The 4th Not So Wiseman

"The 4th Not So Wiseman" paper sculpture.

In celebration of the holiday I have designed a paper sculpture called "The 4th Not So Wiseman." I've put together an easy to follow PDF template so you can create one yourself. Download the PDF template here.


You can construct him out of regular bond paper.

I asked my friend and writer Kristen Fischer to write a story about "The 4th Not So Wiseman" and she did a great job. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did creating it.


I managed to use one of my patterns in the design too.

The 4th Not So Wiseman
By Kristen Fischer

You've heard of the three wisemen, but never the fourth. See, he didn't do so well as far as a gift-giving went. Instead of gold, frankincense or myrrh, he stopped at the dollar store for coal. Let's just say that a very special baby in a manger was not so impressed.

And as the years went on, no one talked about the Fourth Not So Wiseman's laughable gift. When that baby grew up, he didn't want the world to know coal existed. When burned, coal releases two harmful greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide and methane. Jesus just wasn't down with that.

Now the Fourth Not So Wiseman is making a comeback bigger than Britney Spears. He's a reminder to be kind to the earth, live a green lifestyle...remember that you, too, deserve nothing more than a lump of coal if you don't!

PDF Template Download


A fun do-it-yourself creative exercise.

The sculpture is easy to construct, just follow the simple directions on the PDF template to create your own character. If you'd like to share this PDF with your friends and family feel free to pass along the link or post the link on your own blog.

You can also find a post about the Fourth Not So Wiseman at Ecopreneurist.com which is very cool!

Wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!

Von

What's Your ShopPersona?

Fine Living web site.

A few months back the "Fine Living Channel" hired me to create a cast of shopping characters they could use on their web site and within other marketing venues to promote their holiday campaign called "Shop Persona."


eBlast header.

Here is some of the art used in their newsletter eblast.


"Practical" Female Shopper.

When ever I have to create a large set of art for a given project I naturally have my favorite pieces within the project. And such is the case here. The characters I've chosen to post are the ones I felt were the strongest. The others are OK I guess but they were more heavily art directed and tweaked by the client so I didn't invite them to this blog launch party.


"All-Around" Male Shopper.

Over the course of 22 years working in this industry I've worked in that capacity as a graphic designer, senior designer, art director, and creative director. So when I see my art in it's final context and feel it could have been handled a bit better it kind of bums me out. The art director side of me wants to go in and change it but obviously I can't. (Hence why blogging is so cathartic?)


"Artistic" Female Shopper.

I was a little surprised to see the final size for the web interface usage. It's far smaller then what I had been give in terms of specs. The concept and functionality of the interface is pretty cool though, I just don't care too much for the GUI layout and design.


"Artistic" Male Shopper.

When ever I'm asked to illustrate a computer or other hi-tech devices I always try to work in an Apple product. Yes, I am a diehard MAC addict and proud of it. So this character is toting a MacBook and enjoying some tunes via his iPhone.


"Trendy" Female Shopper.

For some reason this character reminded me of Ginger from "Gilligan's Island." Growing up however I was always attracted to Mary Ann.

Over all it was a fun project to illustrate. The style was a new twist for me but enjoyable. At least no one is too ugly looking to shop.

We're all Blobs!

Cover illustration. View artwork larger by clicking image.

I had mentioned in my previous post that I was hired by Peachpit to illustrate the cover of "Real World Adobe Illustrator CS4" the new book by Mordy Golding.

I've done artwork for other book covers but this one was a unique challenge for me.

Instead of an illustration playing off a story line or plot it had to relay the attributes and features of software. Pass covers of the same line of books have been excellent but tended to be more literal in terms of the visuals. A request by this publisher was for a more simplified, less complex approach yet still show seemingly complex attributes and features.

Needless to say I was really intimidated by this project.


Original concept Sketch.

