Welcome to a new series I’m trying out: What I’m Working On, a quick rundown of all the jobs I’ve worked on or completed over the past month. I’ll be showing everything from new portfolio pieces to soul-sucking grunt work, so as to give the most complete picture of what the life of a freelance graphic designer actually entails.

January is typically my slowest month — agencies and clients are regrouping, getting plans (and budgets) in place and approved for the coming year. That’s fine with me! Most Decembers are a crazy Christmas rush of last-minute work, and this past one was no exception. I’ve been using my downtime to get better organized and start a thorough sorting of my messy files (both physical and digital).  But aside from that, here’s what I have been working on!

I was happy to add a new client — WaterFurnace — to my roster in late 2011, and finished up my first job for them right after Christmas vacation.  This three-banner campaign was based on an existing print ad and destined for placement as Google ads, which meant higher file size limits and a cornucopia of bitmaps!  Yes, if you work in the strange realm of banner ads, you too can be thrilled at the prospect of getting an extra 20kb for your banners.  A Christmas miracle!

One of the fun things about being a graphic designer is the ability — and sometimes, the request — to hide little details in your work. For these banners, I wasn’t allowed to use images of any Nascar cars other than Jeff Gordon’s, which meant I had to design his two competitors from scratch.  So I altered some paint schemes and had the cars be sponsored by “Lorem Ipsum” and “Solor Dolit,” the famous bits of placeholder copy used by designers in lieu of final text.  Here’s a closer look!

I’ve also been juggling a series of quick-turnaround banner campaigns for Publicis Indianapolis.  Here’s one of the latest, done for TriHealth Hospital and based off a sleek rebrand Publicis did for them.

The diagonals and clean vector-based style were a breeze to animate, and I used those elements to create an illusion of depth in the banners.

My most challenging banner campaign, though, was done with Boyden & Youngblutt for Parkview Hospital, to promote the March opening of the new Parkview Regional Medical Center.  While the storyboards B&Y gave me were simple enough, they wanted to transition between each frame of messaging with a 3D “flipping boxes” technique.

That turned out to be much more challenging than I’d anticipated.  Flash does have some built-in 3D tools to achieve this sort of thing, but they require exporting to Flash Player 10 or higher — and most of the sites these banners were going to be running on require exporting to Flash Player 9… or lower.  D’oh.  So I wound up doing the 3D box flip “by hand,” so to speak.  The good news was that once I got one box working, I could simply duplicate that movieclip across the stage and trigger them in a staggered order with a little Actionscript.

It’s not quite true 3D, and if the boxes flipped as slowly as the above you’d be able to spot the flaws quite easily. But I think it works quite nicely in the much speedier finished product!

Not all jobs are that flashy, unfortunately — often times, a client will simply want to rerun an older campaign as is (or do a slight revision) to save on cost. I did one of these resend campaigns earlier this month, also for Parkview. The original banners ran about a year ago — all I had to do was add one frame of messaging and build out a couple new sizes.

Likewise, I was also called on by Ferguson Advertising to update a Flash game I’d put together last year for Zimmer: a Jeopardy-esque interactive quiz that needed to be refreshed with new information and questions for this year’s sales/marketing conference. Click here to experience last year’s version for yourself!

In my spare time, I’ve been doing quite a bit on Black Rose. Issue 6 is nearing completion, which means I’ve got a stack of pages to letter. There’s extra lettering work on this particular issue due to a meaty fight scene — I hand-letter things like sound effects, which takes longer to do, but (in my opinion) blends more organically with Aaron’s rough and gritty art.

I’m also assisting with the next batch of scripts, as Chris continues to refine and rewrite the material for Arc 2. My role in this phase is mainly to be a sounding board, assist with writer’s blocks, and play occasional devil’s advocate.  Chris does the hard work!  My primary contribution to the writing comes later, once Chris has an arc (about 6 issues) completed.  Then I dive in and do an overall edit pass, focusing on clarity, conciseness, and rooting out potential plot holes.

And I’ve also been researching comic conventions for us to exhibit at this year. We just announced our first three — Ash Con, SPACE, and Summit City. Head over to the Black Rose site to get the details!

It’s going to be a big year for Black Rose, and I’m also working on several projects for BR that are (for the moment) top secret, but which all should debut within the year.  So stay tuned for that!

