.004.october.desktop

.autumn I think fall may be my favorite season. The temperature is usually bearable with the proper attire and most of the insects have gone. I like the colors autumn brings and my birthday falls in November so I can't help but enjoy the season.
.halloween Halloween is another reason to enjoy fall. It's a time for creativity and being able to imagine you're someone (or something) that you aren't, if only for a day. It's also the inspiration for my latest project.
.boo I was in an illustration mood so I drew these desktop calendars for the month of October. You can click them to download the full sized 1440x900 images for yourself and use them to help count down the days till trick-or-treat time!

.003.chuck.anderson

.the.teacher A few months ago I had the privilege of meeting a young freelance graphic designer when he spoke at my school earlier this year. That designer was Chuck Anderson. Despite his lack of any formal design instruction, Chuck has worked with some of the most high-profile companies that most designers would trade their Photoshop registration-key for the chance to work with. Nike, Microsoft, Sony and Pepsi are just the tip of the iceberg.
.the.lesson A lot of Chuck’s success comes from strong work ethic but part of it comes from his unique style. Most of his work uses vibrant colors, beams of light, and lots of glowing effects. All of his illustrations are simply fun and interesting to look at.
.the.student There is a saying: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Without going too deeply into my thoughts on the subject, I do believe you can learn a lot by analyzing and copying what has worked for other designers and then combining parts of that with your own designs. So, I thought I’d try to replicate two different illustrations in Chuck’s style.
.the.curriculum For this first piece I started with a picture I took a few years ago of Alcova Lake in Wyoming where I’m originally from. Then I experimented with different ways to colorize the sky and finished with the beams of light that stretch across the water.


.the.curriculum.pt2 This second piece was a little trickier and required more experimentation and trial-and-error. I decided to build the text in Illustrator and used its 3D Extrude features to create some dynamic looking text before moving into Photoshop. Then I created some glow effects and did some custom painting with my Wacom tablet. Stars and light bursts finish off the effect.


.graduation I loved this little exercise. I wanted to learn just what when into the creation of some of Chuck's work and I think I was quite successful in recreating his style and I learned some new techniques to use in my own work so this was a triumph. I’m making a note here. Huge success. ;)

.002.haiku.3d

.prologue A few months ago, I was a student at the School of Advertising Art.
One of the projects during my second year was a 3D logo animation.
I created an animation based on the Haiku OS logo.

www.haiku-os.org

You can watch that video here. After some dedicated Haiku fans saw
the video on youtube they told me that the feathers were actually
supposed to be leaves...

.now Since graduation, I've finally had some time to rebuild the animation
using leaves. (Which are surprisingly harder to build than feathers...)
Watch the video below or on youtube here.

.shout.out I also wanted to give a shout out to www.C4Dcafe.com.
The cafe is an awesome Cinema 4D fan-based community. It's full
of awesome forums, tutorials, galleries, reviews and a ton of
experienced designers willing to lend a hand. They've helped me
out before and I think it's a great resource for any aspiring
3D artists. Go check it out, membership is free.

Haiku and the Haiku logo are copyrights of their respective owner.

.001.king

3D type created using Adobe Illustrator and Maxon Cinema 4D.

.000.launch

.welcomeHello and welcome to .frog (dot-frog) the blog of Joe Hool.


.goalHaving just graduated from design school and still looking
for a full time job, I needed a way to keep motivated and
constantly creative. Thus, .frog was spawned.

I want to create new and exciting work on a regular basis
and hopefully receive some constructive criticism.

.work
Some project ideas I have include: logos, packaging,
web design, 3D illustration, typographic illustration,
t-shirts, skateboards, book covers, movie posters,
photo manipulation, and a ton of other ideas.

Do you have anything cool you'd like to see me do?

.wrap.up
Thanks for visiting and I hope you saw something
you liked. Also feel free to visit my website
www.joehool.com or you can email me any
comments at joe@joehool.com.

.joe