Andrew Woods

Creating New Blog

2009-01-06T20:16:00.000-08:00

Hello anyone who still looks at the blogs.

I am now discontinuing this blog, starting over fresh with a new one for this semester.

I'm retaking GrD3200, so it will include my process of corporate identity from start to finish. Any feedback on the new blog would be greatly appreciated. I'm also taking Wheelthrowing (Ceramics), so there should be some interesting photographs/sketches from that class as well.

Anywho, I appreciate everyone's help this semester and enjoyed seeing everyone's progress. I am thankful that I got to be in the class with you all and I thank Stan for allowing me to do so. Good luck this semester and have a great new year!

My new blog can be found at:

www.ShiftyDanger3200.blogspot.com

Caio!

New Pepsi Logo

2008-12-17T12:28:00.000-08:00

So my mom brought home some Diet Pepsi Caffeine Free sodas today, and when she pulled one out for a drink I immediately thought, "Obama logo". So I went online to read up about it and found out that I'm definitely not the only person who has noticed this, and from looking at the post on BrandNew, some people have actually transposed the Obama logo onto the bottles for comparison. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there because it really surprised me at first sight. I'm a Coca-Cola guy anyway. Better taste and WAY better design.

I do like the fact that there's more negative space on the product, but shame on the designer who looked at this new logo and thought, "This is the one..."

Digital Illustration: Attempt #1

2008-12-16T08:53:00.000-08:00

I must admit that my love for doing detailed drawings outweighs most other artistic/graphic endeavours. However, I'm attempting to put that aside, quit focusing on drawing every little fine detail-and focus on becoming a better digital illustrator. I usually try and create as much of my illustration by hand as possible, and I think this stems from my lack of knowledge on how to achieve a specific look or style in photoshop. So, I am henceforth going to try and step away from my old school foolish self and work on enhancing my digital skills. I believe that once I can bridge the best of both worlds-the physical and the digital-I can create something marvelous and interesting.

Sooooo.............
Following a tutorial in Computer Arts Projects magazine's November Issue, I attempted to create an illustration starting with an inked cartoonish drawing. After scanning my drawing in, I added color, texture, light and shadows in photoshop. The first image shows a few of the steps of my process. The second image is where I'm at so far. I don't feel as though this composition is done, but it's a start. I'll probably move on and work on another one because at this point, I'm sortof tired of staring at that goofy-faced dancer standing in the clouds...

Personal Observations:
1. Perhaps I could push the textures a bit further?
2. Varying the weights of the black lines of the base drawing might add beneficial contrast?
3. Add some more prominent typography?
4. Mix elements of realism into the composition?
5. Create a more direct narrative?

Any thoughts, suggestions, comments, advice?

Sparkling Light

2008-12-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving night, my brother and me shot off a bunch of fireworks and also had some giant sparklers, so I got out the camera and we started experimenting with the trails of light the sparklers would leave. The photographs came out quite interesting, I only wish I had thought of sparklers before we did the Illustrative Alphabet. I found that you are able to move them significantly quicker than a flashlight and they also leave a trail of sparks as opposed to just a trail of pure light. Guess it depends on what you're going for. I think next time I may let my brother hold the camera and let me do the sparkling.

Aged Design

2008-12-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

During thanksgiving, I visited my grandparents who live on a farm way out in the heart of Mississippi. Like many southern folk, they have a big shed full of ancient things they will never use but can't bare get rid of. These are some pictures I took of some of the typography/logos/industrial design I came across when I was exploring.

This random tool interested me, and when I asked my grandfather what purpose it served, he told me that it is used for deshelling (?) corn. You put the corn cob in the top part and drop it down into the middle and turn the levers and somehow it takes the shell/leafage off.

Sandwiches and Sex

2008-12-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

It seems like a large number of bloggers have been talking about Arby's logo and its resemblance to a penis after Arby's produced a commercial which displays a man lying in bed awaiting his girlfriend/wife/mistress/whatever who soon appears from the BATHROOM (??) decked out in full Arby's attire carrying a tray of the new Arby's Chicken Cordon Bleu saying "You know I only do this for your birthday?" The man, displaying quite the animated face, replies, "W o w.....Me likey," just as the Arby's logo erects just above his head with a "Boioing".

I've read several of the back-and-forth blogging about this subject, and it seems that many people reply something like this.. "Well that's your problem if you stare at a hat or a restaurant logo and see a penis..you must have too much time on your hands to sit around and think about it."

