Welcome to GDF!
The official welcome wagon should be along shortly!

Your posters are quite nice for a beginner, IMO.

On the first poster, I didn't know the team name was "Oilers Chanute" until I read it on the uniforms. The banded type design did not make that clear to me. Where's the middle baseball players right leg, Eek!

On the 2nd: The "word clouds" on the game schedule piece are weirdly plopped in the middle, and hard to read. The silhouetted players are floating in space; I would ground them. The reflection on the type is out of place (meaningless reflections are dated anyway).

On the 3rd: Did you do the sparkly treatment on the basketball? Kinda neat... Your kerning needs work. But then again, you probably haven't learned about kerning yet. Once you do, your life will change!!

FYI: Logo Design is not for the inexperienced designer, contrary to popular no0b opinion.

Avoid awkward crops whenever possible.
The ballplayer's leg as Pan noted and the disembodied arms on the basketball player.
Cutting people off at the ankle, wrist, knee and elbow, as well as clipping the top of the head can all come across as awkward.
Try to search for clean photography when it comes to silhouetting or cropping.

I agree with the critiques so far, other than that it is nice stuff.

The "Kenny McKee Design" on the lower right corners aren't gonna be on the final work are they
(if that is the plan, rethink the plan)

Hey Slick,

Overall it's pretty good. Something you have to keep and eye on is your kerning in each of your pieces. A trained eye can spot it pretty easily.

It looks like you just used your fonts by their default spacing. Very cheap or free fonts usually don't integrate calculations for even spacing between letters.

Just something to look out for


By the way, you might want to have a quick look at your own logo. You don't want the word "Design" to stand out more than your own name, it should be the other way around.

Hello, over all a nice job for no design classes yet!
Image 1 - I agree with the others about weird photo cropping and kerning
Image 2 - The word clouds make a paw right, because the team is the Panthers? I also agree on anchoring the players on some turf.
Image 3. The picture quality is grainy and the contrast adjustment is way to high. I don't mind the sparks on the ball but when I see them on her knee I think she has a knee injury that is hurting her at the moment.

Not bad for a beginner, you have a good intuition. I agree with most of the critics so far, and let me tell you, i find a very good thing to do to start polishing your skills with the feed back of people more experienced than you about the work you come up with.
Congrats for the good attitude and welcome

Thank you guys for all the critiques!

Thanks to you, I now know what Kerning is and I will try to work on it. Awkward crops will be eliminated ha. I come from a web design background as a kid. and I'm slowly getting back into it.

I recently made a website: http://jawbats.com
I get that it's not old browser friendly and a slight resource hog, but go ahead and take a look, the left side bugs me a little bit. But it was a nice project to get back into the swing of things.

Fire away!

Don't "sign" your work.

Signing work is for fine artists, not graphic designers.

Oh, well that's more like my proof watermark. I remove everything when it's actually printed. I come from a photography background as well so it's something that carried over.

How many of these backgrounds have actually been in an employment scenario? i.e. A job; not "freelance".

Oh sorry, allow me to clarify.

When I was 17, I worked as an in house webdesigner for a small company here in Tulsa. (Web Design)

When I went to college in Kansas I did freelance posters, sports photos, and videography. (Photography) (see my YouTube channel)

This summer, I am working as a full time video editor for a company trying to sell retirement DVDs. (Photography/Videography)

Of course, I've done all of them as hobbies in my spare time, but that's my actual employment history.

Thank you for clarifying. You would be surprised at the number of people whose "experience" amounts to making sigs on myspace for bitcoin.

Good on you for getting your feet wet with real-world experience. Min. 2-years real world experience is pretty much a requirement for an entry-level position (plus degree, plus portfolio, etc.) these days.

You seem to have chosen an emphasis on Video/Photography. Is that what you ultimately want to do? Or is it photography? Or Design? Web? Print?

PS Out of curiosity; did any of the freelance posters get printed? Were the shoots commissioned or one-offs?

That doesn't suprise me in the least because that was me 2 years ago haha.

And yes, I'm trying to get setup for my future, I know that a degree doesn't get you much anymore, it's about knowing people.

I have an emphasis in Video/Photography because of some odd circumstances. I want to be well rounded in everything. I have much more experience in Web, but I want to get into Design and Print as well. I'm afraid to jump into logos and such, but I'm hoping classes will help out.

As for the freelance stuff, yes. My baseball team poster was posted all over Chanute. (The Town of my college). I also made 2 posters that are hanging in the Athletic Director's office. My coach hung posters every month or so and I made one for his son. I also made one for a player that hit a sign on our baseball field because that was the prize. The Chanute Oilers poster is currently on sale to the parents, and I should be getting a minimum of 10 orders here soon.

As for video, I was contracted to make a baseball video and it took off from there. Nearly every video has 3,000 views and got most of them in a matter of 2 days. I was actually featured on a news station in a town I was going to play baseball in the next week. You can see it here:
http://www.nbc11news.com/sports/head...151654965.html

I also work with some screen printing, my friend owns a baseball based apparel company, and I make all their shirt designs.

That's most of my freelance stuff.

Good, you have had a little exposure to print set-ups and specifications, etc. I can't tell if they were printed on campus, or if you have had the chance to have something printed on a commercial press yet (and all the different kinds). No matter, I am sure you will.

I can't seem to click on the video, but it sounds like you have found a calling with the sports stuff. With the design classes you plan to take, coupled with your hard work, your work can only improve.

Good Luck