PERSONAL BRANDING

A huge challenge for me personally was creating a brand for myself, as I had to make something that captured my own personality in the form of a mark. Originally set on using a letter mark of my initials, SM, I struggled to create something typographic that depicted who I was as a person while still remaining clean and professional for branding uses. Often times I will open up a procreate document on my iPad to sketch and start doodling little characters, or other things I am currently thinking about. This can be anything from a stray thought to an entire grocery list. Working through my process this way helps to get all of my ideas down on paper, all of the good, the bad, and the ugly in one place.

Finally realizing that I couldn’t capture my own personality through just the use of letters, I began to pull some of my illustrations in to the mix. I thought about where I came from and what I liked about myself as a person before finally settling on an anchor. Hailing originally from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the imagery of the anchor means a lot to me as someone who grew up in close proximity to the ocean. Through a long process, I slowly began to integrate my first initial in to the imagery, thinking of it as a rope wrapping around the anchor. While my own personal style tends to lead a bit on the grungy side of things, I chose a clean vector style to create contrast between my personality and style of design. The color palette relates closely to the overall theme of the ocean and water.

REVIVAL RECORDINGS

During my time with Revival recordings, I was commissioned to create a number of apparel designs for the artists signed to the label. Each design takes on a little bit of a different style to best fit the band it was for. My illustration style is very line work heavy, so it was important that I learned how to adapt my skills to work with each band. Along with apparel designs, I also created social media graphics for band and album announcements that adhered to the current branding of the label. Towards the end of the summer, I was asked to do an admat and branding for one of the tour’s going on. For me, this was an exciting project where I ultimately had creative freedom, so long as the branding felt cohesive across all platforms.