I'm not going to say that I know 100% that the mastermind behind this commercial originally intended for the Arby's logo to be perceived as a phallus (Greek for 'erected penis'), but as a graphic designer I find it very difficult to believe that at some point not very far into the making, perhaps even at the very beginning, the makers knew that a vast number of viewers would pick up on the sexual connotation. It seems as though this could have been the very point, and I am very inclined to think so myself. I've got mixed feelings on blatan sexual messages in advertising, especially if we're talking about an Arby's Chicken Cordon Bleu giving a grown man a hard on, but I can say that the fact that it sparks controversy and conversation means that the advertisers are, perhaps, getting exactly what they're aiming for: Attention. No doubt this commercials has achieved this, but I truly wish they would leave this sort of thing to a clothing company like Levi (who has no doubt shot out plenty of sexually oriented commercials lately) or an alcohol company (FAR too many to name)...

I know that sex sells but do they really have to use it to sell a SANDWICH? Is it effective, and in what way?

Speaking of sandwiches, I also find Subway's recent commercials with the extremely annoying "5 dollar footlong" song to be somewhat sexual:

1. The flight attendant displays how big you've got to be to join the mile high club on today's flight. It's just part of the Emergency Procedure speech.
2. The cop stopping the attractive, smiling female on her innocent skooter, holding his hands out to show her just how long a foot is. So if you want to get out of that ticket...you know what to do
3. The Asian woman with her mouth wide open and her hands measuring out the 12 inches, in utter disbelief that it's "THAT HUGE!"...Oh wait a minute, she's just referring to Godzilla...HA

Here's the Levi commercial I referred to earlier...

I will admit that I never saw the Arby's logo as resembling a penis until I saw that commercial. There it was, all that time, erect and staring me in the face as I drove down every other road. I will say that I won't be able to look at it without analyzing it's 'penisness' from now on after noticing this uncanny likeness.

Final Wine

2008-12-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of photographs I took up at Farren's studio.

Here's a segment on how I created the interior suede lining in my package design.
1. Glue medium weight paper (Measured to fit snuggly inside the cylinder) to suede
2. Cut and wrap around suede around the edges of paper as you would when making a cover wrap for a photo-album style book cover (don't really feel like going into details on how to do it. Sure you could find it online)
3. Load a pile of heavy books over the top while it dries...maybe one heavy book would do, but I've got obsessive-compulsive disorder so I use about 10.
4. Apply an unspecified amount of glue into the tube and carefully wrap suede lining around the edges. Hold into place until drying occurs.
5. Give yourself a pat on the back..or, if you're like me, this is when you think, "Okay, now I deserve to go smoke a cigarette"

The Final Product/Thoughts

So I'm not particularly happy with this layout/photograph or even the fact that I used the suede for the backdrop. I think just plain white would work better. I need to make a lightbox....

After spending a few days doing other things and not thinking about the project-coming back to it, I feel like the white tube of the package design is sort of boring...So I got an idea-what if I carried the cloud idea from the bottle onto the back of the package and had lines descending down from the cloud which turned into the barcode, just like I carried the info text on the back of the bottle out of the cloud...? Right now (I know u can't see it...) but I've got just a plain barcode on the back and the logo on the front....

I'm still tempted to make the tube like the top (Textured and painted black), I was just worried for the purposes of my grade on this project that my transfer wouldn't stick to the tube if I applied a texture. I just seem to be more excited about the top and when it comes to the tube...eh, I need to experiment a bit more before I'll be satisfied.

Any thoughts/suggestions???

The Final Processes

2008-12-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

Digi-Drafts

2008-11-19T09:21:00.000-08:00

Final Logo Process

2008-11-19T07:18:00.000-08:00

So here's sortof a photodocumentary of my logo drawing process in chronological order followed by a couple of digital drafts for the bottle design. Haven't quite nailed it yet, but I'm getting close...What do you think?

Note: The bottle design encompasses an area of W=8.75 x H=8.5

Can't decide whether I want to drop the detail/shadowing on the tower or not. I feel like I should render the clouds in a similar fashion if I do keep the detail-seems to be some sort of disconnect b/w the two. Maybe I'll just suck it up and forget the detail...Who knows.

With Tower Shading/Detail

Without Tower Shading/Detail

If Photoshop were real...

