Reverend Blues.

Reverend Blues!

Tony Cortez isn't your normal pastor, he's also a blues musician as well. One good description of him and his music is described as such.

"For many people it’s a natural assumption that the blues is the devil’s music but this is not the case when it comes to Rev. Blues. The Rev. uses the blues as a way to communicate the gospel truth about sin and redemption. His music is not only entertaining but it also helps those who struggle with the daily burdens of life. The Reverend's music speaks about how we can over come life’s obstacles with a little bit of faith, hope and love."

In exchange for a cool custom blues tune for my podcast The Illustrative Designer I agreed to help him out with a logo design.

Listen to the music Tony produced here.

Pioneer Spirit

Daniel Boone was a man, a biiiiiiig man!

Schier Products has been pioneering and selling plumbing products since 1972. Many of their product lines have names like 'The Trapper' or 'Great Basin' and they wanted a logo that reflected that same heritage of pioneering spirit. To be specific they wanted a mountain man that could embody a strong persona moving forward.

I am happy with how this mark came out and as you can see I used the round off technique on my vector art to give it a more refined look.

Adobe Newsletter

Illustration Used on Adobe Newsletter.

Some may have noticed my artwork making an appearance on the recent Adobe Newsletter sent via email? The main image in the header graphic they used is art from one of my Keyboard Characters™ named 'Pet Monster'.

The agency I worked with on this and other assignments for Adobe such as the 'Go Forth & Create' poster really makes creating artwork a whole lot of fun.

I wish everyone a very merry Christmas!

Glassy Goodness.

Look at that sheen. Ca-chow!

Here is a logo I did for server company. The mark is based on the fact they use a 'Multi-Core' system and playing off the 'C' in the name of the product.


Candy coated.

Also created this logo badge for a podcast friend of my Joseph Nilo who has a show called mac media cast.

Big Bocca

Big Mouth Character.

Here is recent logo job I did for an Italian Animation Firm called 'Big Bocca'. I guess that means 'Big Mouth'? They wanted a cat type of character so I thought this would lend itself for animation. The type you see is a hand lettered font I am slowly creating called 'Nimcompoop'. After about four years of not designing fonts (Fontographer died with OS9) I now have the itch again.

I am documenting my process on this so there will be a tutorial on IllustrationClass.com.

Keyboard Characters™

'5 of the 10 characters in the set'

Keyboard-Characters™ are here! For the past year I've been working on an illustration product idea called Keyboard Characters™. They are a fun, unique and collectible way to enjoy art in your work environment.

There are a total of '10' characters in the set. The characters shown above are 'Evil Corporate Suit', 'Riled Rover', 'DZGN-BOT', 'Office Joker' and 'Pet Monster'. For more information on what exactly they are, how they work and how to order a set just visit www.Keyboard-Characters.com for the complete scoop.


'Monkey Boy' he's simply chimptastic!

Get a FREE '11th' character called 'Monkey Boy' when you order of two or more sets at one time. So click on over to www.Keyboard-Characters.com and go ape.

Infest Your Desk!

The Folder of Lost Ideas

'Wacky Logo Concepts.

Before I show a client anything the work first has to move me. If I am not invested in it and don't really care for it then I shouldn't present it to a client. So I make it a habit of working until I reach a point where I feel confident abou the work I will be presenting. That way when a client doesn't like something I am OK with it. This project was like that.

A branding company by the name of 'Brand X Creative' asked me to assist in creating logo concepts for a new project QuickSilver (The surf and clothing company) was starting up called 'Kommunity Project'. I read through a brief and it contained all the standard marketing speak for what they wanted to accomplish etc.

One thing was clear they wanted something different then what has been done and that is what I tried to focus in on.

Some of the creative direction given me:

- Low Brow
- Wack Tech (Not really sure what this is? They didn't either.)
- Illustrative
- Iconic
- Conceptual
- 1 or 2 Colors
- None Corporate
- Don't use the letter 'K'

Well here is what I did. None of which were picked in whole. They did like my type treatment on the fourth one down and ended up integrating that into the final mark they used. Kind of a squirrelly creative project for me on this one but I personally really liked number 1,3 and 4 myself.

These marks will end up in my 'Folder of Lost Ideas'.

Patches-O-Plenty

Who can forget Reggie Jackson and his '3' homeruns in the World Series.


