This was my first project when I came on board to Brand It Advertising at the end of December 2011. The client gave us the copy on a piece of paper and we went from there. I based the style on the branding that had been established for Freedom Health Group prior to their need for this poster.

Method
Illustrator/InDesign
Additional Art Direction by Michelle Dennison

My folks throw a The Big Lebowski themed party about every year and they hired me to design a poster to spark interest for this year’s party. My dad is a partner with Inland Imaging and is head of the mammography department. He wanted to incorporate the movie theme with the party.

I started with a hand drawn thumbnail/sketch of the viking Maude character. After approval of the perspective, I scanned the sketch and used the pen/bezier tool to create the character.

The Irish Drinking Team in Spokane, Washington puts on quite a few bar runs and loves to incorporate a t-shirt with each one. This particular design was inspired by the annual Bloomsday run every year in Spokane.

I used photographs of my design buddy Casey Whitehead for the runner silhouettes. The ideas was to make a runner look like they’re progressively getting “drunker” as the bar run goes on.

Method
CorelDraw

Last Session was my student film from Full Sail University that I wrote and directed. There was probably a bit more involved than just those two, as myself and my good friend David Guess took over many roles on the production, including: scout locations, script supervisors, first assistant directors, set decorators and prop masters, cinematography, storyboard development, and we even edited the final cut.

With what we had to work with, about one week development time, a week to get actors and schedule shooting time, a two day shooting schedule and roughly a week to edit, I’m pretty proud with what we were able to accomplish. It was fun, but it was a lot of work.

Feel free to have a look for youself.

Last Session from J. Edward Edens on Vimeo.

Method
Filmed on Sony Digital Cameras, edited with Final Cut Pro

The book took about two weeks to conceptualize and complete (minus actual print time).

Cover

The theory behind this cover was to incorporate both design elements, typography and my illustrative abilities into one unique piece.

Page 1 – Resume

The resume page or introduction page was to act like a menu screen in a video game giving all your stats to look at.

Page 2 – Design

The design page was to showcase off some typography and placement of objects via asymmetry and various color combinations while continuing to tell the story of what I can do for the employer as a designer.

Page 3 – Illustration

I wanted to go all out on the illustration page using dynamic angles, character designs as well as continuing the flow of the book.

Page 4 – Web/Film/Animation

The web/film/animation page tended to be the most difficult to render…as this was a book, not a digital format able to realize the things I was suggesting. I ended up illustrating an image that I felt worked cinematically and had a degree of energy.

Page 5 – You Gained a New Level!

I toiled and toiled over how to complete the book and then I realized I could just end it by using a metaphor for what I can do for the potential employer. The missiles represent a design solution to the monster that is the communication problem. Once the solution hits it’s target, the problem goes away and you gain a new level (a video game reference to moving to a higher point and thus becoming better).

I printed about 50 books from Kinkos (not recommended) and sent them to over 40 different ad agencies, design firms, interactive studios and film production houses. It must have been bad timing, because after all of those books sent out, I only receive one bite from S2 Interactive. They enjoyed my designs and characters but needed someone who could code heavily for web design and my knowledge is intermediate with coding and thus we went our separate ways.

I am pleased with the final book and still have some left after the initial print.

Method
Hand Drawn sketches and thumbnails, Google Sketch-up, CorelDraw

I have been working on an online comic/storyboard hybrid for several years called Lethal Liz. It’s a sci-fi action story in the vein of 1980s action movies. I recently decided to make it function more like a storyboard and less like a comic to set it away from every other webcomic on the net and to basically have storyboards ready to go should I ever make the plunge to try and get it into movie or animation form.

This was a teaser I did for it awhile back, as it was supposed to be ready for a re-launch on June 27th. It is more or less back online, but it missed the deadline by a little bit. I am pleased with the final look. You can see some of the steps in it’s creation at my sketch blog at http://edens.tumblr.com

The actual website for Lethal Liz is http://www.lethalliz.com and it’s currently undergoing some revisions. It is a WordPress based site.

Method
Hand drawn sketches and thumbnails, CorelDraw

I studied graphic design at Bradford School in Columbus, Ohio and each class has a portfolio review before they graduate. The review invites industry professionals from around the Columbus (and Ohio) area to take a peak at what the students have been able to come up with. They also vote and judge pieces in a variety of categories.

My site took first place in Web Design and I was ecstatic at the prospect.

