Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Tanner Wayment BFA: Application Essay

Tanner Wayment
Graphic Design Emphasis

BFA Application Essay

 I am excited about the future.  In today's world, design never ends and opportunities appear limitless.  Just beyond a year ago I did not know this.  I was literally lost.  I was taking business classes at Weber State University, pursuing a bachelor's degree in accounting.  I was seeking stability, safety and security.  Little did I know, I was also setting myself up for a career filled with numbers, uncomfortable stress, boredom, and most likely a fair amount of irritability.  Then something happened that changed my life.  Someone close to me and that knew me all too well invited me to use my brain.  "Do you enjoy business school?" I was asked.  "Is that something you're comfortable doing for the rest of your life?"  The next couple of nights were sleepless, yet I'll forever be grateful.

As early as my memory permits me to remember, I was a designer.  It started with doodles, sometimes on the wall at home.  From there I began entering local art contests such as reflections, D.A.R.E., Treetop, and several others.  I won, a lot.  I realized I had a talent.  As I entered Jr. High people began asking me to do special projects for them.  I designed and painted Wahlquist Jr. High School's giant logo as a ninth grader to be hung in their gym.  In high school I was placed in charge of designing school t-shirts, banners and posters.  During my Jr. and Senior year I was invited to design and direct the painting of our football team's end zones.  To end my high school experience, I graduated as Sterling Scholar in the Department of Visual Art and Design.  This award is given to only one student per year from each school.  And yet after all of these experiences, I thought that was all there was...

Over the past year, my eyes have officially begun to be opened.  Beginning that fateful night in which I was asked to consider my future, I began to be introduced to many of the facets of design.  Illustration, Graphic Design, Logo Design, Branding, User-Experience, User-Interface, Web Design, etc.  I learned of the cross-over that exists between all of them, the tools necessary to master them, and perhaps most importantly, the time it takes to learn and advance yourself.  A day hardly goes by that I don't design, practice, watch a tutorial or simply read about it.  Design consumes me.  It has become an integral part of who I am, and I couldn’t be happier about that.  I may not know exactly yet where design will take me, but wherever I end up, I know I'll be somewhere I want to be.



Identification Document

List of Works:

1. Wayment. Self Portrait and Logo. Adobe Illustrator. Self-Directed. Completed May 2015.

2. Wayment. Two-Bit Bike Racks. Adobe Illustrator. Commissioned. Completed May 2015.

3. Wayment. Luigi's. Adobe Illustrator. Self-Directed. Completed August 2015.

4. Wayment. WhatIf Mobile Game. Sketch. Self-Directed. In-Progress.

5. Wayment. Video Game Night. Adobe Illustrator. Commissioned. Completed September 2015.

6. Wayment. Weber Wipeout. Adobe Illustrator. Commissioned.  Completed October 2015.

7. Wayment. Mad Wolf Illustration. Adobe Illustrator. Self-Directed. Completed February 2015.

8. Wayment. Faith Graffiti. Adobe Photoshop. Self-Directed. Completed February 2015.

9. Wayment. Tanner Graffiti. Adobe Photoshop. Color-Theory Class. Completed February 2015.

10. Wayment. Puppy. Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop Class. Completed September 2015.

11. Wayment. Wall Murals. Paint on wall. Commissioned. 8ft x 60ft. Completed June 2015.

12. Wayment. House Sketch Series. Graphite on paper. Commissioned. 8.5 x 11. Completed 2012.


1. Tanner Wayment BFA: Self-Portrait and Logo


1. Wayment. Self-Portrait and Logo. Adobe Illustrator.

This project was a personal branding investigation.  I enjoy flat character design and really wanted to create myself.  The logo was created to go along with the illustration and fit perfectly on my character's t-shirt.

2. Tanner Wayment BFA: Two-Bit Bike Racks



2. Wayment. Two-Bit Bike Racks. Adobe Illustrator.

Two-Bit Bike Racks is a start up company here in Ogden, UT.  A Weber State student minoring in Entrepreneurship asked me to design this logo for the company. 

3. Tanner Wayment BFA: Luigi's



3. Wayment. Luigi's. Adobe Illustrator.

Luigi's is a personal project I took on to try and walk myself through the branding experience.  I started with this logo design and eventually placed it on some t-shirts.  From here I plan to create a menu.

4. Tanner Wayment BFA: WhatIf Mobile Game





4. Wayment. WhatIf Mobile Game. Sketch.

This is a project that I have been working on for several months with my brother-in-law.  He's a developer, and I'm trying to become a designer.  This particular project has been unique in that it's really helped me to investigate the worlds of UX and UI design, along with somewhat of a branding experience.



5. Tanner Wayment BFA: Video Game Night

5. Wayment. Video Game Night. Adobe Illustrator. 8.5x11

This is a flyer I designed for WSUSA.  I thought it would be fun to play off of the Nintendo Gameboy look to give the flyer a good video game theme.

6. Tanner Wayment BFA: Weber Wipeout

6. Wayment. Weber Wipeout. Adobe Illustrator 8.5x11

This is a flyer design I did for a WSUSA event.

7. Tanner Wayment BFA: Mad Wolf Illustration

7. Wayment. Mad Wolf Illustration. Adobe Illustrator.

This was my intro piece to using a Wacom tablet.  I chose a wolf head because I really wanted to use an image that would enable me to experiment a lot with line thickness, and the wolf's hair was an excellent opportunity.

8. Tanner Wayment BFA: Faith Graffiti

8. Wayment. Faith Graffiti. Adobe Photoshop. 11 x 17

This was a practice/follow up design I did on my own time after completing my in-class graffiti assignment.  I enjoyed the first one so much I wanted to try another on my own.  The word Faith was sketched out and scanned into photoshop.

9. Tanner Wayment BFA: Tanner Graffiti

9. Wayment. Tanner Graffiti, done in Adobe Photoshop. 11x17

This was an assignment done in my color theory class.  It's a digital graffiti mural of my name along with some features that help describe me as a person.

10. Tanner Wayment BFA: Puppy

10. Wayment.  Puppy, done in Adobe Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch Medium.

This was a project I did this semester in my photoshop class.  I wanted to improve my skills with digital painting so I took on something relatively simple.

11. Tanner Wayment BFA: Weber High School Wall Murals






These murals are done inside of Weber High School's new weight room facility.  I was commissioned to paint the murals by one of Weber High's biggest boosters.  The "WE ARE WEBER" painting was approximately 8 ft high and almost 60 ft long.  

12. Tanner Wayment BFA: House Sketch Series


House 1, Graphite Drawing
House 2, Graphite Drawing

These drawings were commissioned sketches for a real estate company.  I wanted to include them in my portfolio to demonstrate my free-hand illustration and drawing skills.