plan on posting all of the beautiful/sexy/powerful/relevant works that I find out there.

This blog is going to be a shout out to all of those happy accidents; the things you do or come across incidentally (but not unintentionally) that change the way you think about design.

^If you don't get why this FedEx logo is considered to be a happy accident, you should look it up!