Iconic vector doodles
Graphics — Wearable, repeatable designs for a community with a clear identity.
Graphics.
PRINTED DESIGN
TIMELINE
Through my college years, I was part of various merchandise competitions at Rice University and the University of Houston. Designing merchandise for an entire college community is a very particular ask, because I am limited by color and scale, and must consider the proportion, repeatability and iconic quality of the design.
These designs were my own creation with careful consideration of the mascots, themes, and college colors involved. The competitions were judged by the Cougar Byte management, the Rice University Beer Bike coordinators, and the Rice Design exec board respectively.
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Timeline: Spring 2019 - 2021
CALENDAR DESIGN
Cougar Byte Shasta Competition
The Cougar Byte Shasta calendar competition is held annually by Cougar Byte, the resident on-campus technology store. To promote the use of digital art, they host a calendar design competition for the front of the campus calendar. I entered and won the competition in the Spring of 2020. The winning prize was a Surface Go, as well as getting my design featured on the cover of student calendars all around the UH campus.
A Nod to Diversity on Campus
As one of the most diverse schools in the country based on race and economic status, University of Houston is doing a great job making its college campus a welcoming place for all students. The shasta / cougar is the University of Houston mascot, representing the students on campus and their college culture. When creating my design, I considered these factors and created a series of three shastas of different tones in Adobe Illustrator, with a color scheme that I felt complimented the University of Houston's bold school colors. I hoped to capture the lively and welcoming spirit of the university with my design.
T-SHIRT DESIGN
Event of the Year
Beer Bike is Rice University's biggest event on campus, a bike & booze festivity hosted annually that each residential college on campus celebrates individually with their own themes and traditions. On the day of Beer Bike, the entire campus attends the bike race behind the stadium wearing their college shirts, displaying pride and spirit for their residential college's bike team. I was fortunate enough to win the merch design competition for the event two years in a row for McMurtry College and once for Lovett College. My design was printed on tee-shirts all across campus and on all the Beer Bike merchandise for the 2019 and 2020 events.
Photo by Rishu Harpavat photography.
Brooklyn Wine-Wine
Brooklyn Wine-Wine was McMurtry College's Beer Bike theme for the 2019 Beer Bike event. The theme was a creative spinoff combination of the popular hit TV comedy series Brooklyn 99 and a crowd favorite, wine. To begin my design, I used Adobe Illustrator to emulate the Brooklyn 99 TV show logo, which is on a angle. From there, I decided to design a wine bottle and glass, putting them on a slope of the same angle, creating a shift in the wine in the glass. I included the NYPD 99 logo on the wine bottle as a final touch. In terms of colors, I chose a simple scheme of two colors and a gradient shade in between to simplify for visual interest and to keep the design within budget.
My friends and I wearing the McMurtry shirts at the water balloon fight.
The Mandapourian
The Mandapourian was McMurtry College's theme for the 2020 Beer Bike event, based off of the Disney Star Wars spinoff series, The Mandalorian. I created this vector design on Adobe Illustrator, starting with an adjustment to the original Mandalorian logo. I wanted to feature Baby Yoda because he was the highlight of the show, carrying a mini beer can in his hands. The final result was cute and effective, and won me the design competition in Spring of 2020.
Guinness and Ferb
Guinness and Ferb was Lovett College's Beer Bike theme for the year of 2020, phonetically playing off of Phineas's name in the Disney animated series, Phineas and Ferb. Many of us grew up watching the show, so there was a nostalgic quality that I wanted to keep in the design. Therefore, I decided to draw a vector version of the two main characters jumping in the air while holding beers, capturing the spirit of the characters in the show and the spirit of the students during Beer Bike.
MERCH DESIGN
Rice-Opoly
Rice-opoly was my entry for the Rice Design club's annual merch design contest. One of my favorite parts of my college experience was making friends through playing a variety of video games and board games, so I combined many of Rice's fun traditions and campus locations to create this Monopoly-inspired t-shirt design. Each of the purchasable locations on the board are Rice-specific places — the green cards are vending locations on campus, the blue cards are well-known hangout and study spots, and the red cards are the residential college (dorms). The squirrel is the unofficial Rice University mascot, and many of them live in the live oaks across campus, so I wanted to incorporate them into the final design, as part of the game and also as the player.
A Physical Product.
To create a physical product that can be timeless and worn by people of all ages, sizes, and demographics posed an interesting design challenge. Even though I was limited by colors, scale, and shape, it was very rewarding to be able to design for a real client that I was familiar with — my friends, colleagues, and even professors.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Iconic Graphics
Growing up, I always loved emojis, but I never knew why. As a young adult, I still love icons, but I've been able to identify the reason I love these simple symbols so much — they are very clear representations of everyday objects with few lines and color fills, successfully translating the complex into the simple. I wanted to challenge myself to create an icon pack / sticker collection that not only were identifiable as an object with minimal lines, but bring my own playful design style into it with a consistent color story and cohesive, organic elements.
How are you feeling today?
Superb!
Decent...
Not good.
MOOD GAUGE.
The interactive design element on the left was my previous iteration of the mood gauge on the home screen of my portfolio website. I wanted to include this to show that I care about the people that visit my website, and introduce the visitor to my site and my sense of graphic and interaction design in a quick and simple way.
Moody Fruity
I was inspired by my original mood gauge icons to create a more unique "sticker pack" of icons that could be used in a variety of ways — as emojis, as digital accents, or as physical printed stickers for water bottles or notebooks. I called the pack "Moody Fruity" because of my initial interest of connecting different moods with different fruits.
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Fun Tip: click on the different fruits for some interesting links.
CRABBY APPLE
SOUR ORANGE
FEELIN' GRAPE
DEWEY KIWI
WATERMELONELY
PEACHY KEEN
BERRY BLUE
MAN- ON THE GO
BANANA
CHEEKY CHERRY
JUST FINE-APPLE
CANTOLOOPY
Graphics — Wearable, repeatable designs for a community with a clear identity.
Congrats! You made it to the end.
Hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to check out my work! You can reach me at amyzh425@gmail.com — I'd love to chat with you.