The design I had submitted to The Brooklyn Circus’s “2 Years Strong” contest was one of the finalists, alongside the second submission I entered. There’s some great designs on there.

BKc SF 2yr Anniversary finalists.

Business card (front).

Business card (back).

Promotional sticker.

About five years ago I was still in high school. It was then I learned much of the foundation of my current design knowledge. I had taken a web design course to fill out the many empty slots in my senior schedule. The course covered the basics, mainly rudimentary HTML and CSS. I developed an instant interest, so I jumped into the now-defunct Macromedia Suite with my teacher’s permission and began to explore what the software had to offer.

Of all the software, Free Hand and Fireworks were my favorite…which the former, in it’s current form of Adobe Illustrator, is still true. The latter (Fireworks) helped me develop a better understanding of web design. Over the years my focus has settled solely on graphics, but my knowledge of code has develop on it’s own sporadic terms, mainly out of necessity.

The site linked to the image below (aside from my own site) is one of the first sites I have completed since that course in high school. I’ve developed a better understanding of dynamically generated pages (PHP) and have come to love stylesheets (CSS). I find some enjoyment in code, mainly the detail-oriented nature of it all. With the help of open-source content management systems like Wordpress, the process of creating easy to use websites has become much easier over the years.

By no means do I ever want to make websites professionally, but I had fun helping out a local business, and my lovely girlfriend Brittany was able to help out with the pictures [Brittany's Flickr].

The Downtown Marketplace Online.

I’ve never been much into entering design contests, but The Brooklyn Circus SF was holding one for their 2 Year Anniversary T-Shirt. I enjoy the BKc brand and philosophy so I thought it would be worthwhile to give it a shot. I submitted my 1st draft (see below) before receiving the official contest guidelines, so I had to adjust the design to fit (see further below).

1st draft.

2nd draft (adjusted to fit the contest guidelines).

BKc identity in the design.

I find the taste of those who ask me to work with them interesting. People have varying (widely so) taste. I completely understand. Diversity is a great facet to have, especially when it comes to what we look at. I guess you could call the following a case-in-point: I was hired to design something that was ultimately not used (unbeknownst to me). The graphic that was in-turn used is a nice (I use that word lightly) spin on mine. To each his own.

My original design.

I don’t like uploading images to my site that aren’t mine, so I’ve included a screen shot below that links over to the image if you so desire to view it in it’s full-sized grandeur.

What was eventually used.