Merry Christmas...

Well there is not much to be said. It has been one hell of a year, and I would just like to thank all friends co-workers, and even the ass-holes (you may know who you are) for pushing me and helping me grow from graduation to working my dream job. I hope your christmas' are filled with great times with your family, or just a great time this holiday season. Thank you again, this is for you, enjoy!

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A graphic Announcement

Hello again, my delightful design cohorts. I have brought to you a project, I would say, 6 months in the making. As some of you may know, I have a dance hobby that i persue almost as vigorously as my design career, and in doing that I have joined a crew (FXD). In the past months, the crew has slightly disbanded, and I have taken it upon myself to hold an open, All-styles audition. 
In doing so, I have created a poster announcing the event. I will, of course, being making a few more items in the coming weeks proceeding the audition, but here is the first. Following this poster will be a description of the event (as seen on the event) and a link will be added to the Facebook event page. Enjoy!

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FX Dance Crew All-Styles Audition

As the new year begins, FXD is needing some new talent. We  are holding try-outs for 5 to 6 new members. There will be three rounds;  Freestyle, Choreography, and 1 on 1 improv (Battle). Music will be provided, but be prepared to work hard and have a blast. We welcome all!

When: Saturday Jan. 28, 2012 (2 PM)

Where: Holy Family Recreation Center (1100 East 5550 South  Ogden, UT)

Requirements: Ages 16-30(Preferred), A Smile

Link: FXD Audition

A New Edition

Hello Friends, this is simply a new flyer design i did for a friend of mine for a show he is throwing later next month. I hope you like the concept and hopefully it attracts future freelance work. Well That is all for this post, new stuff coming soon. Enjoy!

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A -ryjaymac- re-design?

Yes I know I have a pre-established identity, but I have been thinking to myself, "I have many different personas, and its about time I put those together and really put my deign skills to the test. It's one of those challenges that every designer faces, especially when it involves personal projects, so I think its about time to see what the future brings. Here are a few sketches and previews of the design process, just to give you an idea of how this works. If you have any feedback feel free to lend your knowledge and suggestions. Enjoy!

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Throwback to the 60s...

This project was purely for fun, My friend sent me a picture of her that she wasn't too fond of, so i decided to re-purpose it. I did a little research on ads in the 60s, and gave her a little kitchen scene for Windex, and here is the product of that...Enjoy!

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Historical Memorial

Im sure you may be a little tired of some of the memorial I have been doing lately, but I thought I would benefit my skills as a designer to design something with meaning and value to myself and other people, I will be making more "fun" projects but for now. On another note I would like to give photo credit to Jonathan Smith for his work and that gave me the inspiration to do this tribute, so if you are reading this, thank you sir, and you can check out more of his stuff at this link (http://www.photographyserved.com/gallery/urban-perspective-01/1543501). Here it is my friends...enjoy!

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An Announcement...

So, one more thing, I decided since not a whole lot of people , other than family and friends, know of my graduation from college, so I figured i would give some of my creative followers, and the creative community a look at the announcements give to my family and friends. This is Ryjaymac's rendition of his own graduation announcement. Enjoy!

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The Moral Reminder...

Now, I may not be able to really tell what this article says, so I'd much rather have you read and see for yourself and get a better understanding that way. The Moral Reminder is an insightful look into phrases and quotes unused and relatively unknown to the younger society, so some intellectuals and design students have shed some light on those phrase in an interesting and creative fashion. Take a look and enjoy!

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To the man who made it possible...

In the recent wake of the passing of Steve Jobs, there have been many tributes to the former CEO of Apple, so I figured,"hey, if you cant beat 'em, show off", just kidding. I have come up with a few different tributes of my own, some inspired by others work and some spur of the moment. I hope these speak well for the man that Mr. Jobs was in the best way i know how. Enjoy!

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The Wait is Over!

Yes my friends, the wait is over! Not there was a whole lot of waiting...or anything big coming for that matter, but I have decided to give some more samples of my work, and sketches of some up coming ones. Hopefully with this new blog post will come some diligence and consistency with my posting and sketching. Hopefully all these images turn out. Now one small side note or, caveat if you will, I am realeasing all these samples in 4 parts over the next few days, as to increase volume in my blog. So for now enjoy Part 1 of the new skizz and i will see you soon!

===============  PART I (LOGOS)  ===============

Long time...no see...

Hey to all my (few) readers and viewers. I apologize for the very long absence of a few months, a whole McFlurry of thing have been happening. First off I HAVE GRADUATED COLLEGE! (June 2011), and have established a good working student portfolio, so be on the look-out for some new pet work and professional work. Also I am working on a brand new, original tutorial for you guys to hone your Photoshop skills. So be patient, hopefully i will have some new work to show you today.


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ryjaymacdesign.com (coming soon)


youtube.com/squishtheman


facebook.com/rjmccardle
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White Dragons branding campaign...

11 years ago, yours truly was enrolled in martial arts at a small dojo by the name of White Dragons of Bushido. I spent the next three years developing my skills to Sensei status. Unfortunately, due to low student enrollment and rising property rent cost, White Dragons had to close its doors, but only for a short while...During that time, I have dedicated a portion of my time to re-branding my old family logo. Here are a few sketches and renderings, and the final product for your enjoyment.  feel free to leave comments and suggestion, any and all helps.  Enjoy!

