Conner Smith Portfolio

Conner Smith

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Cemetery of Forgotten Books Branding, Illustration, Web Design For this project, we were to develop a brand for one of six series of novels. You were to include book jacket designs along with collateral pieces to promote and advertise your chosen series. The design should be worthy of the words on the pages of the book. The overall goal of this project was to get us to work professionally within a conventional but diverse project. We were to show our utilization of skills, media, and techniques from previous courses throughout the branding and collateral material. Overall, we were required to redesign the book jackets, a required poster, an instore display, and two additional pieces of collateral of our choosing.

I chose to do a website and packaging for the book series. I chose the series The Cemetery of Forgotten Books by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This series was a murder-mystery that revolved around the authors of books. This series had many impactful, dark themes, but the main one was the impact that the first book had on the reader and how it followed him for the rest of his life. To represent the book series as a whole I chose to go for half-toned images in a vintage yellow with a silhouette-mask cut-out of an important figure in the book. This was accompanied by textured brick backgrounds and letter-press inspired typography.

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personally struggled with this project with the original aesthetic approach. I originally was going for a linocut-style illustration through procreate. This approach was causing problems with the overall illustration style and how it fought the other aesthetic elements of the rebrand. I solved this problem through the use of halftones to achieve the same textural aesthetic but with a much more controlled and consistent outcome for all of the images.

Once this solution was found I was able to navigate my way through the book designs with much more ease. In the end I designed the three book covers, the required poster, as well as a website for the book series as well which can be found on my website through the QR code below.

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New Zealand Travel Series Print, Illustration, Layout

ADDY’s Local Silver Award With this project we were given the task of designing travel posters for a location of our choosing. I ended up choosing South Island, New Zealand. I have always had a fascination with the natural beauty of New Zealand and the geographical wonders it has to offer. I knew from the jump that these natural wonders definitely needed to be highlighted.

I decided to go for a layered vector illustration style to mimic a fairytale-esque aesthetic. I followed this up with a simplified color palette that pulled from the natural colors of the geographical surroundings to keep the illustrations as accurate as possible. I finished off the illustrations with a subtle paper texture to give a more natural feeling based upon the subject matter with a nice bold sanserif typeface for the information. The travel guide followed a similar approch by incorporating vectored illustrations throughout as well as the subtle paper texture.

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Immigration Magazine Article Print, Illustration, Layout This project was all about photo manipulation. We were tasked with creating a magazine spread for a social issue using only image manipulation techniques. The topic I picked for this assignment was immigration. I used acetone transfer techniques, and physical manipulation through ripping and burning to complete this illustrated spread. I acetone transfered the images of the American flag and the Statue of Liberty as well as the images of the detained immigrants because of the ephemeral quality the transfers have on the image. I then created a physical border in the middle of the spread using ripped up and burned visa immigration papers to further highlight the topic of immigration and the physical seperation these immigrants face daily.

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Jeep Wrangler Advertisements Motion Graphics This project was all about motion graphics advertising. We were given the task of picking from a list of popular products to create a 30-second motion advertisement for. I chose the 2020 Jeep Wrangler for my advertisement. I used the overall brand aesthetics to show the different environments the Wrangler can traverse through in a layered, flat-color illustration style. These illustrations are accompanied by bold type arrangments that inform about the Wrangler’s new and improved off-road abilities ready to “Make Geography Your Favorite Subject.” To view the motion advertisement use the QR code to the right to view it on my website.

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School of Performing & Visual Arts Motion Graphics

2 ADDY’s Local Silver Award This project was our final project for our first motion graphics class. For this project we were tasked with working in a group to create a motion commercial for our designated subject. My group got the School of Performing and Visual Arts at USM. This advertisement was heavily inspired by Apple commercials with bold typography that did most of the talking. This was followed by fun fluid acrylic videos and monotoned images based on department color within the branding. This project was also expanded into still advertisements for social media. Use the QR code to view the full commercial and see more of the process on my website.

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SageDen Website & Ads Web Design, Advertising This was a project done for Web Development II, and required us to find a local store/shop and to redesign their website. The second part of this project was to then create an ad campaign for the same company. I chose the SageDen in Hattiesburg as it was a store I did not know existed and quickly became a new favorite shop of mine.

SageDen is a holistic care store offering crystals, candles, teas, and more that are all made by hand and completely organic and natural. I chose to display this through color palette and typeface choices to keep things fresh and mystical feeling. The focus item was a tea gift set as can be seen in the mockup to the left. This was also the main target for the ad campaign, to show the all natural healing capabilites of SageDen’s amazing herbal teas. I added new aesthetics such as colors and illustrations to help the campaign set itself apart from the website itself. Use the QR code to view the full website and ad campaign on my website.

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“A must have in any individual’s reading collection. The symbolism and metaphorical writing of Poe are timeless and sensational.”

The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe includes famous works such as:

- Time Magazine - “The Raven

“Everything Poe writes about seems wrechingly plausible.”

