A Portfolio in Progress

I created this blog to document the experience of not just defining and showcasing my best work to date, but also to showcase the designer and individual I am and am attempting to become post-graduation.

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A quick flier I made for the Boston Compass - illustrations by Driton Krasniqi.

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Making mock ups for the client.

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Working on Katie and Jonny's Save the Dates for their upcoming wedding! The wedding is taking place at the top of a mountain accessible by train, so the design of the save the dates is inspired by vintage train tickets.

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After a couple weeks off I'm finally back to starting a new project! Practicing my embroidery techniques so I can apply it to cool new products c;

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Playing Around - printed proof of the second version, made some edits to how the footnotes are treated and how headers/sub-headers are treated.

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Setting some type based on a digital proof for the Nativity Prep School!

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Playing Around - first printed proof to check out letter size and layout/information structure.

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What Next 2014 - Graphic Design Senior Exhibition

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The LUCAD design seniors needed to come up some ideas for our senior show. Ultimately, we decided that the theme of our show would be based around the question: "What Next?" Since each of us has different ideas about what is next, we all responded to this question by making 16x20in posters together in an overnight design blitz. This is my poster from that evening, a rapid-fire creation made with a combination of hand-pasted collage and computer generated typography.

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This is a wedding invitation that I set for a client. Design direction was by Michael, I set all of the type.

This work was done by me with supervision by Michael Babcock of Interrobang Letterpress, Jamaica Plain, MA.

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This is the final composition for the internal pages of the Gladiola type specimen. This is Michael's layout design, I set all of the type on these pages.

Thanks to Michael Babcock of Interrobang Letterpress, Jamaica Plain, MA.

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Hermann Zapf specimen final version.

This work was done by me with supervision by Michael Babcock of Interrobang Letterpress, Jamaica Plain, MA.

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The Garden of Eichstatt

This a primer on Basilius Besler’s famous text about the plant specimens in the Garden of Eichstatt.

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On Friday I did some more work on the Gladiola specimen for Interrobang. These are show casing some of Interrobang's ornament as well as the Gladiola typeface.

This work was done by me with supervision by Michael Babcock of Interrobang Letterpress, Jamaica Plain, MA.

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I wasn't quite sure how I was going make the illustration playful, yet. I returned to the idea of spanking, which I find ironic because it was the first erotica novel I had looked at and scoffed at, visually. I thought spanking would be a nice way to show kink using watercolor, because I could just add a tinge of pink to the skin color. It wouldn't have to be too dramatic or scary looking, and spanking doesn't require one to buy any toys, which I think individuals that are less experienced with sex positivity or sex play can be made uncomfortable by.

I'm not much of an illustrator myself but after looking at Picasso's line drawing (realistic but not cute) and revisiting Favre's work (too edgy), I ended up trying to make a heart shaped butt - because how cute is that a heart shaped butt anyway. I also got the inspiration from traditional style tattoo culture, which I found appropriate to reference for the counter culture kinksters.

I'm worried that this approach comes off as too feminine and will be inaccessible to men. Too cutesy for a masculine individual's taste, perhaps. I could balance it out with the rest of composition, with the type, but we'll have to see about that from this point.

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I was left with the question of classy kink, counter culture kink or a typographic approach that was minimal and referenced neither?

I left this question in my notebook and retired to bed where, once I shut off the light and was dozing off (of course), I got my next train of thought.

I started thinking about irony, or maybe not irony, but just opposites. What could be the opposite of kinky, naughty fun? Candy is what popped into my head. I felt a little nervous about candy immediately, there is an air of childishness associated with candy and I'm not interested in fetishizing children (esp. girls). The next day when I was doing some googling I came away not with images of candy in my mind but an idea of a color palette: pastels. Maybe just because today was the first day of Spring.

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When I first started looking for pornography, I started with a source that I am familiar with: fuckyeahsexeducation.tumblr.com. I only started here and not google because I felt like I would yield some of the more consent-informed, sex positive kink on the internet instead of, maybe, run-of-the-mill not-so-feminist porn.

I found what I was looking for in a pretty awesome site called QueerPorn.tv. It was a good jumping off point. Between that an the E4RL porn blog, I came to realize that are two main schools of thought that I can follow here in the porn world: classy kinky or counter-culture kinky.

Counter culture has been popularized more and more in the media lately, with groups such as Suicide Girls adding to the public's perceived normality of "rebellious" things that were once super taboo like tattoos. (I'm not implying that SG is particularly awesome group to endorse from the feminist standpoint, either, just saying they have contributed to a newly accepted aesthetic of "sexy").

Classy kinky is one we have known for a little while, especially since pornography and sexuality have become more accepted in society in general. It has do with a certain aesthetic of lipstick, and pearl necklaces, and stockings, and high heels. There is money and luxury in the classy kinky aesthetic, and it's probably what the general public is more comfortable with viewing. I'm referencing visual material in the media like the Secret Diary of a Call Girl poster, where she wears a perfectly pink feminine outfit and holds fuzzy handcuffs. Or the 50 Shades of Grey magazine cover, we can see our dom holding the classic silk tie, a tool for restraint.

At this point in the research I was starting to feel like I was going to have to choose a camp and go with it.

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When I first started researching what sort of materials in the porn/kink/sex publishing world already existed, I knew the best place for me to start was with Penguin's new edition of the Kama Sutra, illustrated by Malika Favre. She's a wonderful illustrator and I admired her approach to the risqué topic. I was hoping to continue induing clever examples of book covers after looking at her work, but it turns out that most books to do with sex have highly predictable designs.

From there what I found was generally either a literal representation of the content (photo of red bottom) or the opposite, something that mainly treated typographically with minimal photographic elements.

I realized I wasn't finding the inspiration I needed by looking at the covers of erotica novels, so I went right into the porn world.