DON'T ZAP THAT PICKLE

CLANG, CLANG, CLANG GOES THE TROLLEY

2008-07-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

SO as I said I was in San Diego for Comic Con 08. I was only there for the Friday activities, but what a great time! I didn't get a chance to really sit in for any of the lectures or Q&A sessions, but I had just as much fun walking around and meeting new people. It is really incredible how many extremely talented illustrators, designers, painters etc etc there are in this world. I'll eventually put up some of the pics from the convention, but until then I thought I'd post some shots from the 2nd leg of the vacation.

THE following images were taken from various locations on and around Alcatraz. Alcatraz has a very weird estetic about it that I've long wanted to see. Maybe its the desperation or the madness of some of the more notorious criminals that had done time there. Whatever it is, Alcatraz is something you really have to check out to get a great feel for it. Putting yourself in the shoes of a criminal only 1.5 miles from one of the most beautiful areas to live, but knowing you might never see it as a free man would drive any person crazy.

OF course going to see the Golden Gate Bridge was second on the list of things one must do in San Fran. While we went on a cold and windy day, it was still a beautiful site. The incredible dedication it would take to design/engineer something of this size and mass is truly incredible. I'm a bit afraid of heights, so I didn't get to close to the rail of the bridge. Needless to say, the wind was so strong that at times of taking photos I would be pushed or brushed a few inches causing blurry shots. The fog rolled in perfectly, adding to the mystic of the Bridge.

IN the next couple of weeks, I'll be updating this with and more photos and even some new artwork! promise. Shout out to my friend Casey Hunt! Good to see you at the Con buddy, hope it happens again soon. xo

READY? STEADY! GO!

2008-07-22T08:34:00.000-07:00

WHEN I was still cranking out freelance at a rapid rate, I produced this poster for my former client FLEISHMAN HILLARD. Their client (AT&T) had asked FH to come up with a concept for downtown Dallas's biggest New Year's parade at is somewhat a tradition. Having no idea about Houston (I've never visited), I had to do some research to what makes downtown Dallas different then say...downtown Austin. A few buildings stand out in the Dallas skyline, from the Reunion tower to the Comerica building.

THE next big step was to come up with a design that allowed for some creative flow while maintaining AT&T's branding. The logo at the head of the layout was created by another agency, which I had no interaction with. All elements in the layout outside of the logo was created by hand in illustrator. My liberties with the Reunion tower raised a few eyebrows with the city of Dallas, but in the end they decided to party and not be party poopers. Good job Dallas!

I'M off to COMIC CON 08, expect some pics when I get back!

HEY STICKS AND STONES!

2008-07-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

IT's always great when a few friends of yours decide to dust off the equipment and start making music again. In the summer of 03' I started working with a band that I felt (and I still do) has some of the most creative song writting and musicians in the St. Louis area. Sine Nomine crossed over so many different elements of music and never defined themselves as a "metal", "hardcore", etc etc act. They just created music and let people decide what they wanted to label them. Near the end of 06' the band decided to split ways, and I feel like a giant void was created that never was filled...

UNTIL now! The dudes in SINE NOMINE have once again decided it was the right time to regroup as a 3 piece and start to make some new tunes. On July 25, 2008 if your in St. Louis you can catch their reunion show at club FUBAR (which is a nice new venue opened by For the Last Time Bob of Woe). To mark this special occasion I was asked to make a new tee shirt, which I was very excited to do. Mike's original concept was to try to use a mask or something along those lines.

A few ideas that had been rattling around in my brain was incorporating my fear/hatred for squids and the pure epic quality of Poseidon. After a few sketches the concept of a tentacle engulfing Poseidon's face with only his watchful eye showing that no matter how bleak a situation seems, you can never count out the god of the sea. I felt that there was no chance this reunion would happen, but can not explain how truely excited I am that it's happening. I just wish it was happeneing while I was in town...

IN THE CITY

2008-06-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

NORMALLY I'm not much of a photographer, but recently I've really started to enjoy. I suppose it has some to do with my friend Fran and her love affair with it, and partly to me trying to keep my mind busy. Below are a few photos I took along the Mississippi river and the graffiti wall of downtown St. Louis. Expect more in July when I travel to San Diego and San Francisco. I'll also have more artwork up by early next week.

AWESOME PARTY SQUAD

2008-05-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

QUESTION: Do you like to party? If your answer is "Uh, yeah!", then please keep reading. If you feel like you don't get into a party like you used to, welcome to my world. In what seems like an other lifetime, I played guitar in a band called "Step on it!". In that band the drummer, Dan Hill, would talk of doing a band where he would sing. Fast forward one year after saying that, and Dan gave us Cross Examination.

