aloha

This girl welcomes you on my cover letter. Please don't steal her!

new screensaver

I have a new screensaver! I spent some time to make it today and I think it's brilliant. I know I'm entirely complimenting myself but really. It's adorable. It makes me smile every time my computer goes idle. Anyway I'm so happy about it that I made an illustration for it. Enjoy!

Striped cat

For some reason, I always think this thing is a bunny.

self portrait, 2011

Its digital! my doodles just went next level. This is my 2011 self.

IBLYARC signage

Signs! These things are everywhere, helping direct traffic, helping lost participants find their workshops, helping registrants locate their items, etc. With such a large committee organizing different things there was no way we would be able to guess what everybody would need from our team for certain planned events. We sent out a notice for each department to register (by a certain date) for any signage ("service") they needed from us for their event/sessions and our team would make them, print them, and leave it in a box for pick-up. This communication worked out super well because it saved us from wasting work and time. Woohoo!

Luggage tags

The accommodation team needed something that would allow us to identify and separate luggage from different cities so when they transport them from airport to hotel so it doesn't get confused in the shuffle. I made the luggage tag only under the instruction of "make me a luggage tag" so I drafted one up quickly. Meanwhile another team felt that the tags were not suited to their needs, so we made a second type that was 17" long and had each individual's last name written on it. Later we also colour coordinated the tags with a coloured ribbon for easy sorting. A specific colour for each city.

drafts

IBLYARC handbooks

A series of covers were made for the conference handbook. The handbook holds the conference schedule, rules and regulations, and all sorts of handy information. I assumed there would be a little more freedom with the design so I threw some more fun ideas into the mix.

In the end, none of them were chosen and a cover made for the sponsorbook was revamped for the handbook.

Conference souvenirs - teeshirts

Choices, choices. Since the bags ended up as red, I went to look for something that wouldn't interfere too much with the red backpack. There was a moment of alarm when the committee head asked for a red shirt, but we fixed that. Ash grey seemed like a pretty safe idea, but in the end we went for white.

Nametags, lanyards

Lanyards are for keeps, but the nametag usually just gets thrown away. The biggest difficulty was actually in finding a supplier who will get us 3/4" wide lanyards for cheap at a small volume. Who would have guessed these one-time-use neck things cost so much! Even though the design was approved early, we couldn't find a reasonable supplier until a few months later and forgoing local Canadian distributers. 

For the lanyard, I thought it would be fun to place the maple flag in the center. It gives it more of a graphic element to the whole piece. I also did some more serious looking ones just in case. The Olympics was a good visual resource for these. On the back of the neck is the Toronto cityscape, or a Canadian icon so when people are taking photos you'll still be able to see something if you're turned around.

For the nametags, there were originally four colour distributions for different levels of participants, staff, participant, venerable, and special guest. However, we boiled it down to just two for two colours: participants and staff. Special guests received a pin badge and a corsage instead.

Conference souvenirs - pins

The logo is round, pins are also round. So hey, why not!
Even though I don't really like pins, I'm pretty excited about the turnout for this souvenir. We made four designs in four colours and will be handing them out at random to encourage participants to swap and trade their pins with their new friends.

Takeaway cards

I convinced my team to make takeaway cards for the exhibition, but most people saw the pile of cards and were too scared to take them, even though I put a sign that said, take one! I'm still convinced, however, that this is a good idea..

Disability around the World infographic

That's today!
click to see the full poster here.
section of infographic from CMB Australia, cbm.org.au, 2010-2011

IBLYARC Logo

A few months ago, I was asked to help lead the Art and Design team for the IBLYARC (International Buddha's Light Young Adult Regional Conference) held in Toronto this year. This is a fairly big project, containing (and will probably grow), a logo, posters, banner, souvenirs, all print media, handbooks, signs, stage decoration, all event decorations, and etc. And not just designing everything, but getting the right suppliers, people to help with production and logistics of everything coming together, looking good and being on time. (August 2013)

Illustration isn't my thing, I'm an industrial designer I say, not a graphic designer, but I took the proposal anyway seeing it as mini side project for myself and creating a temporary brand identity package for a five day event. It could be fun!

There are a few key items that were important in the making of the logo:

1. The theme is "From the ground up" and so it should play on that

2. Strike a balance between both a traditional and modern idea at the same time. (The temple being very traditional and the youth bringing it's modern touch)

3. Don't look the same as the Toronto youth conference in 2005!

4. Simple, clean, versatile because we'll need it on everything and everywhere

Below are the concepts from my team:

1. A lotus root. The seed of a beautiful flower, which grows from the muddy ground, up and out!

2. A ladder means you go up, a snake means you go down.

3. A calligraphy dot. A single calligraphy stroke begins and ends with a dot. 

Summer events poster, Mealserving Info Brochure

Although this was via voluntary basis, it has proved to be a good opportunity for me to learn inDesign (which is still more frustrating than fun) and Illustrator. Here are a few posters. One was for summer events, and I did three out of six. I only posted the three I did. The second is a brochure about Buddhist food etiquette. enjoy!