By Kevin Akins

20/02/2021

INVEST IN YOUR PROJECTS: HOW TO DELIVER COMPELLING CONTENT

One of the most looked-over opportunities in a project is when designers don’t take advantage of how they present and deliver a project to a client. Whether it’s a meeting to show off preliminary designs, concepts midway through the project, or final touches on a chosen design; there is a real o...

19/02/2021

Sherman Family Fitness: An Investment Project

Read the full article by clicking the link.

I realized it’s very difficult to reference a site on a portfolio months after I’ve designed it, because it never appears the same as I last saw it or it’s vanished from the World Wide Web altogether. Sites aren’t something a designer should just build for a client and see them on their way ...

27/08/2020

Damn… I haven’t posted since June. It’s safe to say that I discovered where all my time and energy go from day to day when certain things “open” back up. I came off of my hiatus back in January this year and went right back into designing content in hopes that I’d be able to resign from my day job and get right back into my career field as a content designer. The pandemic came and messed things up of course… I was able to collect a check for a period of time from my day job throughout March, April, and May. Once June came around, I was back in the store and witnessing first hand how negligent, ignorant, arrogant, and misinformed so many people were as we tried to practice safe social distancing.

So once I got any break at all from the day job, I had all the time in the world to get back to creating content. It’s funny how that works, right? If you ever wondered what the phrase “all money ain’t good money” actually means, there’s a clear example for you! Hey… no shade towards my day job. My team that I personally work with has looked out for me in so many ways and has even been a big part of encouraging me to design content as well. It’s a real and transparent situation… an accountability system at best! I praise all those I continue to work with.

Enough of that though… here’s a quote from someone who actually opened my eyes while on my journey of self-empowerment. Joe Budden is very vocal on creatives getting the social and financial respect and recognition that we all deserve. He voices it quite often and quite effective on his platform. He’s all about the creator! And god damn it, I couldn’t agree more! What he’s mentioning in this quote has everything to do with the microwave era that we currently live in today. Read it, and let it sink in!

07/06/2020

I want to share some personal experiences and things I’ve concluded with you all (if you don’t mind). At the time of this post, I am now 34 years of age. I am also a black man in America. On October 27th 2019, I was robbed at gunpoint after closing up and leaving my day job one evening by a man stalking employees in the parking lot during closing hours. When I had a gun pulled on me and aimed right at my face for a very long minute or two, I thought about my mom and my daughter. George Floyd called out for his mom as he was being held down by the police. Imagine having a nightmare that you were suffocating until you died. Your legs and torso are being held down by two other individuals so you can’t reposition yourself even a little bit, and another man weighing at least 150 pounds is kneeling down into the back of your neck at the same time. That’s like drowning without being in a large bod of water. I couldn’t help but empathize with Mr. Floyd in those final moments of his. It triggered me. The point of this entry is to express how I’m feeling as a black man right now in this country.

Anyway, about this post. A good friend and I have been behind the scenes creating and developing a small graphic tees line made to spread awareness of some powerful people (past and present) and their most famous quotes. A percentage of profits will go towards organizations helping those who are falsely arrested and those that are educating communities on African American issues.

02/06/2020

10/05/2020

This is one of the first projects I worked on before the country went on lock down and the first project I had the pleasure of working on with . It’s a simple project, but it’s one I enjoyed working on as well… a simple flyer for the 1st anniversary private party of in Midtown (Sacramento). I don’t do flyers that often, and typically take on far bigger projects than this, but these are those fun little projects you cane experiment with new creative ideas as well add them to your catalog.

10/05/2020

There is so much truth to this quote above by the brilliant . The fact that if anyone has enough mind to hate something you design, there has to be someone who loves it. You don’t technically hate something without having a reason to hate it. This especially goes for the bold creative trend-setters in the fashion community. When someone creatively comes up with something bold, different, and new; someone will hate it! On the flip side of that hate, others will have an eye for the boldness and newness of the trend. You can apply this quote on so many aspects of life and things we see and engage with every single day… politics, fashion, and even music!