Egocentricity in 3D

One of the projects I did this past month at work required some 3D rendering.
OOH BOY NEW TOOLS!

I used a free program called "blender" at work, since it was, well, free.
It's not the most intuitive program for beginners. You really do have to sit down and read ALL the instructions (there are mountains). And heaven forbid you press the wrong key combination.

Long story short: had fun, wanted more. But not with blender (sorry guys - it's just not for me)
So I dug around the internet and found this tutorial on psdtuts+
Different program (I had to use a demo, but it's very shiny and friendly!)
I'm a sucker for punishment. Picked one of the harder ones right off the bat.

My end result is very different from the tutorial.
I didn't want to shell out the cash for stock imagery, so I used what I had lying around from previous projects (thank you book design, for your ample assortment of gear imagery)
Also didn't like the greenish tint to the final image, so I left mine in warm greys.

Long story. Gist is: Tori likes 3D.
Tori may do more in the future.

Decided to keep practicing photo editing as a time-waster today.

I think this lovely lady's name is Elantra. She was very much a camera hog. Three other mares were out with her but she'd just shove them out of the way and strike a dramatic pose every time I moved the camera.

Tsk. Such a drama queen.

Jellyfish. All the way down.

Just a little tribute to an adorable movie.
Wrote a report on Pixar for my management class this term. Considering how faboo they are I figured they could use a customized cover. This is it.

Who?

Just a little doddle to make you smile.

Corporate Identity - Vespa Rebrand

This project is still ongoing, but the logo-building is done.
A rebrand of Vespa (when I say that word I want to make an engine sound. I don't understand why. Vrrrrrrrrrr)

These are the two strongest choices out of all the options I came up with for a rebrand. A logo, and a wordmark. The logo is the one that won out. Those spirals were just too fun not to play with some more. At the moment it's in the process of being turned into a style guide, complete with sizing rules and how to use it on everything from business cards to scooters.

I was torn about which one to expand further. Both are fun.
How fantastic is it that Vespa had the convenient V and A as the first and last letter?
And that S in the very center!
Perfect to work with.

Let me tell you a secret: curled gradients suck. They're very cranky and they don't like you on principle. The green logo is a series of layered opaque shapes that overlap to create the curved colour changes.

Organ Greeting Cards

One of the best projects I got to take part in this year was a contest of sorts. An employee of Unisource (a paper supplier, see info here) and one of the YSDN professors are neighbors. She got telling him about the graduation show, and how we were looking for fund raising opportunities. He gave us the coolest fundraiser I have ever seen.

Unisource offered the graduating class 3000 dollars. 2000 in cash, and 1000 in paper...
For six greeting cards.

The deal was, every graduating student would come up with at least one greeting card. It could be seasonal, general, whatever. Any words used had to be bilingual. Out of the 90-odd cards a team of students chose 18 to show Unisource. Unisource then chose the winning six. Those six cards will be printed and sent out to design firms all over Canada to advertise a new line of paper called "Loop" (by Mohawk - lovely recycled paper!)

These three cards are a joint effort between myself and the lovely Veronica Windus, a fellow classmate. We decided to do something a little weird and put stylized vital organs on our cards.
Veronica drew the sketches of the organs (and the swirls) and I did all the digitizing and colour.
The brain I did on my own, since two cards seemed like an odd number.

"Thinking of you"
"You're always on my mind"
"Happy Valentine's day"
"Happy Earth Day"
"You're the air I breathe"

I've got more corny sayings if you want em.

Other than the host of hilarious taglines we could give these, there was a reason for choosing organs. The paper being advertised is loop, so logically we played up the name by choosing systems (circulatory systems, nervous system).

P.S. We didn't get picked :( But that's okay! We still know we're awesome.

Travelling Treasures - Exhibit Design

A full year of work has finally finished.
Blood, sweat, and tears (both literal and figurative) went into this.
Funny how this big ol' booklet caused so many troubles.

It was a challenge getting started. I knew from the start that if I wanted things to go smoothly I had to get the identity of the exhibit organized... and it just wouldn't cooperate. I ended up designing the whole thing without an identity in mind, which tortured me a little. Eventually I had enough similarities in the pieces that I could put together a solid explanation of how the identity would work, and rework everything to suit what I had come up with.

Lesson learned: identity design takes forever. Sometimes it's better to wing it and build the identity out of the pieces of the project that really work.