2008-11-13T09:54:00.000-08:00

It might look like this... Advertisement for CS4 (from www.Drawn.ca)

Wine Sketches Continued

2008-11-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Very cool Wall-painted animation

2008-11-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

From www.pentdego.com

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Packaging Trends

2008-11-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

An interesting article from Popsop.com regarding trends in package design. For the original source, visit: http://popsop.com/10-global-packaging-trends-to-watch-in-2008/

1. GREEN
This trend spread very quickly and has caused a lot of concern among all brands, because it affects all aspects of a package—from materials to shipping to reuse through recycling. The growth of the “buy local” movement has emerged as an associated trend; there tend to be fewer resources used in bringing local products to market. Is there a Green look? Visually, it is present in a variety of ways, from obviously earthy materials to simple containers that use less material. This trend is about being honest and truthful regarding your motives. In his book The Ecology of Commerce, Paul Hawken brings up the fact that companies have to come to the realization that recycling and waste management is good for business. It has taken more than 10 years for Hawken’s ideas to reach widespread acceptance. Green is about treading lightly on the Earth, and to many consumers it’s a lifestyle.

2. STORYTELLING
Understanding the origin of a product gives the product more credibility—not to mention the fact that, as humans, we connect to stories and remember them. This is very powerful in establishing a relationship with a brand and its product. The Storytelling trend has grown from using snippets of company or product stories on the backs of packaging to printing these tales directly on the front of the package: The story has become part of the design. Narrative copy is an engaging and entertaining vehicle to slow consumers down and emotionally involve them with a package. Once a connection is made, the products become irresistible.

3. LIGHTHEARTED WHIMSY
Packaging is meant to inform and communicate details and benefits about the product it contains. Early packaging did just that. In fact, many of these old packages are refreshing to look at, because they are so clear and concise—they were simple. But simple can also mean boring or clinical in feel. When a brand has personality, it is engaging, captivating and fun for the buyer. Taking the notion one step further, we see brands injecting the lighthearted. A bit of fanciful humor (often quaint) brings an element of entertainment to packaging in a way that gives consumers a reason to believe in the product. Whimsy can charm even the most cynical and jaded consumer. We know people have to shop, so why not bring customers a sense of the unexpected?

4. BOLD EXPRESSION
Bold expression has its roots in Pop Art. You’ll also see this aesthetic mixed with the feel of comic books. This trend has a bold look and presents itself uniquely on-shelf. Colors are very bright and sometimes used in conjunction with a black line trapping the shapes depicted. There has been a trend towards simplicity, because it is the dream of so many designers to make things seem clean and less cluttered. But instead of clinical austerity, we see simple high-impact boldness on the rise. The practice is especially applicable to specific product types that need a look of strength. Another great use of the trend is in product categories that are highly cluttered, with far too many SKUs.

5. SHOW DON’T TELL
Too often, product packaging is trying too hard to sell you, with copy listing every feature and benefit. Consumers can be left confused by all the information. The Show Don’t Tell trend is one that focuses on the product itself and not the brand (the brand is there, but not in your face). The packaging shows you why you should buy this product by romancing the product. This can be done through the use of photography that connotes a mood or feeling about the product, or the focus can be on the benefit buyers get from the product. This trend is an offshoot of the idea of simplicity. Its use in packaging has steadily grown and continues to demonstrate its value, moving up the bell curve and becoming adopted by many large-store brands.

6. HANDMADE
Along with the desire to simplify our lives, more and more we seek everyday pleasures and indulgences. Handmade products are seen as special, and many people will pay more for them. But to do so, consumers need to be convinced of their authentic quality. The packaging of these products has incorporated design that is more tactile in effect, while looking hand-drawn. This is especially evident in the typography and imagery employed. The packaging conveys that this is a product made just for you, as if it is one of a kind. Handmade is a move away from mass-produced and a step toward the human touch.

7. LIFESTYLE
This trend you could say has been overused in advertising for years, but within packaging it has been avoided. The focus of the trend is on the brand and product benefits. The packaging shows—literally with photos, or figuratively with illustration—the product in use. It is often intended to stimulate an aspirational motive in the buyer. In Europe especially, there is an increase in showing people enjoying and experiencing the product. The effect is achieved in a variety of ways, including showing consumers using the product, as well as its affect on consumers after use. The message is that just by purchasing these products, consumers will feel a bit closer to achieving a certain lifestyle.