Yikes, where did 2011 go? The back half of the year was completely buried in a flurry of rush jobs and holiday traveling. In years past, I would have taken this opportunity to ponder the passage of time, meaning of life, etc. But now that I’m a dad, all I have time to think about is getting to bed early to try and keep up with my rambunctious son!

Speaking of which, here are a few pics from this past November, when Tycho and I celebrated our 1st and 27th birthdays together. We’re only 6 days apart, so I imagine this tradition will continue for some time.

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As I mentioned in my last post, it’s been a busy time for Black Rose recently too. Here’s a recap of what’s new on the project!

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I’ve been absolutely buried in work for the past several months, and have been seriously neglecting this blog! Why, you might ask?

Well, a lot of the work I’ve been doing is on the web coding/development side, which is a little less easy on the eyes than purty illustrations. I’ve also been doing a big new business push, with lots of interviews and several new clients. Not to mention that several of the most fun projects I worked on haven’t gone live yet, which means radio silence from me (for now). It’s just been a crazy summer!

A big part of my summer was learning Joomla and building a corporate website that ran on it. Joomla is an open-source content management system, and initially I hated it, since my previous CMS experience was with Wordpress (a very different piece of software in many ways). But I’m happy to say that I’ve come around — once you get the hang of Joomla, it’s pretty user-friendly. I’ve got a couple more Joomla jobs in the pipeline as well, so I’m sure I’ll be learning more about the program in the months ahead.

I also went on a week-long family vacation with my side of the family, which was a much-needed break and a lot of fun. During the trip, though, Tycho finally figured out how to crawl, and our lives have not been the same since. That little boy takes a lot of looking after!

It’s also been a busy time for Black Rose, with another con appearance last weekend and Issue 5 heading off to the printer. I’ll be posting more stuff (Black Rose and otherwise) in the coming weeks.

I’ve updated the Multimedia page with a couple recent web banners I did, as well as replacing the sometimes-fritzy Flash videos with nice new mobile-friendly YouTube embeds.

And, in a first for me, one of those web banners actually popped up for me during my normal internet browsing! Most of the banners I do run on local sites, not major blogs or national sites. But here’s my Parkview banner in action!

(It should be noted that this screenshot of my “normal internet browsing” not only places me on Memory Alpha (the Star Trek version of Wikipedia), but on Wesley Crusher’s article. That’s a pretty damning nerd alert.)

And speaking of nerd stuff, here’s a quick doodle of Luke Skywalker that I did at the Summit City Comic Con.

That’s it for now. More to come!
Bp

During my daily internet surfing the other day, I came across a nicely designed/illustrated article entitled The 50 Things Every Graphic Design Student Should Know. It was very informative and had a lot of great tips.

It also contained a glaring error:

This is not only a horrible lie, but also the absolute worst advice that any design student could get. If you go into this business assuming that all your prospective clients are as educated, responsible, and ethical as you are, you are in for a very rude awakening. (Assuming, of course, that you yourself are any of those things.)

Not all clients are bad, of course, and the onus definitely should be on the designer to try and make the designer-client relationship work — i.e., just because they don’t like your aesthetic sensibilities doesn’t mean they’re a terrible client. But some clients simply are bad, and if you’re not prepared for them, they’ll walk all over you.

I’ve been pretty lucky — most of my clients over the years have been a pleasure to work with, trusted my artistic instincts, and (best of all) paid promptly for services rendered. But I’ve had a rash of bad client experiences lately, mostly relating to payment — or a lack thereof. I’ve definitely learned some hard lessons over the past couple of years about proper client contracts and invoicing.

This latest incident probably takes the cake. I was contracted to do a “sexy librarian” illustration in the style of a classic pinup girl. I jumped at the chance (because, well, who wouldn’t?), and lowballed the budget, knowing that this would be a fun gig in line with my Rad Project Discount. The client agreed to the budget and I began doodling.

Along the way, the client had a variety of artistic changes that clashed with my own artistic vision for the illustration. “That’s fine,” I thought, “I’ll give them what they want and then do my version for me afterwards.” But the tweaks and unplanned changes were definitely racking up more hours than I had wanted to spend on the project. I negotiated a very slight budget increase in an attempt to make up some of the difference, but was beginning to regret taking the project on.