SOME would say Cross Examination is the ULTIMATE party band, a band that features a cross over metal and hardcore sound. As much as this band parties, they also produce a sound that is all their own and very well written. On their debut album, my friend Dan Z and I were asked to contribute a collaborated effort.

DAN went to work on a illustration for the cover entitled "THE HUNG JURY" which you can see below. Dan is an insanely talented artist and it's always a pleasure and honor to work with him. This is the first of two projects we worked on together, the other being the Humanoid artwork.

FOR the inside of the booklet (and vinyl version) I wanted to set a scene of a court room with a party atmosphere. A thought that was hilarious and yet a lot of imagining hours. When prepping the art, I fist had to gather the elements. Dan supplied a six pack of ROCK N' ROLL beer. I set up a mock photo shoot in my kitchen, crushing the empty cans and setting them up in various positions.

ONCE that was finished, I shot multiple images of plastic bags that I used to create the evidence bags and for the "herb" that was actually kitten litter. I then pieced together a document and water mark for "official party documents". The piece it self took about 25 hours of photoshop work and 3 hours of photo shoot time. In the end this is one of my favorite projects and pieces that I've worked on.

above is the 7" version of the insert

HUNTING THE SASQUATCH

2008-05-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

MY good friend & co-worker Jimothy Conway turned 49 today, and in honor of his birthday I created a envelope in his honor. Why an envelope? Every year for your birthday, the golden condor makes an envelope showing off something of interest in that's persons life. This year, condor made me an excellent "dark knight" theme that really knocked my socks off.

FOR conway's birthday I sketched up a Sasquatch character in full basketball gear. Mr. Conway seems to believe in his glory days he had a vertical of just over 2". I've seen the photo a million times, a young, leaner & meaner version soaring over another player to rip down a rebound. So in honor of his basketball roots, I felt it was appropriate. Below you will find various rounds of sketches and conception for the envelope.

Happy birthday my friend. 49 years young and still having fun.

COLLABORA-BATION

2008-05-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

WOW, long time no update. Things have been rather hectic with non-art related projects so I apologize to my two readers for my MIA. That being said, not being able to work on projects that you truly want to work on really drains your creative mind. So when you get a chance to work on something, it really feels refreshing.

THE current project that I've been spending a healthy amount of time on is a collaboration with my neighbor MATT GRANT on some CD packaging artwork for COLD BEAR SCOUT's debut album "Say Hello to the Moon and the Sun". COLD BEAR SCOUT features Steve Colbert, who is a radical person outside of his horrible love for Kobe Bryant, on a majority of instruments. Please check it out, as it's worth your time.

ABOVE you'll see Matt's conception drawings for the front cover. I believe Matt sketched with pencil and outlined with sharpie. The thickness of the lines, contrasted with the multiple "thorns" shows just how much time went into each panel. Once more work is done to the album, I'll update the post. But for now, you can see the original drawing the conception for the full color front cover.

THE idea around the color pallet features a blue soft edge to cause softness to what I've dubbed "cloud puffs". The inner "antlers" features a brown-ish glow to add depth to the edges of the piece. The "thorns" feature a collection of colors found in a bag of Skittles. The entire piece lays on a off-white background to break up the solid white areas.

ALSO below feature two of my fav. people in the entire world. Enjoy!

DOLLA! GET IT?! DOLLAAAAAAA!

2008-01-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

WHILE listening to Black Sabbath's "Paranoid", which according to several friends the B-side of the album is perfect, I began thinking about the process of client perception on your work. It's an interesting thought considering that what I do for a living is taking somebody's idea and making it happen in a functional form. Creating a logo is easily the hardest project for me to take on, as a client is very particular on how their company/appearance is preceived. As a society "looks" are so important that some people spend more time on perception than on the actual product.

RATHER recently as Switch we were awarded the opportunity to develop the new logo for St. Louis's Ad club. The project was pretty simple in theory; Come up with a new name and design around a name that the group had come up with, Young Guns. In a group of three, myself and two other art directors, began brainstorming names. With this recent surge in a "green" lifestyle, we wanted to try to focus on a similar feel. "Fresh Greens", "Fresh Mint", "Fresh Stock", etc. etc. were a few names we came up with.