8. BORROWING FROM THE PAST
This trend is used to create a feeling and speaks to the prospective buyer’s emotional past. We have seen this done through music in Gap ads, and it is the reason ’60s iconography is used in products like Izze. As a style, it speaks to our senses and revives positive experiences from our past. Of course, nostalgia and using ideas from the past isn’t new, but the part of the past we are borrowing from can and often does change. The trend is not exactly retro, meaning the complete use of old designs; rather, it picks up specific elements and morphs them to create a more contemporary feel for today’s consumer.

9. LESS IS MORE
For years we have heard the phrase “Less Is More” bandied about by the design community. Simplicity is often both a designer’s and a consumer’s dream—it makes so many things easy and more compelling. Within the packaging world, this approach has come to imply a quiet elegance, an uncluttered freedom from gratuitous embellishment and a focus on conveying only key ideas. It’s a luxurious plainness. Many big brands have been adopting this trend, proving it effective in selling everything from food to electronics. This year we see additional variations in the idea of simplicity in association with Lighthearted and Show Don’t Tell.

10. FREE EXPRESSION
This trend involves the use of “free” artistic expression placed on packaging that is an integral part of global multimedia marketing campaigns. This trend is much more readily shown than described, but seeks to capture an exuberant creativity that surprises and delights younger consumers. It’s often an irreverent take on the product’s traditional heritage—all of which works to avoid overt branding and appeal emotionally to the media-savvy, cynical, overwhelmed young buyer. This trend acknowledges creativity as a driving force, letting the art speak freely without interrupting the brand or product benefits.

More and more clients are recognizing the strong effect great packaging can have on purchase intent. Not surprisingly, we see store brands or private-label products embracing new trends more readily than the large global brands. This has given rise to consumers involving themselves with store brands more readily, as they feel the packaging is entertaining and engaging. Knowing that design has made the difference is something all designers can use to argue in favor of our industry.

My Vote is In!

2008-11-04T07:35:00.001-08:00

I got to my polling location around 9:30am this morning expecting to wait at least an hour or so when I showed up to find no line. So I walked in, greeted the smiling poll officers, casted my vote, got the sticker, walked out, grabbed chick-fil-a, drank a cup of coffee and got home....all under an hour! Now the waiting begins....

Just for fun, here's an image of a Veteran listening to Senator Ted Kennedy, Barack O'Bama, and Hilary Clinton address the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Hehehe....

Wine Logo Sketch

2008-11-03T21:13:00.001-08:00

Here's the few sketches I did before producing my first digital draft, seen in the post below.

Wine Logo

2008-11-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

So I've been doing some sketches of the minimalist sort for my wine logo, thought it might be interesting to use counters of the type to create a window pattern for the Black Tower. I thought that I could relate the type to the structure of a German tower as opposed to using midieval-style type which would refer to the structure's history...thus, I could modernize the design to stick out amongst the European wines in the store which surround it, most of which carry more traditional styles of old type and muted, off-white colors.

For the packaging, I want to create an actual tower which the wine bottle fits into, perhaps with window cut-outs to match the window design on the bottle. Cylindrical in structure, the top part (similar to the top edge of my logo) would pull off.

Here's a rough, rough draft of what I've got so far...as far as digital goes.
The second image just points out the windows I'm talking about in case you couldn't tell right off the bat.

Wine Sketches

2008-11-03T12:38:00.001-08:00

Out of Comission....

2008-11-03T07:23:00.000-08:00

Getting back up-to-date, I had a little bit of time where I felt like researching some wines and I'm pretty set on Germany's most highly exported wine, Black Tower. My second choice was 'Per Me Sola' Rossa Toscana...I really can't stand the design, and I've got to be honest-when I first saw it, I thought nothing more than, 'wow, so I drink this whole bottle and end up waking up next to that lonely gargantuan woman featured on the bottle...I do realize that I'm just one man and that other people of different genders/sexualities might interpret it in different ways, but I just plain don't like it...

So...here it is: BLACK TOWER (I'm focusing particularly on their Riesling and Rivaner wine types..the Rivaner is a white wine but appears to be dark due to the opaque, black glass which is used to contain the wine, however-the Riesling is packaged in a clear, transparent bottle...I guess I'd probably like to make the brand's wine bottles more consistent with each other)

Black Tower Riesling:

Black Tower Rivaner:

Other Images:

SOoooooo.............
It's not that I think it's a particularly unattractive design, I just think that the name of the wine lends itself to some very interesting sculptural/packaging/graphic ideas ESPECIALLY in regards to packaging. Plus, I traveled extensively around Germany last year, visiting many wineries and midieval towns, taking pictures of many towers which could be used as inspiration for my design. I feel like I have the sufficient knowledge and experience as well as resources to draw from to spice up this brand in an appropriate and interesting way! I have some ideas sketched out which I will post as soon as I scan them later today.

