On January 1, 2009, 3ABN is launching a new 24-hour channel for children called the SonBeam Channel. Initially it will be available only to those with the MOIPTV and MOPCWeb systems. One of the tasks assigned to my department was creating a logo for this channel.
Goals of the design included making it unique, appealing to kids, cheery, bright, fun, and easy to animate. We also strove for simplicity and contemporary colors and shapes.
I recently created a page for 3ABN on Facebook. I needed something for the picture, so after a little brainstorming and experimentation, I created this:
UPDATE: Art has been updated since the original post.
For the November issue of 3ABN World, we needed to illustrate a devotional article based on the famous Apollo 13 mission. After a futile search for a useful clipart image, I decided to take the plunge and make my own composition. Keep in mind that I do not have much experience in 3D — I think I could count my 3D illustrations on one hand — and I had only six hours or so across two days to work on this. Besides that, my tools were a clunky 3D application called Swift 3D 4.5 (nothing “swift” about it), SketchUp 6, and Photoshop CS2.
I found a number of 3D models. Interestingly, each one was different in various ways, including in regards to the colors and materials used for major pieces of the Apollo command module. So I compared them all, noted the common features, and also perused some online articles about the Apollo 13 mission (characterized by fuzzy, black and white images). In the end, I went for as accurate as I could guess, along with adding a few random stylistic elements that are almost certainly not true to life, but which make it look more believable.
My previous post got me to thinking about fractals, so I downloaded this really cool application called IFSLab (a freeware application, available here for Mac OS X only). This program is so much fun to play with … it’s a bit addicting. Anyway, here is one of my first experiments with this program, recolored a bit in Photoshop:
Although the theme, activities, and main artwork or photos for the Kids Korner section of 3ABN World magazine are supplied to me each month, it is my job to create a unified look for the pages. One of the aspects of that is to create the background graphic, which I usually (but not always) try to create from scratch. Right now I am working on the August issue, and for this issue I decided to do something original.
Because the story and activity were related to ducks, I decided to go with a pond theme. So I created this simple graphic in Illustrator:
