k e l s e y s t e f a n s o n

Common, The Dreamer/The Believer album artwork

2012-01-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

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Continue on with this post to see more photos of The Dreamer/The Believer album packaging that I designed.

Designing the cover and album packaging for Common's new album was hands-down the most fun project I've worked on in the last year. I loved how open Common was to an artistic image on the cover of his album, and I really enjoyed laying out all the type and information in the booklet along with imagery of Common, despite the challenge of fitting everything into a small 3-panel foldout. This was my first album design project and I hope to do more in the future!

Photography of Common by Steven Taylor

You can also check out the album artwork at Pitchfork's review of The Dreamer/The Believer. 7.6, not bad!

As a final note, despite some internet rumors that are, to me, quite flabbergasting, there were no Illuminati-based messages or symbols placed into this artwork or in mind while I was creating it. Or were there...?

KCET On-Air Rebrand

2012-01-16T13:55:00.000-08:00

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The above image is from the system I designed for KCET's (Southern California Public Television) 2011 On-Air Rebrand. View the rest of the post to see more!

This project was an exciting and extremely challenging undertaking. I have long wanted to work with on-air graphics and this was a great introduction! I love the idea of working to create an entire system of graphics and typography to fit with a whole host of scenarios and programming. The first set of images are from the actual look that KCET went with and debuted on air on January 1, 2011.

On-air "menu" of upcoming programs.

Sponsorship spot thanking or remembering a donor.

A lower third asking viewers to call in.

A lower third informing viewers of scheduling.

The kids version of the on-air menu, based off of refrigerator magnets.

The next series is a concept I explored for a few rounds until the above look was chosen. This look was based on the idea of sliding color bars coming onto the screen to reveal the information that KCET needed to convey. The bars would be atop either Southern California imagery or imagery from the KCET shows. The different color schemes could have been used to denote different types of programming or different times of day.

Logo end page style frame.

Programming lower thirds.

On-air menus.

Spots informing viewers of upcoming programming.

The final set of images are from an initial concept I proposed, which would be based around the idea of floating information panels. The panels would be able to float atop abstract imagery or imagery pertaining to the programming.

30 ROCK in syndication character posters

2012-01-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

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Continue on with this post to see the work I did for the 2011 30 Rock in syndication campaign.

As a huge fan of 30 Rock I was very excited to work on this project! In my eyes, the best way to remind viewers to catch this show when it reran on Fox was to show them the personalities of the show and some of their interesting quotes or characteristics.

The most challenging part of this project was having to work with only existing photography. I knew with this caveat that I would have to work to find some strong, interesting photographs of the cast. When I found these portraits by Art Streiber, one of my favorite entertainment photographers, I knew I had found something good!

These character posters were put together with Art's photography and headlines written by some coworkers working on an on-air promo and me. Click the thumbnails below to see my designs...

As this was a project with a somewhat long timeline before going to print, the final version was not finalized until after I had moved on to another company. The images below are the final versions of these character ads that went to print, as finished by bpg advertising.

Rejoice & Shout key art

2011-05-15T20:40:00.000-07:00

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Check out the final key art I designed for Magnolia Pictures's Rejoice & Shout and the process that went into creating it!

The final key art for Rejoice & Shout ended up being a combination of elements from the initial round of comps. Some elements came from one of my designs, and some from another designer at Gravillis, Inc., Nike Chapman.

Final key art.

After viewing the first round presentation, Magnolia requested to see comps designed combining elements from the below two designs. They wanted to incorporate the illustrated church with the photographic imagery of the musicians featured in the documentary.

One of my first round comps.

One of Nike's first round comps.

For the next round, I worked on combining my church illustration and Nike's collage. Below are a few of the variations.

As you can see, the elements worked very well together! I rearranged and reshaped the title treatment a bit, and shifted some images in the collage, along with drawing some extra pieces to go with the church. The third design was the preferred layout, but an injection of color was needed. In the end, the final key art ended up being a bold combination of blue and red-orange.

It's fun to see the poster I worked on up on the Apple Trailers web site! (It was even in the top row for a minute there!)

Glory Daze on TBS key art

2010-11-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

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I'm excited to share the key art I concepted and designed for TBS's new show, Glory Daze, as well as some of the process that went into this final ad. It is featured in this week's issue of Entertainment Weekly as the back cover.

Key art featured on the back cover of this week's issue of EW. Some final copy tweaks were made just prior to publication.

Final key art comp prior to finishing. Photography by Williams + Hirakawa.

For the first round comps, we started with some very (very!) rough sketches to hash out ideas; here is the thumbnail that led to the final key art:

Once we decided what concepts to move forward with, a few hours were set aside to supplement our concepts with a body double shoot. During the day, I was responsible for the majority of the photography, and all of the lighting set ups. A few of the shots from that shoot:

One of the images used for this "spotlight" comp.

The comp that led to the final key art advertisement.

Another comp I designed in the first round of key art exploration.

Design Star

2010-06-20T22:34:00.000-07:00

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I worked on the key art for the new season of HGTV's Design Star; it's fun to see that work on a billboard on Sunset Blvd! View full post to see a bigger photograph of the billboard.

m i x t a p e s

2010-03-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

Started a new music + design project, combining the only thing I can do musically (acquire and order songs) and a desire to design something around it:

first post is a mix called "+add up to years"

Work Compilation

2009-06-22T12:28:00.000-07:00

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A quick animated compilation of some of my design work, set to Dan Deacon's "Snookered".

Click above to view, or download here.