I used similar methods that I’ve design other sites before. In this case, I designed the site completely in Adobe Illustrator before moving it into Fireworks and Dreamweaver to make it work.

Method
Adobe Illustrator, Fireworks, Dreamweaver

Sub Level Three was the name I used to house my freelance projects a couple years ago. It’s a movie reference from the film Aliens and for awhile I thought it was a nice moniker. It has since fallen out of style for myself.

My concept for this site was to only make it a single page website. I didn’t want to over complicate things for potential viewers of the site (or clients) and wanted to keep things very easy and simple. I had the notion to just have all the navigation handled from a single page and pop-up windows and tabs would handle the rest.

The layout was designed in CorelDraw and I transitioned the layout from there to Fireworks for splicing and then on to Dreamweaver to make it function properly. The site can be viewed here: http://www.jedwardedens.com/sublevelthree

Method
CorelDraw, Fireworks, Dreamweaver

I worked for Wildrose Graphics for about a year and while I was there, I was requested to update their previous website. I was tasked to do this, while at the same time, handle production art for screen printing. The process nearly took the entire time I was there.

I developed the look and layout in CorelDraw and had planned to use Fireworks and Dreamweaver to make the site live. The designs were approved by management, but I ended up leaving before the site was completed. They took over production on their own after my departure, but my designs were intact.

Here is the live site: http://www.wildrosegraphics.com

Method
CorelDraw, Fireworks, Dreamweaver

Back in late October 2010 I was hired to design a movie poster for an independent comedy/drama that my friend Will Halley (of Filmdogsonline.com) had been an assistant editor on. I spoke with one of the directors Sean Fallon on a regular basis and over about the course of two months we finally came to this final piece. The film, Virgin Alexander is still being shopped around for a distributor, but has already won several awards from film festivals around the states.

Here’s the IMDB site for the film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667145/

And here’s the directors taking the poster around D.C. Virgin Alexander Facebook Gallery I have to admit I like seeing my work carried around our nation’s capital.

Method
Photoshop, CorelDraw: Some mild photo manipulation

I decided I needed a new avatar for my Twitter account and some other websites I frequent, so I whipped this up. I didn’t go about my usual method of thumbnailing and just freeformed it with shapes in the program. I also designed one for my wife, Liz.

Method
CorelDraw: Shape and Bezier tools

Toward the end of design school, we had a portfolio review where a bunch of industry people came to the school to look at the student’s portfolios. Our instructor asked a few of us to help create a cover for the mailer they were going to send out to design firms, ad agencies and other field related folks. We didn’t end up using this design (although, no other students designed one, to my knowledge), as it seemed to violate the school’s dress code.

Method
Adobe Illustrator: Hand drawn and inked characters, vector design elements

My client, Bridge Press Cellars is an up and coming new wine label in Spokane, Washington. They needed a quick wine list flyer printed for an event. They supplied their own photographs, but I ended up having to re-shoot the bottles to work for print, as the supplied photos were too low a resolution and the angles weren’t design friendly for a layout.

Some months later I was asked to digitally manipulate the year on the bottle to update it from a previous year without re-shooting. I like a challenge like that and lets me play in Photoshop more.

Method
Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw: Bottle photo shoot, photo manipulation

This t-shirt design was one of my first attempts at the “all the rage” grunge trend that’s going on in design in general right now. Something I learned in the process is that you can’t just slop noise down and it’ll be automatically successful. I’ve seen some “clip art” books that have template layouts and they almost always fail miserably at this concept. The balance of negative space and asymmetry is really the key to designing like this.

Method
CorelDraw: Shapes and Design Elements

Lethal Liz is an action science fiction story I’ve been developing for years. It’s taken many shapes, and I’m still not sure which medium it will formulate into a final work. Last summer, I got it in my head that I could tell the story in comic form with completely vector illustrations. Needless to say, it took forever to do each page and I had to put it on the back burner.

Onward! This star map was designed as a by-product really. I was interviewing at an interactive studio and wanted to prove I could do something in Flash. I’ve tinkered with Flash for years, but my day jobs have kept me from ever really needing to use it on a regular basis. But, I digress, animation is an entirely different monster…and it is HUGE. Not just something you can pick up and work with without some serious dedication.

I designed the layout in CorelDraw and made it work in Flash. Follow this LINK to see it in action. The map is interactive and informational.

Method
CorelDraw, Adobe Flash