Secret Solstice Competition Entry

I have entered two designs for a competition on the Talenthouse website for Iceland's Secret Solstice festival.

The Secret Solstice festival is a brand new festival that will take place over the summer solstice in Reykjavik, Iceland.  The organisers have announced a competition for designers from the USA and Europe to produce artwork for the festival that be used on merchandise.

My designs are inspired by Norse mythology and feature a stag and a wolf. I have stuck the existing colour palette of the festival, which I think works well with the artwork I've produced.

I had some T-shirts printed with my designs to further enhance my chances of doing well in the competition and to just generally develop my ideas further.

If you like what you see, you can vote for my designs on the Talenthouse website by clicking on the link below. Voting closes on Wednesday 30 April at 18:00 GMT.  Thank you.

Vote 

My New CV

I have recently updated my CV with a new look and content. I feel that this latest design reflects my character and my work very effectively.

Hopefully this will help kickstart my career in the design industry.

The PDF version can be viewed and downloaded from here.

Summer Rain

My friend and aspiring author, Lindsay Michaels has recently realised a book on the Amazon Kindle Store. She asked me to design the cover for her romantic novel called Summer Rain.

After some discussion with Lindsay and some market research I came with a simple sketch design of a couple kissing accompanied with bright pink script which contrasts well. Hopefully this cover will help Lindsay's book stand out from the crowd and be a success!

I am very proud and excited to be part of Lindsay's project and can't wait for the next book and to work with Lindsay again!

Summer Rain by Lindsay Michaels can be found HERE.

Follow Lindsay on Twitter.

NSS Poster - Art Deco

I have designed a poster for the National Student Survey 2013 poster competition. I have gone with an Art Deco style for my poster, which features an trumpeting angel with the title "Be Heard".

I like the bright colours that I've used and the simplistic nature of the Art Deco style. This is only the first draft and I may tweak some aspects such as the colour and the image/text placement.

Website Updated!

Please have a look at my recently updated website, which now contains some of my portfolio work. Many thanks.

patrickcrosbydesign.com

Book Cover Final Design - The Guardian

After much tweaking and feedback from my client I have created the final design for The Guardian book cover. The design now features a young girl's face within the silhouette of the angel image. The text is the same as previous drafts, with the added subtitle of "the brotherhood series".

I decided to add some falling feathers into the background and a blue hue overall which I think adds more depth the the design.

The book will be first released as an e-book on Amazon's Kindle store and hopefully will become published into print at a later date.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this design and with my client, Lindsay. She has been very helpful with her feedback and constructive with her criticism, it was a great insight into client/designer relations in the design industry.

Please follow Lindsay's blog and twitter for all the latest news on the The Guardian.

Book Cover Design - The Guardian

My work friend has asked me to design a cover for her first ever book. The book is called "The Guardian" and is a teenage fiction novel featuring angels and demons.

With this knowledge in hand I created a mood board to show my client what ideas I had in mind.

The mood board featured various imagery of angels, artistic styles and various types of font that I believe would work well. My client was happy with what I had shown her and picked out her favourite font from the selection I had provided.


For the next step,  I created a mock up design using standard dimensions of paper-back book covers. I decided to to use my "crouching angel" drawing that I had created earlier, however I went over it with a brush tipped pen and water to create calligraphy effect.

I went for a grungy/dirty feel as I think it works well with the drawing style and the genre of the book.

I added the title and authors name using separate fonts, if the book is published I will have to make sure  that I've bought the licence to use these fonts.

After some feedback from my client I have created a second mock up design for the cover. 

My client wanted the cover to include a young woman's face as to reflect the main female character in the book. I drew a sketch of a face, scanned it in and manipulated it on photoshop so that I would be in the back ground of the image, but slightly faded so not to conflict with the rest of the images in the design. I also amended the author's name to her chosen Pen name.

I am now awaiting feedback of the second cover mock up.

Follow Lindsay's blog to find out more about the book and to keep up to date with developments.