What do you think Aboot that?

Sketches and Notes Continued: After Effects, Wine Design and Rubbish

2008-10-20T21:47:00.000-07:00

After Effects
These are notes from Edgar's lecture on after effects. It may be somewhat disorganized, but I wrote down pretty much every step in as much detail as I had time to write. I've inverted the color for better legibility. Hope this helps some of you who are already jumping into the AE project.

1.

2.

3.

Wine Re-Design: La Crema is the wine of choice for the moment being (See post below for images of La Crema and other Russian Valley Wines). However, still checking possibilities so this could change at any moment.

...and the rest is just plain Rubbish. Having mucho fun with my new Japanese Pentel brush pen..as I should be, considering it cost me $16! It's really a great pen, apparently popular with comic/cartoon artists. Below is an image of the pen with an article from KK.org's "Cool Tools" Archive (http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001445.php) If you enjoy drawing experimentation, it is a must-have! The girl at Binder's let me play around with her's (The pen comes in a package at the store, so you can't test it out). She's the dirty-blondish girl who drives the crazily painted van that's always outside, if you're interested...

....from KK.org's "Cool Tools" Archive (http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/001445.php):

"Leave it to the Japanese to create a brush pen. This pocketable pen has a super fine brush tip of actual bristles, perfect for tiny Kanji characters, or of course, doodling in your journal, or sketching in your Moleskine. While it's hugely popular with comic book folks and cartoonists, artists of all stripes have picked one up for their paper work. The feel is incredibly tactile and lovely. It works like a fountain pen, with replaceable rich ink cartridges. Once capped it doesn't leak as far as I can tell. (There's a moment of panic when you first assemble it since the instructions are 100% in Japanese, but just insert the ball-bearing end of the ink capsule into the tip.) You can purchase other color inks as well."

Project 4: Wine Re-design

2008-10-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

La Crema Pinot Noir + Chardonnay

Wine design from the Russian River Valley=BLAND, BORING

≈

Sketch Update

2008-10-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

Some of my recent 'sketchings' which are relevant to class assignments in one way or another...

Medeski, Martin + Wood Tour Poster/T-shirt Design

13-month Calendar Design

Just for Fun

Inspirations Part III: Josh Cochran

2008-10-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

I was exposed to Cochran in my illustration class last week by a class mate who gave a presentation on his work and I haven't been able to stop looking at it. His unique illustration style and limited color palette feels very nostalgic, comforting & interesting to me. When I look at some of his work for the first time, I feel as though I have seen it before in a past time or on a cartoon when I was a child...it just feels very nostalgic and right. These images are from his website at: JoshCochran.net

Inspirations Part II: Salvador Dali

2008-10-13T16:02:00.001-07:00

I have always been inspired by Salvador Dali. He's definitely in my top five all time favorite artists and I find his biography and personal character to be very intriguing. Known mostly for his paintings, he was also involved in the planning, designing and creation of stage sets, jewelry, photography, lithography (+other printmaking techniques), and, obviously, the art of the mustaching, hehe. I have been fortunate enough to travel around the world to many museums (my mom is a flight attendant for Delta) so I have actually had the opportunity to see much of his work firsthand and, as many of you probably already know, his paintings are enormous with detail work that creates a visual window into his surreal, disturbing world. It was really hard to walk away from gazing into his canvas work. Anyway, here are a few of his artworks which I photographed in Manhattan earlier this year (European museums don't seem to be quite as keen on allowing photographs to be taken)

Amazing sketch-work

Layers of paneled glass, each painted to create a cohesive scene when you look through all of them lined up. The installation was quite small (maybe 1 ft. x 1.5 ft.) and was built into the wall at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) I believe...

An amazing sur-REALIST!