I finally finished the illustration to the client’s satisfaction and sent an invoice their way. (Thankfully I was smart enough to not also send along the final files — another lesson I learned the hard way.)

Almost a month passed.

I emailed the client and informed them that their check had not yet arrived. They told me that it had slipped their mind. I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Two more weeks went by.

The client then informed me that they had run into some financial issues and while they still intended to pay me, it might take a little more time. I replied that while I didn’t want to seem unsympathetic, this job is the sole source of income for my family and I can’t simply defer payments that are already over a month overdue.

Then the client finally let me know that they had maxed out their credit cards and were being pursued by several creditors, which would have been nice to know at the beginning of the job. Funny how this sort of thing never comes up until after the work is done and the invoice is sent.

That was about a month ago, and I’m still following it up, but who knows when (or if) I’ll see the money from that gig.

I hate being the bad guy. I don’t want to contribute to anybody losing the roof over their head. But this job is how I keep a roof over mine, and sometimes that means holding people accountable for what they agreed to pay you.

In the meantime, though, I finished up my version of that pinup illustration, and I’m pretty pleased with the results…

In an effort to recoup my losses from this job, I’m selling prints of this fine lass in my online store for the mere price of $10!

Have you ever been hung out to dry by a bad client? Do you like classy art to hang on your wall? Are you a philandering philanthropist who loves literacy and leggy librarians?

Then do me a solid and buy a print, or send this around to your friends — or better yet, do both! You’ll get some nice art and I’ll feel like this job wasn’t a total wash.

And design students: there are bad clients. Some are truly out to get you; some are just not very fiscally responsible. But they do exist and you will run across them. Consider yourselves warned.

I’ll be back next week with more new work!
Bp

This past weekend, we took Black Rose to the Summit City Comic Con here in Fort Wayne. Pics and more below!

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Hey all, been away from the blog a long time. Unfortunately, though I have a bunch of new work I’ve been dying to post, it has all been stuck waiting for client approval or payment. But it looks like I can finally start sharing some of it!

Today’s update in the Design section is a wedding invite and RSVP card I designed for my younger brother Eric and his lovely wife Kayla. Their wedding just happened a week ago and was a total blast. We’re very excited to welcome Kayla into the family!

For their invites, Eric and Kayla wanted something vintage-looking, so I used some old printing press typefaces and aged the photography appropriately. (Can you believe they shot these photos themselves with the camera’s timer? Crazy!) I’m a big fan of the industrial-revolution-era aesthetic of filling 100% of the available space with type and graphics, and that was certainly required here in order to get all the info on the invite’s back side.

I used this same style of invite for my own wedding a couple years ago — it looks great and is very economical to print and mail. So if you or someone you know needs wedding invitations designed (similar to this one or any design at all), send them my way! They’re always fun to do.

More new work to come in the following weeks, as well as a very big announcement in store for the end of the month. Stay tuned!
Bp

Lots of long-overdue site updates to announce today, some under the hood and some…over the hood? On the hood? Ah well.

A new homepage with a flashy Flash animation!

New Brandon Peat Design, LLC branding everywhere!

Portfolio updates! Reshuffled the Design page for easier browsing, new banners and video work on the Multimedia page, and this new collaborative piece on the Illustration page.

Revised About Me page with updated info and three big new sections: Why You Should Hire Me, My Creative & Billing Process, and The Rad Project Discount.

I put a lot of time into these last three sections, and I feel they really tell a lot about me, my business, and my mindset. I’ll probably be blogging about these again in the future. Make sure to check them out if you’re a potential client!

Work has been slow but steady these past few months, and I’ve been kept pretty busy between these site updates, new business research, and an adorably cooing baby. Hopefully I’ll have some more new stuff to show in the next couple of weeks!
Bp

Time for a different sort of “latest work.” More pics below!
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I’ve been away from the blog for a good long while, which is due to several factors: lots of freelance work, wrapping up Black Rose #3, some long-needed updates to my portfolio, resume, and website — and, oh yeah, I’m a dad now!

Tycho is just over two months old and starting to smile and coo, which is a big improvement from his previous best trick, Peeing On The Wall. He is a lot of work, a big stresser, but super adorable and very worth it.

Here is the crazy story of how our son decided to make his grand entrance, and plenty more baby pics too.

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