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AcD: City of Gold (Masters)

Advanced Concept Design, or AcD, is the title surrounding my newest portfolio.  The City of Gold series that I created this past weekend was expanded upon and further refined.  The result of which is the first entry into the AcD portfolio.

What is interesting is that these designs are all based upon a single rectangle in three dimensions.  The simplicity of the model allows for a greater focus in composition, palette exploration and image refinement.  I am very pleased with how these ultimately turned out and very encouraged for further work in this space.

Check out the entire collection on Ink.

Seven Days.

After some brief thought over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve decided to spend the next seven days designing a new vehicle concept.

Given this type of experiment, I am not going to spend a lot of time developing a creative brief because my goal at this point is pure creative focus, and less so on adherence to a specific need (fabricated or otherwise).

This journey will start with some exploratory sketches using traditional media (pencil, markers, etc.) and will ultimately conclude with a final 3D rendering using Modo and Photoshop.  While I’ve done several designs and models, these efforts have been separate and distinct – thus, I think it’s going to be a challenge (at least right now) to incorporate both into one project, particularly within such a short duration.

The benefits of this challenge are many.  Two that immediately come to mind include the following:

  1. Be able to independently start and finish a design void of any external forces (clients, instructors, etc.).
  2. Develop techniques to accelerate creative thinking.

If this experiment proves successful, it’s entirely possible you’ll see other seven day challenges appear on the horizon throughout the year.

Connect to Expand.

To date, the vast majority of my personal projects have been created independently of one another.  While many of my projects have built off of one another (e.g. Microcosms was built upon the Incubator concept), there has not been a unifying link between them.  I think there is an opportunity to alter this approach to enable greater creative expansion and exploration.

Over the past several weeks I have been thinking of a few new projects that begin to combine various aspects of my creative exploration in new and unique ways.

Here are a select few:

Mach1na: I came up with this idea a few days ago when listening to Drone Zone on Soma.fm.  The music that was playing was a combination of electronica and sounds of syncros, gears and other mechanical devices.  It would be very interesting to sketch out new mechanical devices, render them digitally using Photoshop, and then incorporate them in a fabricated information design – as if these devices were in fact, real.  Going a step further, being able to showcase these illustrations along with a similar audio track would, I think, create a unique experience.

Gaia: The theory of Gaia, in a nutshell, is that the Earth is a single living organism.  Illustrating and coming up with documented concepts that align with this theory could very well be a multi-year endeavor.  For example, illustrating plants and foliage from different time periods (prehistoric to sometime in the future) requires considerable research of the underlying taxonomy.  It’s one thing to come up with new plant concepts, but it can be more convincing if these concepts are based upon real biological principles.

This encapsulating concept could also introduce visuals that show how the Earth could appear in 2100, or 2200.  With global warming, could the Internet become part of the landscape?  Again, it’s not just about coming up with pure fantasy-based illustrations or narratives – it’s about combining research with creativity.