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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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: 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.

Click through for the full image after the jump.
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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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Title: October OCMETRO Cover, What’s at stake for Orange County? Obama – McCain

Client: Churm Media, in association with OCMETRO

Program(s) Used: Quark 6, Illustrator CS2, Photoshop CS2

Time Span: 4 Hours

About: The cover story told of ways that each presidential candidate could effect Orange County, since we’re a hyper-local magazine media company.

Designer Notes: I wanted the cover to look vastly different than anything we’d produced in the past, bringing techniques and ideas which Churm Media hadn’t explored before. The idea of adding in the Orange slices was to really bring the hyper-local aspect to the cover, and to get a nice bright splash of colors.

Full image after the jump…
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Title: OCFAMILY TV Logo Design

Client: Churm Media, in association with OC Family Magazine

Program(s) Used: Illustrator CS2

Time Span: 2 hours Conceptual. 2 hours design.

About: ocfamily.com needed a logo design for their new video feature in which anyone can upload videos of their children. The idea was to make them a TV star, on the web.

Designer Notes: I really wanted to add an element of freshness to this logo. In the end the company decided to take a darker direction and make everything black based.

Of course with no money exchanging hands, purely a project of mine to see if i could “update” their logo. Fully built in Illustrator CS2, this image is 100% vector and scalable to any size.

‘we heart it’ is just as it’s name says… a site that allows you to tag any photo on the web that inspires you, that you like or you just find interesting. Simple enough to manage and fun to browse. Build yourself a community and manage your own RSS feed of images you “heart”. Give it a try, and if you sign up add me as a contact and have fun browsing my “heart”. Also, leave me a comment and let me know your user name so that i can follow you too!

My dear love for tutorial doage (yes, that’s now a word) keeps my skills sharp and my knowledge of all things graphic design high. I generally browse through the tutorials pages looking for something to catch my eye that gives me a sense of “how can i incorporate that into one of my Magazine layouts.” On this particular day i was looking through Photoshop Lady’s website to see what new and exciting things the graphic design community had come up with this week. Low and behold, there it was. A Gel Button effect in photoshop to rival MANY gel button tutorials on the “market”. And trust me, i’ve done many of them. Most of them good, and get you to the goal you’re set out for, but this one had so much glamour that i knew i’d have to see how it was accomplished. So, not to bore you with the details or to try and explain the steps i’ll just give you a link so you can test for yourself. All in all, once i got a subject for the ‘logo’, this tutorial took me about 5-10 minutes, then add another 5 for personal tweaks and adjustments.

So without further ado, here’s my rendition of the tutorial (via 3nhanced)…. after the jump [click image for full size].
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Playing my own little game of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon led me to an image, which inspired this little “re-design” or complete design guessing how you interpret it.

Okay, now let’s explain… I was on my google reader (1), found a link through we heart it (2), Liked what one of the users was “hearting” and clicked through to his profile to find the original photo (3), which was a link through a ffffound site (4), via flickr user shaderlab (5). Pretty fun ehh? So, i have to give credit where credit is due. I didn’t QUITE get my full 6 degrees, but if you count opening the browser as 1 i can cheat my score a little i guess.

On a side note, the Oracle of Bacon website will let you play your own game of Six Degrees. I was never able to get more than a bacon score of 3!! So, if you play around with some names and happen to get a good combo, leave me a comment with the names.

Full size image after the jump.
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Name: The Churm Media Band of Brothers
Designer: Albert Ornelas
Programs: Photoshop & Illustrator

Albert Ornelas is the Churm Media jack of all trades. Starting as a graphic designer and moving his way though the ranks to land as a web Specialist, Albert is one of “the band”. The “Band of Brothers” is the group of production guys who work in the heavily woman dominated offices of Churm Media. Over the year of the band’s inception, some have come and gone, but the brotherhood still remains. Taking the inspiration from the bond we have, Albert created his interpretation of the band of brothers. Taking the caricature drawings of the brothers and stylizing them with color, shading, and adorning them with helmets, Albert has created a flag to fly proud for “The Band”.

Full image after the jump… wait for it… JUMP!
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In the pending months to come there’s a planned re-design for ninethreestudio.com. This will include a new “web 2.0″ style logo as well as *hopefully* a complete site revamp… so i guess this logo is a small sneak peek at the new 2.0 stylings. Subtle, yet noticeably different than the current logo.

UPDATE:This logo has also been submitted to Logo of the Day, so let’s hope that they post it and my 7 faithful blog readers can vote for it!! *finger’s crossed*

Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think! … please …

“un-styled” logo after the jump and on the link… JUMP!
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“GOD” over at Deaddog has given a nice little blast about my latest portfolio addition, HALFrican-American. Now if only i could convince Jesus to be so kind as well…

In the spirit of the presidential election, inspiration hit me. Up until the election was over no one really heard about the “race issue”, but once Barack was crowned king (figuratively speaking, of course) of our great nation it seems like that was the ONLY thing everyone had to talk about. I understand it’s a great time for our nation’s history and whatnot, but the negative connotation places on the issue of race is just sickening… So, long story short, this little bit-o-inspiration hit me.

Please don’t flame me or send me hate mail. This is NOT a racist message, it’s an observational render.

If you’re a supporter of the arts, like Obama, hate Obama, are half African-American or just feel like scoring some sweet swag… then check out My HALFricanUSA Cafe Press store. All the proceeds will go to keeping my refrigerator fully stocked with Mauntain Dew and Dr. Pepper. Thanks!