In 2009, I did a neat job: repackaging a series of Voodoo dolls for a company called Running Press. They wanted a spooky, two-color redesign for the boxes and dolls, and it was lots of fun to create.
I mocked all four of them up with my color printer, and here’s how they would have looked:
The cool part was that each box had a special die cut window to display the voodoo doll:
The new packages never appeared on the company’s website, so I never got around to blogging them. The other day I came across the files as I archived some old work, and I gave them a call to check in. Turns out the new designs were never produced! They paid me, so I guess I shouldn’t mind. But it is sort of sad never to see your work come to fruition. That must be one of the pitfalls of being a commercial artist — relying on others to print, produce and sell your work for you. You can do your job, but that’s no guarantee they’ll do theirs!
On the other hand, I now have a nifty portfolio piece to share! Anybody want to some voodoo packaging?
When I was in art school at CCA(C), I never quite fit in, artistically speaking. I had lots of friends, but since the classes I was taking were all fine art classes, I was sort of out of place. My work was always being called “illustrative” — a grave insult in the world of the fine art academy!
That's me in my art school days, looking scared of my own work.
Now I’m back in the academic world, doing a little teaching at the SF Art Institute, and just finished my first class, an introduction to illustration using digital tools. And I guess it’s appropriate that most of my students were people just like me — born illustrators working in an almost exclusively fine art-oriented school. Which, it turns out, is not such a bad place to be if you’re an illustrator!
To give them a sense of the “real world” of the working illustrator, I made each assignment a “job” from an art director — and for extra realism I attached an imaginary dollar amount tagged to each assignment. The students did a total of five jobs, ranging from editorial illustration to fashion illustration to my favorite assignment, the gig poster, which I saved for their final. They did some great work!
I’ve done the poster for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Winterfest party a few years in a row. It’s a fundraiser/party/art auction with great people, great beer, and great art.
It’s always really important to get a wintery feel for the poster. Here’s the sketch I started with:
The SFBC gave this the green light right away, with the caveat that they preferred a modern font, since we had done a more retro-look in a previous year. This reminded me that I have always loved the hand-drawn type from my favorite film of all time, Dr. Strangelove, created by the film’s designer, Pablo Ferro. Here’s an example:
There is a nice computer typeface inspired by this lettering, but when I posted a link to this font on my Facebook page, my friend Alastair Johnston made an interesting comment. Why not draw the type yourself? Who needs a computer font for this effect?
So for this poster, I hand drew the type, inspired by Ferro’s Strangelove font, but with my own added elements — a few choice curlyques and such — and I think it came out much better than it would have otherwise!
I also created the artwork for the pint glass that will be available. Pay $20, get a pint glass and all the beer you can drink.
And then, since I felt I hadn’t done enough work already for Winterfest, I also created a painting that will be part of the art auction:
It’s called “Return of the Scorcher,” which of course is the name of a fantastic documentary by Ted White. This film, about the rise of global bicycling culture was made in the late eighties or early nineties, and featured a brief story about bicyclists in China who pile up at intersections until they have enough bikes to achieve a “critical mass,” and thus gain right of way. This little anecdote gave the name to a social bike ride that was at that time brand new, and has now been going strong in San Francisco and hundreds of other cities around the world for 18 years!
Drop by Winterfest tonight — get a beer, and maybe bid on some fantastic art!
The Art Director with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra called a while back to ask if I wanted to do a poster. She had a few shows coming up, among them the B-52s and the Avett Brothers.
Tough choice! The B-52s are certainly more famous, and in fact their single Rock Lobster was the first record I bought with my own money, back in 1979! But in truth there wasn’t much question in my mind. I love the Avett Brothers and have been listening to them obsessively for quite a while. I love their mix of bluegrass, punk and Beatlesesque harmonies. I love their lyrics. I love the fact that the two main guys are in fact brothers. I love seeing them live!
Here’s a clip of the band that gives an idea of just how great they really are:
This was one of those lucky jobs where I came up with the perfect idea immediately. Here’s the sketch I drew in my sketchbook the same day I got the call:
The inspiration, of course, is the myth of Romulus and Remus, the infant brothers raised by wolves who went on to found the city of Rome. When Mati and I were in Italy we saw this imagery everywhere:
Below is some more of my inspiration, a photo I snapped in a church in Italy, under the nose of an angry and watchful security guard:
Here’s how the poster came out! It’s a 13×19 offset litho print. The best part: it’s for sale in my shop!
My friend Cory Doctorow gave a speech in DC recently on the subject of copyright and democracy. The whole talk is great, and well worth listening to — I won’t bore you by trying to encapsulate it here. But during the question and answer period, Cory answered a couple questions, one about how he plans to make a living selling books when they’re all digital, and one about how the stock photography industry might respond to the Internet and the challenge it presents to their business model. Have a listen to his answers:
I thought his response was great, and might be useful to illustrators too. I talk to a lot of illustrators and artists about how the Internet is changing our industry. Our business model relies on our power to sell licenses to make copies of our work — only now, just about everyone has a machine designed to make copies, linked into a global network of other machines with the same ability. Copying isn’t as hard as it once was, so selling that right to copy isn’t as easy either. How should we respond?
As Cory points out, we could sue people. Or we could try to invent some technology that would make copying more difficult. Both approaches have been tried by the recording industry, with horrific results that were bad for fans, bad for the industry, and did nothing to get artists paid. And the so-called “3 strikes” provisions cropping up around the world — policies that would cut people off from the Internet after 3 alleged infringements — are even worse, a draconian solution that would undermine the basis of a free and open democratic society.
