New Work: Personal Business Cards

I have a bunch of new work that i'll be updating here over the next few weeks as I re-design my website. I've really been needing a set of business cards for a while now, and as i'm meeting more people and getting more freelance work i've been feeling like a total doofus for not having any business cards to give out.

I tackled this as a branding exercise and I set out to make my cards feel like a natural extension of my website. First off, matching RGB web colors to CMYK (offset) print is pretty hard. Even if you convert the numbers they just look visually different (duh!). Overall i'm pretty happy with how they came out. Oh and BTW I made enough to give one out to just about anyone and everyone, so don't be shy if you want one!

Human Rights Poster project written up in PRINT Magazine

At left: Poster by Christopher Kosek At Right: Poster by Cindy Chen

Over the summer term at Art Center I had the privelage of working in a special class dedicated to making poster celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 25 posters that my class made traveled to Paris, France and were displayed at the NGO conference there and locally at the Pasadena Central Library.

PRINT Magazine did a write up of our project and i'm prominently featured in the article as well as having one of my posters shown in an article that is currently on the front page of the site.

From the article in PRINT written by Paul Morris: Posters That Redeclare Human Rights

Christopher Kosek, whose mother grew up in Communist Poland in fear of the Secret Police, created several of the exhibition’s posters. Kosek said graphic design needs to be a vehicle of public service to increase awareness for issues such as the military use of children. One of his posters, entitled "A Child Is Not a Soldier," depicts a child soldier as drawn by a child's hand. Kosek said that children draw whatever surrounds them, perhaps unaware of their own traumas. Two of Kosek's posters, "Somebody" and "Everybody," feature medical illustrations and neutral typefaces. The message is that “we’re all made up of the same stuff,” going back to that self-evident Article 1 of the Declaration. Kosek’s use of warm colors (yellow, pink, red) nevertheless stirs up a message of hope and progress.

Its a pretty big thrill to see my work written about in a prominant graphic design magazine and i'm even more excited to see our project and the cause of human rights getting some exposure.

Human Rights

This past summer at Art Center, I participated in a sponsored transdisicplinary class through our Designmatters program. We created 25  posters for the 61st DPI NGO conference in Paris, France celebrating the 60th Aniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. I was honored to have 6 of my designs chosen by jury to be part of the final show, which can be seen on my website.

Tonight, I attended the local reception and show opening at the Pasadena Central Library. The mayor various Pasadena Socialites and various county and state representatives were in attendance. It was great to be a part of such a great project. There is so much emphasis (at least for me) at Art Center about making strong design work that builds a great portfolio that will open doors and land me a great job. It was refreshing to "use my design powers for good" and remember that communication can help people and be a force for real change in the world. 

For me the most exciting part of the evening was one one of my instructors set me up with a writer from PRINT magazine to do a brief interview about our class project that may run in their next issue. Fingers crossed and knock on wood about that happening. The other part was when i was interviewed on camera for local Pasadena TV. Yeah um that was kinda sorta fun but i felt a lot like Ricky Bobby....."i'm not sure what to do with my hands" kinda thing.

New-ish Website

I've updated my personal design site www.christopherkosek.com with a new color theme and some design updates. The best part about updating your site is that with each new thing on your "wishlist" there often is a technical challenge that arises. In my case, replacing my masthead with my logo seems simple enough, but in a program like dreamweaver, its a bit of a challenge to make sure the columns don't bounce around from page to page. Needless to say I figured it out and learned something in the process. 

Pro Tip: having problems getting your color choices to take? make sure you have that pesky # symbol before your color code. Its a total "DUH" thing that you (me) will overlook and just might cost you (me) a significant amount of time wondering why your (my) sites color choices aren't obeying your commands.