Graphic design involves a lot of adaptation. Designers must constantly adapt their styles, usages of type, elements and color in new and innovative ways to stay relevant. Depending on the client, application, scope or desire for the project, no two designs are ever alike and an open minded approach is best to expand one’s portfolio and also reach new, unexpected solutions to graphics problems.

I find myself, as a designer, traditionally employing a cartoon-ish approach. I’m not sure what the reason for this is precisely, but growing up reading comic books may have contributed. I’ve always felt that simple was best in trying to portray a certain ideal or concept.

However, I’ve been very willing to break out of my comfort zone, which involves research, foresight and many, many failed attempts. In doing so, I’ve reached fresh solutions that are outside my expertise, but still impressive in their own right.

My warm, dreamy and movie-like representation of WWII romance as a promotion for the Windham Hospital 2012 gala.

Creating historically accurate and engaging graphics is one area I’ve dabbled in (and enjoyed). A few years back, designing 2 poster variants for a Fall Gala at Windham’s Hospital gave me a chance to do just that. By researching, studying popular trends of the 1940’s and finding the right combination of aesthetic, color and type, I was able to craft 2 retro posters that referenced the glory of the World War 2 veterans returning from war and being able to enjoy some much needed peaceful time back in the states. I also employed use of black and white filtering techniques, patriotic color schemes and a sense of motion to create a propaganda styled poster for the same event, entitled “Sentimental Journey”.

My patriotic based “call to action” wartime poster to promote the Windham Hospital gala of 2012.

An opportunity to represent my “preferred” style of graphic representation presented itself in the form of a later assignment at Eastern Connecticut State University, when our class designed posters to promote the Senior Art Exhibition that year. The art exhibition employed the popular meme “Challenge Accepted”, but instead of going the route of online cliche’, I employed a strategy that was closer to home to me as a designer. My design for “Challenge Accepted” epitomized a college student’s experience, particularly the art student’s experience when it comes to the pressures of making compelling work or facing the unemployment line at a young age. The design (which uses real notebook paper as a background) emulates the kind of panicked sketching that an overworked college student would employ, while it’s main character (an over-stressed stick figure) embodies the figure of a youth in angst, forced with a mounting number of demands. The poster became a favorite project of mine and remains one of my key portfolio pieces. Its effectively disorganized, whimsical and artistically tasteful, while retaining a focus on the design brief, which was to represent the ideal behind the art exhibition.

More recently, I’ve been taking more chances and designing in ways that are outside my scope. A look into the band Lunatic Wolf’s music not so long ago gave me another look on how to design an effective piece of art, an album cover. So many album covers are effective in the way they portray a bands’ ideals or the music on the particular album. To make this effective is an incredible challenge but one that I was very pleased to have undertaken and I am overall satisfied with the results.  My design for the “To The Adventure” Album Cover was a challenge that took many forms and directions before I settled on my design. I had originally wanted more references to an actual wolf on my design before I realized that it wouldn’t do enough to advance the notion of the “adventure”. The band’s music lent itself to a certain sense of mystery and fantasy that I thought was better suited being represented in an ambiguous way, which is what led to me revising my original design many times until it only vaguely resembled a dark forest backdrop with inviting (but scary) eyes lurking in the darkness. The album’s tone, art direction and style is not something I would traditionally design for, but as I often like to do, I invite more such opportunities to design outside of my comfort zone.