Mountain View Corridor and the Mitt Romney Visit

Couple months ago, Mitt Romney came for a visit to check out the pieces of military property that needed to be transferred into state hands so they can finish building the MountainView Corridor. I was asked to generate a couple maps to make clear what is being proposed. Went through multiple revisions. Used Adobe Illustrator to produce these. 

'51 Ford illustration

This is not a photo

What you see here is the result of many many sessions, over a 3 month period, of creating shape after shape in Adobe Illustrator. The image source for this is a photo I took at a small car show years ago.

Also decided to take some of the slogans, used in an original Ford ad (See below), to create an original ad. I used illustrator to outline the '51 Ford logo, so I could have a vectorized version to resize to whatever I choose.

You can find the original illustration (Not this ad) for sale at my fine art store on Imagekind.

Final illustration, with vintage Ford slogans and logo added. Copy right 2017

Vintage Ford ad. NOT CREATED BY ME

Why did I do this?

I did this because of U-haul. For years I had seen some really nice illustrations on the side of U-haul trucks. Then I saw this one:

Uhaul ad, NOT created by me. Very cool

These impressed me for their quality and unique style. I find these incredibly eye catching. Whoever is over marketing at U-haul – two huge thumbs up! Having an artist to utilize Illustrator (Assuming) to create illustrations with a unique style and look, is smart in my opinion.

After seeing this, and others, I decided I wanted to create my own high quality illustration using vectors. After much deliberation I decided I wanted my first professional illustration to be based on a photo I've personally taken, and I wanted chrome, lots of shiny chrome. (Not the browser)

Several years ago I went to a small car show behind the Litza's Pizza restaurant in West Valley City. Took a ton of photos. Years later I came across this photo and knew this was the one.

Details

Below are some detail shots of the illustration.

Illustration: Free data from the masses

Created this illustration for an online story. Not totally sure if this ran or not.

At any rate, here is an image of my thumbs and the final illustration. Final illustration was created in Illustrator and Photoshop. The idea was to show how researchers gain easy data from social networks.

Grandma and child illustration

I've picked up a little more illustration work with my job at Deseret News. This one ended up being for online only. If you would like to read the story, written by Daphne Chen, associated with this illustration, here is a link. The story revolves around our nation and state's ever-growing population problem stemming from low birth rates. Here comes the demographic winter.

About this illustration

The writer provided me with a stock image. I took this into Illustrator and created many many vector shapes. It is a paint-by-numbers approach, but I like the simplified results derived from it. Obviously there is some creativity in making decisions about placement and color of shapes. For example, there is always additional creative judgement that needs to be made with human faces. Shapes and shadows on faces are almost never cut and dry. In the case of the grandma, especially, I had to alter some shapes and colors to make her look less creepy.

Below you can see the result before taking it into Photoshop.

The emotional payoff

Below is a detail showing in greater detail the shapes of the figures. All in all the work in illustrator represents between 2 and 3 hours.

My feelings as I go through this meticulous work could be comparable to coloring in an adult coloring page, with all its hundreds if not thousands of cells. For some reason it is relaxing, calming and rewarding on some fundamental emotional level.

Finishing in Photoshop

It should be noted that I don't just do a straight copy and paste to Photoshop of the entire illustration. I organize in Illustrator using layers, based on background, midground, foreground and the central figures of this rendering. Then I copy and paste one by one into photoshop so as to create layers which can be edited separately.

Below is the final result after applying some creative texturing and blurring, in photoshop. I deliberately left the central figures alone, in the hope that their increased simplicity will draw attention to them. I think it does just that in a very pleasant way.

What do you think? Let me know. Have a good day, and God bless.

Psychology of the Scare Illustration

This illustration turned out to be quite satisfying to create. I found a stock image of a couple in a movie theater. Took this into Illustrator and created a lot of shapes using a Wacom tablet and my normal mouse. Don't use a tablet very often in Illustrator, so I thought I would give it a go and see if it could speed up my work or accuracy. I don't know, maybe I need to use it more, but I found the tablet to be no faster than my mouse in this regard. What I have found them to be very good for is more traditional techniques that involve pen pressure.

After creating all the shapes, I then proceeded to add color. This tends to be the most difficult part for me. Finding the right colors seems to be a challenge for me. After this I pulled different sections (Back ground, mid ground and fore ground) into Photoshop for toning and additional texturing. The next week I laid it out for the Friday feature. Over all I think this turned out OK.

What do you think? Did I capture the expressions well? Do the colors work for the content of the story?

Here is a link to the story by Adam Droge, if you're interested in reading

Illustration, Digital Isolation

Pulled this illustration together in about a 5 hour period. All things considered, this turned out alright.

Below is the first version without the girl, then the final, and lastly, the illustration as seen in the layout for the National Edition of the Deseret News. (Layout by Heiddi Perry)

Here is a link to the story, by Chandra Johnson, if you are interested.

