Cleland Illustration » Development

Long Lost Love!! New Cards Coming Soon

Josh Cleland — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:04:53 +0000

I haven’t posted new illustration work in a while. Bad, illustrator, bad! Here is a preview of a card I’m currently working on for JQ Greetings. The first image is the front, the second image is the inside (it will be colored in the same style as the front). I think it’s going to be something of a “miss you” type card. I’ll post the finished product when I get it. There’s more in the works as well.

Which reminds me. Some of you have expressed interest in purchasing some of my cards, and how to go about doing that. My wife and I recently moved so I’ve been really busy with the new house, and getting caught up on work, but as soon as I get settled I’ll post ordering details. I may create an online form to gather interest.

Alligator Aviator Illustration (with process screenshots!!)

Josh Cleland — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:32:02 +0000

I’ve been hard at work on a new promotional mailer postcard. Voila! Here it is! If you would like one let me know. I thought this would be a good time to share with you a little of the development of this illustration. How fun! This isn’t meant to be a tutorial, but rather an insight on how I work, and the time involved in putting together an illustration like this. So, let us begin.

Update 10/9/09: I have decided to include this illustration in this week’s “Illustration Friday”. Topic: “Flying”.

Some initial sketches

Final sketch

For the character lines I used the new Blob Brush in Illustrator CS4. Very handy! In prior versions of Illustrator I would use a brush and expand the shapes. It took forever!!

Using Live Paint

Once I'm satisfied I expand my live paint groups.

Wrap-Up

So there you have it. This general process took me about a couple weeks. If I think of it I’ll post screenshots of the postcards when I get them back from the printer. I hope you enjoyed this post. Feel free to leave your comments below. I feel like watching Tale Spin now.

The Process of Developing My Website

Josh Cleland — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 20:12:04 +0000

I launched the redesign of this website and blog last weekend (Friday, July 24, 2009). It was a long process, and here are a few screenshots detailing the design and development.

Objective

If you’ve been following my previous site and blog you may ask, “Why, Josh, did you redesign your site?”. I guess the short answer is, I wanted to. Being a designer/illustrator it’s really hard to be satisfied with my work for an extended period of time. I guess that’s one luxury of client work: when it’s done and delivered IT’S DONE. I can’t go back and change what bothers only me. However, in order to actually justify spending time redesigning my site I established three objectives:

I wanted the site to be very functional
I wanted to completely get rid of Flash
l wanted it to be a fun place to visit

Design Process

The initial concept included a very fun, quirky spirit with a heavily illustrated barnyard scene. While the “barnyard” imagery became very minimal throughout the development, I maintained the spirit and brightness that I set out to achieve (although you’ll see from my EWWW comps that it was a process). Above is the initial sketch. The idea was to have a cow illustrating a dramatic rooster. The drawing was going to be very cartoony, while the rooster very over dramatic. Added some character to the cow. It’s getting there. Beginning to create a starter layout for the home page. I definitely wanted buttons/links directing the viewer to key areas of my site (i.e. illustration portfolio, design portfolio, services, etc…). Began the rendering of the cow in Adobe Illustrator CS3. The easel is in pink showing the initial lines.

Detail of first cow rendering, and rooster "painting"

Wasn’t completely liking the clean, vectored look, so I began experimenting with different painting techniques in Photoshop. The cow’s not bad, here, but it definitely doesn’t fit the style of site that’s developing (and wanted to develop).

I'm loving this style!

More experimenting. Still not happy with the direction. Frustration is ensuing. Wacom tablet about ready to go out the window. Back to vectors with a little texture applied in Photoshop. Now I’m getting to a look that I like. I really like the rooster, as well. It was sad to see him go in the end. I can’t wait to use him for something. I liked the rooster so much I even tried taking everything else out and just leaving him. But in the end, there really wasn’t much of a concept backing up the visual, so I had to ditch the guy. It was a little sad. I needed something with more ooomph… something to make the viewer’s head turn a little bit in confusion. I wanted the viewer to say “What the heck!” and chuckle at the same time. So I went back to the sketchbook and out came this guy below.

New super-cow being vectored up.

It's coming together. It's coming alive!!

More experimenting with colors.

