Engaging Viral Marketing Builds Awareness: Ray-Ban's "Never Hide Films"

One of the small businesses I worked with has a tight budget and wanted to find a way to increase their search engine rank and build awareness about the services they offer. In my opinion, one of the most fun and creative ways to develop a presence on the internet is through viral marketing. One of the more memorable campaigns was Rayban's "Never Hide Films" video series.

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First Thursday Poster Designs for February

This week I had to finish up a poster design for First Thursday in Windsor, Connecticut. My client is the Windsor Chamber of Commerce and the goal was to showcase the stores while informing viewers of the great prizes the businesses were offering.

I decided to go with a fun and playful design - I used a cartoon boy preparing valentines for one, and then showcased the chocolate pearls being raffled off in the other. The chamber ultimately went with the chocolate pearl poster and I understand why; it adds a bit of context and visual appeal to the prizes.

The stereotypical pinks and purples are reminiscent of Valentines day. Light and colorful was the goal.

Chamberland Painting

I will be working with a locally based painting company called Chamberland Painting to revamp their website, and expand their internet marketing through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. I'm excited to help strategically position them in the market and help them inform others of the great work they do.

I'll be keeping this blog updated with my work.

Goals:
Redesign website
Develop content for main page
Provide a way for customers to request estimates
Create Facebook/Twitter pages to facilitate marketing

Contact Information

You know how to reach me.

Online Writing & Page Design Samples

World of Pwnage

Scaling Your Crosshair
Purchasing Equipment Quickly and Efficiently
Bomb Placement Strategy: De_Dust2
Tweaker's Guide to Your Rates in Counter-Strike Source

Invisible Gold

Creating Links on Your Page
Don't Get Tricked by the Domain Registry of America
Meta-Tags vs. Keywords: Your Site's Visibility

HostingCT.com

Created a Before & After Page for a Web Design Company

The Camper Bike: Fastest Way of Shedding Weight for Spring Break

 While this appears to be more of an artistic endeavor rather than the actual schematics to a soon-to-be product, the Camper Bike looks like a neat and heart attack inducing possibility.

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Playstation 3 Slimmer in More Ways than One

It appears that Sony’s new Playstation 3 Slim comes in threes. The new console, set to hit store shelves on September 1st, takes up 33 percent less space, is 36 percent lighter, and uses 33 percent less energy. While there are some aesthetic differences between the older and newer models such as the lack of a heat sensitive power button, the larger concern for some consumers might be if anything was drastically changed for this new model.

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Humorous Writing Sample

The Panda Problem

For those of you who want to believe in a God, I’ve got great news, he most likely has a sense of humor. The only piece of evidence you need in support of this claim is the Panda. Because of the panda’s cute and cuddly nature we have this great desire to preserve it. Yes, that appears to be the trend - if something is utterly useless but cute, let’s pour thousands into preserving it. Heck, I’m not saying it’s a pointless endeavor, only that the panda as a species does not have the will to live nor is it biologically made to survive.

First, let’s take a look at the panda’s colors. We’ve got a black and white bear that was once thought to be an exceptionally large raccoon living in south western China. When you take a look at its habitat, everything is brown and green. At this point one can conclude that the panda is one of three things: exceptionally lucky, has no predators, or is some sort of attention whore that relies on its cuddly nature to thwart the efforts of its predators. Indeed, the panda works some sort of magic in this regard, because as one may or may not know, cute and cuddly doesn’t always cut it – just look at the harbor seals in Canada.

You might be saying to yourself, “oh come on, if that’s all you got on the panda, then you can just quit cause you haven’t convinced me.” Well, I bring you perhaps the strongest piece of evidence: the panda’s reproductive process. The female panda is only fertile three days out of the year. As the female panda approaches her partner in the heat of the moment, the male panda will often look at her wearily as he eats his bamboo and swat away any attempts on her part to get the party started. Instead, the male is content with sitting on his butt muffin and getting fat instead of making his woman feel sexy. The panda clearly has lost the will to live and has no interest in preserving its genetics without the aid of panda porn.

And so we are left with one very important life lesson: be cute or die. I’m just thankful I’ve managed to hit the cute quota when it comes to other people. The true test will come after the Martian invasion. I, for one, will welcome our new alien overlords, their 12’x9’ cell, and three square meals a day.

Poster Designs

Menu Designs

Mailing Menus

Vector Drawing Practice

A vector drawing consists of points, lines, polygons, and curves to create a computer image. One of the leading vector drawing programs is Adobe Illustrator, but for my first vector drawing attempt, I decided to use a program that I am more familiar with: Photoshop.

Suzi provided me a drawing she had sketched and I used the under drawing as a guide for the Photoshop pen tool. The pen tool in Photoshop is horrifically unintuitive, but very powerful under the right hands. However, no guide on this planet will help you master it; the only way of getting the hang of using the pen tool is by creating drawings and shapes using it yourself. It's a little helpful to memorize the shortcuts pertaining to anchor points.

I followed a useful tutorial provided by Beavotron from the Penny-Arcade forums. I recommend watching that once or twice to get the feel for this vector drawing process. She uses the pen tool in Photoshop, however I recommend eventually getting used to using Illustrator, since it seems to be built for the sole purpose of doing vector drawings.

Anyway, here is the original drawing and the final product. Took me about 6-8 hours to complete.

Slowly Updating

Slowly updating this website with my portfolio using lightbox. I'll be writing about whatever interests me once I have the bones of this website finished.

Tomorrow to do list:

1. Add Menu Redesigns
2. Add Poster Designs
3. Add Writing Samples

Web Designs

About Me

We live in a world that values productivity and the management of our limited personal time, so I have decided to make this short and sweet for those of you on the go.

• I absolutely love Tennis with a capital T and could play it for hours on end.

• I am half Mexican with family in Spain and Mexico yet benefit 100% from white patriarchy in the United States.

• The grandmother on my mother's side was an eternal optimist even after losing her sight and a battle against cancer, while the grandmother on my father's side decided to become a cloistered nun at the age of 81.

• I used to be 5'1" and weigh 240 lbs. I am currently 5'5" and weigh 160 lbs. The experience has left me feeling and looking like a human Stretch Armstrong.

• Trees are awesome and I enjoy climbing and looking at them. I once fell out of a tree 20 feet from the floor and landed on my head.

• My most valuable trait is my work ethic. When I am passionate about a project, I will lose track of time and forget about sleeping and eating. The longest I have ever gone without sleeping or eating because of said passion is 37 hours.

• I do not have any natural talents. Aforementioned work ethic is one of the few reasons why I am good at anything.

• In elementary school I was The Nice Guy, in Middle School I was a Nerd, in High School I was known as the kid who played the trumpet really well, and in college I was known as the boisterous one.

I think that's a good start to knowing me, but as always, I'm more than willing to talk, so email me if you have questions or want to argue about whether cake or pie is the better dessert.