Growing up I collected trading cards. Back then there was only one brand and three sports. The sports cards I enjoyed collecting most were Baseball. The cards I collected were poorly printed full-color process on the front with a single spot color printed on an uncoated back. Today's cards however push the envelope for paper printed goods utilizing the latest technologies such as laser die-cutting, holographic foil stamping, jersey swatches, bat pieces and other memorabilia being applied to cards all wrapped in well designed layouts printed on high quality stock using and issued as limited edition collectibles.

The Upper Deck Company literally transformed the sports card industry. Their unique approach and inventive product lines continue to captivate the collectors.


No I am not a Yankee fan thank you very little. I do however like these two designs.


On this project they asked me to create a set of embroidered patch designs they could sew on to uniform swatches they would then use on a special set of trading cards.

The themes of the patches reflect the depth of baseball history and it's rich heritage filled with fascinating stories and feats of athletic achievement. In total I had to create approximately '130' individual patch designs. The attached samples showcase '66' of these designs. Due to the limitations of embroidery and the final size, I had to keep the elements simple enough so they would hold up in thread form.

I really love the sport of baseball so it's always fun working on this type of project.


'64' of the '130' patch designs.

Piranha's Revenge - Illustrative Logo

I love designing logos. But the best of both worlds for me artistically speaking is when I get to work on an 'Illustrative Logo Design'. Both of my core disciplines come into play and such was the case when I worked on 'Pirana Systems'.

How can you not have fun creating a 'Piranha' for a logo project? It has to be nearly impossible. The only animal that could possibly rate higher on the 'Fun Creatures to Create List' is of course the 'Monkey'. And if you'd like to see my entire creative process for this project then click on over to my 'IllustrationClass.com' site and check out the tutorial.

BTW: The clients branded name is 'Pirana' just incase some of you thought I had spelled the name wrong.

Microsoft Messenger Backgrounds

Some of the interactive studios I work with have very unique names. Case in point is 'Put on the Dog'. Yes that is the name of the studio that hired me to create some background illustrations for the next incarnation of Windows Messenger they were developing a special site for. In my previous post 'Fear of Math' which you can see below I show one of the backgrounds I had done for them. These make up the remaining images in the collection I did.

Robot in all his pixelated splendor.


Do all dogs go to heaven?


Homage to Griffin.


Rupert the sea serpent.

My art has gone to the birds!

Not sure why I've been commissioned to illustrate so many birds the past few months but here are two more. I am actually creating '7' school mascots for 'Tactix Creative' in Arizona. These specific mascots are for a school called 'Williams Field Black Hawks' (High School) and 'Higley Hawks' (Elementary School). These are tricky little buggers. You see you only get a maximum of '4' spot colors and two of those have to be 'Black' and 'White'. The schools colors are 'Red' and 'Grey' and 'Gold' and 'Grey' respectively.

This project is interesting in that all mascots have to be approved by the district and it brings up interesting opinions. Since one is for an Elementary school they don't want the mascot to be too aggressive or mean looking. But they want him cool enough that kids will still like it. Were as the High school prefers a more aggressive mascot and it's OK to have a furrowed brow. Either way who really wants to wear a weenie looking hawk on their school shirt? I can't help but think that soccer moms are influencing the art direction by not wanting Jr. to be scared by the mean looking hawk character? (OK, rant over)

The thing I like best about these type of projects is it's a good mix of illustration and design. I design my illustration more then normal on this type of work since it's being used in such a graphic format such as t-shirts, banners, floor decals etc.

Mascot for 'Williams Field Black Hawks' - High School


Mascot for 'Higley Hawks' - Elementary School

Illustrative Design

First off I have to give a thank you to Erin Potter fellow HOWie who drove to the location and took reference pictures for me on this project.

Over the years those not in our industry have asked me "What do you do for a living." It's always been interesting how they respond when I tell them. Doesn't matter if I say 'Graphic Designer' or 'Illustrator' they tend to bake it down to a comment like "Oh, OK so you draw pictures." That may bug some but I don't mind it at all. In a way it's accurate. But I've coined my own phrase to describe what I do and I feel it fits better. I refer to myself as an 'Illustrative Designer'.