I found this one to be one of the more interesting Dali paintings because it seems so different than most of his work. A Half-tone pattern of intermingling circles create 2 things at once: When you stand really close, all you see is Madonna and Child; When you step back to a distance, an enormous ear appears. The floating envelopes cast a shadow upon the underlying painting and appear so realistic that you feel you can reach out and grab them...Unreal

Calendar Draft 1

2008-10-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

It's late so I'm going to be short...Doing my calendar on old toys/games like Slinky, Lincoln Logs, Rubik's Cube, Simon Says, etc, etc. It is going to be an accordian style calendar which, on one side, displays all of these toys in chronological order from when they arrived on the market throughout the twentieth century. On this image side, the entire span of the accordian fold will appear as a shelf, with each page containing one of the items with a hint to the next page (for example, the Mr. Potatohead shown below might be holding a 'barrel of monkeys' monkey from the hand he waves with which would drape down to the next page containing all the other monkeys, and the monkeys might be heading into a Lincoln Log Cabin or climbing a Jenga stack on the edge of their page...or perhaps holding onto one end of the slinky, stretching it back with all of their might to destroy a band of GI Joes or PlayMobile communities on the next page...Anyway, I think you get the point, when you stretch the accordian fold out to it's full flat length, it's pretty much going to be a long panoramic view of a shelf containing all of these old games/toys which interact with each other in a chronological line of typographic madness. On the flip side will be the calendar part which contains historical/biographical information on each item as well as the typeface used to construct the particular image. The typefaces used will also be old, historical typefaces used in sequence of chronological order in regards to their date of creation.

Creative brief in a nutshell: This composition/calendar will stand to show how typefaces have influenced and interacted with other typefaces throughout the continuous evolution of typography while providing a nostalgic, recognizable, fun composition of vintage toys which mirror this evolutionary process.

This is my rough, rough, rough draft for Mr.PotatoHead...much of it is just outlines I created as guidelines for the composition. Below it is the photograph I took of my very own Potatoman from my childhood. He's not quite dead and feeling better :)

Damn, so much for being short...

Illustration Project 2: Musical/Stage Performance Tour Design

2008-10-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

The assignment is to design a poster and a t-shirt for a band or performer of any sort, so I chose my favorite band that currently tours now: Medeski, Martin & Wood. I decided to design specifically for the actual tour they're carrying out right now, the Radiolarian Series, which is basically an experimental series of three tours out of which three albums will be created (1 album per leg of the tour). They are pretty much just busting out improv jams with very little planning and there seems to be an emphasis on acoustic instrumentals based off of the show I saw of theirs from the first leg of the Radiolarian series.

Anywho, my idea for this first design is to portray the band in "Radiolarian" attire. Radiolarians are aqueous micro-species which have amazingly intricate structures. While looking at them, I began to see crowns and septers and other various things which they might be morphed into, but mostly crowns stood out to me..thus, for my first draft I want to portray Medeski, Martin & Wood as underwater Radiolarian kings which gesture you into their realm of being. When I draw this one again, I want to render their clothing quite differently and have them floating perhaps...not digging the midieval drabs I threw on them in this one. Of course, when I produce my final draft, their faces will sure change and become more true to their actual faces.

Any commentary or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

"Man, this year Halloween is going to suck"

2008-10-07T11:16:00.001-07:00

Tattoo

2008-10-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Concept drawing I did tonight for a friend of mine who wanted to get a tattoo of Aquarius/Taurus to symbolize his two sons' star signs.

CNN iReport: Typographic Portraits of 2008 Presidential Candidates

2008-10-02T14:56:00.000-07:00

Screen Shots of my designs from:
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-93189

Franz Ackermann

2008-09-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

One of my inspirations for my own personal works of fine art as well as design. I am inspired by him because I feel that I am hesitant to use a lot of color in my designs, and he most definitely exploits color usage to the max. He does some very interesting things with mixed media on canvas.

From Portikus.de:

Franz Ackermann studied fine arts in Munich and Hamburg.
The young artistic work of Franz Ackermann, as well as his methods of research, cannot be fixed to a certain genre or to a certain medium. Using small-formatted works on paper, large-formatted photostats and objects, he creates images and memory traces of explorations of cities. Cities as spatial but also mental orientations within an urban network; urban structure as a model for cultural and social systems of reference - these are themes Franz Ackermann is preoccupied with in an individual and virulent manner.
During a one-year working stay in Asia and continued in numerous extended travels, Franz Ackermann has created a series of more than 100 small-size water-colour works and collages. In these so-called "mental maps" the artist investigates the urban structure and situations of a city. The "city maps" reconnoitre the geomorphic and topographic conditions of a city, to then turn them into individual and subjective images. The pictorial solutions are at once characterised by biomorphic chaos and well-ordered stringency; their ornamentality highlights the fact that we are not dealing with an imitation of functional cartography, but with a subjective, "mental" experience of the city. Apart from these "mental maps", pictures painted directly on the wall and several photostats created specially for Portikus will be exhibited.

