Messing Around in After Effects: Logo Reveal

 (background ambiance found here)

As I continue to learn new things in After Effects, I love to experiment with them. I've been learning a lot from the tutorials of Evan Abrams, who I definitely recommend for learning some great tricks, and I decided to put a little screen glitch effect I learned from his stuff to use. I thought it be fun to use in a little logo reveal for my new logo. I am very happy with how it turned out and had a lot of fun putting the video together.

Ah (Fantasy) Football Season...

Yes it is that time of year, time for real football players to suit up and hit the field while millions of non-athletes select them in fantasy leagues, rooting for receptions, touchdowns, and yards gained galore. While I do not participate in fantasy football, I did hop on the wagon of creating a couple custom logos for my brothers' teams this year (Let be know that out of the three of us, my older and younger brothers are the athletic ones. They just never got the attention of the NFL scouts. Oh well...)

Anyway, below is the fun I had with both of my brothers' teams. It was a great project for me to just play around with different techniques and see what I could come up with. I liked the final output on both and here's hoping they're hooked up to some winning teams.

For my older brother's team...

And for the younger brother...

 

2014 UTC Football Poster

For the fourth year in a row, I've had the pleasure of creating the schedule poster for UTC football. This project was just finished up this week, and I am definitely pleased with the result.

One of things I enjoyed about this project was challenging myself to get away from the dark blue backgrounds that have dominated my designs on this for the past few years. I wanted to do a 180 and try a lighter background, and it definitely worked to help the mini-collage show forth in the background more than a dark background would have.

The trophy in the middle was a last minute addition, but one that I think I was able to work in pretty well and not take away from the overall look of the design. As with all schedule posters, at least in my opinion, I want the focus to be on the players first and the schedule second. I think this poster accomplishes that, and it was a blast to create.

A Little Fun with Our NFL Rooting Interests

I'm a sports nerd and a graphic design nerd, so a sports infographic is always begging to come out of my mind. This particular one is an idea that I had come to me while watching some the "Dynasty Week" coverage the NFL Network had a little while back. As I got to thinking of just how much tradition existed with the teams me and my brothers root for, I thought it would be cool to showcase it in this way. To keep the postseason statistics a little more level, I only counted championships and such from the Super Bowl era, seeing as my favorite team had a 40+ year head start on my brothers' favorites.

For me, it was a lot of fun to delve into just how many championships, playoff appearances, and hall of famers have come from our favorite teams. It's absolutely crazy to think if you randomly pick any 3 Super Bowls that have been played, chances are one of our teams was in at least one of them. It's stuff like that that the nerd me is, well, most nerdy about. This was a lot of fun to create, and I hope my brothers get a kick out of it as well.

CoSIDA Award Recognition for My Work

I received some very awesome news this past Thursday that I was a part of two award winning media guides from the 2013-14 CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) Publications Contest. The UTC football media guide for which I created the covers came in second place among FCS schools for Best Football Media Guide. This is actually the second time the football guide has come in 2nd place with my work on the covers, with the other time being in 2011.

On an even more rewarding note, my cover for the 2013-14 UTC Wresting Media guide won Best Cover in Winter At-Large Guides for Universities. It beat out work done by such schools as the University of Kansas and the University of Oklahoma. You can read UTC's write up on the awards here, and you can check out the full list of winners in all categories from CoSIDA here.

I am extremely honored by both recognitions and am very proud to have been a part of both projects. I thank the CoSIDA Publications Committee for both honors and look forward to continuing to create more great work down the road.

Denver Athletics Thank You Card

 

It has been a while since I have updated the old blog, so I figured it was about time to do so. Above are a few images of a thank you card I had the pleasure of creating for the University of Denver Athletics Department a couple months back. It was great to work with the school for the first time on this little project and I think the final product came out looking really sharp.

They were wanting to highlight the terrain of the region as well as the iconic tower of the Ritchie Center, as it is one of, if not the most recognized building on their campus. I created a unique blend by stylizing the tower while doing a little photo tweaking to keep the mountains in the background looking much more realistic. Overall it was fun project with a great result. I hope to work with them again in the future.

Showdown in Tyndalltown Graphics

 Hattiesburg American Newspaper Ad

 Digital Billboard

Email Graphic #1/TV Graphic

 Facebook Cover

 Instagram

 Email Graphic #2

Southern Miss Website Graphic

This past Saturday the Southern Miss men's basketball team played its biggest game of the season (coming out on top!) and there were plenty of graphics created to make sure every fan knew the game was happening. As you can see from above, we covered just about all marketing bases from print to video to web. It was definitely a challenge to create something that both fit the style we had been using on our graphics throughout the season and yet stand out a little bit because of this game's importance. All the while, I had to make sure the design worked across the wide variety of size requirements.

In the end, I think it all turned out great, and it definitely helped that the team won to cap everything off!

