Lost Work; Revisited - Beverly Panther's Bumper Sticker

I had not planned to go into too much detail in my first few posts, as I need to build up steam and shake off my nervous fears about self-promotion. However, sometimes I just can't NOT write a lengthy description. Once I get going, it just flows out; plus I fell things need a bit of explanation. Perhaps I should try to keep it simple (as my art profs use to say).

This blog is a self-critique of sorts, and I am not use to it. I am also not use to writing, and hope I break through and past it as this goes on. I have to hold back some, or I will ramble and prattle on, losing all meaning and direction. But I tend to hold back too much and thus lose focus. Either way, it's going to take time and effort.

See what I mean?

Ok. So, with that all being said, let's move on.

Here's the first of many things I have found while digging through my many boxes of miscellany. It's a bumper sticker for Beverly High football team, the Panthers. For those curious, it's in Massachusetts - the place of my birth, the art college I attended, and my first real design job. I was really proud to be working on this design; it was actually a clean-up/redraw effort of a previous design, that was dated and only a poor scan of it existed. I was allowed to make some creative alterations, as the design looked a little too 'cartoonish', to which I thoroughly agreed.

I scanned and retraced it into Adobe Illustrator, or possibly Macromedia Freehand. Although, I was never fully satisfied with the results. Before I finished the details around the jaw, and a few other nagging spots, the deadline was moved up and we had to go to print immediately. Best laid designs suffer such fates far too often.

I was actually allowed to keep a copy of the original vector file for my portfolio and because I wanted to finish it for the next print run (and for the school's archival). However, due to unfortunate circumstances, leading to a financial downswing in the print industry, I was let go from my position. I cannot remember if I ever continued working on this file on my own, as I have subsequently 'misplaced' many of my digital files from those many years ago. There were several pieces I would love to have in my portfolio, but they are simply lost. If I ever find them, it will be a miracle. This particular item, however, I retained a printed version of. Now that I have relocated it, and scanned it in, I hope I can successfully retrace it into vector and finally complete the design. It's not the most impressive piece, but I will gain some sort of satisfaction knowing I finally got something done (even if it too 10 years).

So, there is the scanned image above (linked from my deviantART gallery).
I'll pose the reworked design... in a few days. Maybe. I am a terrible procrastinator. But that's for another post.

Enjoy,

-S