Alois Heitkamp
Design & Illustration
Forword Welcome to my world. Over the past three years of my education at the KDA I have created numerous props and products I hope I can use for the future to come. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to my teachers and classmates, who were always there when I needed them. Have a look around and tell me waht you think. Yours sincerely
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Chapters About this Portfolio
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Graphic Design
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Coverdesign
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Corporate Design
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Game Design
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Product Design
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Illustration
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Cartoons & Comic Strips
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Vector Art
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Typography
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Major Project
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Epilogue
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About this portfolio With every new project I encounter I use the power of the cartoon. Most People are attracted to cartoons because they like to laugh. And that is why I use funny and wacky elements to enhance my graphic work. I accosiate laughter with happniess and I want to bring happniess and laughter to every single target group I focus. My three years of studying at the KDA went by really quick but I had a lot of fun learning, creating and analysing how to use design not only to make something visual, but also how to analyse and study the world outside.
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Graphic Design Coverdesign Here are some examples of some Coverdesign like for magazines or books. What ever you are doing you are trying to give a product, no matter if food, a toy, a book, a film or a game a face or a look. For Lewis Caroll‘s Alice in Wonderland I illustrated the cover from the famous tea party scene. The next cover was for a magazine called Hybris with the topic of the week: Financial Crisis. I drew three monkeys: The first has a headache, the second has empty pockets and the third is crying. I drew inspiration from the statue of the three monkeys in Japan that can‘t see, hear or speak.
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Graphic Design Corporate Design The next chapter contains of some visual design for an idea of a restaurant. I myself like potatoes and potatoes are commonly known to be consumed by germans. We eat different sorts of potato products like chips, crisps, hashbrowns, fried and roasted potatoes, potato salad and many more. I wanted to create a fast food restaurant specializing in making potatoes. This fast food chain because I‘m Amercian myself wanted this to be placed in America, where visitors can come and just: „FILL YOUR TUMMY WITH YUMMY!“
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Graphic Design Game Design I didn‘t only do design for my school. I experiment a lot with design and art and by this I tried of making my own card game called Elementials. I didn‘t only have fun creating this game for myself but for others. It was a private project and I found out that creating a game is really tough and difficult to produce. A project followed to make a game for the Farina museum based in Cologne. They wanted a finished game in several months but I knew it wouldn‘t be possible. My idea was to create a concept first because a concept is like the blueprint for your game. Once you have the concept, then you can start visualizing the game. I felt that if I wouldn‘t have convinced my teacher that creating a game is very difficult, my fellow classmates would have been in a deep creative crisis. But in the end our work has been rewarded and it pleases me that not only did I create a game suitable for the museum, I was there for my classmates when they needed me most.
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Graphic Design Product Design
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With Skittles you can taste the rainbow and what do you experience with 5 Gum? Try making your own chewing gum! This was a obscene idea I came up as well. Power Gum isn‘t just chewing gum. The idea was that the consumer chewing this gum will gain superpowers of animals. The boy holding up the tiger package really says it all: Chew this gum and you will have the power of the tiger! But not only of the tiger. There are different Power Gum flavors and packages like the frog and the hyena. What other Power Gum sorts are to come? Maybe of a sloth or what about a monkey? There are no limitations in fantasy. Just see what comes up next! 19
Illustration Cartoons & Comic Strips Did you ever see trains playing chess? Do alligators lead to your destination? Is a hat and a pair of gloves all a woman needs? These cartoons and comic strips may be suitable for newspapers and magazines, but I never had any luck finding one where I could publish some of my work and make news of myself. But the next following chapter isn‘t just HAHA! You will see images that could be haunting or maybe lead you of asking questions you have never asked yourself before. Turn the page at your own risk!
