Design by Zoe

Drift Logo: Live!

zbrookes — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:16:40 +0000

So the second product logo I designed for Hammer and Light is officially live with their first men’s product! Drift, for Men, is a beautiful unique gift for men, including a shaving set and masculine silver ring. It looks amazing burned into the wooden serving tray–a beautifully executed product!

Adventures with Lasers

zbrookes — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:07:43 +0000

We’ve been back to Danger!Awesome, our favorite local laser-cutting studio, and have officially been certified to use the lasers! As part of our course, we made a few wooden projects, as well as an aluminum tag:

The video is of a little cat ID tag that Chad made quickly as an experiment with working on the smaller surfaced items, and this wooden tag I made to see how the different types of cutting vs. engraving processes work together. This is seriously a ridiculously fun skill to learn and Chad and I are beyond thrilled, thinking of all of the future projects we will be doing for ourselves, friends, and family.

Endangered Mailers

zbrookes — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:03:54 +0000

Photographed the postcards and simple business card I made for my father’s Endangered Alphabets Press Kit. All printed in low runs, mostly as a proposed prototype for what the project could use going forward to bring a greater awareness. Front-side feature one of the cut and painted alphabets, the back-side includes the logo, a small blurb about the project, and the language that it is written in. Simple is key!

Reckoning Soundtrack

zbrookes — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:06:18 +0000

Pretty cool news! The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Official Soundtrack is available for pre-order on iTunes!

And the design? Yup! Super excited to have some more work out in the public. Created using Key Art and several cool textures, the rest of the design will be shown once the physical CD hits the market.

Final Retro Fairy

zbrookes — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:30:26 +0000

So the vector portion of the Retro pin-up fairy is complete and I’ve moved on to the final distressed design. This all hinges on Google Translate giving me good french, so I am really hoping that I have the right phrase… Anyways, I played with a handful of type layouts, two of the ‘close but not quite right’ ones are shown below. The left one feels too much like a record or vintage record label, the right I do quite like, but Chad and I agree that it feels like a print ad and not a shirt design.

Look! (It’s not real.) Using the magic of Photoshop and a model from Threadless.com, I mocked up the ideal placement.

The final design with potential shirt color and distressing!

Very sultry. I totally can’t get away with this design on Threadless, as I am sure it a) covers themes unsuitable for their audiences and b) endorses illegal alcohol. Oh well, maybe I’ll just print up one for myself and call it a day…

Retro Fairy (progress)

zbrookes — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:22:32 +0000

I’ve been working more on the Retro Fairy pin-up t-shirt design since last I posted, going for a little more art nouveau with the classical pin-up allure. Added the stockings (not shown I tried stripes instead of the dots but Chad and I both agreed they were too dark), the garter and frills, the new left arm position with the shot glass, more clarity for the legs, plus the little star on her forehead.

So where you see green is actually where the shirt’s fabric color is. So I will try to find a green shirt, but in theory the design can work on any shirt color (but obviously green makes the most sense). I’m thinking of maybe submitting the design to Threadless…but its not really silly/clever like their usual designs, so it might not fit their bill.

Still trying to figure out what the typography is going to say…

Retro Fairy

zbrookes — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:29:35 +0000

I’ve been a little inspired to make a green fairy 2-color shirt design for myself and some friends. This is day one, with maybe 1.5 hours in. Using a ton of super classy/beautiful pin-up references, lots of Mucha hairstyles too. Expect considerably more texturing for that aged, vintage look…I’ll have to come up with some typography too…

how2heroes: drinks

zbrookes — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 01:29:04 +0000

I’ll go ahead and update some sweets tomorrow–tonight I’m breaking in my new merhorse flask and admittedly have alcohol on the brain, so here are my two favorite drink photos that I took while working for how2heroes in 2009/2010. Both videos were shot with Mr. Greg Rossi, quite possibly The Most Interesting Man in the World, but for real. Check out his videos for the Vanilla Vodka and Espresso Vodka recipes.

how2heroes: savory

zbrookes — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 04:48:38 +0000

Seeing as I don’t really have a photography section on my site anymore, I’ve decided to put some of my favorite how2heroes.com photos on the blog. I’ll break them down into Savory, Sweet, and Drinks, for your viewing pleasure. All of these photos I took from fall 2009-spring of 2010 at restaurants, in homes, on farms while working with the fantastic crew of how2heroes, located in Cambridge, MA. All of the recipes for making these dishes are available on the main site, so check it out!

Crab Jiaozi

Crispy Fried Pigs’ Ears

Potato Puree w/ Truffle Butter & Herbs

Shanks & Beans

Tea & Salt Cured Roast Duck

Caramelized Onion Souffle

Chinese Tea Eggs

Turkey Burgers

Lolo’s Wild Rice

Grilled Asiago & Goat Cheese Sandwich w/ Tomato Jam

More coming soon!

Victoria Falls

zbrookes — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 07:10:53 +0000

Way overdue! Here is a tiny smattering of some of the photos I took at Victoria Falls in Zambia, South Africa, on the last two days of my Africa trip. I meant to upload these ages ago, but the small design projects piled up and I love showing as many types of art as possible. All photos are taken on St. Livingston Island on the Zambia side and there is NO SAFETY NET OR ROPE. It’s so funny to see how other countries deal with safety rules and regulations–on one hand this felt CRAZY dangerous, but on the other hand, it was very cool and when are you ever going to get cool photos like these ever again?

Photo taken with the Lensbaby Fisheye optic, looking into the falls (in the dry season), towards the inside of the rocky divide.

Photo taken at the near edge of one of the few active portions of the falls in the dry season. This is a view at about 180 degrees from the above photo. The mist rising from the falls can be seen for miles around when Victoria Falls are in full swing, but now its mostly isolated to about a mile or so radius. Also taken with the Fisheye optic.

Several more steps towards the falls. This gives you a better idea of the true height and scale of this TINY portion of all of Victoria Falls. There is a small calm right before the drop off, if you look closely at the photo below, right at the cusp of the fall, there is a small pool, which is also known as ‘Devil’s Pool.’ Long story short my mother and I ended up swimming in that pool, but only after much coercion and swearing at the skies.