The 2008 Senior Thesis with Crown Molding

The last month and more as a senior at Ringling College was a non-stop run of activities here, there and everywhere. Senior thesis and the senior illustration show opening reception preceded the final two days of classes and events, packing and family time, graduation, and finally, moving and sight-seeing. These occurrences sound so benign and casual when listed out, but they were jammed on top of each other, followed by a week spent in the car driving around the country and sometimes getting lost. For now, I'm answering my emails and such, and just trying to recover a little.

After the show opening at Foley's Fine Art gallery, I rushed to finish my thesis project for the last day of Advanced Illustration on April 22nd. The show then needed to be hung by the 101 participants before the afternoon of April 25th. I was able to sleep plenty during the final crush, but I'm glad bruises heal and skin grows back when you slice a bit off with an exacto blade.

Despite some initial doubts and worries, everything came together and the illustration class of 2008 put on a truly fantastic show. That night, it showed that everyone involved, including the faculty, administration, family members and friends, were extremely proud of the work that had been accomplished through this singularly driven group of young artists and illustrators.









As you may be able to tell from my statement of intent, my thesis project was a self-promotion campaign. To attain this, I completed new illustrations to supplement my existing work, and I made a new brand/identity system for myself. I designed and bound multiples of five unique handmade portfolios to display and promote my work in. I applied the new brand system to these books, as well as standard promotional items such as my business card, letterhead, and postcards. From the display side of things, I pulled everything together in the presentation with an "office" theme.

For the professional artist, their portfolio is the equivalent of a resume. I designed my portfolios to be not only functional showcases for my work, but to also directly reflect my style and aesthetics. A portfolio typically contains ten to fifteen pieces of the artist’s best work. A freelance artist will constantly update their portfolio with current work, so my portfolios are designed to allow me to remove and add pages so that I may update them when necessary.



My primary portfolio is a softbound book. It contains a broad showcase of my artwork executed in a variety of artistic media and styles.





My monochromatic portfolio is a hardbound book. It contains editorial illustrations that are intended to be reproduced in black and white publications, opposite the excerpts of articles that inspired them.





My gallery portfolio is also hardbound, but designed differently. It contains the paintings and etchings that I will promote to private gallery owners.







My secondary portfolio is a hardbound folder. It contains images displayed on separate pieces of matte board.







My mailer portfolio is softbound, and fits into a plastic envelope. It contains select postcards of my work that I can mail as a mini-portfolio. The postcard fit into glued tabs, so they can be removed and changed.





In addition to these books, I have my business cards, postcards, letterhead, greeting cards, and I am re-designing my website and blog. I'm pretty sure I've got everything covered, unless anyone has any suggestions, please.