Dialogue + Time = Success

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Joe Cavazos

One of the many things that I love about my job is the opportunity to work with the different departments at the church. Student ministries is something that is close to my heart and I try to help out as much as I can in helping them visually communicate to their specific audiences.

The project above is a mail-out piece I did for our high school ministry. The computer time it took to finish this project was longer then most, but totaled out to about a days work, not including tweaks and changes during the proofing process.

I really enjoy seeing projects go from concept to finish piece. My favorite part is always the actual design work but in order for that to go smoothly there are several things that most happen outside of the computer.

I remember meeting with the high school staff and listening to them tell me why they wanted this piece. There first idea was to do a calendar of some sorts to hand out. While this was a good idea, we began to think of the events that would be this calendar. Some of the events didn't hadn't even been finalized and would have to push production back. With further dialogue we agreed that we didn't want this to be content heavy.

By the end of the meeting we both narrowed down the goal of this project which was: to create a save the date mail-out that would be cool enough to hang on a student's refrigerator at home.

The other key ingredient to this was time. Normally we have a two week turnaround. Which by most standards isn't very long. This was a project that could have been done quickly but I'm thankful they gave me plenty of time to finish it.

The whole project from start to finish took almost two months. It's not like we work on it everyday but this help to give me the freedom to experiment with the layout and time to let it sit. For me, I feel I can push a project more if I'm able to walk away from it and come back to it later.

The end result was great, they were happy and so was I. The projects that get me are the ones that I have regrets about, the ones that I wish I could go back and tweak some lighting or another element. With this one as soon as It rolled off the printer I was content.

Lion, Ox, and Lamb OH MY

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Joe Cavazos

It's another "normal" week at PVC. Found out Monday morning that our office was going to be remodeled into a new nursery. The new office they are setting up for us is going to be darker and further down the hall. So I consider it it a win win.

In the middle of all this I was reminded that we are starting a new series this weekend and hadn't heard anything on what it was about. Mitch soon filled me in on the details and gave me a graphic that one of the teaching pastors used before. I wanted to changed it up, but still keep at as close to the original concept, since that is what the pastor liked.

The series is going to be "Perspectives of Jesus" and keying in on some of the symbols used in describing Him such as the lion, lamb, ox and eagle.

I've been wanting to created something with this particular style for a while. I'm really happy how it turned out, I have to give some props to the design peeps (you know who you are) that gave me some needed critique and push.

Below are is a screen shot of the original images I used to create the final piece.

40 Cover Design Under 1 Minute

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Joe Cavazos

This has been a crazy week so far. I had about three days to layout a 64 page devotional booklet and get it to press. It was three days of copy-paste-format over and over again. The bright spot in this project was designing the cover. I have been wanting to try out, what I call, a word art style (not to be confused with word art in Microsoft word) for a while.

This devotional booklet is going along with the Lent series starting Ash Wednesday. The teaching pastor hook me up with forty key words he was using during this series. I had the idea in my head and really like how it played out. The time lapse below took three hours in real time.

World's Smallest Worship Guide

Posted on January 5, 2010 by Joe Cavazos

Even though this was a misprint this sure would be a great way to cut down on printing costs.

When Lowering Expectations Isn't So Bad

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Joe Cavazos

Last week I volunteered to pick up some food, from the local Olive Garden, for Lulu's volunteer Christmas party. I showed up about 10 minutes early, payed for the food and I sat down. The waitress said it would be out in 10 minutes. After waiting 20 minutes, I thought, well it's alot of food and they have to pack it up. Around that time the waitress came by again and said it would be out in 5 minutes. Needless to say this continued and "5 minutes" soon turned into "any minute" and then "any second." By the time I got out of there I had been waiting for 50 minutes.

I don't fault them for taking a long time in preparing the order. Working several years in the food industry has made me appreciate what it takes to get orders out. The thing that bugged me the most wasn't the time but the unrealistic expectations that were set.

There has been instances where I have given unrealistic expectations on project deadlines and what can be created with the time allowed. In most cases, this always leads to late nights or upset clients.

What If the waitress would have come to me and said, "Sir, we are really swamped right now and it's going to take longer then expected." I still would probably still be upset but at least that gives them room to surprise me. Same thing with working with departments on projects.

Being upfront and truthful in the beginning gives me the opportunity to surprise the client. Maybe I'm able to turn around a project in one week instead of the three. Or maybe I can spend more time on research and sketching which will in turn give them a better piece at the end.

This is something I need to work on this coming year. Being able to gauge my time and abilities to set real, achievable expectations.

My First Rap Video

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Joe Cavazos

I love it when I get the chance to colab with my brother OZ, our one man video team. Being that I was the closest thing to a rapper in our building they got me to lay down the rhymes for the track. Oz and Andrew came in in with the hook. Turn up your speaker and kick up the bass!

Encounter Graphics Time Lapse

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Joe Cavazos

Below is time lapse video of me designing this sermon series graphic. Because of the crazy schedule this week I had to work on this over three days in bits and pieces. I have to thank all the design peeps, from the Church Marketing Lab & tweeter world, that gave me some great suggestions to finalize this.

The track on the video is "Mystery" by Phil Wickham. Great music when working with stars & galaxies.

