December 21, 2009

HA HA HA Happy Holidays!



My 2009 Holiday card and series of desktop wallpapers to celebrate the season. Enjoy!
1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1600 x 1200, 1680 x 1050, 1920 x 1080, 2560 x 1440.

December 20, 2009

Graphic Design Favors



As a designer we all do favors for friends and family and I'm not opposed to it. I usually take on a bit of a slacker focus to these kinds of jobs and don't really guarantee a turn around time since it would be most likely harmful towards paying work. Lunchbreath did this awesome poster of The Dreaded Killer Jellyfish. :) Loving this poster!

December 08, 2009

MyVomit-A-Pedia

This morning the White House streamed a video conference announcing the Open Government Initiative to promote transparency in government. During the announcement they used the government site MyFood-A-Pedia as an example of a data set that was released to the public. In this case one containing the nutritional data on foods commonly eaten and the site is to help with curbing childhood obesity issues. But seriously this is what you came up with?



This REALLY hurts my feelings (and makes it just a bit difficult to keep my lunch down). Not only is the logo and site awful, if you search common foods such as "Big Mac" or "Whopper" things people do eat that can lead to obesity issues it doesn't give you anything. Are you serious? The nutritional content for these foods is available on the back of the sheet that comes on your tray at McDonald's and Burger King. If their thinking is that people can just get this info elsewhere how helpful is it to make this site in the first place. It NEEDS to contain all the data, not just bits and pieces. And for God's sake get a real logo!

December 02, 2009

McGreen

Originally found at Brand New



The German outpost of the fast food mega chain, McDonald’s, recently announced that around 100 of its restaurants in Germany will change their well-known red backdrops to a deep green by the end of 2009. McDonald Germany’s VP, Holger Beeck, stated that the move is “out of respect for the environment.” But Germany isn’t the first to go green, France has been leading the European greening since 2006, when it launched the internal L’Eco Journal and its web site now features the logo against said deep green. This move is part of a bigger effort by McDonald’s to actually be green philosophically, more than just aesthetically, as chronicled in the McDonald’s 2009 Global Best of Green report. There are a couple of items for discussion: a) Is literally going green too lame? And b) does it hurt the brand by moving away from the very recognizable red? My take is, on the former, yes it’s kind of lame but at least they picked a nice green and, on the latter, McDonald’s has such a broad palette of brand icons — from the mnemonic Parapapapa sound to the Big Mac to the yellow arches — that substituting red is no big deal… in fact, just look how cool and recognizable it looks against black in the U.S. web site.

November 27, 2009

SQUIRREL!



It isn't just the animation that is always amazing with Pixar but also their writers and sense of humor. I love the"SQUIRREL!" parts of the movie Up. How many talking dog movies have you ever seen? Most of them seem to be too close to personifying the dog as a person rather than as a dog with doggie traits.

November 17, 2009

Knockout 2



This animation is a remake of my original second part of my Knockout Poster project which uses Adobe After Effects to create an animation of the poster. In the animation I chose to have the poster become the climax of a dynamic introduction that portraits Knockout as a world champion boxer. Using the sidescroll text sequence of the name in combination with the iconic Rocky Balboa theme song. The end of the movie is the pasting of the broadsheet and hanging of the gloves to bring a cohesive whole to the piece and it’s connection to the poster.

November 16, 2009

Pareidoodle



The above is just a doodle I did with Pareidoodle. Pareidoodle-Drawing Conclusions, is part of my master thesis Play and The Discovery of New Ideas. Pareidoodle is a new way of drawing ideas in a digital world. Based on the psychological phenomena known as Pareidolia, where a vague or random stimulus is perceived as significant. This phenomena is seen in common examples such as seeing images or faces in clouds, the Virgin Mary on a tortilla or even hearing hidden messages on music albums played in reverse. By using random marks and colors the user’s mind begins to make new connections to what they are drawing on and alongside in the seemingly meaningless and instill them with a sense of meaning through their own hand.

You can try Pareidoodle for yourself or even download a desktop version for Mac or Windows, here. Enjoy!

