FRANCO ART STUDIOS
Nick Franco | Graphic Artist
I am an artist and educator with a love of collaboration and creative problem solving. This portfolio represents the personal explorations, commissioned work, and passion projects I have developed over the years. I have worked with a variety of clients to establish a new face for their business. It is my ambition to become an art director, overseeing a team of burgeoning artists to produce innovative and experimental artwork.
Comanche Spirit Mask
My graphic novel exhibition, Comanche Maneater, has become an exploration of multimedia. For this graphic, I researched Comanche Spirit Masks, sketched out a concept, and redesigned it in Illustrator. I added the various textures with a blending technique in Photoshop.
Comanche Maneater (cover art)
A cover design for my graphic novel exhibition. Reformatted in Illustrator and Photoshop, the design layers an ink sketch with a watercolor and ink painting.
Comanche Maneater (movie poster)
A poster for my graphic novel exhibition. The design is meant to resemble Western posters of the 1930s. Images from the storyline were formatted and layered in Photoshop.
Comanche Maneater (poster)
An alternate poster design, this image combines a piece completed in watercolor and ink with a Photoshop masking technique. I wanted the design to emphasize blood splatter and staining.
Comanche Maneater Logo
I designed this logo in Illustrator for my graphic novel exhibition. I wanted the logo to be bold and clean, but also provide information about the storyline. The C-shape creates a ring of blood around three ancient pillars, forming an M-shape.
Heart of a Wolf (t-shirt design)
This was a commissioned design for Natives of America--a small business specializing in Native American clothing and jewelry. I wanted the image to appear expressive and immediate with a delicate line quality.
8-Bit Self-Portrait
Designed in Illustrator, I love the simplicity of an 8-bit or pixelated portrait. While you have to be mindful of the value variations, you also have to limit your color choices.
Coin Toss
No Country for Old Men is one of my favorite movies. For the graphic, I wanted something unusual but recognizable. I limited the vector designs to simple black and white, with a striking, maybe unsettling, red-orange for the background. I blended a hidden layer in Photoshop of a scratched quarter.
BlogLift Logo
A digital marketing agency commissioned me to design the logo for their new blog site. I wanted the text design to be clean, with the word "lift" demonstrating upward mobility.
Olympia Digital Layout
A one-page layout design for a fashion blog. The client requested an image that was bold and elegant.
Eye Candy Logo
I challenged myself to create a product logo outside of my comfort zone. Designed in Photoshop, I wanted it bold, but with splashes of bright colors. My wife provided input on the font as well as the streamlined appearance of the eyebrow.
Eye Candy Packaging
I wanted the packaging for this product to be playful, so I recreated the design for a candy bar wrapper. Instead of paper and tinfoil, however, I envision the packaging to be a plastic palette.
Metamorphosis (album cover)
Album covers are a fun and creative challenge. As the designer, you are establishing an identity for a piece of music. I put together some weird, electro-space age tracks and designed a suitable cover in Photoshop.
6 (album cover)
This album cover is for a collection of six instrumental songs I recorded. With my twelve-year-old son as a contributor, it has a colorful, childlike quality to it. The image was primarily designed in Illustrator.
Apricot Designs Logo
A logo design for an online fashion business. For this design, I wanted to stress simplicity and delicacy.
Lonesome Road (album cover)
This Photoshop design utilizes image layering to tell the story of a relationship.
Family T-Shirt Logo
This t-shirt design is for a family reunion. The client wanted an image that incorporated a city skyline and a crown.
London Underground (book cover)
Concept art for the video game was applied to a book cover design in Photoshop.
Futurist Poster
This began as a project for my Graphic Design I students. I challenged them to design a poster that demonstrates the angular, overlapping shapes of a Futurist city with symbols for music, art, and technology.
Pandamonium (game art)
This was a project for my Graphic Design II students. I tasked them to design concept art for a mobile game where pandas defend themselves against an army of poachers. My design combines a watercolor and ink piece with vector designs in Illustrator.
Resurrection
Part of a daily Photoshop challenge, this design demonstrates image recombination and blending layers.
The Abstract (magazine cover)
This began as an assignment for my Art and Digital Design students. The objective was for them to introduce themselves by creating a Photoshop document that includes a portrait and their personal interests.
Slaughterhouse Five (book cover)
This book cover is one of six I designed that balances the use of studio and digital art to connect imagery to a literary work.
In this book, World War II is mixed with science-fiction as the protagonist helplessly travels through time. For the cover, I superimposed a fractured image of an army helmet onto a starry sky of watercolor.
In this book, World War II is mixed with science-fiction as the protagonist helplessly travels through time. For the cover, I superimposed a fractured image of an army helmet onto a starry sky of watercolor.
Radical Hope (book cover)
This book examines new beginnings, as a culture from the past attempts to rebuild itself. I wanted the cover to resemble a work in progress, like a sketch, wherein a ceremonial object was planted in the middle of everyday surroundings.
I reached out to the author, Jonathan Lear, for input and he was very supportive of the design.
I reached out to the author, Jonathan Lear, for input and he was very supportive of the design.
The Art of Cruelty (book cover)
This book analyzes a variety of visual and commercial art. In this design, artwork in a public exhibition takes on a different meaning as what's underneath the surface starts to bleed through.
Decoded (book cover)
This book details Jay-Z's beginnings as a dealer in New York City. Imagery of loose dollar bills and vials of crack are combined to create a weapon. The repetition of vials is meant to represent subway lines.
Violence (book cover)
There are so many issues dealt with in this book, ranging from religion to pop culture, that I wanted them written out on a chalkboard, connected in an endless diagram.
The Wretched of the Earth (book cover)
The impact of colonialism and communism on Algeria are at the heart of this book. In the design, bloodied imagery of a war torn country are contained within a symbol of rescue and protection.
Abstract Wallpaper
This was originally a painting of mine that I photographed and redesigned in Photoshop to serve as wallpaper for my artist website.
Hawking
With digital art, I enjoy juxtaposing imagery to play with positive and negative space. This started as a sketch of Stephen Hawking shortly after his death that I completed in Photoshop.
Banner Logo
This is an early logo design for my artist website. At the time, my signature paintings used bold, thread-like forms to divide up the Abstract composition.
Stoneworks Logo (early)
This is one of many logo iterations for a shamanic healing collective. I was commissioned to design the logo and website for the artist who oversaw these holistic retreats.
Stoneworks Logo (final)
This was the chosen logo design. I used Photoshop to give the ancient image a rough, aged look, as if it had been carved out of stone.
Moonstar Pottery Logo
I was commissioned by the artist to update her logo and website. She requested a clean, contemporary look that utilized color and imagery from her previous design.
A&G Dermatology Logo
I developed a special relationship with this particular client. He is a dermatologist who requested a new logo, website, and original artwork for his practice. I layered imagery in Photoshop to provide him with a clean logo design that included the cross-section of skin.
Hector L. Franco, M.D. Logo
This is a special design to me for two reasons: it was the first logo I developed in Illustrator and it was for my father. Before I worked with any other clients, he commissioned me to create a new logo and website for his practice.
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1/5
London Underground
Concept art for a video game I would love to see developed for a console and mobile application.
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