Welcome to the first installment of a new series on the Element blog we’re calling the Element Designer Series. Find out more about Element’s talented graphic artists and illustrators who help create campaigns and bring ideas to life.
Over the next six months, we are giving each member of the art department a special mission: Design an original cover image for the Element Facebook page!
It’s a chance for them to have a little fun using their imaginations to make something that’s completely their own. Then we’ll ask each of them a few questions about their idea and their creative process.
First up, it’s Art Director and Designer, Joel Haase. He combined two recognizable pieces of Element’s agency culture to make a custom illustration that includes photography and tells a story about our mascot and unofficial spokesmoose, Canuck.
Check out Joel’s design for the month of June and find out what he has to say about it …
Joel’s Facebook Cover Image Design
Q: What’s the story behind your idea for this Facebook cover image?
Joel Haase: Ever since we were tasked with this fun little project, I’ve been wrestling with what wacky visual I could conjure up that was Element related.
One afternoon, as I admiringly walked past our mounted moose head while painfully bumping into the corner of the ping pong table, the LED light in my head crackled to life. I thought about how many ping pong matches he had to longingly view from the sidelines over the years, when all he wanted to do was get his head in the game.
Q: Would you say you have a favorite artistic style or design technique, and did you use it in this graphic?
JH: I’m a big fan of vector art, when it is done right. My weapon of choice is Adobe Illustrator, and I like to compare creating art within that software to sculpting. I’m able to bend and shape and bring objects to life as I go, sometimes creating things that are more dynamic than what I tried to capture in my original concept sketch.
Q: Tell us about an Element project you’re proud of and what made it unique.
JH: I just recently created an infographic for our client Water-Right, which was fun because I got to put some illustration skills to use. It’s great to be able to visually tell a story through graphics in that way.
Q: If you had all the time in the world to create whatever you wanted, what would it be?
JH: I collect uniquely-illustrated children’s books, and I would love to have the time to illustrate one. I have a few ideas in my head for stories, like one that explains why dogs don’t have bellybuttons.
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Hmm, dogs and bellybuttons. Yeah, what’s the deal with that?
A big thanks to Joel for using his artistic skills and imagination to design our first custom Facebook cover image.
Make sure to Like Element on Facebook so you don’t miss other fun and informative stuff were making here on our blog, for our clients, and exclusively for social media followers like you!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to Google something.
