JOSHUA MARZ

The X-Men

Comic books are a great source of creative inspiration through their illustration styles, color palettes and typographic treatments. I have developed a personal style of coloring by combining varied textures and showcase this through my favorite Marvel character team, The X-Men.

under the sea

This project is composed of two parts. The first was creating an abstract color pattern that was inspired from the bright coral reefs located under the sea. The second part was taking the abstraction and creating a typographical dominant poster.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

I must admit I never watched the film or seen the play of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? until I was given the assignment to create a book cover for the story. After reviewing the movie starring the late Elizabeth Taylor, my final design was inspired from the scene where Martha, the main female character, tells her guests during an after party, an embarrassing story about her antagonistic husband, George, as he appears behind her with a gun; fires it and an umbrella pops out.

My design integrates both typography and graphics as seen with the umbrella and gun. Keeping the majority of the work in grayscale allowed for emphasizes on the red umbrella and the author name in white.

1080°

1080° is a monthly publication that focuses on extreme physical movement of the human being. Some examples of extreme physical movement would be the intense Olympic sport of gymnastics, the extreme sport of skateboarding, the incredible performers of Cirque du Soleil shows and astonishing thrill seekers who attempt to break the free falling record. 1080° is named after a snowboarding trick where the performer complete three 360° revolutions on the vertical axis.

I JUST WANT GUM

Confection meets comic books. I Just Want Gum is a nerd boy’s dream. This packaging accentuates the novelty of the Golden Age artwork of DC Comics’ Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman by denoting a specific flavor for each character.

Maybelline Packaging Contest

In the fall of 2012, the creative team and vice president of Maybelline came to the Fashion Institute of Technology, to propose a contest for the rebranding of their lip balm, Baby Lips. I won second place overall in this competition.

The retro female characters in romance comic book covers of the 1960s inspired my design approach. I kept their original logo because it was already an established component of their brand. Each flavor has its own color palette which matches with the specific female character and personality.

Mixed CDs

I always loved making mixed CDs when I was a kid. This personal project references that memory and spins it with a folding paper CD cover. I used vibrant colors for one background and subdued the second background to bring contrast between the two CDs. I created the characters and colored them with various textures which portrays my own personal illustration style.

PULSE NYC

New York City is the premiere dance capital of the world. This was the theme for Pulse NYC. Recognizing that many of the international elite dance companies are located in the Big Apple, Pulse NYC, is a guide to these incredible, physical performers. The website design along with print materials—a logo, brochures,business cards and promotional animation were the deliverables.

I kept the typographic approach minimalistic to create contrast with the dance illustrations, which are rich with colorful texture.

I AM MARZ

I am a huge fan of superheroes and comic books. They have become a major influence in my design approaches. Using comic books as inspiration, I illustrated myself in this brief Adobe AfterEffects animation.

HEROINE

Heroine is a project which gives a historical correlation between the DC Comics character, Wonder Woman and her representation of female empowerment throughout the Twentieth Century. The initial animation is accompanied by a companion print piece.

410.409.9537JoshuaMarz.com Joshua@JoshuaMarz.com

COLOPHON

Printed on 61 # Photo Matte Paper.Type used is OnRamp and Univers.