J. Tony Studios

Project Name: Academy of Art University Front Door Banners

Client: Academy of Art University

Notes: There are a lot of these (22 that I've posted here) so please be patient as they load.

When I first started working on the main website at the Academy, it was designed with a huge front door image space. This space was used to advertise events and Academy deadlines and news. It was set up to rotate the images, relatively randomly (though we could give weight to the more important ones) whenever you loaded the front door. Sometimes we had as many as 4 in roatation at a time.

Since then the front door has been redesigned (I was involved in the redesign). It is smaller, allowing for more, smaller pieces of information to be seated around it. It is also designed in Flash, in order to rotate the images as the viewer sits, rather than only seeing the "ads" when they return to the site later or the site is reloded.

This was one of my most enjoyable, and frustrating jobs at the University (frustrating because sometimes the approval process didn't make much sense). Most of these are actual front doors that ran on the site, though there are a couple of mock-ups that didn't run.

FrontDoor1
For this one I really wanted to bring in some images of New York that were recognizable, but less commonly shown. The statue at Rockefeller Center I felt was a strong icon, with the ceiling of the Guggenheim a nice, evocative backdrop.

FrontDoor1
Again, I wanted to choose something a little different. The Golden Gate Bridge is recognizable, even from this angle, and the Victory Statue in Union Square is also evocative, and appropriate since the model for this, Alma Spreckles, was an artist and art matron in her own right.

Clearly I was working for a spring motif, and spring evoking beginnings. Something about this one always just worked. It was bold but calming at the same time. I hope it coaxed some folks into signing up for new classes.

Bold red to flag attention, to draw folks in, and not just new students, but potential students. The model's eye was so intense in color, but I worried the intensity might be lost in monochrome. With a little work, it wasn't, and I think is properly arresting.

FrontDoor1
This one has an interesting story. The Pulitzer Prize went to Ms. Fitzmaurice for her series of pictures of an Iraqi boy who had been seriously injured by a mine. Ms Fitzmaurice followed the boy and his family for many months, throughout his treatment and recovery. Many of the images were graphic and painful, and these by far were the stronger pictures. Some were more lighthearted and less confrontational. I had to make 2 versions of this, one stronger, one lighter, as there were worries that such stong images would be hard to have on the front page of the site. Thankfully the decision was to go with the stronger work.

FrontDoor1
This one was a mock-up and was not actually used. I still like it , though, for its simplicity.

FrontDoor1
Two variations of a Canadian motif with student work set in.

FrontDoor1
This is just a mock-up which never ran. I did the illustration of the bus by hand with a graphics tablet and photoshop. It was not a trace job, but actually painted separate from the source image.

FrontDoor1
This ran for about 2 days. We got a call from the people at CBS who said we didn't have permission to use Tommy Hillfiger's image on our site. In truth, I think the idea of rights to use the image could have been argued, since it was sent around in press packets for the show with the intention it would be published, but rather than argure, we took it down. I don't remember if we put up a new version without Tommy or not.

FrontDoor1
This was for a promotional page I put together for the Advertising department and a special intensive class they had. I did the illustration in Adobe Illustrator.