Doodling with Nefarious Intent

21 year old Infamous doodle.

I recently did an interview with LBOI Design Blog in which I told a story about how I almost got fired because I drew a caricature of my art director at the time. Here is what I had shared:

Early in my career I worked in an art department for a large sportswear company in Seattle.

The so-called art director was horrible and she frustrated me so much that I decided to draw a caricature of her and put it on her desk. She got so mad she went from cubicle to cubicle asking each artist if they had done it. Right before she got to me she was paged away. My buddy Dave still has that drawing and likes to pull it out when ever we go to his house just to watch me squirm.

For me doodling is very cathartic and I often find myself releasing frustrations through my sketches.

So yeah I guess you could say I’ve abused my creative powers for the sake of nefarious intent at various times in my career.

Well I got an email from another designer friend today who read my interview and asked if I had a copy of that caricature I could show him. I didn't but I was pretty sure my buddy Dave still had his copy so I emailed him and sure enough he even had it at work so he scanned in the caricature and the below photo and sent it to me.

You gotta love designer friends who hold onto a doodle you did 21 years ago just so they can pull it out now and get a good laugh. Thanks Dave!

The Back Story
I realize now that the title my art director held back then was just that a title and it certainly didn't reflect a skill set or ability. Our entire art department would get frustrated all the time over her inane methods. I was just young and stupid and acted upon one such occasion by doodling out my frustration in a not so diplomatic manner.

I remember in high school a class bully in Drivers Ed was harassing everyone so I just walked up to the chalk board and drew a goofy caricature of him and the whole class started laughing at the kid. He got embarrassed and sat down. After class he started pushing me around saying "Funny picture Glitschka! What are you gonna do now?" wanting to pick a fight with me, but a teacher broke it up. (Good thing because I was about to kick his....writers' embellishment LOL)


That's me in an art department meeting circa 1988.

Our whole art department at that company was a lot of fun to work with. So many unique characters, funny stories we still talk about to this day. The company however "Sun Sportswear" is no longer around but I still keep in contact with about nine of the artists I use to work with there.

I'd like to think I handle things a little better now but I'll admit sometimes things bug me and I still manage to find new ways of venting that frustration creatively speaking. I do what I call "Logo Mocks" from time to time and post them on Brand New. Here is an example of one I did when the new yellowbook logo was revealed.

Live and learn.