AFTER a round of eliminations, as a group we decided on "Fresh Stock". My perception on the name was "Fresh" meaning fresh out of school, or new to the business and "Stock" as a type of paper. Most of the time "stock paper" is of a nicer quality and a little costly at times. My original concept was to create a leaf combining a stylized "F" and "S". After several failed attempts to make something work, I decided to scratch the concept and start over.

AS the second concept began to form, I brainstormed with a personal icon of mine (Mr. Andrew Dyer). A quick sketch was formed from making the "F" and "S" into one icon and from the bottom of the "S" a paper roll, rolled up. Sounds a lot more complex then it really is.

THE original drawing of the logo revealed several hurdles to jump over in order to get a workable version. I began redrawing the sketch in Illustrator as a locked template. As the first round of sketches became first round of vector concepts, I noticed a slight problem in the thinking. While, the "S" was very readable the "F" had begun to lose clarity.

WHILE dealing with the "F" clarity, my creative director advised me to think about my decision regarding the color palette. After reworking the same palette just figuring out a different way to use the colors, it seemed everyone was happy with the decision. When it was all said and done, the final draft looked a little like below.

THE HUMANOIDS RULE THE EARTH

2008-01-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

EVERY so often I get to work with one of my best friends and favorite artist Dan Zettwoch on some band artwork. The Humanoids first EP is the second collaboration of what Dan and I dubbed “Lamb Grenade” (the first being the debut 7” of Cross Examination). For this release the band asked us to capture the simplistic nature of early mid 80’s and early 90’s pop-punk. Think the Descendents, ALL, etc , etc. The Humanoids first t-shirt design featured a half-man, half-robot drawing that Dan drew up, which the band sort of adopted as their identity.

THE creative mind of Greg Stinson (guitarist and good friend) came up with the idea of an infant robotic baby inside the womb of a women and naming the ablum “The Humanoids are Born”. The first step for the project was to get the baby drawn up and ready for imaging. Dan drew up a rough comp and with Greg’s approval we were off and running.

WITH the robot baby drawn up and ready for placement, I began laying out the type, placed in the vector art, laid out the type, readied the images & finished laying in the PMS colors. The finished product featured a metallic spot color that really added a nice element of depth. Not shown in the jpeg’s is the on-disc, which featured the robotic baby free of the womb, and the back try showing the womb only. The layout features a lot of white space, which is reminiscent of the early album art of the Descendents. The scratched out type, full adjusted type and over exposed film frame added a little extra pop-punk flavor.

IF you get a chance to check out the humanoids, do so. They are a great band filled with top notch people. http://www.myspace.com/thehumanoidsruleearth

YOU MADE THE LIST!

2008-01-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

EVERY Christmas Switch has a cd exchange that is based around making a cd that is "totally you". This is my first year being apart of the CD exchange & I must say I got to see some really interesting, out of the box concepts. From a beautiful "rat pack" themed CD to some really nice hand crafted booklets, this was a really great exercise.

MY concept was based around the fact that I sketch or doodle pretty much all day, everyday. I wanted to introduce some characters that have been popping up in some recent sketches, some creepy fears & of course my wonderful cat. I thought a weathered notebook background would give the piece a more "hand crafted" feel & the coloring should be loosely applied. Again, this was the first year I was involved and really have some more creative concepts for next year.

I'D like to thank Andy Dyer for welcoming me into this yearly tradition and hope to win next year! Oh! and Happy New Year!

POSTERS, POSTERS & MORE POSTERS

2007-11-29T11:35:00.000-08:00

GOING through my on-line portfolio I realized that I've done over 200 flyers for various shows/tours/bands/events in the past 8 years. It's weird to think back at all the good times I had at these events, seeing those amazing shows & the people I met. The hard thing about doing flyers and tour posters, to me at least, is keeping a consistent look for each band and/or creating a look only for one show.

THE hardest band to consistently come up with creative ways to present the image they were going for was The Rushmore Academy. (http://www.myspace.com/rushmoreacademy) I'm not what you would call "hip to what kids like" or "current kid fashions" and I don't really think I have been since I stopped working at Hot Topic in 2002. Rushmore is a very pop-punk-rock project from St. Louis who, like most pop-punk-rock bands, make a living off of selling their look as much as their music.

WITH Step On It! it was a lot easier for me to convey a message since I was an active member of the band for several years. We had an established sort of feel for our winter tour simply based off of the 7" we had recently released. Working with Collective Records was another great project simply because everybody I worked with was either a good friend or a good band that I could get good sense of who they were.

