Commercial Art Portfolio

This portfolio highlights my skills in graphic design and commercial art. The images on this page have been downsampled to 72dpi. If you would like a higher resolution copy, (for printing) of any of these images please contact me at info@davidmikelsons.
This full page, A section ad celebrates the local Rotary chapter's 100th birthday. It ran in the North Kitsap Herald. I was given a stack of photos and articles and complete artistic freedom. The ad received the Best Institutional Ad award in the WNPA Better Newspaper Contest.
While I was the Marketing Artist at the North Kitsap Herald we had control of the Clearwater Casino's newspaper advertising. This was one ad from a campaign which I did all the design work for. In addition to the design I contributed the background photo for this.
This series of ads won the 2nd place award for Success Story of an Ad in the 2004 WNPA Better Newspaper Contest. These ads and the attentive customer service provided by our advertising team convinced an unhappy client to not only stick with us but to enjoy advertising with the Kingston Community News.
This ad shows how a piece of clip art (the girl) can be used to great effect. I was given the headline and the copy with no art or direction. By choosing a cute, smiling child I was able to convey the benefits of the service. This ad ran in the North Kitsap Herald.
Obviously this ad ran in July of 2005, when everyone was cheering for Lance Armstrong. The client wanted make a connection between Lance's victory and their ongoing ad campaign featuring Corinna Armstrong (the owner's daughter, no actual relation to Lance). I chose the photos and created the design and concept for the ad. This ad also ran in the North Kitsap Herald.
The Poulsbo Chamber of Commerce outsourced the production, including design, of their 2005 Membership Directory to the production staff at the North Kitsap Herald. I managed the project. I also did some design work for it, including the cover.
What's Up is an arts and entertainment insert that runs in all of the Kitsap News Group's Wednesday editions. It was produced in our office at the North Kitsap Herald. The sales sheet shown was a concept my publisher came up with. I wrote the copy, found the artwork and created the design.
I created this series of ads as a freelance project. I was approached a marketing consultant from Bainbridge Island, WA. He gave me the copy and a rough idea of the design. I refined it and produced the designs. They ran in the Bainbridge Island Review.
This ad won the third place award for Best Original Illustration in an Ad in the 2005 WNPA Better Newspaper Contest. The ad ran in the Kitsap News Group's What's Up arts and entertainment section.
This piece was a commissioned illustration. The client wanted a vicious dog done in a exaggerated but realistic style. I presented the client with two preliminary sketches and from those I was able to render this finished piece. They were extremely pleased with the result. Don't ask me what it's for - I don't know.
I chose this piece for my portfolio because it's about me. I'm an artist, an illustrator, and a graphic designer, but on weekends I quest for the adrenaline rush. I've printed this design as a t-shirt for my boarding and biking friends. I created it entirely in the vector drawing program Corel Draw 6.
This was another of my t-shirt designs. I drew the design on cardstock, cut it out as a template, and then airbrushed the design onto t-shirts. I gave this to some of my friends as a souvenir of our trip to Jackson Hole in 2003.