Medeski Martin and Wood + Radiolarian Art

2008-09-26T07:10:00.000-07:00

Art School Posters

2008-09-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

Interesting Calendar finds from FlickR/Google Image Search

2008-09-24T07:48:00.001-07:00

My Uncle's photograph O' the Moon

2008-09-24T07:33:00.001-07:00

Illustrative Alphabet

2008-09-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Recent Sketching Escapades

2008-09-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Jim Pollock: "that Phish poster guy"

2008-09-18T08:11:00.000-07:00

He is mostly known as the Phish concert poster designer. He started hanging with the band in the early 80's, doing ink drawn flyers to promote their shows. As they grew larger and gained a larger following, Pollock began experimenting and creating linoleum prints using a nineteenth century hand-press made from iron and wood. Then, in the 90's when Phish began releasing their 'Live Phish' compact disc sets, he created a series of woodcuts for the album covers, each unique to the show. He also has a collection of t-shirts made for the band. All of his original prints are considered treasures for the Phish fans and you can still find them available in various places. I have always really enjoyed his playful, whimsical, sometimes satirically dark, prints and thought I would share some of his work with you.

Illustrative Alphabet

2008-09-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

This Image shows my process for arranging playing cards in order to create letter-forms.

Here's a little taste of one of my projects... I think the process is self-explanatory through the diagramatic picture I've posted. Buuuut, If you don't get it, here is how I'm constructing this particular alphabet:

1. Pick a handfull of cards @ random and arrange the cards to create a recognizable letter-form,
2. Photograph the pile that comes about
3. Put photograph into photoshop
4. Crop out letterforms and make necessary adjustments (such as deleting card borders and content such as numbers that were very distracting to my letterforms)

I tried leaving the cards as they are shown in step 2 of the image I posted, but it made me dizzy trying to look at them all at once, so I abstracted and simplified the letterforms down to just the diamonds, clubs, spades and hearts. I wouldn't have expected the letterforms from a paper playing-card to come out looking quite digital, but I really think they do-especially when you zoom out and look at them.

This particular alphabet, which I think I have developed an interesting process for constructing, hasn't been overly exciting for me-thus, I have some other one's in the works which I will keep a secret for now....To be continued...

Presidential Typography: Final Layouts

2008-09-11T01:06:00.000-07:00

Block of Type Post #1: Oregon Park

2008-09-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

I live next to a park which contains baseball fields, picnic areas &, most importantly, a disc golf course. If you aren't familiar with disc golf, it's like regular ball golf except you throw discs and try to land them into chain baskets. Every hole is par 3, so if you know what you're doing you can drive the disc near the basket and then use a putter (a more flimsy disc) to land it in the basket...there are several courses throughout the Atlanta area and beyond. It's becoming a more popular sport, Conan OBrien had a pro disc-golfer in his show not too long ago. Good fun, try it!

Anywho, these first set of images I am posting are from my adventures around the course today. More to come soon...

The Spot

2008-09-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took me a minute to put up my work environment photographs-slipped by me. Anywho, here's my studio/bedroom. I set up in my room because it has two odd break-off areas that are good for storage...they're like closets without doors, one to the right of my computer table and one to the left. I hop back and forth from my computer table to my drafting table. Conveniently located in the middle are my printers/scanners. While sitting and facing my computer screen, I can also easily turn around and go to my book collection which exists on a shelf topped by very strange objects: a stack of vinyls, a nutcracker, a mask and figurines from around the world, a ukranian weapon, an elephant made of god knows what, an hourglass, a piece of coral, a bowl from god knows where and a real copperhead snake in a jar which my uncle caught and preserved after it bit him several times and sent him to the hospital....god knows why?

Drawing Experimentation

2008-09-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

For Illustration class, we are required to make a narrative composition consisting of three objects: a place, object and animal. These were chosen randomly from a bag on the first day of class. My three words were Forest, Blender and Centipede. While coming up with ideas for how I would render my illustration, I accidentally stumbled upon an interesting technique....I began drawing with my Microns and coloring the shapes I made with Coptic Marker to find that my colors were running through to the next page...so I just went with it, drawing from the "mistakes" which would follow onto the next page and abstracting shapes which turned into other objects. I tried to tie in these shapes with each of my objects (blender, forest/tree, and centipede). Sort of interesting what has started to come of it all...

