HASSAN ABUABDALLAH
Client Work and Post-Degree Portfolio
Art Fashion Honor Fashion – Nonprofit
I was hired to help launch the Art Fashion Honor nonprofit initiative, a line of jackets and other military paraphernalia, as a Director of Photography. My role was to establish a visual theme for the organization, to come up with a look that defines it. This included determining locations and sets, defining photo editing guidelines, and to match inventory with set. I was responsible for scouting locations for our shoots and making sure they fit our visual theme, lighting and set management in-studio, and for hiring other photographers and having them follow the client’s guideline both on set and during Post-Production.
UKIQLO Fashion & Home Decor
UKIQLO (pronounced Yucky-Klo) is a Redbubble shop I started as a side project during the summer. This Online shop sells a wide selection of goods, including shirts, skirts, house art, stickers, notebooks, tote bags, clocks, pillows, and so on. “UKIQLO” itself is a parody of the Japanese clothing retailer UNIQLO. I picked that name because I was inspired by the contemporary street fashion of postmodern Japanese culture, wherein UNIQLO, the GAP of Japan, represented the modern and “normal people” clothes, so I thought it’s appropriate to create the Anti-UNIQLO: UKIQLO. The target market of my first line, T-SHI®TS, is the posh punk youth– the professional DJs and Fashion Week models, or at least what they would wear off-duty. The concept of the line is one that a few would get but those who would, would greatly appreciate: I deconstructed the graphic T-shirt to its absolute core: a tool of communication; an idea or a message you want to convey to the world. So I collected the most common messages Graphic Tees broadcast and I slapped them on a plain white shirt, I wanted it to be truthful enough to be Meta, simple enough to be minimalistic, and tacky enough to be ironic. All shirts are made with Size 20 Arial. On the other hand, the following lines I produced within UKIQLO are more Redbubble-friendly and incorporate my original designs, typography,and photography. The line I’m putting the most effort on is Industrial Spirituality, which combines the aesthetic of religion with science with a focus on Arabic aesthetics.
OURgrain Food and Sustainability
OURgrain is an emerging startup based in Providence, Rhode Island, they aim to recycle food waste into viable consumer goods, which means incredibly tasty cookies and pretzels. While the team is still within the Kickstarter phase, I was hired to make some behind-the-scenes videos of the people behind the company. While my work is mostly of interviews, a huge portion of the production process is helping the subjects feel comfortable on camera, which was a challenge since the subjects had little to no experience being on film. My work also included setting up line prompts for subjects to keep the dialogue consecutive and minimize cuts and help them finish up their sentences correctly. I was also responsible for setting up lighting and recording B-Roll such as establishing shots and the subjects working in their specialties. *Screenshots are of untreated, raw footage
O-Team Education
I was hired to create a set of videos for the Johnson & Wales University Orientation Department, I was responsible for the production of two videos: Reality 101, which is a university culture introduction video, and a Financial Services video, where I was tasked with making a student’s fiscal responsibilities fun and simple. I was responsible for almost every aspect of production from start to finish, I was responsible for writing a script based off the research I was handed, storyboarding based on the approved script, acquiring props, and sourcing equipment during Preproduction. In Production, I was responsible for audio recording, video recording, lighting, directing, and helping actors feel as natural as possible. I’ve had the challenge of working with a subject suffering from absolute stage fright, he completely freezes once I hit the record button. We’ve worked around it by allowing him to rehearse a few times, having him do wacky things to feel easy, and using a makeshift teleprompter to help him with his lines. In the Financial Services video, I handled 75% of the production myself. I was also responsible for every single aspect of Post-production for both videos, from color correction to reducing the echo of the voice-overs (the room we recorded in was not ideal at all). I was responsible for sourcing BGM, editing, captioning, and montage. A problem I had to deal with was the lack of footage, so I had to figure out solutions to fill in the missing visuals.
[pH]UEL Pharmaceutical - Sports
During my time with Kel & Partners, I designed for an extreme sports workout aid called pHUEL by Theraworx. These photos accompany social media posts that go on Facebook and Twitter (and Instagram every now and then). The challenge was to recalibrate my design decisions to match the client’s identity and branding. This consists of giving the supplied photos the company’s photo treatment, rubbing in the color palette, and creating a smoke/fire effect to go with the product. *More portfolio pieces to be added once they go live on pHUEL’s social media.
Cumberland Farms Convenience Store
Everybody knows Cumbies! During my time in Kel & Partners, I produced social media content for Cumberland Farms. This included photos, gifs, photography, stop-motion videos, and animation. My work included making Instagram stories, livestream screens, and sometimes even memes. *More items to be added once they go live on Cumberland Farm’s social media, NDAs can be cumbersome.
Physician Assistant Instructional Video - Education
The PA Film was a collaborative project that I took over from a team I used to work with in a previous term. During Preproduction, I took on the role of an instructor for the team. I mentored the other members on motion graphics then smoothened their animations and implemented some final touches on their graphics. During Production, I was the cameraman, working closely with Raffi Jansezian, the creative director. I also recorded different versions of the voice-over. During Post-Production, I cleaned up the audio of background noise as well as mentored the rest of the team on cutting up the sound into usable segments, and on color correction. Then I was responsible for editing the video aspect and putting everything together, putting great emphasis on continuity. Due to certain circumstances, I became the only person working on the project and I was tasked with improving upon the first draft. My scope of duties expanded to contacting the original client, working on new parts of the project, and keeping up with the clients’ new requests. I improved animations, edited continuity and long parts, fixed some issues with syncing audio and video, and other minor fixes that the client picked up on.
Flooring America Interior Decoration
While with Kel & Partners, one of my biggest client was Flooring America and its subsidiary companies. While most of what they ask of me is simple resizing and slapping logos on photos, every now and then I’m faced with a big challenge that pushes the limits of my design skills. A challenge I found myself always struggling with was translating the company’s visual identity between photo and video, which may seem easy at first but then after going over their style guide I realize there’s more than meets the eye to Flooring America’s branding and its consistency. *More work to be added as soon as it goes live on their social media.
Wasabi Cloud Storage Services
Wasabi, a recent technology startup, is yet another Kel & Partners client. They have a strong visual identity and the most strict style guide out of any client I’ve worked with. I have been creating gifs and videos for them, mostly motion graphics and Post-Production of interview footage they supply me with, as well as the occasional meme or simple post. Since most of what I receive is supplied and the style guide determining the treatment of it, my flexibility is with the font selection they provide me with and the typography treatment on their photos.
FAB-LAB Technology - Promo
I was contacted by Light Studio, a design firm based in my hometown, Al-Qatif, Saudi Arabia, to work on the Post-Production of a promo for a technology competition in the Fabrication Lab (commonly known as FABLAB) in King Fahad University for Petroleum and Minerals. I was to brainstorm with the members of the design solutions to work with the footage provided by our client and how to treat it since the client rejected their original proposed storyboard. My job was to pick accompanying music and to create a montage of clips to fit the voice-over provided to us. I came up with a visual theme and typography guidelines for the video, I used a color tint on the clips that matched the client’s branding color scheme, and then the rest of the team in Light Studio handled the rest by combining my color scheme and Typography I provided them to finish up the video.
I applaud you for making it through this book all the way through, in one piece no less (unless you just flipped through the pages, in that case stop cheating and start from the beginning). If you see something you like, just look up and make eye contact, I’m right here. Unless you’re seeing this online, then look me up and make e-contact, I’m right there. You can reachme@hassangraphics.com
HASSAN ABUABDALLAH