It's difficult to imagine, or remember, a time in my life when I wasn't drawn to art. Like many young children, I created works of art that I was certainly very proud of at the time. My passion for art never wavered through grade school or high school. I attended Pacific Union College, located in the Napa Valley area of Northern California, where I received a Bachelor of Science degree in graphic design, with a dual emphasis in design and web design.
After graduating college in 2010, I set out to start my career. I chose this field because it offered me a chance to utilize the artistic skills that I have been blessed with, while also providing easier potential to pursue a career in the field of art and design. Throughout my years in school, as well as the years that followed, I have continued to strengthen and refine my own personal sense of design.
Like many artists, I sometimes I look back on earlier works that I have created. Sometimes I am still proud of those works, though I can often see areas where further refinement would make the piece even stronger. But there are other times when I look back at previous works and I cringe, and can't help but wonder what I was thinking at the time.
As cringe-worthy as some of those earlier pieces can be—at least to me as the artist, after all, it's often said that you are your own worst critic—they do provide valuable experience. They show me just how much I have grown. Please enjoy the followings samples of my work that I still look back at with a sense of pride.
These are two logo design projects that I was involved with during my time at Prime-Line. The first image in each of the two galleries is the finished version of the logo. Other images in the gallery give a glimpse of the design process that led to the final design.
Keeping all the elements of product packaging up to date was one of the on-going tasks that I regularly handled while at Prime-Line. Sometimes it was creating packaging collateral for a new item within an existing product line. Other times it was updating line drawings and dimensions on inserts and card backs.
The really massive projects were the resets and complete packaging redesigns for entire product lines. Such resets often involved hundreds, if not thousands of distinct part numbers. This necessitated the creation of entirely new cards and/or inserts and was a process that took hundreds of man hours.
Designing, building, and maintaining different catalogs was the other primary task that I regularly handled in addition to the packaging projects. One of the major catalog projects that I accomplished while working at Prime-Line was the redesign of the Prime-Line master catalog. This was a massive undertaking, as the previous version of this catalog had not been fully updated in over 20 years.
For the catalogs that are too long to preview like the other projects on this site, I have included a sampling of some of the catalog pages. Links to pdf versions of the complete catalogs can be found at the bottom of this section.
Prime-Line Window & Door Master Catalog – Contains many of the stand alone catalogs pictured above and listed below.
Home Security Catalog – Stand alone catalog of home security hardware for windows and doors. Also found within Prime-Line master catalog.
Backroom Catalog – Stand alone catalog of window & screen repair supplies. Also found within Prime-Line master catalog.
Sentry Supply Catalog – Stand alone catalog of toilet partition hardware used for constructing restroom stalls. Also found within Prime-Line master catalog.
Great Star Catalog – Stand alone catalog of products sold by Great Star owned brands of: WorkPro, DuraTech, Double Drive, Everbrite, and Prexiso.
Precision Screen & Security Door Catalog – Features swinging & sliding screen doors, steel security doors, and related accessories.
These are examples of a few of the brochures I worked on while at Prime-Line. Since it was more common to use catalogs as the printed advertising materials for the company's products, folded brochures used infrequently.
The promotional materials I designed at Prime-Line include a redesign of the template used for creating the sales sheets used by the company's sales force. Additional materials include a series of web banners that were used to promote Prime-Line on the Menards website. The final examples of promotional materials are related to the trade shows that Prime-Line attended. This includes a design for a 2 panel, back-lit show booth display, as well as swag to hand out in addition to various company catalogs.
I designed this logo for the home health care company that was formed to provide the necessary nursing care to take care of my father after the accident that left him a quadriplegic.
The logo for Mind Works was designed to fit in with the other current logos for the attractions offered by Imagination Gallery Inc. The Mind Works attraction features classic games, puzzles and other brain teasers, and a construction zone. Some of the classic games include giant chess and giant chutes and ladders, which served as inspiration for the first two letters of the "Mind" part of the logo.
The brochure for the Imagination Gallery Inc. features two panels devoted to each of the three attractions. I designed the brochure and wrote the copy. I did not design the logos for Wizard's Challenge and Wild Science, as they were pre-existing.
During my time working as a multimedia intern with the Loma Linda University School of Medicine, I worked with Dr. Leonard Werner to recreate the medical illustrations. These medical illustrations were a vital part of the syllabus Dr. Werner used in lieu of a textbook for the course he taught at the School of Medicine.
Many of the images that I was provided with for this project were in the mid-to-low quality range for jpg images. I successfully recreated the images as high quality vector images using Adobe Illustrator. These selected images are a sampling of the medical illustrations that I rebuilt.
The images have been divided into different galleries based on the heights of the images within each gallery.
For my senior thesis project I worked on redesigning the identity and branding for Napa Valley Hospice and Adult Day Services. During the course of my work on my thesis project, I worked with the current marketing coordinator, using the information she provided me from the feedback and focus groups to direct the design process. Words such as: warm, inviting, comforting, home-like etc. were used to describe the feel that the focus group wanted for the hospice.
Ultimately the hospice decided to go in a different direction for their identity refresh than what I designed for my thesis project. Looking back on this project, I am proud of the identity system that I designed, though as a more experienced designer I can see room for refinement and improvement with the design choices that I made.
The Sushi Mambo logo is composed of two fish circling each other, as well as the restaurant name. The logo has two basic positions: a horizontal arrangement and a stacked arrangement. While the horizontal arrangement is the preferred use of the logo, an alternate was designed for applications with limited space.
For one of my class projects the class was divided into different groups and tasked with a design challenge of coming up with an idea for a serialized multipage publication. The group that I worked with came up with the idea of doing a photography magazine called “BLUR” because one of the last things any photographer wants is for their pictures to come out blurry and out-of-focus.
The particular issue that I designed for my part of the group class project was focused on landscape photography, with an emphasis on photography of the U.S. National Parks. The logo/masthead for the magazine was designed by classmate Kerry Chambers.
PDF of my resume with more details about my work history and skill set.
If you need to hire a freelance graphic designer, please email me a description of your project and the timeline you need it completed in. I will be happy to provide details about my rates and let you know how I can work your project into my schedule.
Email: eastottlemyer@gmail.com
Cell number: Please see resume.