The "9" Poster...again

I know there may be a few of you who have already seen this poster, but I was asked by Grand Forte to come up with a promotional poster for Grand Forte and the new 2011 Spring line.  I referred back and forth from a tutorial you can find it here, ---http://design.creativefan.com/create-an-awesome-number-based-illustration/--- I know a few of you may be wondering, "he must use a lot of tutorials." But hey, they are great learning tools, I have improved my skill and now I know how to do many great things between Illustrator and Photoshop.  Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this...and I will do my best to come up with another tutorial for you guys. Enjoy!

Promo Poster Tutorial...

Alright, in the spirit of all things new, I have put together a tutorial of the poster you saw in the first post just to show you guys how I do things.  This tutorial is semi-difficult and will require some patience, but when you see the finished result, it will all be worth it.  I have adapted my style and content to this poster and tutorial from another tutorial, http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tutorials-effects/create-a-dark-and-surreal-poster-using-your-own-portrait/...feel free to reference that tutorial if you find any difficulty with mine...lets get started!

You will need:

• Photoshop (CS3-CS5)
• medium or large cityscape image (of your choice)
• Wacom tablet (unless you feel confident enough with a mouse)
• portrait or self-portrait (size must be large enough to scale down to preserve detail)
• fair amount of patience

1.  Lets start of with a new document in Photoshop, about 900 x 1350 pixels.

2.  select the entire canvas (ctrl+A or cmd+A), grab your Paint Bucket tool (G) and paint your canvas a pure black shade #000000.

3.  This next part can be easy or expensive.  I found two textures that fit well with the style of my poster, you can go to http://wegraphics.net/ to find some great HQ textures and brushes (membership required).

4.  Now we need to desaturate the first image (Image>Adjustments>Desaturate or cmd+shift+U/ctrl+shift+U). The next image needs to be inverted (made into a negative so to speak) which simply can be done with cmd+I/ctrl+I.

5.  Next, pull each texture into your document and re-size and arrange them however you like. Make sure your paint texture is below your grunge wall.  Set the blending mode of your grunge wall texture to Overlay, and lower to opacity to about 80%, then select your paint texture and lower its opacity down to about 50%, and group the layers to keep them together. your current result should look something like this:

6.  Now let grab our portrait and pull it into Photoshop.  next, depending on your mode of preference, you can simply create a layer mask and mask out the background, leaving purely the subject. The method I used was taking the Pen tool (P) and drawing my selection around the subject, opening my Paths palette, and Cmd+clicking on the selection, then I selected my Layers palette, select the photo layer, cmd+C cmd+V and a new crop selection emerges above your photo. Delete the photo layer and there you have it.

 

7.  Pull your cropped image into your working document, re-size and place to your preference.  Now group your layer, go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide all.  This is where we are going to create a cool faded mask affect to help fit your subject in creatively. as your foreground color as white paint over everything to reveal the image, download and load some cool grunge and/or paint brushes, set your foreground color to black and begin painting away at the bottom of the image to create a cool faded painted look to fit your image into the poster.

8.  now it may seem out of order and feel free to do this before you apply your layer mask, but the next step is to convert your image to black and white by going to Image>Adjustments>Black & White and playing with the sliders to get the desired values for your image. next come a fun part, grab your Polygon Selection tool (L) and make a quirky shape selection, then grab the Move tool (V) and shift the pieces to create a broken up, off-kilter effect.

9.  Now i have added my Youtube logo to the poster, feel free to find a message, quote, or your own logo to add to the layout. Open your logo in Photoshop, then take your Rectangle Marquee tool (M) drag it around your logo and pull it into your working document, re-size to your preference and apply your transformation and place it above your modified image.

 

10.  this is where the fun part comes in.  If you have a Wacom tablet, take it out and select your Brush tool (B). Go into your brush palette and set your brush size to 3-4px, 100% hardness, and 1% spacing. I have set my color to a bright cyan (#72e3ff), but feel free to choose a color that suits your color scheme, or even black or white will do. Once you have imputed your settings, start adding little doodles and quirky elements to your poster.  I even doodled around my logo, but this is all personal preference. This is the step to really have fun.

11.  Now we are going to apply another layer mask to the logo.  select the layer your logo is on, group it (cmd/ctrl+G) go to Layer>Layer Mask>Hide all. now with your foreground color set to white (#ffffff) use the same grunge and splatter brushes you used on the first layer mask and create the look of your logo being distressed like it was painted on a wall. Keep in mind your doodles layer is above this logo layer.

12.  Next, ass a layer above your grouped background, I used two different blue colors, a dark blue and a light blue, and grabbed a watercolor brush and painted in random places above the background. Once you have done that, set the blending mode to Color, it set them to a faded, set in look.  next we are going to add in a paint splatter accent layer above that layer by throwing in a few white and blue (or a color of your choice) behind your subject image. This adds a little more color and liveliness to your poster.

 

13.  I was born in California, and I really enjoy visiting L.A. throughout the years, so I found a cool image of the L.A. skyline to add into my poster, but feel free to add any other cityscape or landscape or another cool images that speaks to you. Once you have found this image, go ahead and desaturate it.

14.  Now once that is done, pull the image into your working file and set it below your grouped background. grab your Eraser tool (E) and lower the opacity to around 60% and the flow to about 80% so you don't completely erase the background and leave some texture in front. Erase away some of the texture to reveal the cityscape just enough for it to look blended in. Also, erase the bottom of your cityscape photo so you don't have a hard edge.

 your final result should look something like this.

This is the final step for me in this process, feel free to add or take away any elements to this poster to create your own grunge style promo poster.  I hope this tutorial helped improve your skills in Photoshop and opened the door to more advanced and fun creations.