At first I had sketched out ideas showing the two sides of a user. Artistic and production but the ideas were looking too forced and too complex as well. I thought to myself "Think non-literal, abstract but conceptual." in other words I compounded my intimidation. LOL

The big new feature in CS4 is a tool called the "Blob Brush." This was the one thing tripping me up conceptually. To be completely frank I'll almost never use the tool myself. It kind of contradicts my whole creative process. I don't create on the fly on my machine, I think through what I want to design or illustrate out side the box, I draw it manually (Analog if you will) and then when I move to the computer I build that idea. That said I'm sure I'll use it for something but like the gradient mesh tool it'll most often sit unused and jealous of the pen tool getting all my attention.

So I struggled with how to work it into my cover concept. Then it hit me. What if I showed characters and they were blobs themselves? Four characters playing off of CMYK. So I sketched out the above idea. I liked it, it was different, untraditional and abstract. I mocked it up and sent it off to the client expecting to get a response like "What is this #$@!" or "Are you sure you know how to draw?" etc. Instead I got a "We love it!"


Detail of final artwork. View artwork larger by clicking image.

Illustration Psycho Babble
So you may be wondering what it all means? Well below is a list that explains the meaning I was pouring into each of the elements. Not everything has a distinct 1 to 1 relation to reality but most of it does.

- Blob Figures: They represent the variety of users via CMYK. After all no one person is the same and we all like to work our own way creatively speaking even though we may all use the same common tools.

- Large Blob Icons: The "Blob" brush icon is self explanatory. The new "Gradient" control feature is shown at the top middle of the illustration. The new "Appearance" panel allows you control what you want to see with one click.

- Mini Blob Icons: The "Flame" represents inspiration. The "Hammer" represents building. The "Magnifying Glass" represents exploration. The "Registration Mark" represents production.

- Stream and Blob Heads: This represents our creative minds and the subsequent creative process that flows through our ideas as we create our artwork. The vector lines of course represent the core tools to do this. The pixelated cursor denotes the software.

- Tabbed Pages: A new feature in CS4 is tabbed pages and this represents that feature.

- PDA: The Magenta blob figure flows through the PDA and becomes RGB content. This represents the CS4 work flow that allows you to create content in Illustrator and then port it out to work on mobile devices. I purposely made the device generic. I don't think there is anything that actually looks like that?

- Background Dots: CS4 is still the industry standard app for producing print content so this gives a nod towards that foundational truth and anchors everything else together.

- Blurred Nebulous Shape: The blurred cloud floating through the bottom half of the background doesn't represent anything. I just though it looked cool. What?

Ironic But Funny
So this book is all about CS4 so of course I used CS4 to create it. When I went to deliver the art to the publisher though it turns out they only have CS3. No one bothered to inform me of that until after the fact. DOH!

No worries because Mordy Golding informed me that if you save out a CS4 to a CS3 .eps format it will place into a CS3 app and retain all the information. You just won't be able to edit it unless you have CS4. Problem solved.

In any regard it was a fun project to work on and if you want a great resource for learning CS4 I highly recommend "Real World Adobe Illustrator CS4" by Mordy Golding.

Branding an Expert

Mordy Golding AKA "Expert"

An expert is someone with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject. Every industry has them and communication arts is no different.

When it comes to Adobe Illustrator our industry has one expert that stands above all others. His name is Mordy Golding. One could easily argue that Mordy knows more about Illustrator than the Adobe people responsible for creating the software. Yes, I'm serious.

I first discovered Mordy's web site back in early 2006. I was looking for some help with Illustrator since I saw the hand writing on the wall with FreeHand approaching. His knowledge base was incredibly helpful to me transitioning from FreeHand to Illustrator.


Mordy Re-Branded!

Over the last several years both Mordy and I have become familiar with each others work so when he asked me to design a new logo to brand himself with I was honored to work on it.

The following is the exact design rationale I provided when I presented the logo to Mordy.

In general: You are your brand. I wanted to create a mark that would go hand in hand with your name and be modular so you could have your mark exist on it's own or with the type. The color treatment plays off your name.

