Randonisation #12- Rayban’s

Watercolor paper texture, Grunge and Vinyl, all you need is a little posterization and you pretty have the 4 elements of Randon Design. I think Rayban built their website with me in mind.  Colours, textures, fonts, right down to the black and white photography.  Online heaven.  The animations are sweet and (on my computer at least) were seemless and fast.

There are also these profiles, which I’m not sure how one gets in, but i’d like to have one.  Music movies and aviators, brilliant!

I Find the site easy to navigate, and it’s never boring.  Great graphics combined with cool animation made for an excellent experience, and made me want to explore the entire site.  They took a simple product, applied it to a lifestyle, and hit a key demographic.

Now I want some raybans, dammit.

Randonisation #11 – Munny Time

Munny season is here again.  This year i’m between Dr. Steve Zissou and Kurt Cobain.  These are crude drawings, but I would like to hear your opinions.

Randonisation #10 – The ‘rents

Here are the two wonderful people that raised me. Got my moms looks and my Dad’s attitude. I can never remember being mad or embarrassed with my parents, and I consider myself very lucky because of that. They are open-minded, loving and incredibly strong, and they emulate everything I strive to be. This is as sappy as it gets on my blog, so enjoy it while you can.

This was taken at thanksgiving.
My mom was recently in the hospital, but they allowed her a pass so we could enjoy a thanksgiving dinner at my sisters house.

Randonisation #9 – John Fernhout in 3 words

If you don’t want to read the long post (I can’t say that I would always want to..), all I ask you to do is write 3 words that describe me.  (I know this doesn’t sound like something I would do, I hate those stupid facebook things, believe me…)  If you want to know why, keep reading, but don’t judge me unless you’ve read why.

Recently, we had a designer come to our class to talk about “The Art of Self-Branding”.  As designers, if we hope to work as freelancers, It is a good idea to brand yourself properly, and in doing so we can get more jobs that are suited to our personality and style and avoid alot of frustration doing jobs we have no interest in and that we are not particularily proud of.  The main goal is to keep it consistent, so that people know who we are, what kind of work we do, and thus know what they can expect if they hire us.  This means we shouldn’t try to be people we aren’t.  I forget her source, but she mentioned that we are a mix of three people, the self we have invented, the impression we make on others, and the self that we fret about.  The most tangible person is the impression we make on others, how they see us.

I, like everyone else i assume, probably let who I would like to be cloud my vision of who I am, so i need your help.

She pitched an idea that i thought sounded rather fun, though it sounds quite a bit like a stupid facebook application, but bear with me, because it will help me out alot as I try to build a website to represent me and my personality.  It’s called “pretend you’re an amnesiac”.

I would ask you all to find three words that you think describe me the most.  You don’t have to put too much thought into this, just what comes to mind.  Please be mature about this and try to keep it serious.  I love humour and sarcasm, but please do so tastefully.  Please include either your name, or if you wish to remain anonymous, leave an indication of what your relationship is to me, be it close friend, friend of a friend, relative, or just someone i met randomly one night.  The more responses i get, the more accurate this becomes, as I can get a better understanding of how others generally percieve me, and can then build a visual brand for myself that suits who I am, not who i’d like to be.

You can either leave a comment on here, message me on facebook, or email me at jrfernhout@gmail.com

Thank you all for your time,

John.

Here is a flattering picture of myself for you to observe while you think of words…

Randonisation #8 – White Man’s Overbite

A classic dance move, the “white mans (or womans) overbite, demonstrated beautifully by my sister Karen. In this unseasonably cold weather, I thought it would be nice to take a flashback to summer and music festival season.

Randonisation #7 – Jennie’s Giant Feet

Jennie is the most beautiful girl in the world, but I have to admit, sometimes I have trouble not gawking at her size 12 feet…

At least she has good taste in shoes.

Randonisation #6 – School Assignment – Album Art

One of the initial reasons for getting into design (and i know this is very typical) was a fascination with album artwork.  I’ve always enjoyed looking through CD booklets and vinyl to see images and typographic treatments, and how they suit the personality of the bands or artists.  I was discouraged at the shift to mp3, but realize there is still a market, as online album artwork is still a major player.   Also, the resurgence of vinyl gets me a little giddy.  I was pleased to receive the opportunity to do some album cover work, (and it’s still in the works so keep your fingers crossed), but it started to shed light on an issue we will all run into or have already run into in the past, that being the clash of creative minds.

Being an artist transcends over so many facets of society, whether we be musicians, poets, artists, designers, or whatever, and with it comes tastes and values.  The problem is that these tastes will often differ, and often a struggle for leadership will ensue.  This can take place in many scenarios, but the one I can see myself getting involved with in the future is the clash between what a musician wants visually but doesn’t have the tools to produce, and what a designer or artist envisions.  A greater problem occurs when you have a band of four people, all with different artistic visions, and one designer or artist trying to please all of them.

Though I haven’t encountered this yet, I see that if this is a direction I want to head, I will need to learn the skills to overcome such issues.

While working on this project, I discovered this blog, which is pretty awesome, and the name is far to clever and hilarious.

Here is a blog I discovered that gives a humorous take on some trends seen over the years with album covers.  My personal favorite trend is “letting your guard down”.

Anyhow, here is the album I have been working on, it is for a Boogie/Blues band, so let me know what you think.

Randonisation #5 – School Assignment – Business Cards

If American Psycho has taught me anything it’s that Business cards are an important thing for any professional to have. A business card is something you should take pride in because it’s something you are handing out to people whom you would hope would employ you, and by giving a card you are giving a lasting impression of yourself. I cannot think of an industry where an awesome business card could be more important then in design. We are trying to sell our creativity, so our business cards had better display that ability. It may take years to come up with something with which we are remotely satisfied, but the problem is, are designers ever really fully pleased with anything? There is always room for improvement and deadlines might just be the only thing keeping us from spending years on a project.

I bring this up after i saw a friends business card.

I found them quite simplisticly beautiful and was immediately struck with “business card envy”.  I wondered as to how long he had spent creating them?  How many did he go through beforehand?   Last year we were assigned to make cards, but we were restricted to single sided and were given only a few weeks to design them. As a result i have 250 business cards which hardly reflect me, and which i quickly grew disgusted in. But will I ever be able to design a card for myself that i won’t grow tired of within a year? Our tastes and trends as designers morph so often that I have a hard time believing I will.  Anyone else hate the cards they made last year?

I often return to this site and others like it.

Randonisation #4 – Sunny Days

Since I was recently digging through old pictures from Pemberton Music Festival, I came across these photos of my sister Adriana and her roommate Karen. Karen in the background is pretty priceless. The whole setup is pretty rediculous, and it wasn’t staged. I guess that whole weekend was pretty rediculous…

Randonisation #3 – Mini Cooper

In my first year of Design at MacEwan, I became a part of the Design Students Organization . We did a fundraiser that involved designing and auctioning off Munnies.

For those who don’t know, Munnies are these little vinyl figurine sort of things made by Kidrobot that many designers have taken to customizing. People take them in some pretty crazy directions and they are worth researching.

I was pumped to recently find out we are doing it again this year, and i hope to take it to the next level this year. My first one was a fairly reserved attempt, but it turned out pretty cool. I made mine into a little Alice Cooper, named Mini Cooper (like the car!).
I think I was more proud of the name then the Munny. I never got a good official photo of the final with the snake due to unfortunate circumstances, but here it is. Some Alice Cooper fan bought it and got my info and talked about me maybe doing some future work for his band, but then he never called me back. I hate guys who say they will call and they never do, don’t you?