Southern Miss 2014 Baseball Poster

It has been a while since I have posted on the old blog here. I think I'll blame it on all the snow I'm not used to getting now that I live in New Hampshire.

Anyway, I recently wrapped a bunch of items for Southern Miss' upcoming baseball and softball seasons. I wanted to highlight the baseball poster here as it is probably my favorite piece from all of that. I had actually never done a calendar layout on a poster before so that was fun to incorporate for the first time.

From Where I've Been to Where I Am: A New Year in a New State

I ended 2013 with quite a major shift in my life, moving from Knoxville, TN to Concord, NH. Seeing as this is such a large change in terms of area of the country, weather, language, and well, just about everything, I thought I'd do a little infographic to compare where I've been to where I am. You can see the results above.

Here's to a Happy New Year to all!

Memphis Tigers Bowl Tie-Ins Infographic

It looks like I'm sneaking in one last blog post before the new year. I figure it is a good one to get in now while the bowl season is on everyone's minds.

This is a piece I did for the University of Memphis football team detailing all the bowl tie-ins they have being in the American Athletic Conference. Who knew there is going to be a bowl in the Bahamas soon!? Anyway, I went they way of the infographic again to help showcase both all the places the players have the chance to visit as well as the wealth of opportunity they have by coming to the Tigers. I think it turned out very well and is a quick, concise read that gets the information across that they wanted.

Here's wishing everyone out their a Happy New Year and I will see you again in 2014!

Memphis Tigers Name Tag

It has been a while since I've posted here on the blog. Currently times are a little crazy as I try and pack and get ready to move to New Hampshire for a new full-time position. However, I continue to do my freelance work in between bouts of taping up cardboard boxes and wrapping things in bubblewrap.

Above is a name tag I recently finished for the University of Memphis football team. It is a background piece for them to use when they are showing recruits around the campus. They will be putting a name label in the middle area towards the player's number. I really love this shot of #44 because of his intensity, as I believe it reflects the kind of enthusiasm the team wants from its players.

Anyway, if you don't see another post from me until after the 1st of the year, it is probably because I am in transit/unloading my family's things in our new place. If so, have a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year!

UT-Chattanooga 2013-14 Wrestling Media Guide Covers

Front Cover

Inside Front Cover

Inside Back Cover

Back Cover

A couple weeks ago I wrapped up another project for UT-Chattanooga athletics, this time for their wrestling team. I had the pleasure of creating the covers for their 2013-14 media guide for this season. The theme I had run throughout each of them was the metallic title bar, that I now see kind of resembles a stylized boxing/wrestling championship belt. Happy accident, I guess. In my original layouts the bottom half of the front cover was blue instead of gold, but they decided to go with the gold to vary the look a little more between the front and back cover. Overall it was a neat project to work on, especially since I'd really never done anything for a wrestling team before. I was very pleased with the turnout, and hope the team does well this season!

Southern Miss Social Media Graphics

It's a busy time down in Hattiesburg, and one of the ways they have been getting the message out about all that is happening in athletics is through some of the above social media graphics. I've been creating these graphics for the past few weeks to help promote a variety of athletic events on their Facebook and Twitter pages.

I love that these graphics give a little life to the regular social media post. The addition of the players make them human and connect the fans to the student-athletes. The graphics also allow me to get creative with the display of the game day information, adjusting the line height so that it just runs together. I feel that helps draw the eye to that information and the coloration then helps create a hierarchy. If you check the Southern Miss social media pages frequently, you'll be sure to catch a few more pieces of my work on there.

Southern Miss Basketball Short

I'm back at the After Effects tutorials, this time working with some jittery text with a little stop motion feel. I saw this tutorial from Red Giant on how to create this effect and thought it had a really neat look. I decided to give it a shot and I think the resulting piece turned out very nice.

As I've been working a several items for Southern Miss basketball recently, I decided to do a little list of highlights of their past accomplishments. I found this effect worked very well when I overlapped each fact a little bit. That way, new text started falling into place as the final characters of the previous one fell out of frame. I reduced the frame rate in half to get the stop-motion feel, and then added a little camera shake and background opacity jitter to the whole piece to further the aesthetic. It is definitely a technique I am going to keep in my bag of tricks for video use down the road, as I think it works great as a text animation. I could see it being very useful in several types of projects. Thanks again for tuning in!

(Also, I would like to credit Hyde Producer/Composer from soundcloud.com, for the track in this video. It can be downloaded here.)

A Hat-centric Personal Facebook Cover Image

I'm definitely a hat guy. I've loved them probably as long as I've loved sports. Because of that, I have always gotten a hats not just from the teams I root for, but from each team I've worked with so far in my sports design career as well. These hats help show the story of my design career in a very neat way that your standard resume or written biography just can't accomplish. They add personality, color, and life to the journey I've been on.

Because of all of that, I decided to create the above image as a cover photo for myself. The hats tell my story so far, and the message below them shows that my drive is only getting started. I can't wait to see what other hats get added down the road.

