Recently I’ve been contacted to donate my graphic design services to a very special cause. The Lustgarten Foundation, whose mission is to advance the scientific and medical research related to the diagnosis, treatment, cure and prevention of pancreatic cancer, is hosting a charity concert event. The event is entitled “Rock ‘N’ Roll to a Cure” and is a whole day event to support the fight against pancreatic cancer. The event will be an all day concert event featuring the Bruce Springsteen Tribute Band Tramps Like Us (http://www.trampslikeus.com/). Here is the information regarding the date/location of the event.

When: Sunday, June 24, 2012 | 1:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Where: VFW Center | 50 Waterworks Road | Freehold, NJ 07728

For more information regarding tickets and donations, please visit the event page on the Lusgarten website: http://www.lustgarten.org/Page.aspx?pid=1081 .

As for the poster, the idea was to infuse the elements of a concert “Gig” poster with a purple theme to match the purple pancreatic cancer ribbon. Since the day will be Bruce Springsteen themed, with the tribute band headlining, we wanted to include  a tie back to something themed after the rock legend. The iconic image of him leaning with his guitar was used as a base to create this digital illustration. Combining the purple color with the grungy effect really helped put this design over the edge as a rocking gig poster. Finally, I wanted to create a sort logo/identity for the event. This is where I came up with the “Rock ‘N’ Roll to a Cure” logotype seen at the top of the poster. I think this type treatment really helps brand the event and unify both a great cause and a fun day of music and friends.

This is an awesome project for me to be working on as it is for a great cause and was a whole lot of fun to produce. If you’d like to attend the event or make a donation, please visit the Lustgarten Foundation event site. Cablevision Systems Corporation’s support of the Lustgarten Foundation ensures that 100% of every donation goes to the support of pancreatic cancer research. This is shaping up to be a great event for an even greater cause and I’m glad I could do my part to help!

In my place of work, there are many educational and informative events held for the faculty, staff, and general University community. As the graphic designer on our team, I am tasked with coming up with the marketing team for these various events. Usually this includes posters, web graphics, and even teaser commercials promoting the event. In this poster I’d like to share 2 recent events that were held by The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center.

Above is a poster for the Virtual Symposium, which was an in person and online event held that discussed methods and techniques for conducting and online or hybrid courses. This included strategies for preparing engaging online content and how to truly engage your students when you aren’t meeting face to face. A winter theme was suggested for the poster so the idea of a laptop in a snowglobe was brainstormed, to suggest the idea of shaking up your current course offerings.

Another event held by The TLTC, is an annual event entitled Faculty Bootcamp, which is held every fall. The object of this workshop is to get faculty members of the University back in the swing of things once the summer has ended. This “Bootcamp” is a series of technology sessions to get faculty reacquainted with the bevy of tools at their disposal, and to teach them a few new tricks. In the past, we’ve always gone with a military/bootcamp theme for the marketing for this event. This year, I had the idea to design the poster to look like a military seal. The idea behind this rugged poster was to make it look like the side of an old WWII fighter plane. The poster was well received and helped to create awareness of the event.

This past summer my good friend and Colleague, Corey, got married. His wedding took place on a cruise along the Caribbean with his family and friends. To celebrate the occasion, he and his wife decided they wanted to have t-shirts made up for the whole gang! That’s where Truz comes in to help!

To celebrate their wedding cruise, Corey wanted to have t-shirts made that would pay homage to the great Saturday Night Live short, “I’m on a Boat” by The Lonely Island. What greater way to celebrate a beautiful wedding than to scream “I’M ON A BOAT” in the same vain as T-Payne. So we quickly went to the drawing board and came up with some ideas.

We wanted to keep things minimalist and clean, so that they would come out nicely on a printed t-shirt. As well, we wanted them to be subtle enough to fit in with a crowd…but anyone who took the time to read the shirt, would get the joke. The above design is was we came up with and I think it worked out quite nicely. As well you can see a picture of the happy couple wearing their shirts.

All in all, this was a really fun project to work on. It was a different change of pace from my usual work, as I don’t often get to design a t-shirt. The shirts came out amazing, and the happy couple was certainly pleased with them! All the best!

Truzweb.com has primarily become a place for me to showcase my graphic design skills. However, I also like to express myself creatively in other ways, specifically with video production. The video below is a piece produced at the TLTC at Seton Hall University, where I currently work as a graphic designer. Yes, that lovely narration is the voice of yours truly! This video was produced over the course of a few days last year, to showcase a new offering from the university. We wanted to display it in the hand crafted style, similar to the folks at Common Craft. It was a lot of fun to put this piece together with my colleague Corey Howell, of Goodguys Productions.

This is just a quick sample of some of the things I do at my job in addition to my graphic design duties. I’ve put together a YouTube playlist of some of the videos I’ve helped produce HERE. As well you can get a taste for some of the fun videos I’ve produced in my personal life at youtube.com/truzweb.

I like to view myself as a sort of renaissance man of the digital age! Design, video, audio, photography and anything to get the creative juices flowing…I’m all in!