College Freelance Work

Freelance work posted here includes designs I made as a student. Although there aren’t many, these were essentially my first works as a Graphic Designer, my origin if you will, and each one has taught me lessons that were only expounded upon as I grew as a Graphic Designer.

This piece was created toward the end of my sophomore year for my friend. He was given the honor of speaking at his graduation ceremony and asked me to create a design to wear on his graduation cap. To create this, I first cropped his head at the base of the neck. From there, it was a simple matter of positioning and recoloring the face to match the artist’s skin tone (from the original album cover being used). The most difficult part came from blending the side of his face to the point where it is torn away by the skeleton. I remember that part took a very long time as I had to basically scan pixel by pixel to see if it transitioned cleanly. Finally, I added a filter over the whole image so that both the head and body felt like they came from the same art style. Looking back on this project, I’m still very pleased with how it turned out. However, if I had one thing to nitpick, it would be the hand holding the diploma. I put comparatively very little effort into fixing that part, making it feel like an original piece of the image, and it shows.

This album cover was also created for my friends Max and Meghan for their Student Government campaign in 2019. The original picture served as the album cover for Bobby Tarantino II by Logic. Wanting their faces to seamlessly blend with the cartoonish bodies, I began by decolorizing the faces, adjusting the light levels, and then adding a hue that better matched the cartoonish skin tone. After achieving a semblance of harmony between the faces and bodies, I applied a filter to the entire image in an attempt to unify the real faces with the animated bodies.

Reflecting on this project with the benefit of hindsight and more experience, I recognize a couple of key areas for improvement. Firstly, I realize that I may have overdone it with the filters, inadvertently giving the faces an unintended aged appearance rather than the desired cartoonish effect. Secondly, I acknowledge that the use of text in this image appears sloppy. At the time, Photoshop was the only tool I was familiar with, and I hadn't yet delved into the world of typography. However, this experience taught me valuable lessons in the importance of subtlety in image editing and the need for continued learning and growth in design.

This design was created for my friend Esau during his Student Government election in our 2019 school year at Quinnipiac University. Esau provided me with several pictures of himself and requested that I place him on the front of a "Jimi Hendrix Experience" album cover. While I struggled with matching the faces to the bodies and blending their hair for a more natural look, the most challenging aspect of this project was replacing "Jimi Hendrix" with "Student." This required meticulous use of the stamp tool to gradually remove Hendrix's name while preserving the integrity and flow of the purple wave pattern behind it.

Reflecting on this project, I see it as a valuable learning experience. It taught me the importance of attention to detail and patience, especially when trying to seamlessly blend elements from different sources. Additionally, it underscored the significance of maintaining consistency and flow within a design, even when making significant alterations. Overall, while challenging, this project provided me with valuable skills and insights that I continue to apply in my design work.