Black: Strong, Informed, Solid, this plays to "Technology."
Gold: Valuable, Clever, Sophisticated, this plays to "Design."

This mark takes the letterform "M" and shows how you go beyond the surface, diving deep into your subject matter with informed knowledge. The point on the "M" descender pinpoints the answers and insight you bring to light. (Final logo was provided in both a vertical and horizontal format)

This new mark reflects better on Mordy than his old mark did. (Pardon the pun)


Business Card Design.

This card will serve as a touch point for Mordy's marketing efforts. The background motif reinforces the fact that Mordy is on top of the latest industry technologies.


Mordy's iPhone wallpaper.

Mordy is also a MAC geek and owns an iPhone so of course we had to created a nice branded design for that platform as well.


Unused logo concept 1.

Mordy's expertise doesn't stop with Illustrator and that was the one reason why this mark wasn't used. I like it's clever integration of a vector path to create the two letter forms but it pigeon holed his capabilities so it wasn't an appropriate direction to use.


Unused logo concept 2.

This direction was more an experiment. I wanted to create a logo mark that loosely read as an "m" and a "g" without being obvious. Knowledge is only valuable when shared and thus learned and that was my graphic intent with it being interconnected. At least that was my psycho-babble explanation.

Mordy likes his new identity and is working hard to get his new look applied to his web site. If you haven't had a chance to benefit from Mordy's expertise be sure to pick up a copy of his newest book due out soon called "Real World Adobe Illustrator CS4." I had the privilege of illustrating the books cover art which I'll post more about soon.

Pet Monster

My daughter Savannah and her pet monster.

This past week I did a presentation at the Adobe MAX Conference called "Working SmARTer." The session focused on the creative process and how you could use smart objects in Ai and Ps.

To help illustrate the use of smart objects I created a project where I used a combination of photography and illustration. My daughter Savannah gave me the idea so I made her part of the project and she did a great job acting the part as you can see in the image above.


Close up of pet monster "Gooblymook."

As my daughter explains pet monsters live in your pockets, they enjoy wearing small hats, piercing their ears and because they dwell in the dark most times their vision tends to be poor and requires corrective lenses.

Every so often they come out and enjoy the fresh lint-free air.


Kanji for "Create."

Pet monsters are part of Asian lore and only speak fluent Japanese. This timid fellow is proclaiming "Create."

My daughter rules! Go Savannah!

Recently Spotted - Part 2

"Beat Street" and "Beat Street Inline" font.

The font "Beat Street" shown above I designed about 12 years ago. Like I said in my previous post about this type face, it's been a while since I designed a font. For the past four years however I have slowly been working on a new one called "Nincompoop" which I plan on finishing up and producing in 2009 sometime.

Over the years I've spotted my fonts being used in a variety of ways. You can view some of the "Beat Street" examples here in my previous post.


"Beat Street" spotted in the movie "Freaky Friday."

My youngest daughter was watching the movie "Freaky Friday" in my studio yesterday and I watched along as I worked and something in one of the scenes struck me as familiar. I hit rewind on my TiVo and sure enough there it was, my "Beat Street" font used on some poster in a scene of this movie.


"Beat Street" used in some type of motivational poster?

I never go hunting for this stuff I always stumble upon it and the context it's used in most often is craptacular at best. I can create a cool font but I can't control if and how a bad designer chooses to use it.

If any of you happen to spot this font being used please let me know I'd love to see it and document the usage with a new post.

BTW: You can test drive and purchase the "Beat Street" font here.

Guaran Tee

Guaran Tee. Neutraface and Gill Sans versions.

Tonight I was thinking about what a client had asked me a while back.

"Do I get a guarantee if I hire you?"

I'm happy to announce that I'll be able to say "Sure, no problem."

Get Your Own "Guaran Tee"
- Neutraface Version
- Gill Sans Version