Archive for the ‘my work’ Category

Some Spreads I Worked On

Here are some images of the spreads I worked on for Northern Virginia Magazine.  The “Great Escapes” is a special ad section from December.

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The following are from the January 2010 redesigned issue.  I worked on the events guide, the wedding special ad section, and the restaurant guide.  Most of the images were my responsibility to find and incorporate.

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For the guides, I followed the template, but for special ad section I had more flexibility for the layout.  Most of the images were my responsibility to find and incorporate.

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I scheduled the photo shoot for this dish and the chef portrait (above).

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Step 1: Read the Directions

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My folks are a tiny bit technologically challenged, and they’re forever asking me how to turn something on or off. So I thought I’d  make them some step-by-step instructions for the TV, DVD Player and Wii for two reasons: so they’ll stop asking me, and because I  just felt like making something.  Maybe next I’ll make pocket-size instructions for their cell phones.

I Heart Working at a Magazine

I’m a design intern at Northern Virginia Magazine, and boy do I love it.  I mean, who wouldn’t love being in the know of cool stuff in the area or having their name in the credits or getting to help lay it out?  Exactly.  Here’s a few of the pages I worked on in the November issue.

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Above: I got to work on the redesign of holiday gift subscription forms.

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Also got to make some lovely charts and layout the education guide.  Isn’t that little boy adorable?  Found him on Shutterstock.

Presentation is Paramount

Drew & Heather’s wedding pictures were ready for viewing this past Sunday, and they invited the family and I to come check out the photos with them.  The photos turned out great.  Everyone was very impressed by the company, The Edge Photography Studio.  And not just because of the spectacular shots of the wedding.  Their presentation of the photos yesterday was so classy.  We were served champagne, cheese and crackers when we arrived.  Then we watched a projected slide show of all the spread comps for the printed album, followed by all of the photos taken at the wedding.  Next, we passed around printed samples of the spreads we just saw (scaled down to 1/4 the size of the final product) so that the couple (and family members) could have the opportunity to rearrange any photos they didn’t like.  After that, we passed around a sample of a printed album similar to what Drew and Heather have ordered.  The albums are handmade with leather bound covers and black-edged flush mounted (thick, unbending) pages.  Absolutely stunning.  Plus, they offer the albums in different sizes, including mini books!  Last, but not least, Drew & Heather were presented with a 2-disk set of DVDs containing high quality digital files of all their photos.  No proofs!  How awesome is that!?  Oh, and did I mention that the DVDs have personalized labels, and that the cover is also leather bound?  Yeah, these folks are the definition of classy.

All of that aside, I was very pleased to see that they photographed my graphic design pieces from the ceremony and reception.  Being part of the wedding party, I had nowhere to stash my camera, meaning I didn’t take a single picture that day.  I completely forgot to take pictures of my work in the environment!  Fortunately, since my brother has the digital files in his hands, he was ever so kind as to send me some of those pictures to me tonight so I could post them on my website!  And here they are:

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The quiz cards (above) got a lot of positive feedback.  Since it was mainly Heather’s idea, I can’t take much credit for it or it’s entertainment value.  So I mainly had a lot of people telling me that I did a great job of hiding the answer.  Apparently, nobody had spotted the answers until nearly the end of the night.  This surprised me; I was worried that the answers were obvious and somewhat illegible.  I deliberately put the answers on the right hand side on top of the design for two reasons.  First, because I wanted it to be hidden so nobody could cheat or accidentally see the answer before reading the question.  Second, since most people are right-handed, their hand/thumb would cover the answer when they picked up the card.  That way the answer gets hidden by the design and the hand.  Seems my cleverness paid off.

This is (hopefully) the last I will write about this job… unless I can get my brother to find a picture showing the table numbers and menus.  But I doubt it.  Up next: wedding programs for one of my brother’s coworkers to whom he mentioned I’m a graphic designer.  Aren’t siblings wonderful?

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Web 2.0 Look

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Hand Drawn Look — Apparently Web 2.0 is dead…?  (Read)

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What’s a Pumpkin Fairy?

Over at Etsy.com there’s a constant stream of people posting ads for artists to help them with some art project (Alchemy section).  Already I’ve spotted lots of posts for custom invitations.  I bid on this one: “I am looking for a unique pumpkin fairy invitation for my daughter’s 4th birthday party. Something shimmery with orange and brown.” I came up with this in about 2 hours:

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Think she’ll hire me?  [UPDATE: Wellll she didn't.  Siiiiiigh.]  Hahaha it looks so corny.  I mean… I’ll be the first to say that I’m terrible at drawing people.  And fairies.  This is the best you’ll get out of me.  She looks a lot like the little girls I drew for the children’s book:

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My cousin, Leslie, helped me with these two and the “pumpkin fairy.”  She’s the best.

P.S. What is a pumpkin fairy anyway?

Wedding Program

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8 pages

Size: 4″ x 4″

Art: original, but based off a similar design

Software: Illustrator & InDesign CS3

Date: Jun 2009

Books by Becky

Check out the two books I have on sale at blurb.com!

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