November 15, 2009

Good Afternoon Jumpers



Just thought I would share this because it ran through my head yesterday as I drove down to Orange, Virginia to see three good friends go skydiving for one of their birthdays. I'm not a fan of open heights but after seeing it and the safety that goes into skydiving I'm seriously reconsidering my position. I think I may have to jump out of a plane And you have to love Pixar, the animation, the stories and their great sense of humor. :)

Cruz Skateshop



Cruz Skateshop is an independently owned shop in San Francisco specializing in Roller Derby and Skateboard stuff. Owned by Sandy Cruz (aka Ms. Motley Cruz). Sandy is also my brother Gordon's girlfriend and they both work at running the shop together. Last May they came to Savannah, GA to celebrate my graduation from SCAD's graphic design graduate program. While they were visiting me they asked if I would illustrate a graphic for a t-shirt for the shop. They try to do two graphics every few months by different artists. This is what I came up with. Gordon also messaged me that the graphic which I finished up this past week and handed off to him is also being used as an ad on the Derby News Network. So stoked! :)

November 12, 2009

What a Beautiful Autumn-to-Summer Day?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes
Political HumorHealth Care Crisis


This was a ingenious personal follow up for me since last week I had dinner with a loved one who said, "I only watch Fox News because it is fair and unbiased." I think I may be related to seriously delusional people @_@.

November 10, 2009

Wells Fargo



A redesign for the Wells Fargo home page using, Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, Spry components, and Flash. I began by visiting half a dozen banking sites and found many to be very plain. The site picks up on the red and gold colors of the logo and utilizes the graphic element of the square. Inspired by Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie the squares represent interactivity and in all cases of interconnection the result is another square. Visit the site here. Please note, as of now the links go nowhere but you can see the different states of control that take place.

November 03, 2009

There's Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself



My version of The Scarecrow from Batman Begins. From sketch, to stitch to execution. It is not true to the movie, because well let's face it if you do true to the movie it falls flat. Why? Because you do not have a film crew, lighting crew, fx artists, make-up... That is why I don't go for making it look real. I go for making it look sexy. The mask also glows-in-the-dark, a direction I got from the party theme and the Scarecrow LEGO minifig.

You can see some photos of my process and the result here.

October 16, 2009

The Dark Knight 2



This is a redesign of an earlier work I did while a student in the grad program at SCAD. I've taken several weeks to truly teach myself After Effects from the ground up as well as doing a multitude of online tutorials.

The original premise of this title sequence was designed and executed several months before the release of the movie. In researching for the piece I found my inspiration in the poster of The Joker writing Why so serious? in blood on a window, in which the viewer is looking through at him.

I decided that since this movie was less about Batman and more about The Joker that the opening sequence should push that. Much in the same way that Saul Bass worked the opening sequence for a film in order to impress the mood of the film to the audience.

Many thanks goes to the excellent work and teaching of Andrew Kramer over at VideoCopilot.net.

Enjoy!

October 06, 2009

Lightsaber Technologies



With the increase of digital technologies and entertainment, the need for an animated logo is higher than ever. Movies, TV, Broadcast, Video Games all use animated logos. But how do we make something more conceptual than just spinning, zooming or fading in and out? I wanted to create an interesting and conceptual logo reveal so I created this. Lightsaber Technologies, where Jedi go to get their lightsabers fixed when they can't do it (the Jedi IT dept). And yes I know this is WAY off canon, but if you know me you know I'm a huge Star Wars fan.

September 29, 2009

Tapestry



This was a first round logo for my cousin's music group. As I was designing the logo I envisioned how it could be animated like this. Tapestry is a Christian music group from upstate New York comprised of five women. Their choice of name was that a tapestry requires each unique thread to be woven with the others into an intricately designed creation. The logo design was built directly from this concept as the threads weave with each other to create the shapes of the letterforms and the logo itself. Even though the logo isn't finalized I still wanted to create my vision for the animation.

September 15, 2009

The End



This is a pseudo teaser trailer for a made up movie called "Exterminatus" (and if you get the term you are a geek, and I love you for it). It is comprised of a meshing together of four different tutorials from Andrew Kramer's videocopilot.net (definitely check out the site if you are into learning motion graphics and After Effects). As I did the tutorials I just thought "I wonder what these would look like together?" So I went ahead and did it, with a couple additions of my own. Enjoy.

