Graphic and Web Design
JourneytoChange.me
Jul 8th
JourneytoChange.me is a site promoting the wonderful cause of a woman riding her Harley solo across the country and back to raise money for charity. The site is fully social media integrated; her blog entries are auto posted on Facebook and Twitter, and she’ll be able to live blog from the road on her Blackberry. We also built an Ecwid cart that allows her to raise money by selling T-shirts on the site and also through her Facebook fan page.
It’s getting a lot of media attention, because it’s a great story. You can read it at Journeytochange.me.
Cirque Vigazz!
Jun 21st
If you like art, and you should, then you really should check out this work by the artist Charles Swenson: cirquevigazz.com. I was lucky enough to be asked to design the website, which I’m really happy with, but the art is the raison d’etre.
The NAMM that was
Jan 20th
Last week was the National Association of Music Merchants Winter Session, so it got me thinking about all the tradeshow graphics I used to do around this time of year. Now that I’m not working for a company in the music industry anymore, I figured I’d be missing NAMM again this year. The tradeshow happens twice a year, but Winter NAMM is the big one, and it’s always in Anaheim, CA.
Ever since I was a kid my dad and I have been sneaking in on borrowed badges and reveling in the glory of walls of exotic guitars and amps, so it was a pretty big deal to me to actually be an exhibitor there a couple years running. But I also saw how stringent they are about checking IDs now, so I knew those days of borrowed passes were gone. This year though my friend Bret called and said he was able to get me a pass.
One my favorite NAMM projects was a 3D model of a booth we had to cram a lot of gear into. The year before, we had had a larger booth and a demo room, which we did 2D floor plans for, but this is obviously more interesting to look at.
Rumpus Women Literary Calendar
Jan 10th
Also happening in October / November was the “Rumpus Women Literary Calendar” project. Being a 32 page layout on a short schedule, it got pretty intense towards the end but was mostly enjoyable. The theme was lighthearted and the people I was working with are friendly, which always helps. The Rumpus is a literary / art / culture blog and the calendar idea got started as a joke between the columnists. You can read about how it happened here: therumpus.net/2010/11/rumpus-women-literary-calendar
Some of the final page comps:
Just the other day they asked me for a banner ad and, since I like to be down for a cause sometimes I sent them this, gratis: (Link is to their shop)
Antoniacrane.com – Custom WordPress Blog
Jan 7th
I almost forgot about this one. I love her writing. We bashed this out in a couple frenzied late nights in November I guess it was.
Link: antoniacrane.com
Jeffrey Kendall Designs website
Jan 7th
November and December were very busy months for me, so much so that my own blog has fallen by the wayside. Here’s another site I developed really quickly (and color balanced/touched up the photos for). It needs a flash cookie to remember when you turn off the music or switch images but that’s a job with a different title. If you want to help out, drop me a line.
Link: jeffreykendalldesign.com (there is music, fyi)
Website Redesign – GogieGirl.com
Jan 6th
So, this is one thing I’ve been up since the last post… Gogie Girl, LLC designs and produces high quality women’s headwear (hats, visors etc.) that have exclusive materials, embellishments and better fit for women. They are in a great new niche and are doing big things in the women’s golf, beach volleyball and tennis apparel markets, as well as their ongoing charity work. It’s a fairly large catalog-style site (about 35 pages) geared to wholesale buyers. Features include an animated slideshow of the latest products, a WordPress blog, some pretty cool css (check out the “About Us > Reviews” page) and search friendly urls. The site is nearly complete but there will be more features coming soon. So far it’s had a 5.6% bump in traffic and I’m sure it will do more as more content and features are added. I also did a lot of their product photography, illustrations, and their logo redesign a couple years back.
link: gogiegirl.com
Orange Goes Green
Oct 1st
This is still a work in progress but it’s promising to be a very cool and very useful site on a rather slim budget. I’ve been working on the site functionality off and on for a couple months as features get added or changed. The core function is to keep user content separate so each person’s investment info is private. Not exactly a standard WordPress function to say the least. The chosen theme was Piano Black by mono-labs, but it was decided it ultimately needed a friendlier look. Three hours of heavy modification later, we’ll see if it get’s approved or goes back for more updates.
link: orangegroupllc.com
Chet Huffman Motorsports Trophy Truck
Sep 3rd
Update: This is an image of the real deal. The truck is done and it looks awesome!
This project was a collaboration between myself and Shai Harary of Head First Design in Canoga Park. Shai is a really cool guy and Chet Huffman Motorsports has been using his designs on their trophy and short course trucks for several years. Not only are the trucks winners in their own right, but Shai’s last design propelled the radio controlled toy version of the truck to #1 seller last year. Obviously I was stoked to be invited to work on this year’s version. The goal was to present the client with two updated versions, one subtle and one radical. Shai got the foundation of the subtle one going and then turned me loose on them. After I got a full set of graphics done, Shai added some great polish and finishing touches and, well I love it. I don’t think either of us expected them to come out this well, and the guys at Huffman loved ‘em. I think we could be doing more of these.
