Wow! The time is officially here. My final semester in the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design's BFA design program has come to an end. The past few years taught me incredible discipline, patience, and humility, and I'm proud to be alumni of such a great program. I definitely have seen tremendous growth in my design skills, and I owe it all to the awesome professors at the school who mentored me in the arts.

So, below is a recap of the work completed in Stan's class.

Final crit in college. Needed an image for my post thumbnail.

I just recieved a copy of the collaborative book my class made. Although ny cover design was not voted to actually be the cover of the book, I think this cover is super cool and edgy, and I love it. Below is the cover and my spread. My chosen quote for the book is from Albert Einstein: "The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

The quote (and spread in general) is a reflection of the hectic, demanding, and drainingly complicated life I've lived the past few years; it is ever more apparent to me now how important it is for quiet time and meditation to rejuvenate your spirit and clear your mind in order to focus on what truly matters. I find myself more creative when I am able to sit alone and daydream.

The shadows in the photograph convey the solitude and quietness mentioned in the quote, with the bucket's shadow being isolated by the block of light atound it, and with the reflections of the bucket onto the ground and the characteristics they begin to take on.

Another awesome project for the books! The assignment was to depict the seven deadly sins in any way you want, as long as they were formatted for 6"x8" size artboards, were packaged in some way, and addressed the backsides. My stream of consciousness for coming up with "The Adventures of the Diabolical Hat Cat" to convey the sins were as follows:

• Convey the sins though a cat's perspective.

• Cats are devious, so how can I show the diabolical nature of the scheming house cat?

• Draw an evil mustache on the cat.

• The cat needs to tie a mouse to the train tracks, because that's pretty diabolical.

• If the cat were inspired by O.G. villain Snidely Whiplash from "Rocky & Bullwinkle", what would it look like?

…and ta-da! "The Adventures of Diabolical Hat Cat" was born! Since I have really taken an interest in story-telling with my designs, I decided to have my cards function as storycards: the scenes depicted in the cards would all relate loosely to each other and could be arranged in any order to narrate a story. Each story would change from person to person with how they chose to fill in the blanks, which allows for amusing conversation as to what exactly that diabolical cat is up to. To pay homage to my Rocky & Bullwinkle inspiration, I decided to incorporate Natasha Fatale & Snidely Whiplash into the compositions to show Diabolical Hat Cat's admiration for their evilness.

The story cards are packaged in a simple envelope that allows for easy in-and-out access of the cards (which is particularly convenient if the story cards were used in a place such as a classroom because the packaging is flat and light-weight to allow for easy transportation). On the backs of each individual cards is the logo of the set and the label of which sin it is. The copy suggests that each illustration is it's own stand-alone scene, which pays homage to sketches such as "The Three Stooges" (i.e. The Three Stooges starring in "Gin"), and it also pays homage to silent films which were also popular around the same timeframe as trains and wild-west outlaws.

I love this little guy, and I'm excited that the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design is framing "Wrath" as a large-scale print to be hung in the art building. Check out the project below!

Textured paper… ooOooo… aahhh...

My graduating graphic design class is creating a fanzine leave-behind project for our professors. We decided the name of our fanzine should be Fahrenheit 468 (this is funny and cheeky because 468 is the room of our design lab in the art building). Below is my cover design I suggested for the fanzine. Hope it gets chosen for the final design!

Crews Middle School commissioned me for another shirt design! Super excited about this one. I worked it about a month ago, but I just got my shirt last week. I was told that the school purchased extra shirts to sell at the event, and almost all of them sold!

It's a Crews invasion!

CNN Digital in Atlanta, Georgia asked us to design a news app for CNN that targeted the younger millennial demographic. This was a team project where I worked with two other designers. I acted as the art director for our group, and I could not be more pleased with the outcome of this app. It's youthful, edgy, and active, but also tempered to not distract from the news.

Key points of the app are:

• It only displays 10 stories in the newsfeed
• It only displays trending news
• It's totally customizable, from what topics you read to how you prioritize them
• Ability to follow stories to receive notifications on certain topics
• Ability to bookmark stories for later
• Ability to share stories via email and social media
• Ability to view short summaries of stories as well as detailed analysis

We received positive feedback from CNN Digital, and I look forward to seeing which direction they take with this app.

Below is a video of how the app functions, as well as a few still graphics.

Surprise! Peachtree Publishers commissioned me, again, for another event kit! These are pretty cool to do, so I love that they keep coming back for more! Their spring title "Stanley the Farmer" is another installment of the Stanley series for early readers. This book is one of my new favorites for their spring 2015 lineup. If you have little ones, definitely grab it off Amazon!

All copy provided by Peachtree Publishers, while I used the book's illustrations to edit and prep graphics for the event kit design. Glad they are still using the official Peachtree Publishers Event Kit logo I designed for them!

Peachtree Publishers commissioned me for another event kit! Their upcoming title "P.Zonka Lays an Egg" is a beautifully colored book that's based on a Ukrainian tradition of painting pysanky eggs.

The Peachtree team wrote all the copy, while I used the book's illustrations to design, prep, and edit all the graphics for the event kit. Check it out below!