MAPS Re-branding

June 12, 2014April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Ooligan is not the only rebranding I’ve worked on this term. I wound up reworking one of my own designs for the MAPS team, a group of peer mentors that I am responsible for organizing. Conveniently, this means I can change the look of our brand whenever I want, because I have the power (please read that in a He-Man voice because I think he says that).

Anyway, long story short, I had to update the logo to make it digital-friendly. It lost a bit of it’s character, but it’s sleek-looking! Also, I learned what kerning was.

Original:

Revamped:

A fancy button I made that connects to a fancy webform:

All of the revised work fits with Portland State University’s visual branding guidelines, which is probably important if this mentor group is going to have any longevity. Hooray for learning graphic design things!

Ooligan Press Blog Branding

June 10, 2014April 5, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

I’ve completed my first year of grad school. Crazy! The next few months are going to be relatively light, responsibility-wise, so expect to see new material pop up in your news feeds on a regular basis. Unless I get really lazy this summer…

Anyway, what follows are some blog badges I created for the student-run publisher I work for, Ooligan Press. We’re working on rebranding the Press and changing up the website, and my silly little doodles are part of it all.

First time around I created everything in Adobe Illustrator, which made everything graphic and clean, but these were missing the hand-drawn/human element that is an integral part of the press’ identity.

These initial badges aren’t bad, but our digital and social media department lead was looking for something that is obviously made by the human hand. So I went back to the drawing board (literally), and came up with these:

You may notice I was roped into creating a few more badges. This is not the last you’ll see of the Ooligan-related work I did this term.

All of the Cats

May 22, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Here’s something I did a few months ago for the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) in Portland. They needed a half-sheet sized catalog cover to promote classes and events offered in February and March of this year. To the surprise of no one who has skimmed through this blog, it features cats.

The Valentine’s Day image was the front cover and the St. Patrick’s Day cats occupied the back cover.

Type Specimen: Adobe Caslon Pro

May 20, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

One of our assignments for my book design class this term was to create three type specimen sheets. Here’s the final one I made (and my favorite), for Adobe Caslon Pro:

It was tough to find a limerick that wasn’t too ribald for class, though I quite enjoy the one I found.

Type Specimen: Rockwell

May 8, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

One of our assignments for my book design class this term was to create three type specimen sheets. Here’s the second one I made, for Rockwell:

Type Specimen: Century Schoolbook

May 6, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

One of our assignments for my book design class this term was to create three type specimen sheets. Here’s the first one I made, for Century Schoolbook:

National Poetry Month

May 1, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

To celebrate the end of National Poetry Month, here is a line drawing of one of the all-time greats: Emily Dickinson.

This piece was published in the Winter 2014 edition of the Portland Review, along with a drawing of Edgar Allan Poe (which will show up on the sketch blog in the near future).

Birthday Goose

April 29, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

Made this for my sister’s “golden” birthday last fall. I’m glad she understood my weird humor.

Front of card

Inside of card

Mr. Tea

April 24, 2014April 10, 2015 | Erika Schnatz

A fun 80s mashup between Mr. T (who pities fools) and Mr. T (who has tall teeth) at a tea party (naturally). This piece was part of “Jibbart Jabbart: A Mr. T-Themed Art Show & Experience” at the PhilaMOCA in Philadelphia.

Line art

Picture from the show (c/o Ben and Amy Leach)

My art on the wall! (c/o Ben and Amy Leach)

Another view (c/o Ben and Amy Leach)