Filed Under (Photography, Portfolio) by Luke Hodsdon on 17-06-2010
Well well well… Blog being neglected, check!
Mail going unoppened for weeks at a time, check!
Girlfriend being neglected, check! (hey, I’m not proud of it!)
Work taking a driver’s seat… always… BUT, I’ve managed to find a new spark to make me feel like I’m being creative again. About a month or so ago I entered the world of digital photography, again. My previous dabble involved an over priced, underperforming Nikon point and shoot (god help me if I ever have to buy another Nikon) and I thought I was hot shit with my infinite depth of field and complete inability to take a decent indoors shot without blowing everyone away into a red-eye haze of pretty little spots against they’re closed eyelids… Yeah, I was hot shit. Watch out birthday parties because those memories you wanted to save just might be a little to intimate when grandpa slices off little billy’s finger because he’s blinded by 8 watts of pure single-bulb action while cutting the birthday cake grammy made! Ahhh, what a scrapbook moment it would make.
Anyhow, I digress. Bashing Nikon wasn’t my intent, but instead bragging about my brand new Canon T21 was! This camera makes me feel like I actually have a hobby again… Been a while, I know. My inner child has been on mind-numbing Ritalin and number crunching in Excel spreadsheets for far too long! The first week all I had was a kit lens (18-55mm), a battery that seemed to never die and a New Found Passion (see what I did there) for something, well, new! It felt amazing to look at trash in the street or someone’s lip-crusted old cigarette butt and think, “ART!”. Like I do when I find anything I like, I latched on… and HARD! Within the first month now I’ve amassed 3 lenses, a tripod, a backpack camera bag and a loathing from my girlfriend every time I just “test out the settings” on her. (Side note: I think it’s my super power to catch the most beautiful people in some of the most unflattering facial expressions… I should bottle and sell this skill!) I think I’m on the right track.
So, as always, my hope is to start updating more frequently and actually get some of my work out there for the world to see. I mean, really, I’m hot shit again!
Filed Under (Uncategorized) by Luke Hodsdon on 03-05-2010
It’s come to my attention that I’ve severly been abusing my blog. The little fellah hasn’t gotten any real love in a long time. Inspired by my new Canon T2i and a renewed thought provoking design concept/direction to take my blog, my goal is to post at LEAST one new blog a week. Even if it’s just a new photo. More long term [and time consuming] is the ellusive redesign I’ve been talking about giving my little slice of Internet life for well over a year now. Time to stop being that guy who checks in on his blog just to empty the hundereds of spam comments [thanks spambots...] and take a little more patience with myself to actually make this place what I want it to be. Sorry reality TV, I know you’ll always be there for me, but right now I just gotta dance, errr blog!!
Filed Under (Photography, iPhone) by Luke Hodsdon on 06-11-2009
Well, this would mean my long stint from my blog may be over. I need my outlet back and I still want to do my big re-design. In time. In time. For now, here’s a tilt-shift photo from my iPhone.
Working in the graphics design/publishing field I come across at least 10 photos a day that could use some drastic help. Washed out, overdeveloped, under exposed; These are all things that we’ve all had to deal with with our photos. Well, Here’s some simple processes you can follow to punch up those colors and get your images back to looking the way they should, GREAT! Inspired by the new little ducklings that have recently hatched in our back yard, we snapped some shots on a point and shoot Canon. As you can see from the original image, it’s good… but i thought it could be better. The following steps to enhance your photos shouldn’t take you any more than 5 minutes, and once you learn the procedure you’ll be editing your photos in no time!
Click through to see the full tutorial. Read the rest of this entry »
Filed Under (Tutorial) by Luke Hodsdon on 31-03-2009
Today at Churm Media, I was tasked with making a twitter help guide so that our editorial/marketing teams could help spread the word about our brands (@OCMETRO, @OCFamily, @IEFamily). That’s when i realized that if you’re not an internet savvy, hip user then you probably don’t really get the “jump right in and learn how to swim” aspect of twitter. Thus… the twitter cheat sheet. You may even notice a little shout out to a couple tweople (Twitter + people); @Tutorial9, @CameronOlivier, @Sethetter & @Vectips.
Click through to download the full size cheat sheet. PDF Available below image.
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Title: January OCMETRO Cover, The ECOnomics Report, Special Green Issue
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2
Time Span: 4-8 Hours
About: OCMETRO’s first “Green” issue. They wanted something to capture the feel of the large green movement in Orange County.
Designer Notes: Thanks to online tutorials (via PSD Tuts), this cover was not only fun, but also a huge learning experience. The client loved the idea from the start.
