Presenting the...

“Hey Dan, how did you create that?”

Series

a ‘project-perspective’ based series of presentations on the creative process of

Dan Madinabeitia

Slideshow I

“The GAIM 2013 Cabana Illustration Project”

Where did this idea come from? The GAIM USA team from the Finance Division at IIR. GAIM stands

for Global Alternative Investment Management

Assigment? Create an illustration (“New Yorker”/“Wall Street Journal” style) of a

crowd of hedge fund managers and investors networking in cabanas in Boca Raton for the cover of the GAIM USA 2013 brochure.

Timeline? 1 month

Design challenge? creating a cohesive style while simultaneously drawing a crowd of

people from scratch.

The tools:

• pencils and sketch pad • Adobe Photoshop• A WACOM tablet• Stylistic references from

publications

commuter geek:me and my tablet on the New Jersey Transit train from Gladstone to Penn Station, NY

I used Pinterest to create a mood board of cartoons I found created by various illustrators

First - sketch in pencil, scan and start transferring in Photoshop with the WACOM tablet and pen...

Also adjust contrast to set a cohesive visual rythm...

Begin adding color in Photoshopusing paint tools...

Adjust size of the piece to eventually fit into the cover once THAT size has

been approved...

We played with the idea of a sepia-toned image to fit with the GAIM brand. Time was a huge challenge. At one point we had to place the image on an unfin-ished mock up of the cover... It looked really bad. The Divisional Manager freaked.

- deal, move on...

Present to divisional team in progress and make adjustments - One person felt as though

it made serious financial people look like ‘Beevis and Butthead’

- deal, move on...

Hone in on the detail

Photoshop allows for great detail work with its zoom function. The golfer in the back-ground will be really small in the final piece.This is just an example of doing detail which is really important in creating a final effect

Photoshop is also great for creating shadows (look under the tables and couches in the background) which were added as a final touch to add “pop” to the image

And here we have our final piece...

The client really liked it. So we made more for the brochure

interior and website