Watch Video of the 2009 Truck in Action
Out with the Old Website
Aug 11th
Well, it had a good run I suppose, and although it didn’t generate many leads for me, at least it was there as a portfolio. Most of my business has been driven by word of mouth advertising, which I think is the best kind, and the old website was just there to provide the visual proof that I could do what I said I could do. It was also my first hand coded site and a valuable experimental platform; I learned a lot from it. Hopefully you all will get more out of this new WordPress based site. I’m still very much in the process of building it out and I have a good feeling it’s going to do everything I wanted the old site to do, but didn’t have time for. Feel free to stay tuned, and thanks for watching.
Want one last look?
nightflightmedia.com/legacy
The Wedding Gift
Aug 2nd
I did a fun project with a client the other day using some photos he had taken at a friend’s wedding. He had a vision of the perfect shot that he couldn’t get during the excitement of the wedding day activities, but with Photoshop, all things are possible. This was really fun because he got to watch what I do and see his vision come to life, and I discovered we have a mutual love of old AC/DC records. We rocked out unashamedly. Now it’s off to the fine-art printer and he’ll have a beautiful Giclee print to give his friends.
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- before #1
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- before #2
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- before #3
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- After
Photo Restoration
Aug 2nd
Family photo restoration is a subject that’s emotionally loaded for anybody. When my grandmother, who I was very close to passed away last year, my family asked me to put repair some images for a tribute slide-show which of course I wanted to do. So, my dad scanned a lot of images and sent them to me for color-correction, dust and scratch removal and frequently even worse. Case in point, the image shown to the left of my grandmother as a baby in 1921(!) To say that some care needs to be exercised with an image like that is a great understatement. It’s also a completely different approach than retouching an image for an advertisement where, in a catalog for example, the goal is to show the product in the best light and make it attractive. With a family’s treasured photos it’s almost the opposite, the object is rejuvenation and preservation of an image that captures real, and really important people in a place and time. I can straighten a model’s nose for a shoe commercial, and no one will care, but this is personal. There is no room for artistic liberty, or digital trickery, no blemish removal (unless requested I suppose). Rather, I feel an obligation to serve the memories that the photograph contains the best that I can. And not just because it’s my dear grandmother we’re talking about. I take a serious approach with any image like that, of anybody’s family. Sadly I often see images that are restored without a great deal of attention to detail; you can almost hear some cut-rate artist saying “It’s OK, no-one will notice”. It drives me crazy when I see images like that, because it’s obvious that some piece of history, somebody’s family’s history, has now been blurred or smudged. It’s like saying “I want to have my classic car restored” and then taking it to a chop shop. Ultimately I think it’s the artist’s responsibility, I can’t blame people for wanting a good price on things. But as an artist, what’s wrong with that approach is that, while doing even a so-so job may make it look significantly better, it falls well short of the meaning of restoration. Personally, I prefer the challenge laid down by the necessity of accuracy. That brings out the best skills in my toolbox.
Six Ways to Get More Juice Out of Your Freelancer
Jul 30th
This is a nice short article from the Men With Pen’s blog that’s well worth reading.
Quote:
“Businesses hire freelance talent to absorb ebbs and flows in activity or to fill talent gaps that are essential but not required every day. For example, hiring a creative consultant can bring fresh ideas and the alternative perspective you need to get your business from good to great.
Businesses are all about returns on investments, though, so the big question becomes, how can you get the most from your investment in freelance talent? Here are 5 best practices (and a bonus!) that have helped me be more successful in reaching my goals each time I worked with a freelancer.” Full Article
Blitch 66 – the evolution
Jul 30th
Blitch66.com is a site we’ve been working on for some time, adding features over the duration. Initially, the site was designed as a wrapper for a fashion look-book with a lot of social media links. The object was to develop the branding and promote awareness while the product was being readied for distribution and e-commerce. Since then we’ve added the XPSF music player, a list of retailers, Bio and Media Pages, and have continued improving the e-commerce backend for when they want to sell online. The latest adventure has been the custom WordPress install, but I think it’s coming along quite nicely, and Blitch is really loving it which is the main object. It’s also been driving a ton of traffic to his site, we’re talking more than a %1000 increase in a month.
Check it out here: blitch66.com/blog
Yellow Emperor
Jul 28th
Yellowemperor.org is a Moodle LMS (Learning Management System) based site we’ve been working on that’s almost done. In fact, as of this writing the site already has one paying customer who found it through organic web traffic after only about a week online.
That may not sound great at first glance but we’re not talking about a week of advertising and promotion, we’re talking about a week of development time!
Check it out here: www.yellowemperor.org