Comedian Ralphie May (exploration, final poster)

2009-05-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

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Well-known comedian Ralphie May recently visited my university and I was given the opportunity to design a large poster to promote his performance. I explored a few different visual ideas for the poster, and in the end, Ralphie May really liked the final version.

The first idea I had was to play off of the comedian's large stature and create bulbous, comedic-looking typography to display May's name. In the end, the letters were not incorporated into a poster, but it was a good exploration.

Another way I thought to convey Ralphie May's larger-than-life persona was by employing some sort of 3-dimensional element in the poster design. (Click on the small images to view full-sized.)

For a couple other variations, I simply tried playing around with typography, wanting to get the name Ralphie May directly in the viewer's face.

The final version combined 3d elements with a more "shiny" look that mimicked the lighting used on the image of Ralphie May I had been supplied with.

video: a heartbreaking work of staggering genius

2009-05-16T22:23:00.000-07:00

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In the past couple of years I have become increasingly interested in the field of motion graphic design. For my senior project, I chose to push myself to learn as much as I could in a 10-week period about creating a motion clip in AfterEffects. As a subject, I chose to do a mock opening title sequence for the book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, written by Dave Eggers.

This clip is only a snippet of the whole project. In all, the piece is around three minutes.

Click to download/view video.

Odds & Ends: Star Wars, Life Skills, ....

2009-04-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

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Thought I'd share a few things that were left on the cutting room floor, but that I really enjoyed creating and might integrate into something in the future... View the full post to see full-size versions of the above posters, as well as a Spring 2009 calendar and another version of the "Life Skills" advertisement.

I really love this poster. I think I may have been having a bit too much fun with it, considering the subject matter, but I do love the shapes and colors. Very into triangles lately for some reason...

This event ended up being advertised with this poster:

Still fun, and still reached my goal of breaking the style conventions typically associated with our ASI graphic design output.

Another design that I completely love (well, at least parts of it), is this version of a poster designed for our Craft Center. They have had a year-long Star Wars theme going on, so when setting to remind students that there were new classes being offered starting in March, they wanted to incorporate that theme in the poster. They ended up using a more straight-forward Star Wars look that I created, but I really love the background element I created for this version:

Earlier in the year, a fun exercise I did was crafting a visual description of how I travel from home to school. I both had fun writing it and designing it, especially since I injected some of the random thoughts that pop into my head while walking.

Finally, something that has since been distributed to about 6,000 pairs of hands.

This is the backside of an Events + Activities guide distributed to students at Cal Poly. The bright colors were very well received!

Process: Flix and Concerts in the Plaza

2009-04-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

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I'll describe these two promotional posters together because the Concerts in the Plaza look actually came from an idea for the Flix poster. Shown above are the final versions of each poster that were printed and posted around campus. Below are the different versions of each that I pitched to the event coordinator.

Immediately upon being assigned the project of the Flix poster, I wanted to show all of the movies in a film-strip style. It may seem like an obvious solution, but despite this event occurring every quarter for quite a few years, I couldn't find any previous design that used this idea.

I liked this version a lot, because it showed a few different snippets of each movie and also simply screamed "movies!".

The next idea stemmed from my desire to do something with patterns and symbols relating to films. (In the beginning, there were multiple layers of different patterns and sizes.) I wanted each film to pop out on its own and for the important information (date and name of movie) to be very clear.

My next concept aimed for a simple, yet colorful look, with a symbol assigned to each movie.

With the final image I created for the Flix poster, I wanted to put all of the movies' characters together in some way that still kept the dates and information separate. As with some of the others, I wanted to use eye-catching colors, including those that were not naturally found in the images.

Interestingly, when the event coordinator saw all of my images, she immediately gravitated toward the second concept for the Flix poster, but also really wanted to recreate the final image using the bands who would be performing for the quarter's Concerts in the Plaza series. Originally I was not to be working on the Concerts posters, but was flattered and took them on.

Traditionally, the Concerts in the Plaza promotions do not heavily feature images of the performers, and usually list all 9-10 performers on one poster. This quarter, something different was tried, and we split the performers into two groups to remind students mid-quarter that there would be new bands coming.

At first, I simply plugged in the band images into the same composition I had used with the film images.

However, since the subject matter was slightly different and required a bit more energy (and also had to accommodate more information) I played around with some of the elements and added a title graphic that both mimicked the seating in the plaza as well as a visual depiction of sound. This element was used not only on these large posters, but also small fliers and postcards.

For the second poster, I used the same general composition, but used a new color scheme to alert viewers that these were new performers for the rest of the quarter.

Process & Iterations: Hi-Speed Soul

2009-02-28T18:42:00.000-08:00

Created in the Spring of 2007, this piece was designed as a sort of calligram, using the song "Hi-Speed Soul" by Nada Surf as text.

View process images and iterations by clicking "View full post" link...

Since I made this a couple of years ago, I don't have a lot of details to recount regarding the process. What I can say, however, is that this small portion of the song always struck me very strongly as an interesting way to say "things are not right". I don't know if anyone else listening to the song has ever been affected so strongly by the lyrics "they're playing the song at the wrong speed", but I thought it would be a great line to focus on.

Sketches:

Various versions and pieces:

Final Version:

Lettering & Calligraphy workshop

2009-02-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

This past week, we had an assistant professor of graphic design from New York come to our school to join a couple of critiques and lead a short lettering and calligraphy workshop. I made this quick (except all the time adding little swoopies...) poster to spread the word around the art department. (I didn't realize it until my roommate pointed it out, but I think I might have had a little subconscious influence from Marian Bantjes' work, as she has a show in our gallery this month and did a wonderful presentation for us.)

test post

2009-02-05T18:16:00.001-08:00

This is a test post.