RECENTLY I've been trying to slowly take on more freelance projects with bands again. I stopped doing them about a year ago, simply because of lack of time & interest in being ripped off. Loving music, the bands you work with & just helping people out is a great way to get into some shows for free. Just a helpful tip...

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: JIM CONWAY

2007-11-21T08:22:00.000-08:00

JIM Conway is a friend/co-worker that I've really come to idolize and respect as both a person and artist. The first few things I learned about Jim included playing softball with the Beastie Boys in NYC, cleaning a blender for an entire 8 hour work shift & (of course) his glory days as a vertically challenged power forward for his beloved highschool, the Mercy Bulldogs.

ABOUT 5 months ago I decided to bring in my MONSTER BOOK (blog coming soon) project to get some feedback from my co-workers. As part of the concept for the book I have several "guest artist" (mostly friends) that will draw a random page. When I showed Jim the book he asked if he could do a sketch. Since I had never seen any of his artwork, I was a little skeptical. Little did I know that Jim was one of the best illustrators I've ever met.

ANOTHER project that Jim does for each of the production/design team is a birthday envelope with whatever interests a person has and a matching stamp. For my envelope Jim created a wonderful Dark Knight super hero sketch that is truely awesome. I've asked Jim to find me more of his work and I'll update when he delivers.

I'M SICK OF THESE MOTHERF#çKIN' SNAKES

2007-11-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

EVERY monday night for the past two years I've gone up to Saratoga Lanes for league nights. While the people who go are some of the best people I've met in my life, it's still great to crush my foes with my 140 average (140 is probably being charitable). Last year we (my old team) faced a rather interesting situation. We had a show down with our arch rivals, the Handsome Brothers (who are not handsome OR brothers), who basically are an all-star team. Luckily the big showdown wasn't until after Christmas break so we had plenty of time to recover and prepare. After seeing the Handsome Brothers frolic around with there cute little powder blue bowling shirts, I decided enough was enough! I went to work on creating a uniform design for the SNAKES ON THE MOTHERF#CKIN' LANE.

THE original concept, obviously, was taken from the, what i can only assume will be cult classic, Snakes of a Plane. In the movie (for those smart enough not to have waisted the $7 to not see it) a bunch of snakes get loose on a plane and Samuel L. Jakcson is the only man who is brave enough to save them. Taking the movie poster logo I started sketching out some ideas. The original draft (above) seemed to lack some life and aggresion that we snakes showed every monday evening.

WHEN I went back and tweeked the image I kept in mind that the snake should probably be bowling a hook into a perfect strike with exploding pins. The end result came out looking a lot better then I had originaly expected. Needless to say, when we showed up with matching uniforms, the (not so) Handsome Brothers knew they had met their match (plus a 200 pin handicap) as we took 6 of 7 points. Also, Thanks again to the wonderul Dan Z for helping me screen not only the shirts but the matching bowling towels (uh huh thats right!).

FROM THIS I'VE ESCAPED

2007-11-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

IT has been some time since I have done any work for bands. Truthfuly, after about 5 years of intense work getting my name out there, dealing with a full time job & 7 nights a week of freelance work, I just burnt myself out. That being said, the last project that I really had the chance to work on was for "From This We Escape". The band had recorded this album months before they broke up and many people thought the album would never see the light of day. Luckily, Dark Front records owner (and St. Louis legend) Deye Mofo decided he wanted to release this album to remember the good times of the band.

THE first round of proofs produced a concept that was a back tray to cd booklet "one piece" cover. The idea was to give an interesting package layout that was a little out of the "norm". The proof recieved mix results and I was asked to produce another concept. Unfortanetly this request would produce a about a 8 month hold on the project as Deye Mofo ran into some bad luck with his car. The project was thought to be a lost cause.

ABOUT a year after the first proof was presented, Deye Mofo called me up and asked if I was still interested in doing the layout. I agreed to give it another shot since at the time I was not swamped with work & I never like seeing something unfinished. The second round of proofs was left to me to come up with the concepts and planning. After a few nights of sketching and concepting the above cover was produced.

AGAIN missing the mark Deye Mofo and I discussed what exactly he was trying to show with this release. After a very long conversation I went back to work with the notes and sketches from the brainstorm session. The following images are what came from the conversation and oddly enough the proof was approved. Unfortanetly as the final "t" was being crossed, Deye Mofo again ran into financial problems and the project never saw the light of day. It was still a great experience and I hope someday the album comes out.