Southern Miss Logo Reveal Title

As I continue to learn After Effects I am obviously trying new things. On this project I decided to work a little bit with sound effects and stock footage to create a neat little title based around the Southern Miss football helmet logo.

I started at Aetuts+ where I found this quick tutorial on a neat logo reveal using the Stroke Effect. It was really easy to figure out to apply to the Southern Miss logo, as I focused it around the yellow outlines. I added a little glow to the moving strokes to give it a bit of flare as it animated on.

I then broke the logo into two parts, having the white interior reveal itself while a light sweep happened across the yellow outline that had come into full view. I'm a sucker for the slightly flashy, so I went with it.

From there, I wanted a cool transition to the second title, the Southern Miss athletic theme for this year, "Rise to the Top." As I sat there pondering where to go, it hit me: "Michael, you need to put fire in this video." So I did.

I took the basics of the Green Smoke tutorial on Video Copilot (a must-see website for all who want to learn more about motion graphics) and applied it to my video, having the helmet logo kind of melt away as the fireball shoots across the page. From there, I finished up with the Rise to the Top logo fading in from the burnt-out area of itself to finish the whole thing off. It was a fun piece to create, and suggestions are always welcome!

Tennessee Smokies Website Background

If you stroll over to the Tennessee Smokies website now you will see the background I created for them at the end of my internship. I love having this piece in my portfolio as it is main thoroughfare for people to get Smokies info and thereby also see my work.

My idea on this one was to show the unique connection the Smokies have to two areas: the city of Knoxville and the Smoky Mountains. I achieved that by putting the skyline across the header that goes as if you were looking up from southern Tennessee at the trek across I-40. I then put the stadium lights on either side to echo the "stadium in the mountains" (even it is a little bit down the road from them). I felt the stanchions rising out of the mountains just gave the whole background a cool look and helped to frame up the header nicely.

Hendricks and Baez were probably the team's most successful players last year so we decided to highlight them in the background as well. I chose pictures that pointed towards the main info to help frame up the body of the page.

In all, I think this piece turned out great, and I hope you stop by the Smokies website to check it out live!

A Little More After Effects: Baseball Matchup Graphic

So as I mentioned in my blog post last week, I have been teaching myself After Effects recently. With that I have been creating projects for myself to continue to get accustomed to the program.

I had the above idea one day while fiddling around in the program. As I get more into motion graphics, I'm realizing just how many there are around me, especially being such a big sports fan. With that in mind, I wanted to take a stab at my own matchup graphic. I used the last matchup of the Tennessee Smokies season as a test run since it is where my baseball career has left off at the moment.

I really loved the idea of steel doors shutting on one thing only to reveal another, so I went that route. After revealing the matchup logos, the video felt kind of stagnant, so I added in the team names sliding in from center. Even with that though, the piece still felt like it died after those names finished. To alleviate that feeling, I added a little rotation expression to the logos to keep them moving throughout the piece, thus keeping it "active" for the full duration. I made this rotation happen in 3D space to only further that feeling.

I feel overall that I accomplished my goal with this piece, exploring scene transitions and movement from various directions. However, I am up for suggestions on ways to continue to improve. Thanks for viewing!

A Memphis Tigers Infographic - Texas Players

This was a neat project I wrapped up for the Memphis Tigers football team this past week. They wanted to send out a flyer showcasing how many players on their team were from the state of Texas. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to create an infographic to showcase both the number of players on the team from Texas as well as the footprint the Tigers have in the state.

To do this, I first started with the list of players, topped off by the list title of "16 Current Players from the State" to give the eye a starting point. I pulled out a couple players to showcase via photos to bring a little life to the piece as well as to help the viewer's eye move around the page a little. I then thought it would be a great idea to tie each player to the city they were from, and what better way to do that than with a map of the state? By tying the list of players to all the cities they represent, I created a great little crisscross of connections that showcase the footprint the Tigers have in the Lone Star State.

This piece was very enjoyable to work on, and I think it does a great job of delivering the message the Tigers wanted.

Southern Miss Women's Basketball 2013-14 Schedule Poster

Above is a poster I recently finished for the Southern Miss women's basketball team. As you can see, I really shifted my recent schedule poster trends. I moved the title all the way to the bottom and put the schedule to the top. It's something I've never really seen a lot of but I thought really fit with the horizontal team photo. The team really wanted a 3D effect on "Rise to the Top" so by splitting the schedule like I did I left myself a perfect spot to insert that into the background and let it move forward into the foreground.

To go along with the brighter pieces that Southern Miss is trying to come up with, I once again kept a light background but added a little extra pop to the jerseys as well. I really think the jerseys jump off the page and put the focus on the players. As I've seen recently, the schedule is really almost secondary on a schedule poster, and these pieces are really a place to show off the team.

This piece was a new challenge, working with an interesting layout and 3D type, but I think it was a major success. I hope to be getting a printed sample in the near future and will hopefully have photos of it to show down the road.