The Expert 2.0

Below is the design I created for a thesis book cover: The Expert 2.0: How Blogging has Changed the Notion of the Expert. I decided to go for a simply color scheme and format. I liked the idea of using a venn diagram to incorporate different social media networks and tie it in with the idea of an expert.

Opacity Mask

I followed the bittbox tutorial to practice the opacity mask tool and I think it came out well.

Summertime

My first attempt at anything in adobe flash. I was determined to make the ball bounce.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Launch Button

After numerous attempts, probably too many, I have only been able to create the below image. Around step 5 and 6 I decided to create the striped box with my own tweaks. The launch button was the most difficult to create. I don't fully grasp the opacity button and I wasn't able to create the word "launch" properly. I can't get the white font to stand out after using the opacity tool one last time.

Photo Shoot 7

Baseball in the Spring

Below are a series of baseball pictures I took at a Yankees game opening weekend. Everyone says Memorial Day weekend means summer is upon us and I believe baseball season is an indicator that spring has arrived. I took images of the game and the stadium to capture the overall essence of Yankees stadium, which is one of the more modern stadiums.

Shield

This is my attempt at following the gradient tutorial. I created a shield, but couldn't create the shine effect as well as I would like.

polka dog bakery

When I was first shown the logo for polka dog bakery I thought it was terrible. I found the worst part of the logo to be the dog. I understand they are going for "polka" dots, but the image itself is awkward to look at. Well, after looking into the company I understand why they have a logo of a dog with one eye.



Polka Dog Bakery is the company's tribute to Pearl, a stray dog the owners found. Pearl had only one eye, which gave her the funny habit of dancing her head from side to side whenever she stopped to say hello. She did a little sort of polka to everyone she met. So Pearl became the Polka Dog and danced her way into people’s hearts.

I do not want to completely altar the logo knowing more about the back story on this company. Unfortunately, I think it's safe to safe most of polka dog bakery's customers do not know this story. I have a suggestion for re-designing a new logo, but still being able to maintain the image of Pearl.

Here is what I propose for a NEW logo. I like the idea of making the font logo black and white this way it can be placed on all the packaging and not contrast with the other colors. The font is a play on the name polka.




Polka dog bakery has images literally reflecting the flavor of dog food in the packaging. In my opinion, this is the worst part of the brand. A customer doesn't need to see an image of chickens when they purchase chicken flavored dog food for their pet.



Rather than these gaudy images, I think the image of the polka dotted dog should be on all the packaging. On the back of the packaging, whether it be tin cans or plastic bags, should be a little excerpt on Pearl and how they came to found the company. At the end it should explain how you can donate to the SPCA OR if the company can budget this on their sheets, perhaps 5 or percent of every purchase is donated to the SPCA. People love to purchase products where they know part of the proceeds are going to charities. They love that feeling like they contributed in some small way.