I like that Cory doesn’t propose an easy answer to this problem. But he does suggest that it won’t come by burying our heads in the sand, pretending that new technology hasn’t already shifted the terrain and re-written the rules. I think the solution won’t come from lawyers or corporations or governments. It will come from people who can use the power of their imaginations to envision solutions others can’t see. And that’s why I think illustrators have an important role to play. We solves problems and think creatively as a normal part of our working lives. It’s time we turned our talent towards a solution that earns us money without damaging our society.
Sometimes when I’m eating tacos at one of the world-famous Mexican taquerias here in the Mission, it occurs to me that someone could make a lot of money if they could just figure out how to export this amazing cuisine to another city. Say, New York. Or Berlin. How about Munich?
Funny, because a few months ago I got a call from some a design agency called Worldstudio, who were working on just such a project. They were looking for a complete look for their Mexican restaurant in Munich, and was I interested? Um, yeah!
Here’s what we came up with for the logo. I did the logo, the type, and the trippy border (which has little eyes that stare back at you if you look at it long enough):
Here’s an alternate layout:
And here’s how it looks on their business cards!
Milagros are those little icons you see in Mexico, sometimes made out of bits of tin — little devotional folk charms. A leg, an arm, a heart. So naturally I also had to design a series of milagros that could be used around the restaurant.
Oh, and here’s one of the rejected logos & type treatments! Hm, now that I look at this one, I’m kind of liking it better…
They’re also doing shirts, chef outfits, salsa and bags with the art!
It was a super fun project! And there might be more — I’m still waiting to hear if I get to design the lampshades and floor tiles for the restaurant. Can’t wait to stop into the restaurant one day and see my art plastered everywhere!
(If you’ve never seen 3×3 magazine, you should check it out. When it comes in the mail we rush to open it, fight over who gets to read it first, and linger over every page. It really is a beautifully designed, loving homage to contemporary illustration that is a must for any artist or designer.)
You can get your own copy of the silkscreen poster from us here, and you can pick up the shirt from Blame Sally here.
Mati and I don’t put our artistic heads together that often, but when we do we get an awesome product. (I guess that’s one reason the marriage works, right?)
It’s been years since I’ve done anything travel related, but travel is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I got my start as an illustrator and designer working for the world’s most beloved travel guide publisher, Lonely Planet, where I worked from 1992 to 1998.
So I was really pleased when the Washington Post called recently, not to ask my opinion on world events but to see if I had time to do an illustration for their annual Way to Go travel guide. The best part? They wanted to put my typographic skills to use! That always makes me happy.
The sketch was easy, and actually it was mostly done before I was even off the phone. The hard part was getting the color right. I did several versions, each slightly different. Here are the first few:
In the end, we came full circle and kept most of the original color version. Here’s how it looked on the page:
The Way to Go guide had five articles, and I did a spot for each one:
It’s been a while since I’ve done work for a newspaper, and I’d forgotten how much fun a quick and dirty illo on a tight deadline can be. Thanks to the Washington Post for the opportunity!
My good friend LisaRuth once paid me a high compliment. She said that my paintings struck her as inspired by European folk tales like the Brothers Grimm, but reinterpreted so that the kids are no longer the hapless victims. That really made my day. I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms, but it’s a really nice insight. The kids in my paintings are often facing a frightening reality, but they shouldn’t seem scared or intimidated.
Well, a few months back I got a great assignment. Penguin’s young adult novel division called with a new book based on the Brothers Grimm. The book, A Tale Dark & Grimm, is a modern retelling in which Hansel & Gretel are far from hapless. In fact, they wreak some havoc on the abusive adults they encounter. The book is dark, funny, and gruesome in parts. Perfect for young adults! (It’ll be available in November.)
Here are a couple sketches:
And here’s how the front cover came out:
But the really cool thing is what we did with the wraparound dust jacket for the hardcover. (Click to enlarge) This sort of thing is tricky, because it has to work as a whole, but each panel has to work independently as well.
Inside, I created the title page and spot illustrations for each chapter. Here’s a sampling!
You know what’s cool? Some kids, somewhere in the world, will love this book. And they’ll spend a lot of time pouring over the illustrations, looking for clues, etching the images in their minds, just as I did with illustrated books when I was a kid. Maybe some of them will even grow up to be illustrators!
I don’t do that many rock posters these days, but when I saw the Ferocious Few (myspace, facebook) play a few months back, I knew I had to do a project for them. They’re a band composed of just two guys that generate an enormous amount of noise, and it’s just the kind of noise I like: loud, melodic and intense.
The Ferocious Few now have an album coming out, and this Wednesday is their album release party at Cafe Du Nord. This was as good a time as any to do that poster for them, so I did! It will be available at the show (and later next week in my online shop).
I did a few rounds on this project. First, I was going to do one of my cats. Here’s the first version of the poster:
But as I listened to the album while I worked on it — you can stream it in its entirety here — I realized I was missing something. This record is just edgy and crusty and intense, with a hint of sadness lingering in there somewhere. Also, a couple of the songs mention the devil.
All this reminded me of an old painting I did of Satan as a forlorn loser in a Charlie Brown shirt. (This painting never sold, and it just kicks around the studio because Mati doesn’t want it in the house. Maybe you’d like to buy it?)
I don’t know why I never thought of it, but this painting was a rock poster just waiting to happen. The rough texture of the painting and the moody but intense colors seemed to fit with the band’s sound. It took me some time with the image in photoshop in order to simplify it enough to silkscreen in 3 colors, but in the end it came out pretty great!
I got my friend Conor Ottenweller at Forthrite Printing in Oakland to print it for me. Conor’s a great printer who really cares about his craft, and I highly recommend him!
The show is Wednesday, May 5 at Cafe Du Nord on Market Street in San Francisco. The cover is just $5, but if you are a dirt cheap bastard (or are just saving your pennies so you can buy some a copy of the poster at the show) you can RSVP here and get in free.