The song seemed appropriate being Smashing Pumpkins "The End Is The Beginning Is The End."
The typeface used is Electric Lady (B-29 Superfortress) by fellow SCAD MFA grad and aspiring typeface designer Derek Black.

September 08, 2009

Indiana Jones



I never understood why Indiana Jones had such an awesome logo but Lucas just seemed to drop the ball when it came to the on screen titles, all of which are Trajan. So I figured I would give Indiana a once over and created this, with a little help from Andrew Kramer's Ancient Titles tutorial at videocopilot.net.

September 01, 2009

Harry Potter!



Finished up my After Effects retraining! This is only a small (severely adjusted tutorial) piece I did. Don't worry more is yet to come ^____^

August 28, 2009

Where The Wild Things Are



Another awesome broadcasting project from my buddy and fellow SCAD MFA Seth :)

August 27, 2009

Gingerbread Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay



An ad for the Baking Industry of New Zealand. Some awesome animation and conceptual work here :)

(on a side note: RuTube? the russian YouTube?)

August 23, 2009

A Series of Awesome After Effects



I decided to take a break from my After Effects retraining (I'm currently working on learning the program more in depth), to watch Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Not the best movie per se but the end credits are just some amazing After Effects work.

August 18, 2009

New Blackhaus Poster



I'm really digging this redesign I did for my Blackhaus typeface promotional poster.

Jabba the Scott



From Blue Milk Special

"Back in ‘76 the original Jabba the Hutt was to appear in a scene right before Han transports Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids off Tatooine. Jabba was always meant to be a monster of some kind, and at the time the special effects just weren’t living up to Lucas’ filthy imagination. Northern Irish actor Declan Mulholland played the role of Jabba as either a stand in for a stop-motion creation to be added in post production, or to wear a mask over his head. Neither ended up happening, and Lucas scrapped the scene."

I didn't know this until I read it on their site so I thought I would share. :)

August 14, 2009

Fair?




I saw this in Baltimore last Sunday. The question is: Is guerilla marketing ethical? No question that Boost mobile may have to pay a fine for there work here but is it fair to graffiti artists that try to express themselves to in their work while some companies do work like this to sell themselves as "urban" and "cool?" Ji Lee uses graffiti work to point out the contradiction of personal vs. corporate work, not to sell it and he works for fucking google! No doubt I would love to work with Ji, we are completly on the same book.

August 12, 2009

Kiwi!

I had forgotten about this piece until a friend of mine had posted it up on facebook. I originally saw this sometime last year and it still amazes me.



Note the following is from the artist that created this piece (not me):
"My Master's Thesis Animation, which I completed while I was at The School of Visual Arts, MFA Computer Art, in New York City. Created using Maya, After Effects, and rigged using The Setup Machine by Anzovin studios. If you would like to download there is a small version at my website: www.donysanimation.com"

August 09, 2009

Clash of The Giants

Something I've obviously noted since coming back north is the rebranding of Giant foods.




The Original Logo




The New Logo

I can understand the need to rebrand especially in a market that wants more organic, natural foods and a more experience centered shopping environment. The cornucopia aspect of the logo isn't bad but the lettering just seems I don't know...generic. Many of the old stores featured signage in ITC Benguiat which in it's nouveau style at least felt organic. The new logo's lettering is emotionless and somehow doesn't capture the cornicopia essence of the mark. I think some hand lettering is in order and using the existing font as the brand's workhorse instead of it's logotype. But then again that's me, I could be wrong.

August 08, 2009

Non-Prophets Fresh Kinetic Typography



A motion graphics piece by my grad school friend Seth :)

August 07, 2009

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity.

Snagged from Scott over at PVP Comics. A must watch!

August 05, 2009

Now On YouTube!



The Dark Knight

I went ahead and created a YouTube page so that I can put my motion graphics pieces up on it for easier hosting and viewing.

gregeckler on YouTube

August 02, 2009

The History of Web




This page mock up is by davelawrence8.
I love the idea of what would Apple.com look like in 1983. It has me thinking what if we tried teaching web design with parody? The history of graphic design along with it's importance in print. And often parody is used in the teaching of it. Why is the history of web design not as important? We would probably see even more progressive web visuals if more students knew the history.