Some of you might be wondering "What is an Illustrative Designer?" well this artwork is a good example of 'Illustrative Design'. Too many view 'Illustration' merely as a supportive role within 'Design'. I think this is ignorant at best. I view each as key elements in my own creative process. I am making design decisions when I illustrate and I use illustrative solutions when I design the two are fused together and one without the other suffers creatively.

On this project I was hired by a branding firm to take a real life statue and create an illustrative iconic mark for use on a branding project for a small town. It's an illustrative approach but it also took many design centric decisions along the way as I created the artwork. If you viewed the real statue you'd notice that no matter what angle you viewed it you wouldn't find this exact pose. I purposely designed the pose to reflect the statue but paid attention to detail on how negative space interacted with shapes, what detail to emphasize, simplifying detail so it works small and can handle dot gain etc.

There are many overlapping aspects of illustration and design and the more a designer can learn to capitalize on each and let them mingle together the more diverse their work will become.

Mocked up Usage (The firm used it in their own motif, I just did this to show an example of usage)


Detail Image


PS: Later this summer I'll be launching a pod cast called 'The Illustrative Designer' where I'll talk more about this relationship, interview those who do it best, share insights, tips and tricks and other fun stuff. You can bookmark now and if you'd like to be a 'Creative Correspondent' for the pod cast shoot me an email and I'll let you know what that is all about. Or if you want to suggest a person to be interviewed I'd like to hear about that as well. podcast@vonster.com

Vonster

Ok so if you were around for the launch of my illustration site 'Vonster.com' you'll recognize this piece of art. I recycled it for this weeks 'Monster' theme at 'Illustration friday.' I have another monster I could have used but then that would have revealed more then I wanted to about my 'Keyboard-Characters' product I'll be revealing in the next month or so.

Ornery Frog!

I confess I am some what addicted to domain names. Anytime I think of a cool one I check to see if it's available. If it is I usually buy it. I figure it secures the name for at least a year and only costs about $6. If I don't do anything with it in that year I may let it go public again.

Such is the case with 'OrneryFrog.com'. I just liked the name. Recently I just set up a new FTP server and I decided to plug in the 'OrneryFrog.com' domain to brand it of sorts. Being the detail oriented mild obsessive compulsive I am I created this funky logo to use on the splash page.



You can see it in context at: www.OrneryFrog.com

The MAC Attack!

Yes I am a true 'MAC ADDICT'. I first fell in love with the MAC back in the old green monitor APPLE II days my freshman year in high school. I even learned how to program in basic and Mrs. Hurley would get mad at me and my buddy Lincoln for hacking into the tutorial app and changing code so when a student got a wrong answer the screen would flash the message "NICE TRY BOZO!" LOL

So now of course I enjoy listening to MAC centric podcasts. One of my favorites is 'The MAC Attack'. I wasn't too hip with his show graphics so I decided to help Steve out and revamp his podcast identity. If you check out his web site now you can see what he's been using. www.TheMacAttack.us

Over the next few weeks he'll be integrating the mark with a new iTunes badge graphic, web site header etc.

Windows Gaming Branding Concepts

Last week I worked as a hired gun with my buddy Jeff Pollard out of Portland. He hired me to team up with him and assist with concepts for a branding that would be used with the new Windows Vista. Being the geniuses that Microsoft marketing is they picked a very unique name for the gaming aspect of the OS, they decided to call it 'Windows Gaming'. How original.

Well I at least tried to create a unique mark. one of the key attributes they wanted in the mark was the ability to animate it. These are the '8' I contributed. Basically it's me and Jeff against the design behemoth 'Hornell Anderson'. We'll see how it turns out.

Personally I did the dude with the thumb and branded window fingers.

Fa La La La Lifetime - Take III

Original Hand Lettering for "Fa La La La Lifetime."

This now makes the third Christmas in a row that the Lifetime Channel has used my "Fa La La La Lifetime" branding for their holiday promotional efforts.


"Fa La La La Lifetime" bug graphic.

During this season you'll see it as a bug in the lower right hand corner of the screen and it'll also appear in numerous TV spots. (But the ones that look ugly and where their in house people added dimension to the letter forms I had nothing to do with.)


"Fa La La La Lifetime Movie Network"

Lifetime contacted me again this year to create additional custom lettering to augment their current seasonal branding efforts. The image above shows a stacked option and I also created a long horizontal option with everything resting on the same baseline as well.


