Back to School!

So it's official, summer's over!

After four months of going from job to job and contract to contract, cumulating experience and making new contacts, it's time to slow down on the professional and refocus on the educational. I have had an amazing break, and am extremely grateful for all the great people I got to meet, and the great things I took part in. It's a little hard to put a stop to my full-time job at the studio, as I have gotten really fond of the place, the work, and the team, but I am thoroughly excited to start my third semester at Centre NAD! Plus, I am lucky enough to be able to remain at Woozworld part-time for the school year, which pretty much means I get to have my cake and eat it too for the next few months! :)

For the occasion, I am posting a few more images of some of the things I drew for Woozworld in the past month. Again, all material below is property of Woozworld Inc., and has been released in-game already. You can visit Woozworld at www.woozworld.com

Woozworld update!

It's already been 2 months since I've started my job at Woozworld! Time has just flown by, it's crazy. I still love it as much, and more so now than ever. We moved into our new offices last week, to accomodate our rapidly growing team, and the place is great. We're super close to Jean-Talon market, which makes for an awesome neighbourhood, and the studio is sooo much bigger than the previous one. Also, I have a window seat which is pretty sweet!

And most importantly, I've become pretty comfortable with Flash, which really helps the creativity flow. Once you've wrapped your head around the technical stuff, it's actually a lot more enjoyable and simple to go ahead and draw. I started off doing garments only for the first few weeks, which turned out to be a good thing. Outfits are probably the hardest thing to do because the process and file structure is somewhat more complex than for other elements. So I think it's good I got that mastered first.

I was very excited to move on to furnitures and environments afterwards though! Now I'm drawing anything from clothes to chairs to cites and secret grottoes! Best job eveeeeer! :)

I figured I'd show some of the earlier stuff I worked on before we moved, when I was still doing mostly  garments. Everything down here has already been released in the game, and I checked with my boss to make sure I was allowed to show stuff online! Please note that the character isn't one of my own designs but simply our template puppet which we use to draw all of our clothes. All images below are property of Woozworld Inc., and you can see them in game at http://www.woozworld.com/.

In case you're wondering, we always draw the rotations as well. So we end up with 8 drawings for each outfit, which allows the 2D characters to move around in every direction.

Enjoy!

(I assume someone from Woozworld is probably watching again so hi! :))

The Klein Shine

Hey guys!

So as I mentioned in my previous post from (yikes!) a month ago, I had been working on a graphic design contract for someone very special. While representing Ubisoft at the C2MTL event in Montreal this past June, I met Mr. Harry Klein, who likes to present himself as "The Best Shoe Shiner in the World". Needless to say, I haven't seen very many shoe shiners in my life, and so Mr. Klein's stand and his presence at such a high-class event as C2MTL surprised and intrigued me. 

We shared a few conversations, and I soon realized Harry wasn't only a great shoe shiner, but he was also a very opinionated and passionate businessman, who was always wiling to go the extra mile to give his clients the best possible experience. From his official uniform to the classy custom-made leather chairs he designed himself, he spared no details when it came to marketing his services. The only thing he was truly missing was a logo, and the unified branding that goes with it.

Long story short, he asked if I would be willing to create a new visual identity for The Klein Shine. Branding has become over the past 2 years a bit of an on-going personal interest for me, and so I was very happy to be able to try my hand at it once more.

Mr. Klein had a very specific idea what he wanted, and so he requested that the image of a cherry be used as part of the new logo. As he works frequently in large corporate events amongst other businessmen, his presence has frequently been described as "the cherry on top of the cake", as it always adds a little extra touch of unexpected classiness wherever he goes. We both liked the idea, and so I started working.

Above is the option he picked from my initial submission.

I then made some modifications to come up with this final version of the logo.

The business cards, in both French and English.

New stationary paper (I also made a French version).

The final printed cards, which were printed via Moo.com who did an AMAZING job. I highly recommend their site for anyone who wants great quality business cards. The picture doesn't do the printing any justice at all, trust me.

All in all, I'm very happy with the results. I don't pretend to have much experience in graphic design, and all I know is entirely self-thought. But I like to think I managed to capture the essence of Mr. Klein's unique service with this new branding.