McBLOG

wonderful world of bean bags

Linda McNeil — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 02:41:09 +0000

In the spirit of Summer, I decided I needed to create a fun project that doesn’t involve a computer. I came up with the idea of making my own cornhole game board. My dad helped me build the board and I painted it and made all the bean bags. I don’t know why but I’ve always associated this game with carnivals and fairs, I think it just reminds me of the sideshow games where you could win a giant stuffed yogi bear or a china doll. This was my inspiration. Although my process was kind of rushed because I wanted this to be done for a BBQ we were hosting at my house, I’m very pleased with it. I think I will still touch up a few things about it though, I don’t like the “l” on carnival and the rides look a little wonky. I hope it brings a smile to your face though! It is the ultimate summer fun game!

more CNNI

Linda McNeil — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:57:58 +0000

I have some more recent images that I have worked on for CNNI as well as some on air stills I took. This just gives you an example of what I do and where it goes. This image bellow is a title graphic I worked on that has aired quite a few time on various CNNI shows. This show is World One with anchor Fionnuala Sweeney.

above is another Oil Spill graphic I made. Bellow are 2 graphics for Female Viagra. I get a lot of request like this where I make a series of images to be played out together in a package

above are the same graphs made for two different monitors, the London wall and the Hong Kong Plasma. The images bellow show you the difference of viewing the on my computer screen and seeing what it looks like on air. This is one of my top piorities when creating anything. I have to make sure that what I am making reads easily when it is viewed on air. This isn’t the best example because in the stills, Richard Quest’s body is cutting off the end of the graph, but you get the idea.

I’m sorry to brag but really love my job. I can’t believe I’ve been there for two months already. It is stressful at times but I can’t think of a better pay back then being able to see something you’ve made on air and knowing it is world wide. I just heard from my sister in Cambodia today and she told me all she watches over there is CNNI and she sees graphics I’ve made or projects I’ve been apart of all the time. It s a very exciting job, I love my co-workers and I hope to stay at CNN for a long time (keep your fingers crossed for me)

A lot of what my co-workers do are show titles and animations. I graduated SCAD as a print designer but since I’ve been at CNNI my interest in motion graphics has become stronger. I would LOVE to work on some animations so maybe in my next post about CNNI I will have some.

Also, please give me some feedback on what I’m doing, any comments or suggestions to improve my work is highly appreciated

MAYKE PER MONTH

Linda McNeil — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 04:24:57 +0000

this is what I made for someone for May’s Make Per Month. I made a summer mix not to long ago so I thought I should share it with someone

CNNI

Linda McNeil — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 03:57:25 +0000

I’ve recently been working for CNN International as a freelance designer. I’ll be there for the next 6 months doing daily graphics. So far I have been there for about month. I mainly do photo editing and title graphics. If you have watched CNN international in the past month, you have probably seen something of mine. It is a lot of work, I’ve never had to do such a quick turn around(given less than an hour for most graphics), but I love it so much. The people I work with were very welcoming when I first started. I’m hoping something great will come out of this and I’ll be able to stay at CNN after my 6 months run up; but for now, I am very happy with my position.

these are some examples of what I’ve been doing for the past month. All photos are credited to AP and Getty

There are a lot of map request that come in day to day. Also lot’s of graphs and large widescreen images. Here are some examples

So stay tuned kids. I’ll start updating this blog more regularly and post more of what I’m doing professionally. As for now, if you get CNNI, turn to it every once in a while to see what I’ve been doing. I promise, it will get better!

I can kinda Sew

Linda McNeil — Thu, 27 May 2010 04:56:28 +0000

CHECK IT OUT, the first time in a long time I dusted off my sewing machine and got to work. Inspired by this post on Design*Sponge, I made a table cloth out of ikea dish towels. In the post they made it for a circular table, so I just edited the pattern a bit to fit my rectangular table. I’ll iron it and take better pictures later but look! Also those things on the table are blueberry scones that I made with my roommates brand new kitchenaid standmixer.Look at me being all domesticated and shit.