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These are some political illustrations I made for a magazine with the topic about privacy. Everybody needs privacy and people do have their private lives. But what about the people who‘s life isn‘t so private at all? Let‘s take for the instance the queen of england. How does her privacy look like? (View the picture on top). And what about spreading information on the internet which is secret and not to be read by the public? Julianne Assange has no freedom of information. Do you feel observed? What if someone filming you isn‘t just filming you with a video camera? What if the video camera is a gadget that enables you to scan your entire body? Could modern day instruments become use of dangerous and evil purposes? 23
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Illustration Vector Art
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Part of the design programme was a six month internship. I found a graphic design agency close to home where I had the creative freedom on making high quality illustrations for a wedding papery and many more. To me the six month internship gave me a close glimpse of the daily life and work as a graphic designer and commercial illustrator. During the internship I found my own drawing style, which is the hand signature of an artist or illustrator and I‘m still using it today with every new project I endever. I amazed my friends what a change I had made: From Pixels to high resolutionary art. A change from Photoshop to Illustrator. Take my advice: If your and Illustrator, use Illustrator! 26
During my internship I had learned to make high resolutionary illustrations commonly known as vector art. For several years I had mostly used Photoshop for drawing and illustrating but now that I really found myself in illustrator I can pin up my work with high quality in big or small. Here are some vector art examples I had made during my internship at the design agency. Please don‘t stop. There is more to come.
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Now quite naturally, elephants are supposed to be afraid of mice. But do elephants necessarily have to be afraid of mice? There are no limitations in fantasy. So why not make an elephant and a mouse as a couple? Here are some more vector art examples on elephant and mice jokes. Now there aren‘t that many elephant and mouse jokes. There might be some about elephants and mice seperately but not together. This led me to write and draw some of my own elephant and mouse jokes. As a cartoonist I like coming up with jokes and funnies myself. The best of my own jokes were voted by my superiors and I went on illustrating them.
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On the next following pages you can see a wide array of vector art icons I have also made at the design agency. I don‘t know if many design agencies have their own illustrators or the graphic designer has to be part illustrator as well. Before I arrived at the design agency they had to produce their own icons or download them from the internet. Downloading material or graphics from the internet to me is not original. Me myself being the only illustrator they have available was of advantage for the design agency and so I was tasked to come up with ideas for icons for various labels, products, logos and many more. Take a look around and tell me what you think.
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Typography
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Of course as a graphic designer you not only work with symbols and shapes, but also with typography. How do you use typography? Every agency has his own handwriting or own typography. I did not only use different typography for different kinds of projects or personal work. I also found that typography can give the product or topic you‘re working on a face or a corporate design. I experimented with typography for a while and the result can be seen with the collage of the Beatles song „Yellow Submarine.“ Avant Garde is a very modern and futuristic typography and with the Avant garde you can do things I would have never thought to have been possible. You can form it and make something really new with the Avant Garde. I also had to invent my own typography and the result was „Bamboo Sans“. This is a typography I created with sticks and slashes. It‘s easy and it looks modern. 34
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Major Project I most certainly don‘t know where this came from. I know I wanted to do a comic book but I would have never thought I‘ll draw a couple who never had a sexual interaction. At first I thought I‘d do a music video because I also liked making electonic music on the side. But I found myself in another medium: The comic book. To me a comic book is like an animated film but in form of a book, because I also liked making animated short films. I thing the comic book has an advantage over the animated film and that the print medium has an advantage over the film medium. Because I received a lot of grotesque and sexual inspiration, I convinced my teacher I wanted to do a comic book. A comic book about the true meaning of love and this is the result.
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The story follows Alfons Bornell, a successful commercial Illustrator and Maraline Sakuragai, a teacher at a Ballet school. They never had a close relationship before and it seems they found the right partner in each other. But they never had a sexual intercourse before and its embarrassing. One day when Alfons goes shopping a colleague puts a condom in his shopping bag. Meanwhile Maraline is being bothered by her friends and she is dragged into a sex shop. The same evening Maraline tries to pursuae Alfons into bed by doing an ellusive dance in a transparent gown. Alfons gets nervous and wonders if everything is alright with her. The same evening Alfons and Maraline have a close talk from heart to heart. At the end both decide to give it a try together and a climactic experience begins. 40
Epilogue I hope you had a great time looking at my work and going far beyond. My three years at the KDA had been a great time full of fun, learning and success and I can only recommend future or newcoming students the friendly atmosphere and creative freedom at the KDA. I also hope that my continuation at the Middlesex University will also be of joy of learning and experimenting like my visit at the KDA. I would to thank the reader or viewer by looking at this Printportfolio and I wish everyone good luck and have fun in everything that you do. Be passionate about everything! Knowledge is the key of success! With great wishes
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