Click through for the full image after the jump.
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Title: February 2009 OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Lincoln Salazar
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2
Time Span: 2 hours
About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.
Designer Notes: This was my 6th design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine.
Click through for the full image after the jump.
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Title: December OCMETRO Cover, The Best & Worst Issue, Tiger Woods
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2
Time Span: 2-3 Hours
About: Cover design for OCMETRO’s Best & Worst Issue with a special Tiger Woods feature. The Tiger Woods Learning Center was featured as one of the ‘Best’ events in Orange County California, 2008.
Designer Notes: Getting to work with a cover image of a well-known, famous face really opened the perspective up to produce a great cover.
Click through for the full image after the jump.
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Title: January 2009 OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Clarissa Ngo
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2
Time Span: 2 hours
About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.
Designer Notes: This was my 5th design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine and third in a horizontal layout.
Click through for the full image after the jump.
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click the image above for 100% size.
As any good designer knows, typography is a main element of design. With the thousands of typeface choices many designers get overwhelmed. Modern design dictates that type not only be treated as an element on a page, but a main eye catch as well. Graham at ImJustCreative.com created a site, lovehelvetica.com, to simplify the typeface jungle, and pay homage to one of the classics… Helvetica. Being such a versatile font, Helvetica lends itself to a world of design with it’s huge variety of weights.
This design is my homage to the great font, Helvetica Neue. The thought process behind the design was to use the ‘a hole’ (thanks Albertonomo via flickr) to “peel” back into a heart shape and convey the idea of ‘love helvetica’. The 2.0 gradient shading has been my design kick for the month, so there’s some of that in there as well.
Comments/criticisms are always welcomed. Or design one of your own and sent me the link! Fond me on twitter to let me know as well @lhodsdon
Title: Sneak peak Nine Three Studio logo & Glowing text in space.
Client: None, Personal Project
Program(s) Used: Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2 (for logo)
Time Span: 10-20 minutes, not including logo
About: Thanks to a GREAT, and fast, tutorial at Denis Designs, I was inspired to give my own take and twist. The tutorial is super easy to follow, and the results, as you can see, are pretty spectacular! Hey Denis, ever think about the tagline “You can’t spell design without Denis.”
Designer Notes: Easy to follow tutorial steps, great result i can’t really say much else! By the way, if you hadn’t noticed, this IS the new logo the site will be using in the re-design that is, god willing, still slated to happen mid year this year. Big plans in my brain… getting them out might be the hard part.
Click through for the full image after the jump.
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Title: December 2008 OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Chris Hite
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2
Time Span: 2 hours
About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.
Designer Notes: This was my 4th design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine and second in a Horizontal layout.
Click through for the full image after the jump.
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Title: November 2008 OCMETRO Cover, The Hot 25: Revealed
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2
Time Span: 6-8 Hours, concept to completion
About: Annually OCMETRO chooses it’s “Hot 25″ business people of Orange County California. This year we wanted to try a fresh new look, with a feeling of anonymity to appeal to the readers and grab their attention.
Designer Notes: I really got to strech my design wings with this cover. Working for a business related publication, design like this is a tough sell. The image pleased enough of the decision makers and i got the green light to go ahead with the cover and cover story.
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Title: OCFAMILY.com Masthead
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCFAMILY
Program(s) Used: Illustrator CS2
Time Span: 3 Hours
About: Churm Media requested a way to show it’s readers and advertisers the success it’d had at this year’s annual PPA (Parenting Publications of America) Awards Convention.
Designer Notes: I really wanted to explore trying to make the banner really appear as if it was intertwining throughout the Masthead. Piggybacking upon the great success of OCFAMILY’s website at this years Parenting Publications of America’s Annual awards contest & ceremony. Here are what some of the judges had to say about the website itself.
Gold: OC Family; Kimberly Porrazzo; Kristen Schott; Jeff Kitchen
OC Family’s web site provided rich multimedia content for its users. The highlight of this content is the ability for OC Family’s community to contribute photos of children. The photos are tastefully incorporated into the Web site’s design and provide an engaging entry-point into the site’s additional content. The directory of community businesses provides detail with both contact information and a description of services.
Title: November OCMETRO CEO Centerfold, Leila Entezam
Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO
Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Photoshop CS2
Time Span: 2 Hours
About: CEO Centerfold spread pages for OCMETRO, Photography by Tracie Spence.
Designer Notes: This was my 3rd design of a CEO centerfold for OCMETRO magazine.
Click through for the full size image after the jump…
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