A Noticeable reduction in saturation can be seen due to toning. 

News print has a much narrower color gamut than other papers.

Logo for Solid Point Engineering

Over the past couple weeks I had the opportunity to do up a logo for my Brother-in-law Taran and his wife Lauren. I wont bore you with the details. Suffice to say all these were finalized in Illustrator. I used Photoshop to assist in the beveled look of the lettering.

 Below are all the several incarnations of the logo, with the last being the one they selected.

First draft

2nd Draft

3rd Draft

 Final logo design

How do you think I did? Do you like the final logo better than the others?

Religious affiliation of the Presidents

Thought this would be worth sharing. This is a chart showing the various religious affiliations of Each U.S. president.

Took a ton of time to crop and place each one into this graphic. Used Photoshop and Illustrator to create this.

August Graphics in review

And the top 10 for August are ....

1. Stress in America graphic

Graphic done for a Story Written by Lois Collins.

2. Your body and media

Graphic done for a story written by Chandra Johnson. Good read for any teen or parent concerned about how the media is affecting your teen's body image

3. Teens, Tech and friendship

Graphic done for a story written by Chandra Johnson.

4. Religion in the Bay area

Graphic done for a story written by Mark A. Kelner. Story About Religion and stress at work in the Bay area.

5. Body image illustration

Did this for a feature about a series of stories on Media and Body image among teens written by Chandra Johnson and Kelsey Dallas.

And here it is in context of the page

6. Original A2 graphic

Only reason this is here is because I researched and created most of the imagery. I just pull most of these from from a news service. But this one is all me.

7. Photoshop job for Church News

I composited these elements together in Photoshop. I made some alterations to the labels of the box and calligraphic text on the book.

Deseret News graphics May-June

I'm lazy

Sorry to whoever may look forward to seeing this. I dropped the ball last 3 months on doing a post on top graphics for the month. Below is for the months of May and June. As there are a ton of graphics, I am not even going to attempt to go through these and list my top ten for both months. However, feel free to look through and enjoy.

  

March Deseret News graphics in review

Here, again, is my top 10 picks for graphics done for the Deseret News for the month of March. Enjoy!

1. Big business verses local business

This graphic shows starkly how local chains stack up against national chains in how much money is recycled back into local economies. Couldnt find this story online, which leads me to believe it was only published in print. Sorry 

2. Timeline on depictions of Christ in media

I found this interesting for how many different ways in which the Master is depicted in our culture. Obviously some more accurate than others. Her is link to the story by Deseret news writer Mark A. Kelner.

3. Orthodox Jews are stalwarts

This is one of those rare times in which I was able to incorporate a visual element of the story into a graphic in a practical and pleasing way. This is a great faith-promoting story by Kelsey Dallas for the Deseret News

4. We still want better and bigger things

This really shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us. Who doesn't want to improve their quality of life? I certainly do. But where does too much become too much, and too big become too big? This is a Great story on Money and happiness by Lane Anderson for the Deseret News

5. Print! Its Alive, Alive!

Had fun with this graphic. Though perhaps a little cluttered. This is perhaps proof that books, you know, those dead tree sheets you can hold in your hands and read from, might be around for a very long time.

6. Fun Layout

Yes, I know it promotes Disney, but I had fun doing a small cutout of this air surfing whelp from Disney's Treasure planet. This is still one of my favorite Disney films from the early 2000s. Overall I think the layout turned out quite well.

7. Low pay in Salt Lake for sitters

I am not terribly surprised by this. Freelance work in general, is lower in Utah than the national average. Is this a result of savvy business dealings or just plain cheapness? I have no idea. Here is the link to the story by Matthew Jelalian for the Deseret News.

8. Death for those who deserve it, still favored in America

This graphic was published in an article that focuses on the 6th commandment. This and other articles are part of a series on the Ten commandments and what they mean to us in modern society. This article was written by Eric Schulzke.

9. Single parenting

One of the greatest indicators, in my opinion, of a failing society is how many children grow up in a single-parent household. I have personally seen how much more difficult it was for children to grow up without a father in the home. At best many turned out OK, at worst many go off to prison or worse. While  father is no guarantee that a child will make all the right choices, fathers are an undeniable stabilizing force for boys and girls. This transfers into the greater society. This is the link to the story by Lois M. Collins

10. Making babies better through genetics

Is it morally right to genetically alter babies? As medical technology and processes advance this question will need to be answered. Being a Star Trek fan I can't help but wonder if genetic manipulation could be used to create super-humans (Star Trek II, Star Trek: Into Darkness). Would said super-humans seek to eliminate who they deem unsuitable to continue the human race. Who knows. Here is the article by Kelsey Dallas.

Here is the rest of March Graphics. Enjoy!