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He was the first wellknown American writer to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

- “The Cask of Amontillado”

- Publishers Weekly

- “The Tell-Tale Heart” - “The Gold Bug”

“An aboslutely spine-chilling read.”

- “The Fall of the House of Usher”

- Entertainment Weekly

- “The Pit and the Pendulum” - “The Black Cat” - “The Bells”

Born: January 19, 1809 Died: October 7, 1849

And even more menacing tales....

US: $19.99 CAN: $22.99

Edited by Maxwell Perkins

The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe Print, Illustration, Layout The assignment for this project was to create a book cover design for a famous poet.

The book cover was to be illustrated using only liquid medium to help us understand the importance of the medium in the sense of design aesthetic. I quickly chose Edgar Allan Poe, who has always been a favorite poet of mine, and immediately got to work conceptualizing the book cover. I simply used black ink to create a void-like gradation from top to bottom of the cover. On top of this I painted some black feathers floating their way down into the dark nothingness below. Each feather’s end was dotted with red ink to signify the feathers were freshly plucked from the bird and feeding into the dark essence that resides in Poe’s poetry. The hand-painted type was the final touch to capture the moody and troubled themes in the poetry inside.

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Highland Park Four Pack Illustration, Packaging

ADDY’s Local Silver Award Travelling back to the Inudstrialization Period, Highland Park highlights the rise of the assembly line during the time of Henry Ford. The illustration style is influenced by propoganda posters from this time period, with colors pulled from the popular Ford branding. Highland Park is a dark lager made for the hard-working citizen to enjoy after a long day of work. The packaging itself portrays the silhouette of a working man that develops into a city scape, inferring that he helped to build the city. Inside of the packaging portrays the inside of Highland Park Brewery and the production line inside. Lastly, the packaging is printed on canvas-textured paper as a call back to the canvas uniforms popularly used during this time for their durability for hard work.

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Food Waste PSA Print, Illustration, Layout Food waste has a variety of horrible consequences such as the damage it has on the planet as a whole. This project required us to create a poster advertisement on a social issue without making any physical marks or digital work. I chose to illustrate the idea of food waste through the use of food containers obtained from fast food restaurants. I took these containers and ripped apart noticeable logos, wording, and aesthetics and arranged them in a “piling-up” way to show the growing problem of food waste. The advertisements are individually designed so that the wording correlates to the current location of the advertisement.

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Muan Coffee Shop Branding, Packaging, Publication

3rd Place Branding in USM Student Show Muan is a new American coffee shop that brings the traditions of Laos to consumers through the love of coffee.

After extensive research I found that religion played a huge part in the daily life of the Laos people. I brought in this aspect through architecture, symbology, and colors so that the aspect of religion was still portrayed in a respectful way. The overall feeling of the coffee shop can be seen through the look book which describes the traditions of Laos and the other influences that their daily life had on the branding of the Muan Coffee Shop.

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Haus Fashion Trade Journal Layout, Publication

ADDY’s Local Gold / District Silver Awards Haus Fashion is a high fashion trade journal that covers all fashion news, trends, and reports. This project was a combination of two of my favorite things: fashion, and layout design. The Haus Fashion trade journal encompasses the fashion world through a strong serif typeface with a high contrast body weight. Throughout the trade journal you will find articles on past designers, new design trends, fun pool quotes, and expressive typography.

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Cones & Threads Branding, Packaging, Web Design, Layout This project was my senior capstone project called Cones & Threads. Cones & Threads is a new clothing service specifically tailored for those who are colorblind, or the technical term Color Vision Deficiency (CVD). Through extensive research I have chosen a vintage comfrot aesthetic with the safest color combination of blue and orange. This is followed up by a reliable system of symbols that represent the main color of the clothing so the user can navigate color much easier. This brand was carried over through packaging, print pieces such as a stylist card and clothing tags (seen above), and web design.

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his piece of collateral is the symbol breakdown card that would be found inside their style box. This pamphlet breaks down how the overall symbols work for Cones & Threads. When you open the pamphlet it will show the original symbol: the color symbol inside of the style circle. When fully unfolded the pamphlet will explain the color symbols as well as give a brief description of the seven different fashion styles used. This hopefully will not only clarify the symbolism but also give them insight on fashion styles that they may be interested in or did not know about.

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he website for Cones & Threads is arguable one of the most important pieces from this project. The website focuses on user experience through conscious design focused towards navigation and clarity. Extensive research led me to a minimal layout design for clarity and ease of navigation. This website also includes a style quiz that can not be seen here. This style quiz is dedicated to tailoring all outfits, color choices, and pattern choices that are all designated based off on the feedback given from the customer. This quiz goes over details such as their CVD, typical sizes, interests, and colors and patterns they do or do not want to receive. To view the full website and project use the QR code to view it on my website.

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www.connersmithdesign.com connersmithdesign@gmail.com Instagram: @connersmithdesigns