The Sounds of Ink on Paper

It has been a short summer at least for me and its almost time to return to school and finish the last year of my Design schooling. I started the summer with dreams of doing and learning things that i would enjoy and expand my knowledge other than the school work i would be doing at SFSU. Time is running out and the my summer is ending. I still think big and dream. Its time to relax and study up for the last school year at SFSU, learn the fundamentals and elements of design for web and print. (sigh)

I must apologize for my late updates. I must say, getting sick and being sick for two weeks and a half is the worst times ever, not being able to think and do anything fun. The good news is that i was sober for about a month. (yeah. Hell yeah) Unfortunately, not anymore.

What brings me today? I wanted to share a project that i have been working for Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) greeting card. Its held November 2nd. Its a celebration and tradition for Latinos to pray for family and friends that have passed away. Its a tradition to honor the dead by bringing their favorite foods and drinks to their graves or an alter. It is said that it easier for the dead to communicate with living on this day.

Initial Test Development Prints 6 x 4.5
Dia de los Muertos
Limited to 5

Nebula 4 Postcard

Yet another post. For some this is not new because i distributed a few a month ago. This is a Nebula 4 postcard since the original creation of the image back in May. A few posts back. I've updated the version and got them printed out which turned out pretty great. They serve as my business card sometimes.

Calendar 2009 Coming Soon!

Well, I've been busy refining ideas and today i also wanted to offer a sneak peak at the 2009 Calendar that I'm attempting to finish and release before the year is over. I wanted to combine two ideas, calendar's and poster's without creating the sometimes unnecessary space of four rows to represent a month and seven boxes to the days of week, instead i created a row of numbers to represent the days of the month. I created rounded yellow rectangles to represent the weekends and the important holidays would be highlighted by a dominant color found in the image that would represent an important holiday of the month. In this case Valentines Day. Hope everyone enjoys it and i'll post its release here at my blog.

A Weekend Before School

Its been a while since my last posting. what can i say? I've been busy with school. Its been a good weekend up to now, it started with various performances from the San Francisco Outside Lands (Music & Arts Festival) among them was Radiohead, The Black Keys, and Cold War Kids which i could listen from the comfort of my own home.

Today I want to present a re-design i did for an existing brochure at SFSU Cesar Chavez Student Center. The brochure was re-design for the Richard Oakes Multicultural Center. This project was meant to demonstrate my grasp and understanding of design elements and the principals of design for a job interview at CCSC.

I wanted to improve and simplify the existing design that would demonstrate the goals and values of CCSC. It would speak about the man who it was named after, Richard Oakes and still represent the goals and values of CCSC. I felt the color and text layout of the brochure were obstructing. The information wasn't easy to find. The text would disappear in low light areas.

The choices i made were to connect Richard Oakes to CCSC. First, the color choices were to limit the amount of colors used. Colors that would represent Richard Oakes and CCSC. I used Red and Blue. Red, associated with courage, the courage it took Richard Oakes to occupy Alcatraz Island. Blue associated with calm and peaceful. The text was edited down to be less repetitive and easier to find information needed.

It was a good practice project to work on and think about design choices.

This is the existing design for the Richard Oakes Multicultural Center. (Inside)(Outside)

I Was Born Today

Its yet another year. Its my birthday once again. I wanted to thank my mom for giving life.

I'm not the most productive person on a everyday basis but on this day i managed to create an image that identifies and symbolizes Nebula 4's mission as a designer and artist. "Thinking outside the box," a philosophy i have adopted to distinguish my work from the millions of artists found around the world. Not to constrain the work by any kind of boundaries but to tear through from its limitations like trees breaking through paved streets.

I like trees. I would look good on a T-shirt

In a yearly ritual of my birthday, the film i choose this year was Iron Man. What can i say about it? I recommend it. I must admit, i was a partial Iron Man fan because its references to Black Sabbath's song Iron Man. This film made me love comics all over again.



A sneak preview of the new upcoming toy I've been working on, nebula 4.

Urban Action

Its been some long months. This year i did some design work for the Urban Studies Program at San Fransico State University. I worked on some Advertisement for the Journal they publish called Urban Action. Urban Action is a collection of essays, poems, photos, and postcards showcasing urban related affairs or issues from around the world and published by students, alumni and faculty s and ended finishing the work on the Urban Action Manual.

Remember RIO

A year ago my first mp3 player died. I then upgraded to an ipod. This is a design i did in his memory for the hours of Classic Rock, Reggae, and Mozart he provided.

A look at the past: Yojimbo Poster

A several months ago i had taken a graphic design class at the SFSU downtown campus which really helped a lot. I was able to understand why i made the choices i made and be able to talk and prove to people why the design worked.

The first assignment we had was a poster design. The instructor asked us to think about our favorite film, yeah i know, its hard to choose a favorite film. I eventually settled on Yojimbo (1961) an Akira Kuroswa black and white film. In the following week he asked us to make a poster using only one font and one size(see Figure 1). He also asked us to think of the theme of the film and incoporate in the design. It was difficult challenge to design with a limited resources but managed to design to the films theme. A wandering samurai arrives at a chaotic village and is responsible for its bloody demise.

The third assignment for the class was to change the font size, add shapes, and color(see Figure 2). The design started to tell a story of the two opposing gangs in the village. The use of red for the baldly drawn squares was to symbolize the chaotic blood bath that ensued after Yojimbo's arrival. The slash between the two squares with the name of the film Yojimbo was to show that Yojimbo stood between the two gangs with no alliance to any of them.

The forth assignment was to add imagery to the design(see Figure 3, bottom left). The imagery i choose was a Japanese crest to show the consumer that they are not watching a hollywooed blockbuster but a Japanese film.

Assignment four being the end of the poster design the instructor asked us to choose once again a medium other than a poster that our design would work on, i choose apparel(see Figure 3, bottom right). After the foundations for the poster design are set then its transfer to other mediums is not to difficult.

I have finally returned to the university temporally to finish my degree in Design and Industry at San Francisco State University.

It refuses to die

I few years ago i created The Idiot Motel productions as a publishing company for upcoming artists of all genres. It was meant to be a community of artists and a way to publish their work but because its negative connotation, i had to pursue other possible names. I still refuse to let it walk into the night. I still keep this marketing postcard for a reminder that one of these days it will rise among all odds.

An academic seminar on a broad field of study

The first assignment i had a week ago for DAI 370 Colloquium was to write about our journey from the point of birth to our present day, basically first days of class. The cover design i designed was a look on life as strings of particles whom intertwine with multitudes of different people along your life time. Each making a significant change in your life other just cross your path until they cross again in your later years.