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.

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!

It's Time for a #TNSTitleRun - Knoxville News Sentinel Ad

This past Monday, the Smokies clinched the Southern League North Division 2nd Half Championship. The team is now playoff bound and will be kicking off a series against the 1st Half Champion Birmingham Barons down in Alabama starting on Thursday, September 5th. Their first game back by the mountains will be on Saturday, September 7th, and we are heavily promoting that matchup. We were able to get an ad in the Knoxville News Sentinel to help us promote the matchup.

Having been in football mode while the team has been on their playoff push, the idea of the hats facing off, much like a helmet matchup graphic in football, popped into my head. I then went with a simple rundown of the possible playoff dates echoing a boxing tale-of-the-tape. Overall, I believe the ad turned out very well and I hope to see plenty of fans out supporting the Smokies on Saturday!

The Final Tennessee Smokies Gold Glove Bobblehead: Darwin Barney

This past Saturday the Tennessee Smokies wrapped up their Gold Glove Bobblehead Series Giveaways with the third piece of the set, Darwin Barney. It was awesome to see the collection come to its completion, and to finally see ally three of my box designs together. This was an amazing project to work on and I think the overall design I chose worked seamlessly between all three of the different box dimensions.

Below are some more pictures of just the box for the Barney bobblehead:

Tennessee Smokies Wall Pad Art

It has been a little while since I've posted some more of my work but I am now getting caught up posting some more of the signage I've done around Smokies Park.

I created these two signs to showcase the team's complete Gold Glove Bobblehead Series that has been going on this season. They are located right beside the first and third base dugouts on their respective home plate sides. 

It has been a neat experience to have so much of my work making up the signage at Smokies Park this season. Check back soon for more from around the park!

Tennessee Smokies Gold Glove Series Bobblehead Box Design #2 - Yadier Molina

It's hard to believe that the 2013 season only has a little over a month left, but according to the calendar it certainly looks that way.

With that being said, the Tennessee Smokies continued their Gold Glove Bobblehead Series this past Saturday night with the Yadier Molina bobblehead giveaway. This box was a fun one to work on because of Molina's current fame (and great season he is having this year), his wealth of success, and the fact that I had some great photos of his days at Smokies Park to work with. I think using the image of him in his Smokies gear on the front of the box made it a really awesome cover. It then allowed me to put a little image of the bobblehead on the back of the box just above the stats (and man was that a list to whittle down!).

The Smokies will wrap up this series of bobbleheads on August 17th with the Darwin Barney bobblehead. It has been really awesome to have played such a big part in putting together this collector's series, and I can't wait to show off the complete collection come next month. Be on the lookout!

Tennessee Smokies Desktop Wallpapers

As a designer, I believe that desktop backgrounds are one of the most fun projects to work on. They really are canvases of unlimited potential and allow you explore your design capabilities.

I recently created several backgrounds for the Smokies that are now available for download on the team website. The supercharged "TS" logo is one I actually created for my personal PC back when I started with the team in February and I am glad to be able to now share it with the fans. I included a couple fan-favorite players as well as other uses of the Smokies logo. All in all, I tried to create a good variety for people to choose from while exploring styles that were more graphic heavy versus ones that were more texture heavy. I loved expirementing with just what happens when you start mixing things together in Photoshop and seeing what comes out. I have posted a few below, but make sure to check out the full selection at the link to the Smokies website above!

Smokies All-Star Graphics for Chicago Cubs Leadoff Show on WGN America

On July 6th, the Smokies had a special that aired during the Chicago Cubs Leadoff Show on WGN America. They highlighted those members of the team that had been selected to the Southern League All-Star Team. You can watch the full video here.

Working with the Smokies Radio Network team, I created several graphics that appeared throughout the video. It was quite a thrill to see my work broadcast on national television. You can see the graphics below and please be sure to check out the video at the link above!

4th of July with the Tennessee Smokies

The 4th of July weekend was a busy one at Smokies Park, highlighted by back-to-back-to-back fireworks shows on the 4th, 5th and 6th. The team had an ad for each night in the Knoxville News Sentinel, and it was my task to create the trio for the weekend.