Presidential Typography: And Closer....

2008-09-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

...And my sight continues to decline as I stare at the screen for hours everyday placing this never-ending stream of type. Having fun, though. This project has been good for me and I've learned a lot by doing it. I think I'm about ready for my "favorite drink" tonight...a nice, cold New Castle, that is.

Making A Fake Diploma

2008-09-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

So an older man I know taught a younger man the stock-market for the past three years. He considered himself the "teacher" or the "professor" over the young man, and after the young man established himself with a good job and became highly successful this past year, my friend Mr. Brewer wanted to make the young man a 'mock' diploma from his "school of stockmarketry".... So I did it and here it is (all except the golden notarial seal which I applied after printing). I printed it on Epson Radiant White Watercolor Paper and it actually turned out quite nice. I'm wondering if I could get so good at making these diplomas and certificates that I could start getting any job I wanted...hehe

Presidential Typography: Getting Close

2008-09-02T13:21:00.001-07:00

So I've pretty much finished the Obama figure, his surfboard, and the waves from his wake. Now all that is left to do is create his logo and the flowing stripes out of type. I've been so tempted to throw some hand-drawn 'stuff' in there but so far I have succeeded in strictly using illustrator and photoshop type. Yippee! I'm thinking that I may bring in some hand-drawn illustration to McCain's portrait just to get a contrast in methodology..Who knows?

Presidential Typography: Update

2008-09-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

And the type just keeps on flowing...and flowing...and flowing...

This is definitely not going to be quite as fun doing McCain's character. Politically, I favor neither of the candidates I am portraying, however, Obama is most definitely more pleasant to look at.

Presidential Typography: In Progress

2008-09-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

This Image shows the sketch I'm working from in the background.

This image shows my work without the working sketch. This composition consists of altered type only.

Timeline

2008-08-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

My routine before class on August 25

Project 1: Self Portrait/Bio FINAL draft

2008-08-24T23:13:00.001-07:00

And I'm done. Yippee-kae-ae!

By the way, the design is 12''x 18''

Layout Draft #3

2008-08-23T17:15:00.001-07:00

Decided I didn't like the logos in the talk bubble...seems a bit confusing, perhaps? Plus, I am waaaay too goofy a guy not to put a phrase like "feed me"

Layout Draft #2

2008-08-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Trying out a new idea. I thought it would be fitting to have the hand's "talk bubble" displaying my designs. I think it serves to bridge the two sides of the design better than the previous orientation of the bubble. Dropped the micron/ruler appearance from my design. I feel that maybe the top left is a bit distracting, but I do like the hands/"design by hand" design, just not sure yet if it's going to stay...I think that in order for my design to be cohesive, the logos need to remain in black, white, and grey as everything else is. Haven't decided which logo designs i am using yet so i just put "logo" text in the bubble to get an idea of the layout.

Self-Portrait

2008-08-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

This is a rough, rough draft of what I'm going for at this point. The whole concept behind the piece is that I "let my hand do the talking" when it comes to my design process...basically, I achieve my ideas through strenuous sketching and enjoy producing hand-drawn illustrations/design most. Not too sure about the Micron/Ruler addition to the piece, thought it might be interesting to make the entire design appear as if it were done by hand and my actual drawing utensils lying across it somewhat. That being said, I believe something needs to be done with the background to achieve this effect, but I'm not quite sure what yet. The text in the word bubble will be hand-rendered, although the topics (Latin name, description, habitat, etc.) will be displayed in the form of a particular typeface (Garamond, Helvetica, etc.). And lastly, I think I need to lighten up my face a bit to fit better with the arm and because apparently (according to Mario) I look as thought I've just come out from working many years in a coal mine :)

Summer Sketching

2008-08-18T18:47:00.000-07:00

To start things out, thought I'd throw up some of the sketch work I did while I traveled around all summer. Enjoi!
These are done free-handedly using either Micron or Staedtler pens. What I've noticed about ink pens lately...the Microns tend to produce a darker/more saturated black than do Staedtler. However, the type on the side of Microns (which tells the tip size) tends to ware away very quickly, and if you're like me and have eight different sizes...it can be quite annoying.

These first three are scenes I encountered in Nova Scotia, which is, as many people don't seem to know, a province of Canada that juts out from the North-Eastern coastline.

The rest are some goofy and some serious sketches done in different places for a variety of different reasons.