Mock Projects

About the company: Placeholder is an app for companies that helps keep track of customers that are waiting in line, getting assigned seats, or waiting for a delivery order. The goal of Placeholder is to help companies and their customers avoid disputes and confusion during the customer acquisition process by keeping it organized.

Logo: A logo for this company should be easily identifiable as a tech company. An asymmetrically balanced logo with a sans-serif typeface will give a modern, tech-focused feel. The logo should provide a sense of stability and calm to users of this app (these being the companies that purchase the app, and the customers of those companies). This works in parallel with the company’s mission of preventing customer disputes by helping companies keep track of customers and helping customers keep track of themselves. Black for the lettering, and a light green for any extra ornamentation are the perfect colors to provide both qualities and ensure readability. Normally, tech companies use blue to provide a sense of customer focus and friendliness. However, using green instead of blue will prevent the app from being confused for other apps, which will likely be blue in color. Preventing the app from being mistaken for other apps is essential for helping customer disputes resolve quickly.

What I learned: This was the first logo that I made after leaving my job at Samuels Seafood. With this logo I refined my sense of proportions, learned to utilize white space more effectively, and learned how to create asymmetrically balanced designs.

About the company: Frutas Dulces (Spanish for “sweet fruits”), is a family-owned, Nicaragua-based fruit company. Founded during the mid twentieth century, during the decline of the banana republics of Central America,  The founders of Frutas Dulces, a family of fruit farmers, sought to create an ethical (and later on during a growing awareness of climate change, sustainable) company that was unlike the companies that ran these banana republics, while still producing high-quality products.

Logo: To give a traditional feel, a script typeface was chosen for the logo. A rainbow motif is used throughout the logo in both the colors and arch shape that the fruits are arranged into. This visually emphasizes the diversity of the product selection, with each color used akin to a different flavor. It is a visual way of saying, “We offer every flavor you could possibly want.” The use of fruits in the logo further connects the logo to the products, and the arch shape assists the viewer in navigating the logo by providing leading lines, and by further emphasizing the rainbow motif. Visually complex logos, such as this one, are often avoided due to added costs and difficulty with execution in varied applications. However, hyper-simplified logos can create a sterile, corporate feeling. Due to Frutas Dulces’ positioning strategy of categorically distancing themselves from banana republic companies like Chiquita, a corporate look should be avoided. As is often the case with visually complex logos, different logos with different applications are necessary. In this case, a standard logo was created for most uses, a wide logo was created for a website banner, and a simplified logo was created for use in applications where detail might be tricky to make out.

Sell Sheet: This sell sheet was created to tell the story of the company (note: only as much text as needed to show design intentionality was used. Providing actual copy for this sell sheet would be impractical and distract from the intention of highlighting graphic design skills.) To prevent distraction and because details may be difficult to make out on the standard sized logo, the simplified logo was used. The background colors were used to provide a sense of rustic charm as were the typefaces chosen. Otherwise, the layout is a standard hierarchical grid, with elements placed and sized based on relevance.

What I learned: I further refined my skills in InDesign, going more in depth on grid systems and alignment. I also learned how to be more efficient during the design process. After making the logo, I created the grid structure in InDesign. However, I kept finding that the logo was out of proportion with the rest of the grid structure and would not fit unless I changed the aspect ratio of the logo, which would distort it. As a result, I had to go back and readjust the logo in Illustrator. After the project was done, I realized that I should have made my logo with an aspect ratio that would fit a wide variety of applications, such as a 1:1 ratio.

Project background: To get better at Photoshop, and to practice working between Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, I decided to make a movie poster for a hypothetical movie adaptation of one of my favorite books, Lord of the Flies. 

Poster creation process: The first thing I did was refamiliarize myself with the plot. After that, I used a stock photo website to search for components to put into the poster. Since the book is a horror book, I knew I wanted something unsettling, but not too unsettling. I also knew that I didn’t want to spoil the movie, so I decided to take inspiration from the beginning of the book when the boys crash on the island. I also took the pigs head, representing Beelzebub in the book, and placed it under the water for an unsettling, thalassophobia-inducing, effect. 

After the imagery was done, I needed to work on the title art. I knew that I was going to use chiller as the typeface, as it works perfectly for a horror aesthetic. I used illustrator to create the title art, cleaning up some of the stray marks inherent in this typeface for a cleaner look and played with the alignment of the words. 

After the title was done, I moved on to InDesign. I had proportioned the components of the poster beforehand in Photoshop, using the built in grid function, and used that as a guide for my base grid. I used a hierarchical grid system, based on the proportions of the subjects in the image, to determine the proportions I would use for the fonts. The positions of the different components (placeholder text for the film personnel, the rating, and the placeholder logo) were based on what is typical for a modern movie poster.

What I learned: From this project I mainly learned two things. The first was some techniques to get certain lighting effects in photoshop. Through clever use of overlays, color settings, and gradients, I was able to create the lighting effects necessary to get the ominous mood I was trying to create. The second thing I learned was how to better arrange elements in InDesign by utilizing the formatting tools in the text frame settings. This helped me create a more consistent layout.