While traveling in Australia, I had the opportunity to build a website for a legendary party band in Perth, WA called The Easy Tigers.  Easy Tigers are a cover band that play all over Australia, frequently touring through the wheat-belt of WA and playing on mine sites for the local workers.  They cover songs from all decades and have a plethora of hits to keep your body moving.

The Easy Tigers website is unique in it’s design.  Using some HTML5 classes and CSS3 styles I was able to design something completely new for the band.  Requirements for the site included a photo gallery, a form for contacting the band and a form to book the band quickly.  Using some nifty java scripting and php code I was able to include a date picker on the contact form and a booking form on the footer of each page.  Now the band can be booked more quickly and efficiently without using a third party application.

If you’re ever in Perth, Fremantle, Western Australia, you need to see these guys live!  They throw an excellent party!

Check out their website at http://easytigers.com.au

Tools used for this project include HTML5, CSS3, PHP, Javascript, Dreamweaver, MAMP, Illustrator, Photoshop, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, YouTube, SEO Meta Tags, Google Font API.

While traveling in Australia, Bowe was contracted for six months to work at a print and sign shop.  This family business has been in business for over 15 years creating graphics and manufacturing signs for the local Perth, Western Australia area.  Located 10 minutes from Coogee Beach, I was thrilled to start work there!

Using Corel Draw for vector illustrations and Windows XP, I had to adapt quickly to keep up with the pace of the workshop.  Being in charge of the print shop had me liaising with the clientele via telephone, email, and face to face.  I met a lot of wonderful people during the course of my work contract.  My responsibilities included quoting jobs, taking orders, taking payments, logo designs, designs for print including everything from a business card, to a billboard, to a vehicle wrap, to a flag-banner.  Working with different types of vinyls proved to be very interesting and the shop owner was a skillful lad that showed me how to manipulate the materials for different jobs.

Because of my background in web design and development I was in charge of updating the Appealing Signs website.  This meant updating their code with SEO friendly meta-tags, and keywords.  To make the modifications to their site I learned the Concrete5 CMS.

Using Corel Draw for the first time was a bit of a struggle for me.  Although a robust vector program it lacks some of the perks of using Illustrator.  I went to work early the first couple of weeks to practice and found it easy to use after a couple of intense days of frustration.  Working with an excellent team, I would ask my colleagues “Hey, how do you…” and towards the end of my contract, was being asked by my colleagues the same questions I started with.

Below are some of the projects I was a part of while working in Australia.  I am very thankful for the opportunity to have worked as a graphic designer while on a working holiday in Australia.  It allowed me to further develop my design skills and allowed me to see the rest of the beautiful country before returning home again.

Tools used during my work contract include CoreDraw, Concrete5, HTML, CSS, CSS3, Illustrator, Photoshop, WordPress, PHP, SEO friendly code, JavaScript and JQuery.

The Berkeley Heritage Event Venue is located in Toronto, Canada and is considered amongst Toronto’s finest venues. The Berkeley is a modern confluence of a storied historical past, and an edgy urban patina.

Bowe worked in the offices of The Berkeley Church for a nine month period in 2010.  While at their side, Bowe took on their many design challenges including structuring and maintaining their website, refining their logos for print and web media, designing print ads, and promotional materials such as post cards, fliers and event invites. Bowe also designed the business cards, information packages, email newsletters, and established their presence on Twitter as well as snapped the company photography, some of which is used online and in their media packages.

Bowe was also responsible for creating and maintaining Berkeley’s presence online through social media sites and advertisements representing their company on the web.

Tools used in assisting The Berkeley consisted of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, Javascript, JQuery, HTML, PHP, CSS, SEO Friendly code, Twitter.

You can view The Berkeley website here: http://berkeleyevents.com

Airship37 is an event venue located in Toronto at 37 Parliament St. in The Distillery District and serves as one of Toronto’s most unique event venues in recent history.  It is a space that is modeled after early 20th Century airports, the art-deco inspired era of the 1920′s and the romantic notion of Airship travel.

When approached by the owner with the project the only direction that was given was to “make it art-deco” and with that the research started!  Online searches played an important role in finding images related to airships, dirigibles, art-deco inspired furniture, paintings, posters, and war propaganda images but what was most enjoyable was using physical books to flip through old works by artists of the Bauhaus style.  The owner had also asked to make the logo into a stamp which was to be used on the business cards, letterheads, envelopes, and online media.  Bowe also designed posters which were hung around the facility.  The Bauhaus style had a huge influence in their designs.  The website was built using a Jquery Horizontal Slider script to make it as unique as the space itself as well as to create buzz for the company.  The site also featured a customized social media icon set that were designed as stamps to compliment the stamp logo.  However, this website has since been updated and we can no longer take credit for it’s design.  You can view my design on the dev site here. Bowe also customized the social media sites including the Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn pages.

Tools used for this project include Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, HTML, CSS, CSS3, Javascript, JQuery, SEO Friendly code, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn.

When I first started my contract at The Berkeley I was presented with designing and branding the Flowergirls floral service section of the business.  With a fresh start and a recently appointed Creative Director I started the project.

The scope of the project included branding the business providing a logo, business card, website, and promotional materials.  The logo was by far the most fun to work on.  The creative director has really great hand writing and we used her creativity with a pen and my ability with the pen tool to come up with the final logo.  Using Illustrator I was able to vector the hand drawn sketch and apply it to the other materials of the project including a promotional postcard, the business card, and the website.  The website was especially fun to work on as it was my first attempt at getting inside WordPress and creating a minimalist, effective website that would showcase the bright colours and the creativity of the arrangements. Although, fun to work on it has since been removed from the web and fazed out of the business.

Tools used with the Flowergirls project include Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, WordPress, CSS, HTML, SEO Friendly code, and a Sharpie.