The Illustrations Of Elwood H Smith:

As an illustrator myself, it is always inspiring to look at the work of successful individuals from my field of practise. Elwood H Smith lives in New York, but his work can be seen internationally in books such as Hot Diggity Dog, Raise The Roof, and The Truth About Poop.

He draws in a style that resembles a comic strip, and more often than not he includes speech bubbles in his work. I am a great fan of his simplistic drawing style, he makes clear the expressions of his characters through exaggerated posture and animated movements.

To see more of Elwood H Smith’s work, click here.

Making An Online Portfolio, Images At The Core:

An online portfolio isn’t just a showcase of an artist’s work, but it is an extension of the artist’s personality and style through a space on the internet. This was confirmed to me through the several portfolio studies that I have produced over recent weeks.

Engineering an online portfolio for yourself is difficult, because it forces you to brief yourself. What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What is my style? Does my work have a tone of voice? Is my work more formal or informal? How colourful are the colour palettes that I use? Should my portfolio become more illustrative, or more designed? These are all questions that I have had to ask myself to produce something that represents me.

After producing the mock up for the gallery site (see link), I realised that this did not really show off my style; anyone’s work can be displayed on white space, so I wanted to create something personal and unique to give myself presence on the web that people will remember. Reverting back to the previous style (see link), I set images at the core of the site once more.

As you may notice, this mock up has evolved from the previous: with rearrangement and polishing, along with the inclusion of my new B logo, and a more illustrative typeface. I used the Intro typeface for titles in this mock up, because Quicksand for both titles and body text was a bit excessive, and gave no distinction or hierarchy to the type. Intro is a nice, thick typeface and is perfect for titles; because of its thickness it holds colour well, which helps the site to look more illustrative.

I thought that it was important to include drafts and sketches of my illustrations and designs in my portfolio, as processes are an important part of the design process. So, when work is displayed on the site, behind it will be the original sketch/design of the work.

I want to find out how to make a jQuery Lightbox on my site, so that on a page that displays my work, viewers can see my work maximised to full-screen - and have the opportunity to zoom into fine details.

Making An Online Portfolio, A Gallery For My Work:

An online portfolio isn’t just a showcase of an artist’s work, but it is an extension of the artist’s personality and style through a space on the internet. This was confirmed to me through the several portfolio studies that I have produced over recent weeks.

White space seems common amongst artists/designers on their online portfolio site, I also thought that it was a nice touch as it let the work on their site speak for itself in a crisp, white environment (much like a gallery space).

The logo on this site was created for myself to show more of an illustrative side of myself, as the previous logo was very designer-y. I sign all of my illustrations, and I figured that this SB signature was perfect for a chic and subtle logo.

I created the site through the slicing technique on Adobe Photoshop. It was made for dimensions within a browser on my 13” laptop (as this will be the smallest size that viewers will look at my site through); as the site is made up of white space, the fact that the site still fit the 13” resolution on a 24” screen was unnoticeable. By making this site a scrolling site, this will further diffuse the problem of resolution upscaling, so on a smaller screen there will be more scrolling, and on a larger screen it will feel as if the site was made for large resolutions.

I still have a lot to learn when it comes to jQuery and HTML, but as this is an initial draft, I will embrace any changes from the feedback that I get and the changes that I find myself making in the future.