Editorial Illustration

'Risk Assessment' for Gas & Oil Investor Magazine (Click for larger view)

In the late 90's and early...uh...0's? (I just realized I have no clue what to reference the first ten years of the twenty first century?) Anyway, I use to do a lot of editorial illustration but over the last six years my niche has changed and most of my illustration is within a design context and frankly I prefer that.

Even though I enjoy doing illustrative design I still do editorial projects when they come my way. I've been doing editorial illustration for one of my clients since 1999 and every few months they send me an article and have me read it then conceptualize an editorial illustration to go along with it. The articles aren't what I'd call page turners since they deal mostly with the minutia of Gas & Oil investing, so trying to pull out a clever concept I can visually capitalize on can be somewhat painful.

This illustration is the end result of my most recent editorial work.

PS: My wife isn't a creative type and I'll admit some of my work just pushes her comfort zone style wise. She likes much of it but would never want it to hang in her living room. I had shown her the above illustration mid-way through and all she said was "His nose is too long. Nobody has a nose that long." I just laughed and my oldest daughter who was in my studio at the time chimed in with "Mom it's not suppose to be real." I seconded my daughters comment with a proud nod of agreement and my wife exited my studio saying "Too big." LOL

htmhell

'Doodle Movie - htmhell'

In an age of flash animation and online video the venerable animated gif keeps marching along and that is why I enjoy creating what I call 'Doodle Movies'. I doodle some art, take images I've either found or photos I've taken and then go into Photoshop and use the gif timeline to create fun animated artwork.

If you're wondering why I created this keep reading.


'Actual scrambled page.'

This past summer I was introduced to Twitter. What is Twitter you ask? According to their own site it is defined as follows:

"Twitter is for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing."

I've done exactly that, documenting stray thoughts, funny insights, snarky quips and cool links with fellow creative peers and others who have added me to their follow list. It's fun taking a peek into others lives and each of us sharing our own. (See link in my contact information at right)

About a week ago one of my friends posted a link to a web site on Twitter. I clicked the link but when it loaded into my browser the page was scrambled as shown above. A few seconds passed and right before I moved my cursor to close the window a thought crossed my mind

"That is so ugly looking it's kind of cool."

I've trained myself to not ignore these types of thoughts, so I took a few screen shots of the scrambled page knowing I'd use it somehow to create some art. And thus a new doodle movie was born.

Brand Icons

'Chicken Club - Sticker design motif used on all food products.'

When a client hires me to illustrate a sausage gondola and a hot dog smoking a pipe it goes without saying that the project is going to be a fun one to work on. This was the case when I was asked to create a set of icons for use in a new re-branding of a popular restaurant chain in Canada called Kolachy Co.

Kolachy's offers a wide range of unique pastry sandwich flavors and thus needed an equally unique set of icons to distinguish each of them. Working closely with the art director I developed a fun whimsical concept for such flavors as "Terrazzo Sausage" (Sausage Gondola), "Spinach & Feta" (Popeye Arm), "Steak and Cheese" (Cow with Swiss Cheese Holes), "Ginger Beef" (Cow in Chopsticks) and "BBQ Beef" (Flaming Cow Head) and many more.


'A particle selection of the '38' icons I designed.'

Each of the icons will be used within the context of the sticker design motif shown above. These stickers will be applied to the actual food item within the restaurants to clarify the flavor or food type being offered. The colors used are part of Kolachy's new overall branding strategy developed by ReThink.

I enjoy working closely with a creative team like ReThink, bouncing around ideas and fine tuning concepts until you arrive at a well crafted solution.

Continuous Line Illustration

'Linear styled illustration of a man.'

Sometimes in the course of working with agencies projects change or get axed mid-way through a creative process. Thus was the case with this project. I was hired to illustrate some linear line art for an advertising campaign. With this specific style all the heavy lifting creatively speaking is done upfront in the refining of the sketch. Working out how the one continuous line flows to create the given image. And once the sketch is done you essentially know what the final art will end up looking like so all that remains is just building the final vector version once the sketches are approved.


'Linear styled illustration of a women.'

Well, before I had a chance to build the art the client changed the direction of the project and thus the linear art was no longer needed. That's the way it goes at times but I liked the art so I went ahead and created it for myself.

Unwrapping a Logotype

'Lifetime Television Seasonal Logotype'

I was approached by Lifetime Television to create the above seasonal logotype. They wanted fun and festive hand lettering for use in their branding for the holiday season the entire month of December. It'll also be used in their print publicity materials and online.

The TV spots will be animated and are suppose to start airing November 10th. I haven't been able to see the animation yet myself however.


'Secondary Seasonal Element Provided'

I also created the above secondary graphic to go with the logotype. All though I don't think Lifetime Television will end up using the holly berries I still provided the art incase they changed their mind.

I always enjoy doing hand lettering it's almost as fun as Christmas.

Embracing My Inner Geek

'The Ferengi . Click on image to view larger sample.'

I admit I love watching Star Trek. Over the years I've enjoyed the Ferengi characters the most. Since I just got TIVO I've been watching a lot of Star Trek lately and was reminded again of how much this specific character amused me and I've been meaning to illustrate one based on a sketch I did a few months ago.

Well I had a few extra hours last night so I created the art shown above. I integrated their official logo and an actual rule of acquisition. Of course if you're not familiar with the Star Trek universe then this art will mean very little to you and you'll just think I am a geek and yes you'd be correct in that assessment, and my wife would be of the exact same mindset as you too. :-)

But if you're a fellow geek and enjoy Star Trek as much as I do then you'll want to download the pdf I have created so you can print it out and enjoy the art yourself. Download Ferengi PDF.

PS: Of course I am violating multiple rules of acquisition by giving this art away for FREE in the PDF file but to appease the Grand Nagus I am also offering a handsome t-shirt which you can purchase for a minimal amount of Latinum.

Update! Well federation commerce police didn't think I should be selling my fan art on their site so even though all things Star Wars is permitted it looks like anything Star Trek is not? Nice Kardashian tactics.


NEW Ferengi Rules of Acquisition Widget On It's Way!

I've partnered with a coder out of Portland to create a MAC OSX widget. He had previously released a Ferengi Rules of Acquisition Widget but the graphics weren't so great so I offered to re-design his GUI and soon the new widget will be uploaded to Apples site for all to download and enjoy. Below is a sneak peek at the graphics.


'GUI Design for Widget Front.'


'GUI Design for Widget Back.'


'Dashboard Dock Icon.'

Flattering Copyright Infringement

'My Original Tribal Tattoo Art.'

I created the above artwork about two years ago. It was something I did for no other reason then to have fun. I've used it on several creative projects and a t-shirt design I give away when I do speaking gigs. It now seems this art is making it's way into the whole tattoo art sub-culture and people are helping themselves to the visual imagery and having it applied to their body without my permission.

Sure I am always flattered in a wierd kind of way by this type of artistic commitment, but I'd at least appreciate a request for permission first. My morbid curiosity wonders if I could sue them for copyright infringement and then legally have it removed?


'My artwork now graces the forearm of a German man.'


'A hostage quality picture of my art kidnapping the back of some headless body from God knows where?'

Neither of these two gentleman asked permission nor did they pay me a usage fee, but I digress.

In any regard I wish them well, I hope they enjoy it. But as I've said before: As for me and my torso I prefer a blank canvas. I just can't make that type of artistic commitment.