June 12, 2009

Are You Serious?

What the hell? I'm sitting here pouring over different websites of design studios and seriously people some of this is just plain shit! As graphic designers we are visual communicators, information architects, the alchemists that merge words and images to create golden messages. But what does it say of what you do when your site looks like...well I was going to say crap but after seeing the poster for the upcoming Banksy exhibition which uses crap it would be an insult to the aesthetic nature of crap.



A few choice sites that have made me exclaim "Are You Serious?" are:
This apparent homage to a romance novel
The 80's called they said, STOP IT!
Marketing made simple = ugly
Cute for about .001 of a second then just annoying
It scares me that this is a dude. And next Yaoi!*
*note I only know the term Yaoi because of web comics making fun of it and still had to wikipedia it to know what it was.

I should seriously consider just opening my own studio that all I do is the websites for other design studios because it is obvious I could make a killing just doing this.

May 19, 2009

Gettin' It On In Taiwan

The quarter is almost over and with it my grad school career :)
I have just finished my 4th and last thesis project which can be found here. My master thesis in titled Play and The Discovery of New Ideas.

In other notable news some of my work, that of my self promo piece that I designed was exhibited last week at the 2009 Young Designers Exhibition in Taipei, Taiwan. And while they were showing it off I sent them some Vicious Circus stickers to pass around :)


my self promo
note it actually unfolds quite a ways unfortunately they didn't have a display box big enough


You do now!


Apparently they love the stickers :)

there are tons more photos and when I get a chance I will sort them out and put them on flikr

March 21, 2009

Processing

This past quarter I had to take Digital Studio 2, for most this is just web design, but since it is about interaction I decided to step up and see what I could do. I taught myself Processing. It is an open-source programming language developed by Casey Reas and Ben Fry (as graduate students) at MIT. I used a book they published through MIT to teach myself and the end result was (in accordance with the class) a website located here My Adventures In Processing.

It was to say the least a learning experience, I knew little of even html when I began and learned how to program from the ground up, needless to say when I got half way through the book and it then said "now we will learn the easy way, object-oriented programming" I said, "what the fuck! there is an easier way and you bastards had me run in circles to make stuff work the hard way!" which is in the end all well and good because now I understand more of what I am looking at. Take a look and tell me what you think. I am now working on programs that will work in turn with my master thesis :)

February 09, 2009

What The F#@K?



This “Power League of Printing” video was produced by the Printing Industries of America to attract young people to the trade.

January 22, 2009

Awesome Video and Song

January 18, 2009

Illustration

I am Graphic Design graduate student, but it helps to get out of the department. This quarter I'm over in the Illustration department burning one of my electives in a class entitled "Illustration Concepts & Compostions" (I already used 2 electives taking Type Design classes last year that resulted in me winning the Monotype Scholarship).

This first piece was an exercise in color interpreting as we choose the phrase "Fish on a Leash."
I'm big into penguins and decided for some reason to forego fish for whales. It turned into what I now call "Moby and Captain Ahabguin."


The next is my current work in progress for an illustration for a Guinness World Record. I originally began with the world's fastest speaker, since I wanted to do something difficult to illustrate and not something under "World's Biggest..." or "World's Smallest..." I fought with my originally idea up until a day ago and changed it to something I had spotted a week ago in the Guinness World Record book. The World's Deadliest Cheese.


It's called Casu Marzu, google it, it's pretty gross.

Xmas

Since I was away for the holidays and came back straight into grad classes I figure I would take this opportunity to share a few treasures from the xmas. First what I gave out from my exhaustive "Santa's Workshop" enterprise. I began last year by trying to make all my gifts by hand and did so as well this year.

First up is the "Ping: The Drinking" mini-bar mirror I made for my "brother from a different mother" Ping.


Next is the "Bar Sweet Bar" bar mirror I made for Rob. (Sweet custom letter).


And lastly is the grand finale. A 14 in. Geisha softie I created for my girlfriend.