Here is the final home page design that I settled on before slicing and coding it up. As I did the coding in Dreamweaver I quickly discovered that the illustration was taller than I wanted, and I decided that I needed an area for an introductory paragraph. So, back to the drawing board I went, and out came the design below.

Wrap-up

That’s a pretty good design summary of the home page. Throughout this process I also mocked up the subpages in pencil and Photoshop, as well as site maps. Overall I’m very pleased with the design, and the process used in creating it. I told myself over and over again to not rush the design and concept development, and I’m glad I followed that. There were some elements that I loved, but had to let go, and that was hard (*sniff* poor rooster), but as a whole the design is much stronger. My initial goals were met, and more. If you have any comments or suggestions I’d love to hear them. Either submit them below, or send me an email.

New website development updates

Josh Cleland — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:47:00 +0000

I’ve been pretty silent lately when it comes to updating this blog. Mainly because I’ve been hard at work redesigning my website (initially posted about it here). I wanted to post a quick update to my progress. It’s coming along great. I’m very excited about this new look and functionality, and I’m thrilled that I’ll be completely dumping Flash!! Also in the works is an iPhone-friendly version. Here are some tease shots. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a link to the complete “beta” site version sometime next week. I will also be redesigning this blog. This presents some dilemmas. I get a lot of compliments on my current design, which I like. However, I need to have my blog fit the identity of the new site. So, I’ll have to work that out. I’m also debating switching the blog over to WordPress, although figuring out how to transfer all the feed info and stuff sounds like a headache. We’ll see. I’ll also have to figure out how to design a custom blog with WP (something I need to know anyways). So, stay tuned. As always you can keep up with the blog by subscribing via RSS, or signing up to receive updates via email. How fun is that! UPDATE 7/25/09: This post was originally written on my old blog. As of 7/24 my new site and blog has been released.

New website coming!!

Josh Cleland — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:30:00 +0000

Yes, that’s right, a new portfolio website. I’m in the very beginning stages right now, and I plan on taking my time to make sure the concept is fully discovered and development is top notch. So, currently I’m only working with pencil on paper (and occasionally the scanner and Photoshop to resize/place images). I found some great website sketch comps at www.960.gs. Below are initial sketches in my discovery process. I haven’t nailed down a look quite yet, but the one I’m developing here looks quite promising. There’s going to be much greater emphasis on call to action, and highlighting/showcasing my capabilities. I hope to have progress updates here in the near future. This is going to be fun! UPDATE 7/25/09: This post was originally written on my old blog. As of 7/24 my new site and blog has been released.

Promo workings and New Year

Josh Cleland — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:38:00 +0000

Hello, all. With this new year I am making the move to full-time freelance. It’s a pretty scary move, but the right one. I am taking this opportunity to focus my marketing on gaining more professional illustration accounts (most of my clients are design-related). Below is a sketch of a promo-postcard that I will be sending out in February. It’s going to be fun.

FBC Site Launch

Josh Cleland — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:06:00 +0000

FBCbeaverton.org is now launched! There’s still a lot of things we want to do with the site, but it’s now officially out in the public.

New blog look… Again!

Josh Cleland — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Well, I did it again. I got bored and refreshed the design of my blog… again. I just couldn’t help it. Hopefully this one will last for more than 3 months. Who knows. I may be playing around with the illustration in the next couple of days so it may change here and there.

The black background really doesn’t work well with large amounts of type, so if I decide to start typing more in my blog posts I need something that’s easier on the eyes.

Edit: At the last minute I decided to submit it to this week’s Illustration Friday. Topic: Island… because, he’s kind of on an island, I guess.

First Baptist Church BETA

Josh Cleland — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:56:00 +0000

I wanted to post a couple screenshots of the website I’m working on for my church (First Baptist Church of Beaverton). It’s slow-going but fun.

It’s launched!!

Josh Cleland — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Hello, everyone. I wanted to announce that my site redesign has been launched. Yay!! I’m going to have an online launch party sometime in the near future. Okay, the party has begun… woohooo! everybody dance now!! Who let the designers out… woof, woof, woof, woof.

Okay, party’s over. Everybody out.

Oh, of course you can get to my site by clicking the “Portfolio” button on top. Or just click here.