Adrian Quintero
Adrian Quintero
Graphic & Web Design
The Art Institute of Austin, a branch of The Art Institute of Houston
The inspiration for my Bearclaw book was from the loss of a very special friend of mine, John Barraclough who we naturally called “Bearclaw” from the first time we met. The inspiration truly comes from his time here with us, and his knowledge of culture that we had not yet experienced as teens. John introduced us to so much that was “cool,” from John Coltrane and Miles Davis to Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. He taught me to appreciate the crackle of a vinyl record and the rhetoric of Jack Kerouac. He was a lightning bolt full of wit and comedy like no other person my group of friends had ever encountered.
His life was taken from us as he lost his battle with type 1 diabetes in 2009. During our last conversation he asked if I would name my first child after him, keeping the Bearclaw name alive. My wife and I had already settled on a name, but I had the idea of immortalizing him and his spirit with the creation of a literary character.
I created the book during a Publication Design class while at Ai Austin. The assignment was to create a 30-40 page book with a subject of our choice. With a past in early childhood education and a love for children’s books, I took this chance to create Bearclaw. Using Adobe InDesign for the layout and Adobe Photoshop Sketch for the iPad to create the illustrations I took advantage of multiple applications to create this book. I used blurb.com to create the physical copy, and plan to mass produce it in the coming year. I also have plans to create a deluxe boxed set that includes a copy of the book, signed print, 3D printed figure of Bearclaw, and a story on vinyl record.
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Please explain what we are seeing in your pieces and (MEDIA USED, TECHNOLOGY, OR SOFTWARE USED) how you went about creating them.
The photos you see here are of the finished and updated version of the book with the physical mock up of the vinyl 7” record and the 3D printed figure of the main character, Bearclaw. I used multiple applications from Adobe CC including: InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Ps Sketch for the iPad. I constructed the figure in TinkerCAD and sent the schematics off to makexyz.com for 3D printing services.
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