Don Padlan’s Portfolio Design + Art CSU East Bay
Inside 4
personal work
photography
10
misc.
12
school work
Ohlone College
18
CSU East Bay
First Shoot Fall 2017 My time in yearbook class during high school heightened my interest for photography, and when my buddy heard that I finally bought a personal DSLR, he asked for an impromptu photoshoot. I had gone in with no modeling experience, lighting knowledge, and surface-level Photoshop and Lightroom skills for post touch-ups.
4 - Personal Work
Photography - 5
Prom Day Spring 2018 At the time, I would only shoot photos and some video for close friends if they asked, but with my high school’s prom season coming up, I finally asked my friends instead if I can take photos for them. One of my close friends agreed, and I challenged myself to go blindly into our venue with no equipment but my camera.
6 - Personal Work
Photography - 7
The Peak Summer 2021 I’m still known as the friend with the camera, where my old high school buddy reached out regarding his weight loss journey and wanted me to photograph his anniversary of when he started. We climbed Coyote Hills in Fremont just in time to reach the peak at sunset, where I captured one of my favorite shots to date. This documentation was an honor to contribute to my friend’s inspiring story, which I believe captures the essence of photography.
8 - Personal Work
Photography - 9
Unfinished Chae Fall 2020 I never really liked holding a pencil and would rather stick to a keyboard-mouse combination, but something clicked where I felt like I needed to draw faces. Previous to when I started this digital drawing, I took a very basic college drawing class and understood the fundamentals of drawing from life. The purpose of at least starting this portrait is to get a feel of a new digital drawing tablet I bought just to make this, as well as explore Photoshop’s drawing capabilities. Depicted is Korean girl group TWICE’s Chaeyoung.
10 - Miscellaneous
11
12 - School Works
CON Winter 2017 One of my first classes at Ohlone College was a video making class where we learned Adobe Premiere, the basics of using digital cameras for video and film, and screenplay writing. This final project was a culmination of all three skills, where we shot, directed, and even acted in our own film. The concept of my film is a blind first date turned crime scene. https://youtu.be/gwTq7rm0r0U
Ohlone College - 13
14 - School Works
HOW ANIME CHANGED AMERICAN SOCIETY Spring 2019 This semester, I took up a modern media history studies class, where we studied the effects of media into American influence. Histories of cameras, internet, and journalism were discussed. As my final project for this class, I wanted to delve how anime influenced American society, while glossing over topics such as the history of Japanese animation and cultural appropriation. https://youtu.be/7gn_yA5UpGU
Ohlone College - 15
16 - School Works
Graphic Arts Spring 2020 I was very excited for this class, where we finally were introduced to Adobe Illustrator, a new venture into my graphic design studies. Through the semester, we were tasked several assignments using only one specific tool each time to create small compositions. Eventually, we took up poster design studies and created our own propaganda, advertisement, and character posters. Lastly, a faux restaurant was created where we needed to create business cards.
Ohlone College - 17
DAY6 “Zombie” Stop-Motion Fall 2020 This semester, I transfered over to CSU East Bay, where 4D Processes was among the first classes to take in my graphic design program. Art 104, also known as 4D Processes, combined the concept of the fourth dimension of time to create artwork. One of the first assignments was a stop motion music video, where I combined Korean rock group DAY6’s song “Zombie” into my clay animation interpretation. https://youtu.be/5kTQ_bHmOp4v
18 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 19
Oreo Cake ASMRish Fall 2020 Blender was the newest program to my arsenal, but I was already familiar with the concept of animation from a high school class which taught Adobe Animate. However, digital 3D modeling was a totally new concept which I felt was an excellent challenge. Within this project, I created all objects and recorded all audio myself and utilized my past knowledge of camera composition and animaton to create a very bad tutorial how to make an Oreo cake. https://youtu.be/IrKrfkE1pFk
20 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 21
TRANSPORTED INTO CITY POP (“SAY SOMETHING” BY TWICE) Fall 2020 The final for 4D Processes was a free-for-all where I challenged myself to act into a skit-slash-music video of one of my favorite songs at the time. I was in a Japanese city-pop genre phase at the time too, so I wanted to replicate what I feel when listning to the genre. Learning the in-depth effects and animation in Premiere was my main goal for the final as a culmination of what I’ve learned regarding videography and Premiere so far as well as using my new smartphone to take video. https://youtu.be/GwKuoqwDKjU 22 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 23
Place With Purpose Winter 2021 Art 330 also known as Typography 1 is my first delve into Adobe InDesign, where I previously used a similar online-based program called eDesign to create yearbook spreads. This final project in Typography 1 was a welcome and familiar concept to me having done yearbook class in high school for two years, but in a more refined and versatile program like InDesign. Two layouts were created of a personal safe space, mine being my desk at home.
