The JMEC Gallery

Hello! So I've been quite busy this week so that would explain the reason why it took me so long to update the blog! Hopefully what I have today will make up for the fact you guys had to wait so much. So it's been a while since I've created anything creative. The last real effort I made is the 60's suburban house we had to design for a class on Frank Lloyd Wright which I might post up here later in the year. Some of you may know that me and my friends (ironically, the same one's I was with when making the Frank Lloyd Wright house) started a company last semester, and are now making concrete steps into making a real business. It's an exciting time and there's a lot of hope. The people I'm working with are incredibly dedicated and have helped me a lot with this and with other things ver the last year, so having them as partners is great. Since I'm the one who can get around Adobe products, it was my job to make the initial ad trying to get students to join. I'm very pressed for time, since I'm working and taking a bunch of classes, so i wanted to make a work that was easy to create and wouldn't look cheap or ridiculous on a board beside the work of bonafied art students...

Originally I was planning on having no image at all, but while I was bringing a friend home from work last week, she explained to me that I need to have a picture to interest people. She knew what the original plan for the ad was and helped me through some of the design elements, like the fact that it should be placed in the form of a Z, since that's how we read a book. The logo shouldn't be dead centre like I planned on making either... it should be on the side. In all, I ended up taking all her comments into consideration, and while she told me to just add a cartooney looking frame with a question mark in the middle backed by an easel, I thought that... realistically I can do better, and if I'm going to have a drawing up there, I want to be proud of it.

In the end I ended up making the ad that same night, and the french version was made a few days later. I spent many hours on the work... but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. I kept the papers I drew on making the piece, I the hopes that someone following in my footsteps can be inspired in some way or get something out of my experience. I'll post some pictures below and the steps I took making it.

The Logo

Some of the different logos I drew up

The first and most obvious thing laking in our company was the logo. The name for the company was thought up about a week before, being a mesh of Jean Marc, Eunice and Chris. It's an elegant solution. The original plan was the draw a rectangle simulating a painting, with the logo written on the bottom right, like an artist's signature. My friend Sarah (the friend I work with) suggested I keep the box open, and not close it, so the logo morphed into this. Before this page was made, I also thought of making the logo in a diamond shaped square too but the L shape worked the best.


















Template

The Ad Template with the original drawing idea

I got the inspiration for my ad from one from a creuset ad I saw on the back of last month's Ricardo Magazine. The drawing is the original idea.. and after looking at the drawing for a little while I decided against it. 

The Living Room

The living room sketch became what  the ad was, I wanted it to have more of a 3d feel then the final product, but with the font I found it looked like an  ad from the 80's, so I was happy. In this drawing, the plan was to make a group of 3 dimensional 'bathroom men'  (that's what I call 'em because I have no idea what the real term is) having a great afternoon surrounded by potential art they bought form us. meh. It also helped me figure out the perspectives. I knew I wanted a 2-point perspective since that becomes more interesting to see and realistic, but it took me like 8 different drawings to get to what I wanted which brings me to...

The Drawing!

Ok so I had 2 points where all the lines went when making the drawing, and everytime I made one thing, I would create a bunch of lines stemming from these points, and converging to make the objects I wanted. It was easy, once I got the perspective right, it just took some time, and it also made my drawing very box like. The only thing that didn't follow the rigid structure was the book on top of the other one in the table... I had to make a whole new perspective for that.. but it makes the whole drawign a bit more realistic. 

The Final Product

The ending was't nearly as ambitious as i would've liked. Since I wanted to create it as quick as possible I couldn't include anything that was rounded or not cube shaped essentially. The advantage is that the end drawing looked simple; it wasn't busy and so it attracts people more. The french version of the ad was a nightmare as far as grammer goes. Thankfully Eunice knows french well and was able to translate everything for me.. but it took me a while to figure out that gallery is with one l in french and means shopping center. You need to indicate art in there or else it makes no sense. :\

... and there you go! So that's it for today's post. My next ad is hopefully going to be a little more ambitious. Maybe an isometric drawing? We'll see. I'm going to the auto show tommorow and it should be a lot of fun! Take care and have a good week.

P.S. I realize the post is screwed up for some reason... I'll fix it at a later time.