Make Per Month

Linda McNeil — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:42:41 +0000

In March, my friend Des created a group on facebook called Make Per Month. For each month she assigns you a person at random and then you create something for them and sent it to them at the end of the month. What you create can be anything you want it to be. I loved this idea when I first got the invite to the group. I thought it was such a cute way to stay in contact with people and also met really interesting people. This group has been going strong for the past 3 months. There are about 60 people in the group but I would say about half of that actually take part in it. I love seeing what people create and come up with and it is also a great way to keep my creative mind moving.

These are my March and April assignments. I didn’t know the girls that I was making something for so I just made something I would like.

above is a triptych I made for the month of March. This was the month MPM started so I didn’t know what to do or what to expect. I figured everyone likes birds so why not modgepodge the shit out of paper and fabric and put it on 3 pieces of wood. Bellow is what I made for the month of April, I knew the girl I was assigned was a fibers major so I figured I would try sewing something for her. When my friend moved to L.A. at the end of April, she gave me and my roommates a lot of fabric and yarn that she couldn’t fit on her trip. I loved this striped green and yellow fabric so I knew I wanted to use that. I thought since that fabric is so busy then it would be best to do something simple on it. So I printed out “HAVE A GREAT DAY” in helvetica, cut the words out and traced them on yellow fabric and hand stitched them on to the striped fabric. I was going to stretch it over a wood block but I thought that would be to hard to ship. So I just rolled up the fabric and sent it away.

The Hangout Festival

Linda McNeil — Thu, 20 May 2010 04:14:09 +0000

I entered yet another contest on creativeallies (gotta love this website) This was for The Hangout Festival in Gulf Shores Alabama. The Hangout is a new to this year. It had a killer line up with bands like The Flaming Lips, Okgo, Guster, Neko Case, The Roots and Girl Talk. Not bad for a rising festival. Anyways, the contest was to create a logo and shirt for the festival. The winner got a trip for two to the festival and $200. I mainly entered because I really wanted to see the Flaming Lips play on a beach and having a something I designed as a logo for a soon to be big summer festival would be amazing. I also don’t live to far from Gulf Shore so it would be the perfect weekend trip

Well, I entered a few designs, not many people submitted stuff so I thought the odds were in my favor. I after the deadline for the contest past I waited to hear from Creativeallies. While I was waiting to hear from them, I found out The Flaming Lips canceled a bunch of performances due to Steve Drozd being hospitalized, that included The Hangout. Bummer. Whatever, though the festival was still going to be sweet so than I still had my hopes up for winning this trip.

No, than the BP Oil Spill happened, really? the festival was suppose to take place in a little over a week after we all first got news about the Oil Spill. BUT it was ok because the festival decided to still go on! HURRAY! NO, than I find out because of the Oil Spill CreativeAllies canceled the contest, no winner, no prize, lets just act like none of this ever happened. COOL.

Oh well, long story short, here are 2 logos and a shirt idea I cam up with, if you’d like to see all the designs I submitted go here

Love you CreativeAllies, but you really dropped the ball on this one

thinking about rain in the sun

Linda McNeil — Sun, 16 May 2010 20:03:13 +0000

I am uploading a rain cloud on one of the nicest days I’ve ever seen in Georgia

Seth Rogan here

Linda McNeil — Sun, 09 May 2010 19:27:35 +0000

Seth Rogan here to teach you stuff and things about the www

How to Design a Portfolio Website, Part One from Carsonified on Vimeo.

Big Ears 2010 Festival

Linda McNeil — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 04:44:55 +0000

A few weeks ago I entered another contest on Creative Allies to win a 2 tickets to Bigs Ears 2010 Festival in Knoxville, TN. Much like the contest they had for SXSW, you create a poster and 12 finalist will be chosen to be in a Gallery at the festival and the winner receives tickets to the festival and a few other prizes. There were about 80 entries for the contest and I was chosen as one of the finalists, here is my submission:

Here is are of the winning poster and the other finalists

and here are the posters on display at the festival this past weekend

big thanks to Creative Allies (if you haven’t check them out you need to right about now) this website is great and really fun to be apart of.