"Fa La La La LMN" bug graphic.

This shows an abbreviated version I also created that can be used as a bug graphic.


"Fa La La La LMN" alternate bug graphic.

Sometimes when working on projects like this I explore beyond the requested deliverables. So on this project I also provided them with the type nested inside a fun shape as well. Not sure they'll ever use it but I liked it.

TV Promotional Spot - 2009

Hardy Har Har

Comedy Club Logo Mark.

One of my favorite agencies communication firms in these parts is ReThink Communications. They do some seriously cool work and are a blast to work with on projects too.

I've worked with them in the past to create some fun icons for their client Kolachy Co. The most recent project was a logo mark for the Vancouver Comedy Festival.


Vancouver Comedy Festival Logo.

Design is so much easier when you have a great concept. The CD on this job Jeff Harrison had dialed in on a great concept and we worked together to create what you see above.


Promotional poster designed by Rethink.

I love the promotional posters Rethink designed. Very funny. And the promotional TV spots they created are excellent too. You can watch them here.

Seek and You Will Find

Street Level Logo Design.

How do you motivate a group of stiff necked suits, or a room full of cubicle zombies, or any other garden variety form of corporate drone? Well, if you're "Street Level Adventures" you design custom treasure hunts to facilitate corporate team building for some of the nations largest companies.


Cycloptic Man.

The purpose behind the adventures is to help a team focus and operate in a unified manner. Because of that I decided to create a humanoid character with an all-seeing eye. A graphic nod to "E Pluribus Unum" if you will.

The adventures are fun and creative so I wanted the mark to be playful as well. The typography is all hand lettered too to go with the style of the artwork.


Unused Logo Concept.

This design approach played off of a man hole cover concept. Once again I kept the aesthetic playful and hand lettered the design.


Unused Logo Concept.

This business designs all types of adventures in various genres so I decided to play off a cloak and dagger theme motif. I liked it but felt it pigeon holed the perception of what type of genre adventures they offered, so it wasn't used.

The Saramond Quests

"Iron Dragons" book cover design.

A friend of mine by the name of Derek P. Gilbert is a multi-talented guy. He has done podcasting, worked as a rock music DJ on radio, hosting a FM talk radio show, a barber shop quartet member, seller of steel, and an author. He's like a utility player in baseball who can play any position he needs, to get the job done. And if that wasn't enough, he's also a really nice guy as well.

I finally got around to listening to his first audio book "Iron Dragons" about five months ago. I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of fantasy so that is why I put off getting into it for about a year. Well needless to say once I started listening to his book I was hooked, it's a compelling story with a nice twist and rich character development.

Since Derek has a voice for radio he also reads the book too, the fact it's FREE to anyone who wants to listen via Podiobooks.com is a no-brainer.

I was less impressed with the books cover however. I didn't think it did the story justice and felt the series needed to have a branded look established since this is "Book One of The Saramond Quests."

I had to tread lightly though, you see his wife Sharon designed the book cover and I didn't want to offend anyone, especially a friends better half.

Well, I never had to approach Derek because he beat me to it, and asked me to design a consistent brand for him. He's donated a lot of time sharing his work with everyone so I didn't mind sharing some of mine as well. If in the process I can help a friends work get the attention it deserves that is reward enough IMO.


"The Saramond Quests" brand logo.

Since these books will live online I kept the design streamlined. Each book will be branded with a new color but keep the same general format to create a branded coherent series. The first book is the crown jewel in the story arch so we settled on purple, this also had a lot to do with the fact that I negotiated a deal with one of the top fantasy artists in this genre Ciruelo Cabral. He gave us permission to use his dragon illustration on the cover. I was thrilled that he allowed us the privilege to use his art for this project, thank you Ciruelo!

Combine the incredible dragon art with a new branding for "The Saramond Quests" and we now have a firm visual foundation for future covers. Derek of course loves the new cover and I'll be helping him with his future covers as well.


"The Saramond Quests" brand logo.

I thought the iconic dragon looked pretty cool so I created a t-shirt design with it.

Derek has also just released another FREE audio book called "The God Conspiracy" which is in a totally different genre but once again another fun listen.

I didn't however design this latest cover, his wife did. Like Schultz on Hogan's Heros "I see nothing!"