This is one of several Instagram posts I created for ReStore Twin Cities, a local organization specializing in refurbishing and selling home goods at discounted prices. Through a partnership with St. Thomas, Digital Media Art students like myself created a wide selection of content intended to expand ReStore’s online presence and connect with new audiences.
Designs created for social media need to be bold, snappy, and immediately communicate their message. With my series of Instagram posts, I used appealing photography and concise, easy-to-read captions that tell the audience exactly what they need to know, even if the post is only given a passing glance. These designs were created using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
In addition to designs for social media, I created this ReStore Twin Cities business card for displaying at checkout and easy distribution by employees. Cards like this will always be pressed for space, given their small size and the impracticality of tiny text. It is a delicate balancing act, deciding what is and is not essential information, and organizing it logically.
This business card uses a simple color palette and highly legible text to avoid feeling cluttered or overwhelming, despite the relatively high amount of information presented. The card was created using Adobe Illustrator.
Digital art need not be confined to two dimensions. This is a render of an object I created in the CAD (Computer Aided Design) program SolidWorks. This sinister, robotic spider-tank was designed to be 3D printed and look right at home in a collection of sci-fi miniatures.
I’ve always loved building and painting models, and once I got my hands on my first 3D printer, I knew that creating my own from scratch was the next logical step. I wanted this piece to be strikingly strange and incorporate a variety of advanced modeling techniques, like surfaces curved in multiple axes and dynamic posability.
I believe that video games are the best way to create an interactive piece of art. You can tell stories and involve the audience in ways simply not possible in other mediums.
I had a story I wanted to tell – one that truly needed the audience to assume the role of the protagonist. So I made my own game, Sprouts. Created with GameMaker Studio, Sprouts is a dystopian gardening simulator that puts players in the shoes of a factory worker who discovers a patch of dirt amidst a ruined city and decides to plant something special. It’s fascinating to me to try and create something unique using unfamiliar software – learning things on the fly is, of course, not so uncommon in the real world.
You can find Sprouts on itch.io.
Combining my passion for art, games and digital modeling, I’ve found map making for video games a particularly rewarding endeavor. Hammer Editor is a free software that allows users to create playable environments for a variety of games, including one of my favorites, Team Fortress 2. Spigot is my most recent project, a fully detailed and carefully balanced map featuring a memorable, rainy atmosphere.
Map making represents the convergence of a huge number of skills. Environmental art, level design, testing and iteration, community engagement, and the list goes on.
You can find Spigot on the Steam Workshop.