Live By The Widget, Die By The Widget

Posted on June 6, 2009 by Joe Cavazos

I'm sitting here at home chill-axing after a couple challenging weeks at PVC. This is a busy season for our print production. We had three departments needing well over 1,500 sq. ft. of large format printing for their series set designs. Unfortunately, in the middle of the first set our printer went down. I had never really had any significant problems with the plotter before. To make things worse the technician needed a week before he could even take a look at it.

I had to break the news to the departments, that their sets might not be done in time. Props to them for understanding and quickly moving forward with setting up some "Plan B" solutions. Fortunately, toward the end of this week a church volunteer offered to let us borrow his plotter until ours finished being repaired. MIKE ROCKS!!!

In the middle of dealing with this situation I posted a tweet "Live by the plotter, die by the plotter." This has now became a sobering thought for me. How much have I become dependent on one widget. The more dependent one becomes on a specific resource the larger the void if that resource is not there.

Here are a few practical lessons I learned from this experience:

Frustration won't fix the problem, exercise calmness.
Don't be overly optimistic the widget will be up and running quickly.
Have some "Plan B"solutions ready to go at all times.
Keep a current list of who can service all widgets used in production.
Have art deadlines due weeks before production deadlines.
Set clear expectations to those affected when widgets go down.

Widgets more often then not will break down. While those times can be full of stress in frustration it can also be a opportunity for creative solutions to flourish.

The Making Of "The Family Works" Graphic

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Joe Cavazos

The "Family Works" logo has to be one of my favorite pieces I've done here at PVC. Now I can't go back and repeat the exacts steps I took to get to the final image but I can break it down layer by layer. Note: This not a tutorial but more of a break down. If you have any questions drop me a line down below.

Download the PSD source file here.

I started it all with my favorite stars pic.

I recycled these color gradient bars off a vector art from istockphotos.com. In photoshop I made two copies of the of the bars and adjusted the perspective to give it that corner look. I also added some masks to give it some opacity as it stretch to the edge of the graphic. I then grouped the two into a smart object.

I added a smart filter blur with a mask so I could have it blurred towards the back where the bars meet in the middle. I also changed the blending mode to hard light.

Then I added a curves adjustment layer and darken the image up, I masked out the middle to give a vignette look.

I duplicated the stars layer, increased the size and flip it. After that I add a gaussian blur and changed the blending option to screen. This made so just the star clusters would show.

For the logo I used a basic font in Illustrator and extended portions of the letters to make the future i-beams. NOTE: I find it easier to work with the 3D lighting in Illustrator when the art is a light grey or white.

I used the 3D extrude & bevel filter to create the basic frame of the logo.

I brought the logo in as a smart object into photoshop. I added a color effect with the blending mode set to color. I also added a gradient with the blending mode set to multiply. This added some darkness to the bottom of the logo.

To get the i-beam look I drew 2 shapes. One is for the inside part of the beam and the other the far back side of the beam. I also added a gradient from left to right to give it some shading.

Then I brought in a metal texture and used the selection of the original logo to place a mask on the texture.

I then set the blending mode of the texture too overlay.

I made a duplicate of the original smart object logo. Added a blur to it and then changed the blending mode too color dodge. This is what gave the text art a glow.

For the bolts I went back to illustrator, created a simple hexagon and used the 3D extrude filter on it. On a side note: I wanted to make sure to get the angle and proportions right on the text art. To do so I took a screen shot of the logo in PS and place it in Illustrator to use as a backdrop.

I brought the bolts into PS and added some color along with some lines.

For the various gears I used some more stock vector files.

I brought them into photoshop and added color layer effects. On some of them I added a black & white gradient with a blending mode set to multiply to give it some shading. In addition to that I applied a smart filter blur to help give it a greater depth of field.

To finish it off I created a new layer and filled it with a diagonal line pattern. I changed the blending option to soft light. Here's a place where you can see some tutorials on line patterns.

Burgers, Fries & Graphics

Posted on May 25, 2009 by Joe Cavazos

Last Friday I had one action item left for the week, "design WHY series graphic". Honestly my brain was already thinking about how much German sausage I was going to consume in Fredericksburg during Lu and I weekend getaway. It usually takes me a while to finalize series graphics. At times I like to work on it and shelve it for a day or so and go back to it. This time I was determine to get it done. The whole piece quickly came together in about three hours.

So I sent a proof out, crossed my fingers and waited. Pretty soon I got a response back that it was good to go with a minor tweak. Yes, no revamp no having to go back to the drawing table (ok, so i don't really draw). I love it when that happens. I find satisfaction when I'm able to translate the passion and message of the communicator into graphic form.

How come this project came so easily? I'm not that good. I soon realize it was the burger and fries that the youth pastor invited me to a couple of months back. We chatted about the "why" series he was wanting to start in the summer. I was able to hear his passion and reasoning behind the series. That's something you just can't get from a request form.

That morning as I worked on the graphic I kept referencing back to our conversation. I believe that graphic wouldn't be what it was if those conversations would not have happened.

I learned a valuable lesson this week, something that maybe I have overlooked before. I am at my best as a graphic artist when I am able to hear the heart and passion of the communicator.

I want to challenge all my deisgn peeps out there to look pass the deadlines, requests, creativity, etc., and have some conversations with those you are designing for. And if you work with a designer, I challenge you to take them out for burgers and fries.

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