Armen Kojoyian Design

My First Drawings on a Macintosh SE

My first computer drawings done on a Macintosh SE one the earliest Apple computers of the late 1980’s. I took my first introductory evening class on the Apple computer just to begin this digital journey in maybe 1988/89 at Parsons New School of Design, downtown Manhattan. Drawing on this brick of electrons was like trying to bend steel, let alone do anything else. I didn’t touch a computer again till I was formally trained in about 1992 at my staff job as a designer at McGraw-Hill. The smooth gradations, color work and 3D modulation you see now, couldn’t even be done back in the Mac SE days!

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Ascent of Mt Aragats

A mountain I always wanted to climb is Mt Aragats the highest peak in Armenia at 13,420 ft. I was fortunate to summit in October of 2016 with a great mountain guide/photographer Hrach Hovhannisyan. Aragats the remnant of a extinct volcano, is a nice challenge of four separate peaks and manageable for the conditioned climber to ascend, couch potato no.

We began our ascent on a early cold crisp morning after a light snowfall that previous evening. Our goal was to summit around noon to beat any seasonal snow storm that may enshroud the top later that afternoon during our descent. Luck was on our our side as you see the storm clouds just starting to encroach in these photos.

On our ascent I looked over my shoulder a few times and I saw a line of dust rising up from what looked like a fast moving caterpillar across the valley floor. In about 45 minutes I was able to make out camouflaged men moving fast in formation. These young men in obvious great shape reached within 50 yards of me in no time at a rocky section of Mt Aragats they blew past me like they had springs in their legs. Up the increasing incline they passed me out of sight till they appeared again near the summit ridges looking like a crawling caterpillar again.

I reached the summit maybe a hour after they made it, and was introduced to the Captain and high altitude medical trainer of the Armenian Army’s Mountain Division. Well they were out for a chilly morning workout to take a summit of 13,420 ft. Legs of youth made that mountain just a hill!

Months of planning put me unexpectedly on the path of these great young men. These brave soldiers manning every stone aerie in the heavens are the defenders of a great nation, the future of Armenia is bright in their hands. A photographer’s secret magic like in no other art form is being on the right path towards the intersection of the unforeseen.

All photos copyright by Armen Kojoyian

Beer Label Design

Beer label design for a Jackson Heights, NY neighborhood brewing operation housed in a top secret location. I have reviewed so many micro-breweries logo’s/labels in the 5-Boro’s of NYC and realized none of them did justice to the Grande Dame in the harbor. I modeled this beer label design around Liberté herself.


 

Liberte86thStBeer

Queens World Film Festival Poster

Very happy to present my poster design for the 5th Annual Queens World Film Festival 2015! This great event kicks off at many Queens venues and theaters from 3/17-3/22-2015. All schedules of events/movies and ticket information can found here at the QWFF site.


 

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Top 12 CMP Trade Book Cover Designs

On the eve of starting my fifth year at Christopher Matthews Publishing as Art Director I am impressed with the body of work of almost 50 book covers. A good designer should never stay impressed with their look too long, they must be their best informed critic so as to consistently improve their design vision. Looking over my body of trade book cover designs for Christopher Matthews Publishing I now can isolate what I think were the most successful book covers in terms of branding our authors core vision into strong and compelling visuals to get any customer to pick these off a book store shelf or download a ebook copy. Enjoy these dozen book jackets they hold the conceptual seed to create even grander covers in 2015!


 

NO to “Crowdsourcing” and “Spec” work!

Crowdsourcing and Spec work rob and destroy the creative communities wage base and opportunities. Don’t submit your work to these draconian practices by corporations or small companies. Build your credentials by not destroying your long term pricing power, a career is a lifetime of value appreciation, not short term wage erosion. Join the campaign to fight and defeat these hideous business practices so designers, illustrators, and webmasters don’t become  the 99 cent store of creative ideas for all to take. Go right now and sign-up at antispec.com.

Advocate for Professional Book Cover Designers

Thank you tenfold Nathan Shumate for being the defender, advocate and promoter of professional book cover designers and saying what has been long overdue and necessary against the prevailing winds that are diluting a once glorious creative venue called The Book Cover!

Creator of ‘Lousy Book Covers’ by Nathan Shumate, author 

read complete article at link

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The reasoning which can prompt a writer with no marketing or design experience to feel qualified to be his or her own art director, or even artist, is seductive: Who, after all, knows and understands the book better than its author? Especially among those who have never been published professionally (i.e., by a third party), the finished book probably represents a labor of love, carefully crafted directly from the heart’s desire in moments snatched from career and family. If the purpose of a cover is to express in instant visual impressions the gestalt of the book within, who better to know intuitively and unerringly how to reveal the appeal of the book than the one from whose mind and heart it sprang?

The reasoning, I said, can be seductive. Unfortunately, it can also be flat-out wrong. Print design is a mode of communication all its own, and there is at least as much study and experience involved in gaining a competence in design skills as there is to becoming a credible wordsmith. If you don’t think that a cover designer is automatically qualified to write a book to go with his cover, you should admit that the converse is true: a book’s author is not automatically qualified to design her own cover.
(EXCERPTED)

Principles of Proteomics • Book Cover Design

Book cover design variations for the title Principles of Proteomics, Second Edition by Richard M. Twyman for Garland Science a Division of London based publisher Taylor & Francis.

My approach was to diminish the overall darkness of the spotted green graphic that author provided for cover use. Eliminating most of the black background and over enhancing the effect of horizontal movement and highlighting the unique spotting achieved the desired look with a crisp type treatment. The top cover was the winner in this event.

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Mathematics Series Book Cover Design

MathBookCoverDesign

The following three book covers were designed as series approach for the publisher Eye On Education in Westchester, NY recently purchased by Taylor & Francis a London based publisher.

Authors for these text gave strong visual input in the design approach stressing the importance of showing movement, light, and motion which the core graphics succeeded by using the effect of a classroom door slightly ajar and wooshing light. A added challenge was to demarcate the class levels that each text focused on through grades K-12. Each distinct level was set off by different color combinations as well as entering different math formulas and symbols pertaining to each of the three class groups.