Graphic Art
Overview
Exploring the world of graphic art was my first step into my career as a designer. I combined my passions for art and cars by creating photoshop designs of my car in different classic video games, which then became a small business I ran through Instagram. From there, I continued to explore any other creative ideas that came to mind, learning more about Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator along the way. These skills allowed me to contribute to graphic design tasks in professional roles that I later held.
Spir17 Designs
Spir17 Designs (Spirit 17 Designs) began as a personal passion project and eventually grew into a small business. Customers would send photos of their cars, which I transformed into scenes from their favorite racing video games using Adobe Photoshop and Windows Video Editor. With limited tools, I developed a streamlined system of templates and workflows that allowed me to consistently deliver high-quality results efficiently.
Need for Speed Carbon
Need for Speed Underground 2
Need for Speed Most Wanted (2005)
Midnight Club LA
Midnight Club 3
Most of these games were released in the early 2000s, making it nearly impossible to find clear background images to build the template from. To solve this issue, I rebuilt the backgrounds in Photoshop using screenshots of assets from newer video games. For example, all background assets in the edits shown above were sourced from Grand Theft Auto V. I then cut out, distorted, and edited these assets, applying lighting and color adjustments to accurately match the original scene.
Need for Speed Heat
Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012)
Cyberpunk 2077
Cartoon Cars
The examples below show a mix of “cartoon-ified” car illustrations — some were paid commissions through Spir17 Designs, while others were personal projects or made for friends. Fun fact: I created all of these in Adobe Photoshop using just the brush, pen and lasso tools, even though I later realized Adobe Illustrator would’ve been a better fit for this kind of work. Still, these projects were an awesome way to learn new techniques in Photoshop and a great reminder that I can make things work, no matter what tools I’m using.
Cartoon Mini Cars
Disney’s “Cars” Edit
Photoshop Renderings
As you can see from the designs featured on this page, I have a huge passion for cars in my personal life, and I love building and customizing my own vehicles. Whenever I make a visual change to my cars, part of my process is to create a photoshop rendering prior to taking action on it. This allows me to see how it will look before I commit to buying new parts, and can help show me if it feels like it is missing something.
I created the following group of renderings while planning out some custom work on my Subaru Impreza. These are the final drafts that I ultimately ended up following through with. The designs feature a mixture of parts from different cars moulded into the bumpers, rear spoiler, and hood of my car. These renderings were extremely valuable and provided me with a realistic blueprint for the work that I carried out, allowing me to accurately build the parts shown in the renderings
Custom Rear Bumper and Spoiler Rendering
Custom Front Bumper and Hood Rendering
Results and Takeaways
Through exploring my passion for cars through graphic art, I was able to gain a deep understanding of the Adobe Creative suite and become very comfortable working in photoshop. This laid the foundation for my design career by showing me the power of creativity, and how it can be used to create beautiful visual experiences in all areas of the digital landscape.