Briefly
In just a few words ...
Built on the collaborative efforts of one designer, one creator, and a few friends of both persuasions, Illustrative provides both design and illustration services in many beautiful ways.
Determined at bringing typical design work beyond pre-formatted templates and ill-chosen colors, the team here at the studio works hard to ensure our creations are of the highest caliber, as well as fulfilling the conceptual and economical expectations of our clientele. Foremost among our goals is to honor God with the quality and availability of our talents, and as such, many of our design efforts are put to use by non-profit organizations, churches and great schools like FCC.
The Skills
What it is that we can do?
We like to draw and we like to smile, so it should be no surprise that our illustrations are colorful, exciting and a whole lot of fun to look at. When we act serious-like, out come complete identity designs, including distinctive logo creations and innovative corporate materials. Our skills also include both the design and development of dynamic web experiences. We hand-code by preference, but can do plenty of good in a WYSIWYG when necessary. CSS is our best friend for style and we love to build for XHTML compatibility and accessibility. It's important for us that things look nice, so we are only happy when both our PCs and our Macs see things eye-to-eye.
For all our friends in education, we have recently added curriculum and inner office document enhancement to our list of services.
The People
We all wear masks, metaphorically speaking
Oscar Cortez
Designer, Illustrator & Mac enthusiast
Current Apple: 12" MacBook (1.83 GHZ)
Interests: apples, comics, lizards, medals, chops, code, warhols, guitars, stars, carts, and backpacks
Oscar Uses: Wacom drawing tablets, Incase computer bags, Sakura Pigma Micron pens, Staedtler erasers, Sumajin Smartwraps
Jodie Cortez
Creative director & Desktop aficionado
Current Apple: 12" Powerbook (1 GHZ)
Interests: tots, glass, reels, pugs, tops , nenya, colegio, tunes, ziggy, sitars, boards, woot, kicks
Site History
Looking back into our past
Through the years, we have gone through quite a few different looks. Feel free to browse through some of our past haircuts ... just don't hold any of the lame '80s hair against us, 'kay?
Version 18.0
Penguins, ribbons and lovely wallpaper
Clean and inviting lines, plus elegant coloring. Friendly mascots and colorful samples. This is when we became "Illustrative", too and ended the magic that was "Evenstar Media".
Version 17.0 (Unreleased)
Chocolate candies with soft and silky blue sweaters
Prominent and trendy styles. Bold and inviting colors and wood inlays. Concept and color choices due in large part to Vanessa Wilson.
Version 16.0
Ink splotches floating in the sky
Subdued colors. Subtle humor and finesse. Slightly over-done structuring and legalisms. Excellent usage of Blogger.com technologies and customization featuress.
Misc Project - Rabbit Trails
Hop, hop little bunny
Created out of necessity and urge to discover and share. Slick and smooth graphics and distinct styling. Two drops of tongue-in-cheek humor.
Version 15.0
Dark and sweet licorice
Straight-forward and simple, with plenty of hints toward crafty and good design.
Version 14.0
Overrun by robots and mechanics
Temporarily utilizing the unique services of SquareSpace and their blogging software. Intense monitoring of site statistics and linking. Random robots thrown in for good measure.
Version 13.0
Cartoons and Speech Bubbles
Surrounded by dark patterns, highlighted with brilliant colors and fancy-free illustrations. Leaning heavily on structured tags, systematic entries, and lots of content.
Version 12.0
Colorful enough to blind you
An entire spectrum of strong colors and near bucket loads of fancy illustrations. Fully equipped with a more than dandy Dra Studio logo.
Version 11.0
Creamy aqua jewels
Only an intermediary design, used to help alleviate those constant design urges. Light backgrounds and bright, prominent header images.
Version 10.0
Mood ring, oh, mood ring
Probably the most popular feature of any Dra Studio incarnation, this version's theme capability was well-received. Enjoyable color variations and quite a bit of content.
Version 9.0
Darks with itty bits of blue
Flashy and colorful, using nice Squidfingers tile patterns. One of the first completely CSS-styled versions. The second image is of a alternate theme that was never implemented.
Version 8.0
Illustrator Extraordinare
One of the most popular and famous versions of the Dra Studio. Fun and exciting, with bold clean lines. Lots of illustrated elements and humorous little extras.
Version 7.0
All squared away
Frequently updated collection of content. Mellow, easy-reading entries with plenty of eye-catching visuals ... all in a fun-sized wrapper.
Version 6.0 (Unreleased)
Bright and fully radiant
Sleek design. A simple and representative concept. Vivid and soothing colors. The site design never saw completion though.
Version 5.0
Putting pixels to better use
Creative, brightly colored and finally a version that is substantially productive. Lots of features, with easy-to-follow navigation and entries.
Version 4.0
Chaos of cogs and gears
Colorful and engaging. Totally clique and trendy. And one of the first consistent uses of a Dra Studio logo across multiple mediums.
Version 3.0
Seek art where you can find it
First attempt at a concise and relative identity concept, directly aimed at the design medium. Vibrant colors and smooth gradients, with just a hint of glossy shine.
Version 2.0
Energy from rockets
More refined. Stronger attempts at an iconic feel. Again, never really used, but the mockups looked really nice.
Bright, singular colors and simplistic backgrounds. Random symbolism that now seems more than a little silly.
Version 1.0
Where it all began
Simple and fun, though never really implemented. We all have to start somewhere.