CSU Monterey Design Work

I came to CSUMB in January of 1999, primarily to teach digital art and design, a course for which I think I'm ideally suited. During my time at CSUMB, I've taught a lot of other courses and from each one, I've tried to explore the creative potential of what the curriculum might offer. Along the way, I've discovered some amazing things and I've tried to incorporate that learning into promotional/informative work for the university, as well as for my artistic and design exploration. 

Title V Informational Poster

I worked for a number of years on a grant to help students challenged by economic and cultural barriers get into and through our major. The main focus of our efforts was focused on digital media art. To get the idea across most effectively, I used the eye to draw attention to the focal point, in the upper left. The stair step motif helps to move the eye over to the primary information section, which provides transfer information for potential students. Everything else is intended to complement the core information delivery. I wanted to keep the design pretty minimal but the large bluish area just looked too empty. Because our major emphasizes so much information and technology, I played around with various references to information and technical design.  

digital arts workshop

This poster was for the first iteration of what proved to be a very successful course I taught for a number of years. The measure of that success lies primarily in the very creative and skillful work that students generated in the course. There was so much good work that, each semester, I was gratefully overwhelmed by the beautiful design work my students created. Their success was also noted by professionals outside the university. Each of the years that the course was offered, students from the course made at least the semifinals of student art contests, including the Adobe Design Achievement Awards. The design for this poster came from a design I worked up for the summer sessions when I taught in the Reno/Tahoe area. The idea of a cowboy hat and light bulb didn't fit as well as might be, but the idea was still interesting enough to stay with, even though the Monterey Bay isn't known for cowboys. Nearby Salinas is and I hope that's close enough.

SDAD Poster

From 2001-2009, I was the faculty sponsor for the Student Digital Art and Design Contest. With the generous support of numerous corporate sponsors, including Apple, Adobe, Prentice-Hall and others, we showcased student artwork from this region, artwork that was created using digital tools. Our effort was a significant effort for the students of this region, giving them a chance to compete against one another and support one another.

Drawing With Digital Media

I've long been fascinated with hand lettering. I used to spend my time in 7th grade social studies doing hand lettering of odd words on my canvas binder. I loved calligraphy in college but couldn't see a way of making a living with that skill at that time. If you've looked elsewhere in the site, you've seen references to my fascination with Fillmore posters. For this promotional poster for a class I wrote up (CST202, Drawing for Digital Media), I explored the esoteric hand lettering of the Fillmore posters and worked into it some of my fascination with letterforms as abstract shapes. Some people can't read this and, for others, it's not an issue. Fascinating. 

TMAC Promos

This link leads to a gallery of 4 images (out of 5) done quite a while back, when the major was Telecommunications, Multimedia and Applied Computing, which is quite a mouthful. I enjoyed doing these a lot because I was given total freedom by the administrator, to design it however I wanted. I tried to incorporate a strong feel for technology into the design. I stepped lightly on the art part and emphasized adventurous visual design using experimental type and also 3D effects.