24 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 25
SnapSnacks Summer 2021 Art 331 finally introduced me to what I wanted to learn the most: company identity, branding, and even more graphic design. Through the whole semester, we worked with several food delivery restaurant concepts to create a company logo, related graphics, and put them onto food delivery service-related items like drink bottles, paper bags, and merchandise. Furthermore, the introduction of Adobe Dimension allowed us to place our graphics onto mockup products, then place our products into a realistic setting to see how our branding looks in a life-like environment.
26 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 27
How-To Infographics Fall 2021 Information Design in Art 336 was a small departure from graphic design with branding and such, where we foused on data visualization. This first project introduced us to the isometric style, where we were tasked to create solely visual how-to guide in Illustrator. My how-to guide was based off my job as a custom framer, where I guided the process of framing artwork.
28 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 29
Graveyard Shift Fall 2021 Design Strategies and Collaborations in Art 335 was by far the most challenging class where this first project, the book design, introduced concepts like book cover design, interior page layouts, and revisted branding in the form of making a cover related to a chosen story. My story was “Graveyard Shift” by David Sedaris, which tells of a cadaver prospect who is also unfortunately a very openly morbid person, hence bloody hands and grabbing a skull.
30 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 31
New Balance 993v1 Fall 2021 The Shoe Soul Brochure introduced us to brochures and thinking in folded mediums, where we were tasked to photograph and show off a personal shoe of ours in a museum-like context. Creating an aesthetic and narrative to pair with my newest pair of New Balance 993s was difficult since I didn’t want to bite off of how New Balance themselves brand the 993s.
32 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 33
SOL Lightbulbs Fall 2021 In Art 335’s final Let There Be Light project, we revisit packaging and delve deeper with actual two-dimensional box layouts which transform into a three-dimensional package. In this case, we created our own brand and graphics for a lightbulb company. I created SOL as my lightbulb company with a concept around fireworks and flames. A strong and contrasted yellow and black theme is prominent, as well as using my own photos of sparks, embers, and fireworks to create the identity of SOL. Dimension was used yet again to place our graphics onto a box and into a realistic shelving setting, as well as an environment that matched my target demographic of computer gamers. 34 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 35
More Typography Spring 2022 Typography 2 is next in my class list, where this first project produced two posters. In the first poster, we were tasked to create words out of real objects, manipulate them using Photoshop if need be, and creating a visually pleasing poster composition. The second poster derives from hand-letting techniques, where we found a very old help-wanted newspaper advertisement and recreated its mood and tone using hand-made lettering.
36 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 37
KOEN Restaurant Spring 2022 The latest project comes from Art 332, where we learn about real printing and utilize that knowledge into creating physical prints. This menu design project follows normal concept creation and branding of a restaurant, where its identity is shown through a menu. The concepts behind KOEN are Asian representation and having customers feel welcome. “Koen” is a Japanese word meaning “park” in English, where parks are known as a safe and relaxing space where everyone can be in. Imagery of a bridge is seen in KOEN’s logo, to metaphorically bridge Asian cultures. The national flowers of the seven countries are included as well, to represent each country further not only with its food, but flora. 38 - School Works
CSU East Bay - 39