fabrication

Let me tell you how cool my job is.

I have spent the past two hours of my work day creating two images of books from several sources.

In the photo below, you can see four distinct pieces:

• The cover of the book
• The back cover of the book
• The pages inside the book
• The coil binding

The cover:

This cover came to us as a flat piece of material. It was then photographed and placed in this Photoshop document for manipulation.

The back cover:

The back cover of the book is a duplicate layer of the front cover. I then placed the layer behind the front cover layer.

The pages inside the book:

I did not have a photograph of the inside pages, so I created a white square box, then added an Inner Shadow effect to provide a sense of depth.

The coil binding:

The coil binding was taken from another product. The client had requested that this product have the same plastic coil binding as the other product. The white you see is the original product. I am in the process now of very carefully removing the white of the original product to reveal the new product below (using the Eraser tool). 

50th anniversary party invitation card

This is a party invitation card I made at work.

front of invitation (folds above the artwork)

inside

front of calling card

back of calling card

50th anniversary collage

Last week, I had the opportunity to design a surprise 50th Anniversary collage for a friend's grandparents. I worked on the collage on my hour long lunch break at work, which was really convenient. I'm really happy with the results. I used two textures in the background, a sort of simple gold brush stroke texture and a white bokeh texture.

summer internship | sun graphics

One requirement for my Commercial Graphics degree is to complete an internship. The internship must include 320 hours of work in a graphics or printing setting. I have had the privilege this summer to work at Sun Graphics in Parsons, Kansas for my internship.

Right now, it's about halfway through the summer, meaning I'm about halfway through my internship. Today is an important day for another reason, though - this morning my very first professional job went through the press...with no errors! I feel like a proud mother!

The job is for Cornerstone Memorials in Independence, Kansas and includes a trifold brochure, bifold brochure, price list, business card, letterhead, and envelope. Last Friday, the final proofs were approved by the customer, so this week is press week!

I've included some photos in this post of the trifold and bifold brochures going through the press in a ganged, work and tumble layout. The other pieces of this job will be printed digitally because of the smaller quantities.

I will post again when all the pieces are all printed and folded.

paper going into the press

press sheets coming out of the press

checking for color and registration

checking for color and registration

checking for color and registration

Grounds Coffee Shop & Bakery Packaging

Gum box, baked goods carry out box, coffee sleeve


Baked goods box side one


Bakd goods box back


Baked goods box side two

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Layout & Design Packaging Final
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layout & design packaging final

Our final for Layout & Design is to create a packaging set. I chose to base my packaging design on Grounds Coffee Shop and Bakery, which I did a newspaper advertisement for in Digital File Preparation last semester. I wanted to expand on the idea of Grounds Coffee Shop and Bakery, which is a fictional company I created for the purpose of my newspaper advertisement.
For this assignment, we will be printing on brown craft paper, so it was important to keep the colors to a minimum, keeping in mind that it is difficult to print lighter colors on brown paper and impossible to print white. I chose to keep my design very simple, using exclusively black ink, because the brown color will speak for itself in relation to giving the packaging a coffee shop/bakery feel.
The three products I chose to make packages for were a coffee cup sleeve, a baked goods travel box, and a chewing gum box.
The coffee cup sleeve and baked goods box were developed using templates I found online. The chewing gum box template was made by opening up and measuring an Orbit chewing gum package. I transferred my collected measurements to an Illustrator file, where I was able to duplicate the folds and cuts of the package.
This project has not yet been printed, but below you will find my roughs and digital file screenshots. A post will follow included photos of finished, printed, folded products.

Please excuse my iPod touch low-res photos.

This is the Orbit gum package I opened up and traced, then measured, to find correct layout, folds, and cuts for my Grounds Coffee Shop and Bakery remake.


These are roughs for the coffee sleeve and gum package.


Rough for bakery travel box.


In the process of working on the coffee sleeve; placing the logo.


Screenshot of coffee sleeve; keep in mind that the template lines won't print. These include the outline of the product and the dashed lines within the product.


Screenshot of gum package; keep in mind that the template outlines won't print.


Screenshot of the bakery goodie box. Keep in mind that the orange background won't print (this background helped to distinguish between different panels of the box).

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Typeface: Archer

For my color blocking Layout and Design assignment, I chose to recreate a layout from Martha Stewart Living magazine. We were instructed to attempt to recreate the layout as accurately as possible. This accuracy included fonts.
For some people in my class, the layout they chose included a font that was readily available to them, such as Times. However, the font Martha Stewart Living uses almost exclusively in their magazine is called Archer, and is available by purchase only.
Archer is a beautiful font, and if it weren't so expensive I would definitely buy it. It is a stand-out slab serif and works wonderfully in Martha Stewart Living, and I can only imagine all the other applications possible.
For a look at Archer, a review of the font, and a more in-depth description of its uses and specifics, visit Typographica.
The font I ended up using for my project was AlexandriaFLF, a similar slab serif that worked well enough for my project, and cost me nothing.