Websites
2d Work
3d Work
Animation
204 Cyclery
Details
My classmate Jacob Swain and I created this site to promote our fictional Halcyon vehicle. He did most of the static page design and code while I worked on the interactive content for the build page. We worked together on the 3d model the project is based on, and while he did most of the animation and rendering I did the print design and most of the writing.
Tools Used
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Clarkson Radio (WTSC 91.1)
Details
During my senior year, I was Clarkson Radio’s webmaster. As webmaster, I worked with another student to redesign the site’s frontend and replace a table-based layout with a more attractive standards-compliant template. I created the Ajax-based sidebar and built a custom CMS for news items, station members, the show schedule, and other information.
I also built a new show logging system for DJs to keep track of the songs they play. It replaced an old, buggy logging system and streamlined the logging process for DJs by autocompleting song, artist, and album info.
Tools Used
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Professor Woodworth’s Personal Site
Details
Professor Woodworth, in Clarkson’s Biology Department, wanted to redesign his personal website. His goal was to keep it low-key and professional to support grant applications and journal submissions. My redesign focused primarily on typography, navigation, and standards-compliance.
To keep the site standards-compliant, I helped Professor Woodworth change from FrontPage to GoLive to update the site. I also wrote a short manual with instructions for common tasks.
Tools Used
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Laughing Crow Winery
Details
This is a single-page site for Laughing Crow Winery, a local start-up business. As part of Clarkson Consulting Group, I designed Laughing Crow’s logo, wine labels, and website, while students from the School of Business developed a business plan.
Although simple, the page is designed to reinforce the brand identity applied to the bottles. I built around a three-column grid with type set on a horizontal grid, to create a modular framework for more content on this page or an expanded site based on the same design.
Tools Used
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Greenalytix Concept Page
Details
This page is an HTML/CSS mockup for a presentation in my Senior Honors class. The class worked with Greenalytix, a small startup that hopes to quantify the environmental impact of consumer products, to develop a product scoring scale and an analytical system to determine environmental impact. We also rapidly prototyped the basic software, for which I designed this static end-user interface. I used the Blueprint CSS framework as an experiment, but I was unhappy with the non-semantic markup required.
Tools Used
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Fictional Logo: “Safari Africa”
Details
I didn’t realize it at the time, but this logo represents the beginning of my fascination with typography. Using Illustrator, I hand-traced the giraffe and the African continent, but I spent the majority of my time and effort on sizing and positioning the text and choosing a typeface with the right feel.
Programs Used
Desert Penguins
Details
This image, which combines fragments from several sources, was largely an experiment with balance, simplicity, and color, but I like the surreality of the final piece.
Programs Used
Fictional Logo: “Dynacorp”
Details
This project was my first attempt at logo design and my first project done in Illustrator. I drew it around the time F.E.A.R. was released, and was inspired by the way the game’s outwardly innocuous office setting hid the Armacham Corporation’s sinister motives. I tried to create a logo that would be similarly capable of expressing neutrality or menace, depending on its context.
Programs Used
Acura RSX
Details
This image is an experiment in replacing smoothly shaded colors with a smaller number of discrete colors. I hand-traced the source image in Illustrator to create an effect similar to cel-shading.
Programs Used
Page Layout
Details
This is the first page of Charles Stross’s Accelerando, available under a Creative Commons license. I designed this page as an exercise in print typography.
Normally line breaks and indents should not be used together to begin paragraphs, but I thought it was an appropriate way to emphasize and separate the single-line paragraphs used here. I chose this particular page for its variety: in addition to the common page content, it includes a chapter title, a subheader, a stand-alone quote, and a section break. Most of the pages in the book would look signifigantly simpler.
Programs Used
Bedroom
Details
This was a project in my first 3d modeling course. We were asked to take pictures of our bedrooms, and then model and texture a scene to match as closely as possible.
Although I am not entirely satisfied with the way the final render turned out, I gained a great deal of valuable experience from this project. At the start, I took very precise measurements and modeled everything in great detail, but I wasted much of this effort on parts of the scene that are not visible in the final render. As the deadline neared, the detail of my models decreased and I turned to textures to compensate.
Luckily, I have applied the lessons learned from this project to my later projects. Since learning to focus on the visible parts of each scene, the quality of my models has increased and I have been able to add details where they will make a difference.
Programs Used
Product Design: Wafflemaker
Details
For a project in our 3d modeling class, we were given the choice between creating a kitchen appliance or a toy. Since I always find myself impatiently waiting for the next batch of waffles to be cooked, I decided to design a wafflemaker capable of producing a continuous stream of delicious waffles.
My concept wafflemaker’s feature set includes multi-stage status lights, modular construction for easy expandability, and removable, nonstick waffle grids.
Programs Used
Workbench
Details
For this project, we were given a list of items and told to use twelve of them in a single final composition. Since it was an exercise in modeling, we were not allowed to use textures or complex lighting. This project was a precursor to my ant’s-eye view project, though, so the models in this scene are shown textured and lit starting around 45 seconds into that animation.
Programs Used
Jellyfish
Details
I originally intended for this piece to be an underwater scene, with a whole school of jellyfish in the foreground. Fortunately, I decided that I did not know enough to create a convincing underwater look, and rethought my project. I drew on an image of Shanghai’s skyline for inspiration for many of the buildings, and added the flame trail to the jellyfish in Photoshop.
In October 2008, I submitted this to the juried “Amateurs Only!” show at the Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, NY. Out of 128 works submitted, “Jellyfish” was one of the 40 selected to be exhibited to the public.
Exhibitions
- Amateurs Only! (October–December 2008)
Programs Used
Demo Reel
Breakdown
- 0:04 Wafflemaker
- 0:19 Jellyfish
- 0:26 Workbench
- 0:33 Elevated Station (model from Stopping All Stations)
- 1:00 Subway Station (model from Stopping All Stations)
- 1:27 Stopping All Stations excerpts
- 1:58 Ant’s-Eye View excerpt
Music
Chords of Life by Joe Satriani
Programs Used
Stopping All Stations
Details
This music video was the result of a month of close collaboration with my classmate, Jacob Swain. Jake originally heard one of the Hilltop Hood’s songs in a skate video, and contacted the band as a representative of Clarkson’s radio station. We were both inspired by the story told in the song “Stopping All Stations,” and decided to make it the basis of our 3-minute animation for Digital Studio III.
Music
Stopping All Stations (Restrung) by Hilltop Hoods
Exhibitions
- North Country Film Festival (2009)
Programs Used
Ant’s-Eye View
Details
Ant’s-Eye View is an extension of my workbench project. I added more models to populate both ends of the bench, and textured and lit the old and new models. I wanted to explore the environment from a new point of view, so the camera follows an ant as he searches for food.
Music
Bug City by The Presidents of the United States of America