Daily Post – Quick Sketches

Facebook logo, a face, and a ski bunny

No big explanation today. Just a few sketches I did on the back of a greeting card I got for Christmas. Enjoy!

Daily Post – Bear Experiment

Ellipse Bear aka Lipsy

For today’s daily post I wanted to experiment with trying to create an image using just one shape. I’d never done anything like this before and I think, even though I could get this to look better, I did a decent job on this one. The biggest problems I see with it is that right now it seems a little flat, and I wasn’t able to get the eyes to look the way I wanted them to look. I think if I went back in and played with some of the colors, added some shading to the image, I would probably be much happier with it. As an experiment, I found it to be fun and challenging.  Next time I think I’ll try to create something using only rectangles. By the way, there are 23 different ellipses in this bear image.

Daily Post – Invitation Sketch

Invitation Sketch - Front

At the end of next month my son will be turning one whole entire year old. Neither my wife nor I can believe it, but we have accepted it. To celebrate this momentous occasion, we are throwing a fairly small party for him at my in-laws’ house. My wife has given me the responsibility of designing the invitation for his party, and I couldn’t be happier. Her one request was that I get a picture of my son and a monkey on the invitation. I think I’ve come up with a creative way to do this. I want to put an illustration of a child holding a stuffed monkey on the cover of the invitation with a cut-out for the head with my son’s picture in the cut-out. Then, when the invitation is opened, there will be a large monkey holding my son on the inside. I think I can pull this off without too much effort. The only thing I am unsure of is how we are going to cut the circles in the cover of the invitation. I’m thinking I can use a scrapbook cutter, but I will obviously have to do a bit of research to make sure. Check out the rough sketch ofthe cover to get an idea as to what I am thinking.

A new mission

As you may or may not know, Brian Hanson Design is a brand new company. As such, my client base is very small at the moment, as in practically non-existent. I do have a couple of projects up in the air that I am awaiting final word on, but until I get that final word, I don’t have much to blog about. So, because I don’t want this blog to sit idle for weeks at a time (as it has been) I have decided that I will post sketches and design ideas every weekday. I already have a daily sketch section on my site, but I will not be posting those sketches here. Also, I may decide (if I like an idea enough) to post the steps of an idea from sketch phase to completion. Regardless of what it is I decide to post, I will be posting every weekday starting on Monday, December 28^th. As always, comments and feedback on these post is welcome and appreciated.

The redesign is complete

You can now see the new and (hopefully) improved Brian Hanson Design. I’d like any and all feedback on the new look and feel of the site. I’ve found that designing for one’s self can be extremely difficult and having honest criticism from others is very useful. When I was trying to decide what kind of layout I wanted for the new site, what pieces I was going to display in the portfolio section, and everything else that goes along with a design, I realized that I have a hard time looking honestly at work that is for me. When designing for others I can see what’s working and what’s not, in what direction I can take a sketch, and when to just scrap an idea completely. For some reason, when designing for myself, that ability seems to fly out the window. Knowing that I have such a difficult time deciding what I like and what I don’t when designing for myself, I now realize that when I eventually start work on version 3.0, I need a clear, concise plan of attack. I basically have to treat myself as I would a client and work on my own site as if it were someone else’s. Until then, though, I would appreciate your opinions on the site and welcome any criticisms, praise, suggestions, and notification of any errors on the site. Thanks everyone.

I know it’s new, but I’m changing it anyway

Well, I know that Brian Hanson Design has not been around for very long, but that doesn’t matter. It’s getting a face-lift anyway. I find it very difficult to be content with designs I come up with for myself and my website is no exception to that rule. My color scheme will be remaining unchanged, but everything else will be different. The biggest change will be that Brian Hanson Design will no longer be a one-page portfolio. There will now be a home page, portfolio page, services page, and an about page. I currently have the home page and the portfolio page done and am working on the other two. I have changed the layout pretty drastically and I’ve also completely redone the thumbnails. They are much larger and, at the moment, do not have a roll-over state, which is something I don’t know if I am going to do or not. The changes are coming soon, hopefully before the end of the year. You can view some screenshots by clicking on the thumbnails below. Let me know what you think of them.

The new home page

New portfolio page

Welcome to the Brian Hanson Design blog

With the introduction of my new website at www.brianhansondesign.com, I thought it would be appropriate to launch a blog so I can communicate more with my customers and prospects. My blog will focus on graphic and web design topics with much of the content being geared towards projects on which I am working. However, you may also expect some personal posts and posts where I ask for your opinion.