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: THE SMALL STAKES

2007-11-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

JASON Munn is a midwestern boy who now lives in Oakland, CA and also the main man behind The Small Stakes. The Small Stakes started out as an extracurricular itch and love for contemporary music in 2003. By meeting the growing demands of his talent and expertise, Munn rode the transition wave from doing something for the love of doing something to it being his source of full time employment. The Small Stakes has unfolded into an independent design studio consistently churning out award winning design work.

LAST October I fueled up my beat up somewhat black (some say purple) Saturn and drove down to Indiana to see Mark Kozelek. I told myself, on the drive, that I would get some kind of merchandise to remember this trip. When I walked up to the merch booth for Mark, I was struck by these beautiful hand crafted silkscreen posters. Jason Munn Instantly became one of my favorite modern designers. His simplistic and amazingly creative eye has inspired me not only in a creative way but as a goal to do something you love for a living.

NEVER TRUST A MAN NAMED "BOOBIE"

2007-10-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

AS a child growing up in lovely South County | Affton area my family raised me on a healthy dose of three dog night & fleetwood mac. I remember drawing Mr. T in various forms with my dad who would be drawing birhtday posters for people at work/family members while listening to KSHE 95 (real rock radio). From these early memories I realized if I could combine my love for music with my love for art/design I would achieve my perfect job.

ABOUT two years ago I was asked to work on some artwork for a semi-local, semi-talented tough guy/mosh band from Springfield, IL. At the time I was really into working with bands and trying to help out a scene that I really had no reason being apart of, outside of being in a band that was loosely related. Regardless, Pound For Pound came to me with a loose concept that they described as "an album for our friends who we lost this past year." They wanted to use very gloomy/drab imagery with a color palette of reds, blacks and white.

WHEN Pound for Pound dropped off their album info, they mentioned that they only really needed a few "tweeks" to a layout they already had set up. When I opened the disc I found a nice window doc and a low res dpi image of what looked like a funeral procession. I quickly went to work trying to set up a look that would show the bands "gloomy" imagery while keeping a kind of "hand crafted" look.

THE first round of proofs went over pretty well. Sadly, the patience of the band quickly evaporated as "whenever you get it done" apparently means "we want it done 2 weeks ago." The project was never 100% completed, but these images show the layout and the feel of the album. Lesson learned? Springfield, IL is not only the worst city in the world...it also breeds the worst people in the world (sorry Coder).

MY HHX [in review]

2007-10-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

HHX, for those who haven't talked to me in the past 2 months, is short for Hoop Hall Experience. Which for the first time in history, the Basketball hall of Fame is on tour. The hoop hall experience is where the story of basketball comes to life in over 22,000 square feet of "fun". With something for basketball lovers of all ages, from the heart-pounding "greatest moments" theater to the state-of-the-art interactive displays. Historic memorabilia like Wilt Chamberlain's 100 point jersey (which I wore), the original 24 second clock, and more. Clips of the greatest players, most memorable games and most inspiring coahces.

ANYWAY, the agency I work for asked me to put together some concepts for the commemrative program. In the piliminary stages of brainstorming the creative concept was a blending of "urban" with "white space" and "type is bad". Below is the only cover/back cover concept that I created, and the client bought into.

TIMELINE for this project ended up being super tight (as most projects eventually turn into) and the amount of hours given to create the 40 page book worked out to be about 1 hour per spread. With that in mind the concept (to save time and money) was to create a visually stimulating header page matched with a page of white space & images. Following each main chapter (for exmple "the modern game") there would be a two page spread of NBA artifacts to help relax the eye before beginning a new section.

ROUND 2 of revisions led to the introduction of lowering the target age group to be 9 to 90. The task went from adding an almost seek and find quality to a slick layout to try to make history fun for kids. The problem, outside of the basic "oh shit the entire direction has changed", is kids (in the age group of 9 - 14) are 99.9% more likely to pick up a tshirt or mini basketball than a book. After a few hours..er days of problem solving we came to the solution. By adding "true or false" and "b-ball trivia" sections to each main page the client felt that children would be learning more and be interested to flip through the book to at least get all of the questions.

THE final program went out almost 2.5 weeks late, over 150 hours of art directing, 25 hours of production and 2 nervous breeakdowns. Outside of the minor setbacks and occasional 7 day work weeks (for a whole month) of about 12 hour work days, I was very pleased with the final product. The Hoop Hall Experience is probably coming to a town near you and if your a fan of basketball you'd probably enjoy it, www.hoophallexperience.com