I wanted them all to have a similar look, thus the same bottom info line and background. I included Slugger on the fireworks ad for the 6th to breakup the player imagery that the viewer may have gotten used to by the third day.

My favorite of the three is the first ad that kicked them all off. I knew we wanted to come out with a bang (no pun intended), and I thought the angled text to match the angle of the baseball player worked well to achieve that effect.

 

As for during the games, I once again pulled out all the stops on our video board head shots for the team. I kept the same concept as the newspaper ads but translated them into a video board format. I really wanted to do something different when it came to the head shots, so I went with the over-sized number to act as anchor point for the eye to got between the stats and player picture. I  then chose for the name to wrap around the number halfway in a clockwise motion to help lead the viewer's eye to the player picture once they read the name.

These are probably my favorite head shots I've done this year, and I have few shown below for you to see (stats are not those of the players shown and are simply for aesthetic purposes):

Smokies Combo Dangler Signs at Smokies Park

A few more signs of mine have been hanging up at Smokies Park over the past couple homestands. The team recently introduced three combos to the concessions menu, and there needed to be a way to advertise them to our fans.

When I began designing these dangler signs, I recalled the look of circus attraction signs and trying to make these combos become the "attractions" of the concessions stands. Because of that thought process, I turned to the most basic of all color triads: red, yellow, and blue. Since red and blue are already a part of the team's color scheme, I knew I wanted to include them and then use the golden yellow area to let the info about the combos stand out. This basic color scheme is also a pretty good staple of many the fast food chain and really does a nice job of drawing attention to itself. I kept the background behind the food white because I really wanted the viewer's taste buds to beat their eyes to the piece and draw them to their potential orders.

Overall I really enjoyed working on these pieces and they became a nice set. The next time your at one of the Smokies main concessions stands, be sure to look up to see these delicious options!

Smokies Ad on Ballpark Digest

Ballpark Digest is one of the leading guides to everything baseball. From leagues to teams to parks and more, it's a one-stop shop for all your baseball news, and I was very excited to see an ad I created for the Tennessee Smokies now up on their website. As the team looks to fill a couple staff positions, it is awesome to see my work getting such large exposure on a nationally-renowned baseball site.

Smokies Program Ad and Youtube Channel Art

Above is a little versatility in advertising. I recently wrapped up an ad for the Tennessee Smokies that will appear in the Tennessee Valley Fair program this year. I loved the idea of using a city scape of Knoxville to the mountains as the bar to hold the info at the bottom of the page and I think it turned out really well...

...and then we needed new channel art for our YouTube page. I thought this design also worked well there as it transferred very well to the horizontal format and still kept the simple tagline.

Tennessee Smokies Knoxville Opera Ad

Above is a fun little project I got to work on for the Smokies. The team got an ad in the Knoxville Opera's program and I had the challenge of coming up with an awesome generic ad to promote our team. I saw this really cool style of the heavy outlined graphic like you see above while surfing the internet and thought this would be a good project to try it out on. The paper texture outline works in harmony with the deep rich background to make the piece a cohesive unit.

New Smokies Park Stadium Signage

There's a new look going up around Smokies Park...my signage! The team has been updating the stadium signage this season to reflect new names for certain areas of the park as well as to give the stadium a general facelift. Being the graphic design assistant for the team, I have played a major part in this. You can see several examples of my work below.

I tried to keep some unifying element between all the signage to make sure each sign ties into the next and that they all feel like they belong together. The curly border lines were carried over from the main entrance signs and adapted for use along the baselines. I then stuck with the team's color scheme to once again keep some signage unity.

This has been one of the most full throttle projects I've ever had the chance to work on and there is definitely a part of me that feels lucky to have had the chance to create these signs. With any luck, these signs will be up for years and years and become part of the memories of so many Smokies fans. It is that chance of creating lasting memories that drives every project I do and continues to push me to make each project better than the last.

BASELINE DIRECTIONAL SIGNS:

CONCESSIONS DIRECTIONAL SIGNS:

BACK-LIT CONCOURSE SIGNAGE: