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.

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.

Start Mobile Art!

Start Mobile is a massive online gallery of art available for mobile devices of all types. Tons of great art ready to take up residence on your cell phone or PDA.

I went through my archive and picked a handful of art to use for this venture. Now if I can only figure out how to get it on my cell phone.


'Vonster'


'Tribal Tattoo'


'Robotica'


'Temporal Infestation'


'Sea Serpent'


'Owl'


'Happy Tree'


'Escape'


'Super Doodle'


'Deep Six'

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.

The Bat is Back!

I am constantly amazed at the variety of people who view my web site and take the time to email me with a response. It's a whole lot of fun hearing back from people in regards to my work. One style that has caught the attention of a lot of tattoo lovers nationwide is the tribal face tattoo art I do. Recently an ad agency guy in Florida contacted me about designing a personal tattoo he could have on his back.

He wanted a bat tattoo in the tribal style. So below is the art I created. I mocked up the tattoo on the back just so you could see how it would look in context. It's kind of strange knowing that someone will be walking around with my art on their body and then eventually be buried with it someday.

Now if I can only get someone to let me do a monkey on their back, now that would be fun!

(Black and White Art)


(Tattoo on Back)

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

Monkeys, Robots and Pirates oh my!

When a client calls me and asks "Can you illustrate a Monkey, a Robot and a Pirate?" you have to pinch yourself to make sure it's not a dream. These are a few of the characters I created as 1 color iconic avatars to use on some card promotions for Upper Deck Company.

It's tricky sometimes being limited to 1 flat color. (The style the client requested) And the turnaround time was a bit nuts too but these three were my personal favorites out the group of '7' I created.

Eye Root!

Sometimes in the course of creating artwork I get side tracked. In this case I was looking through older illustrations I had done last year and came across a nice tree I had illustrated. So I copied it out and started playing with it in another file. What I ended up with was this piece of art. I like how it came out and I wouldn't mind having a t-shirt with this on it someday.

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

Feat!

This weeks 'Illustration Friday' theme was 'Feet'. I try to push myself with these and not settle for an easy way out. Not always though, some times just drawing a literal approach in a unique way is fun.

To be honest when I saw 'Feet' as the theme I thought to myself "Oh god! I hate drawing feet." Then a little while later I thought "That's it. Oh God!" Thus this concept came to mind. I decided to handle this more like a logo then a full blown illustration.



“HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GLAD TIDINGS OF GOOD THINGS!” - Romans 10:15

Your in Good Hands!

Electronic Data Recovery, Sports & Leisure, Home Electronics, Office Furniture and Prized Possessions are just some of the areas that Allstate Insurance covers and each needed an iconic representation for use in print and marketing materials. I was directed to use the corporate blue and the background on each set shown below is a tint of that blue color.

The conceptual underpinning on icons can get a little tricky, especially when the topic is complex or not generally known by the public. But this is the aspect of icon design I really enjoy, it's like being a graphic detective of sorts. The challenge is to discover that iconic visual clues that help to relay the given topic. Some approaches are extremely literal because the topic dictates a more literal approach, where as a topic like 'Identity Theft' isn't so straight forward. A criminal can steal your identity in a variety of ways so you don't want to focus on any one specific criminal method, rather you want to relay to the viewer the overarching idea of what 'Identity Theft' is all about and that is how I approached it. A thief nabbing your ID and taking off with it.

Bandai Characters

I've been working on these little pixelated character icons for Bandai Japan for a few weeks. Here are my favorites of about 45 characters I had to create at 32x32 pixels in a nice chunky clean pixel style. They actually wanted the pixelated chunky feel so the final art was 32x32 CMYK files at 72dpi. That's a first.

They'll be used in a card game called 'Zu-Oh Brain Card Battle'. Don't ask me what that means or what some of the characters mean because frankly I couldn't tell you? Why they insisted on a tongue for the Sumo guy I didn't understand but it did make it goofy so that was ok. The art direction I got on some of these was pretty strange but I guess they know their demographic?

To Live and Let Dieagram

Every which way but approved concept.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, "Agency work is fickle."

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it. It may be fickle, but it's always fun!


Circling the conceptional wagons.

A lot of agency work is exploritory. The project may never see the light of day in a real world use, but the agency in charge is exploring all graphic possibilities of what could be done.

I was hired to explore different ways a diagram graphic (think pie chart etc.) could be carried out to make it more interesting, be flexible enough so it had animation attributes, and reflect a more feminine target audience.

This post contains some of the ideas I created for this project.


Steps to no where concept.

I was provided with some very rough general directions and also asked to go beyond them as well and share what I think could work as well. Many of the ideas in this post I see animated in my mind. I was only providing static images but I think it was important to think through how they'd build out in motion as I created them as well.


This idea blossom was sprayed with creative Roundup.

Some of the ideas were pretty straight forward and probably not too practical. It's a balance of trying to be unique, but still retaining an element of graphic pragmatism. After all, there is a reason why the pie chart is used so much, it works well for it's purpose.


My personal favorite: Globulous Nodes.

How can you not like this when it's named "Globulous Nodes?" I'd animate this so when you moused over the fat ends of the nodes they would increase in size and everything else would scale back as the information populated the node end.

I've already recycled this motif into a new pattern for a bonus edition pattern set I'm creating.


A concept inspired by game show graphics.

Just search Google images for "The Dating Game" and you'll get an idea of my source of inspiration for this design.


Technicolor Rams horn concept.

The term "Technicolor" is one of those words that take a reality of life "Color" and turn it into a brand name. As far as I know reality has always been in color.


Rams horn extruded.

Follow the multi-colored brick road but watch your step, you may fall off into the alpha channel netherworld.


Animation centric concept.

Slowly spinning, transparent, pulsing, and when moused over scales up and text slides in.


Revised direction "Flat."

After taking in all my ideas the agency requests another specific direction playing off several of my ideas. Kind of like if Pantone created mag wheels I guess.


Revised direction "3D."

With the help of Google SketchUp I created this 3D version.


New Revised direction "Flat Perspective."

The agency asked me to work some of the other colors back into this new version and I also played with the perspective so it wasn't so flat as well. They also requested a version that took this same motif and extruded it into 3D. Oh yeah, they asked that I include a heart in the diagram too. (No I didn't ask why)


New Revised direction "3D" with spacing.

With all the colors and 3D applied I felt it was getting too busy. The more I looked at it the more it felt like a Fisher-Price™ version of Stonehenge.


New Revised direction "3D" without spacing.

I rendered out the detail a little more and removed the spacing which I felt added too much visual tension.

When it was all said and done the project was killed leaving me with a stink load of "Dieagrams."

Lost Ideas

Tonight I was skimming through some old archived files and stumbled upon a lot of what I call "Lost Ideas." Most are design options presented to clients but never used, and some are ideas I played around with during the creative process but never presented.

All of them sit lonely amongst the 0's and 1's, in long forgotten files collecting dust on my HD.

I've been working digitally since 1991 so my archives are filled with graphic elements like this. I probably have thousands of things I can't even remember and I'm not sure if I could open some of them anymore? (FreeHand version 2.0) If I was smart I'd go back through everything and catalog all the art. I'll get to that Someday. (Yeah right.)

Perusing through these lost ideas from both the recent and long past was cathartic and nostalgic. So being a fair graphic warden I decided to let a handful of my designed captives out of their solitary confinement so they could see the light of day once again.


Collection of Lost Ideas.

Role Playing Game Avatar Icons

'Huntik Icons'

These icons are part of a fantasy card game being produced by Upper Deck Company called 'Huntik'. They provided me with concept art of the characters and asked me to design an iconic avatar for each of them. They'll be used as part of the overall game branding on the cards etc.

Like I've said before, fantasy games don't do much for me but it sure is fun creating these game icons. That said I did geek out playing D&D back in the day but that didn't last too long.

You can see my first batch of avatar icons for this game "here."

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.

Isometric Diagram Illustration

'Isometric Diagram Illustration for Kazeon.'

How do you relay technically complex IT processes and methodologies in a simple visual manner so a layman or garden variety corporate suit can quickly and easily get a grasp on the big picture and understand a products benefit to their bottom line? That was the challenge I faced on this project.


'Diagrams integrated into Kazeon web site.'

Kazeon equips large companies to manage and isolate individual data points within their own networks that may contain millions of documents, files and emails. They needed to show these services visually on their web site at www.kazeon.com, and within presentations to potential clients and investors alike.

In total I created four diagram illustrations for Kazeon along with some GUI icons you can see on their web site. Working in this isometric style is fun and is kind of like vector SIMS in a way. To view a larger version of the illustration above click here.

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.