some graphic design work

These are some graphic design projects that I did about a year and a half ago when I first started at Cal State Fullerton after an almost two year hiatus from school. Even though I've done well in all of the design classes I've taken, I can't help thinking there's something I don't get; like there's some secret graphic design language that I don't speak. I get the feeling that, even though I like the way these projects look, a Real Graphic Designer would look at it and immediately see something that's really obviously wrong with it, that I've broken some secret rule...

The first three are from Ron Larson's typography class, which I took in Fall 2009. I thought Larson was really awesome, mostly because he designed the Empire Strikes Back logo, and also the W from the original Star Wars logo-- just the W. He brought in his portfolio one day and he had a brochure with the original W on it, it was ridiculous. I was wearing my Star Wars shirt that day, nerding out about it and he was so nonchalant, calling lightsabers "lazor swords." But I digress, I had never used Illustrator or Photoshop before this semester, which is probably apparent.

Shopping Bag Assignment, Illustrator.
I designed the bag around Anthropologie's existing logo, I just elaborated on it.

Wine Label Assignment, Illustrator.
 The girl on the label is my muse and accomplice in friendship, Kelsey Born Awesome Haugen. You will likely see her image recurring in my work as she is an excellent model and basically my only female friend.

Christmas Card Assignment, Illustrator.
That's me and my beard-ier half as elves. I made copies and gave these out to our families that year.

This wasn't part of the class, but I made it around the same time. It's an invitation to our annual Christmas party. It's sort of a mess, I just included it for the silly illustration.
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Now these are from Chen Wang's graphic design class, which I took the following semester. The assignment was to choose an artist, design an original image which represents them, and use the image as part of a book jacket design. I chose Banksy.

For the first version I designed a landscape format book, but I didn't own a book in the shape that I needed for my presentation. I found one at the library, a children's book called How to Use a Dictionary by L. Ron Hubbard. So Chen Wang chose my design for the display case, where it sat until the book was way overdue and when he returned it to me I threw it in the backseat of my car and promptly forgot about it until the library sent me a collection notice. I had to pay almost $50 even after I returned the book. I can almost guarantee that no one tried to check it out while I had it.

The illustration was a graphite drawing, it's original but obviously very heavily inspired by Banksy. Finished in Photoshop and Illustrator.

For the second two versions, again I used Photoshop and Illustrator. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to find someone with a Great Britain passport that I could photograph, then I realized that no one would know if I just used a high res image of a counterfeit one...unless I just told them about it.