Surreal Email

Over the years I've had all kinds of illustrative requests. Tonight I was up late working on a deadline due tomorrow morning, and the following email showed up in my inbox:


Strange but true illustration request.

At first I thought it was spam, followed closely by my suspicion that a friend was joking around with me, and ending with the thought of "How can anyone think this is a good idea or an appropriate solution?"

Needless to say I wasn't interested in doing these illustrations (Despite the very tempting $150 budget) and turned it down with a reply email that read:

Sarah,

This project wouldn't stimulate my interest.

Thanks.

Von

Call me a creative prude I guess.

iSurrender

A downcast Kindle ponders his future.

The dawn of the iPad is quickly approaching and it made me wonder in an anthropomorphic way how the Kindle would respond? This is my answer to that question.

Since the Kindle is a native of the PNW where the phrase "Skid Row" originated from, I thought it was an appropriate metaphor.

Download Larger Image Here.

Cheese Weasel Day

"Cheese Weasel Day" Logo.

My friend Chris Forbes is the driving force (evangelist) behind a real holiday that started on the internet sometime in the last 15 years called "Cheese Weasel Day." (CWD)

Like other honored holidays like Festivus CWD is most often celebrated within the tech industry. (Visit the site for the full story)

I first heard about it last year when Chris posted it on his Twitter feed. I thought the logo was a bit moldy, so I told him to contact me next year and I'd create a new logo for his curdled masses.


"Cheese Weasel Day" T-Shirt.

The official, authentic, and certified CWD t-shirt! Ferret out your bad fashion and gird your loins with the weasel. Even a lactose intolerant person can add this cheese to their wardrobe.

- View and Order Shirt Here.

Does rodent and cheese apparel design grate on you? No worries, just download a CWD print to hang up in your office. Or just point that IT specialist that scorns your Mac over to this post and let them embrace the wonder that is Cheese Weasel Day!

Download Cheese Weasel Day Print

No Way

Original concept drawn on a creative brief.

Creativity is kind of strange. I never know when an idea is going to spawn, I've just learned to act on it. Such was the case here.

I sat through a two hour meeting at a local design firm going over a new branding project and someone voiced an opinion about something and the term "No Way" popped into my head. So I just kind of doodled what came to mind and the above is the end result.


"No Way" design on yellow and black background.

Of course later that same night I couldn't help myself and decided to flesh out the idea. Still don't really understand what it means, but that doesn't stop me from liking it. I find that odd. I suppose it can mean what ever you'd like it to mean and there is "No Way" of convincing me otherwise! ;-P


"No Way" T-Shirt design.

There is also "No Way" I'm not going to put this design on a t-shirt either! (Stop rolling your eyes)

"No Way" T-Shirt Designs
- View / Order Black Shirt Here
- View / Order Yellow Shirt Here


"No Way" Sign mocked up.

One of the commenters below suggested that "No Way" would work for a sign too. I agree. If I ever built my own house on some property I'd get this sign made to be on the street leading to our house. Very cool. Thanks Brian.

Heart Worm™

Heart Worm™ Character Design.

Armin Vit is like the Mark Twain of the design industry. He's talented, creative, and witty. So when he asked me to be part of the re-branding of Valentine's Day for NPR Studio 360 I was happy to contribute to the effort.

(cue mission impossible theme music)

My specific task was to re-create a character to replace the standard "Cupid." This whole effort is tongue in cheek so immediately an idea formed in my mind and that was "Heart Worm™."


I Heart VDAY!

I decided to give a graphic nod to one of our industries most iconic designs with this usage of the Heart Worm™.


Twitter name application.

The Heart Worm™ can easily be adapted to work in any social media environment.


Heart Worm™ LOVE.

A classic and timeless application of the Heart Worm™ demonstrating it's versatility.

So on Valentine’s Day let your heart be infested with the Heart Worm™. Its burrowing presence will give you passionate heart burn for the apple of your eye. Eat your heart out Cupid! Plus, it can flex into a number of helpful shapes as you can see above.

Read more about this whole project at Brand New.

Download Heart Worm™
Download the Heart Worm™ Brand Sheet

Heart Worm™ T-Shirt
- Infest Your Chest with our Unique Heart Worm™ Tee.

http://www.zazzle.com/heart_worm_tshirt-235510814215009727

Drawing with Uncle Pat

My Uncle Pat scored some drawing supplies for Christmas.

A few posts back I introduced you to my Uncle Pat. He shared a drawing he had done and many of you asked Pat to draw some more pictures over Christmas.

He seemed to really enjoy drawing so our family got him some art supplies for Christmas. The last few days I sat with Pat as he drew pictures and have posted them below along with a couple videos. I hope you enjoy.

Uncle Pat Talks about his artwork.




A scary Bear, a Spear, and a Crow.

When Pat draws he gets really into it. His face is just inches away from the paper and he doesn't come up until he's done. I loved how he did the feathers in the crow art.


Pats friend the Cat.

The only thing we suggested Pat draw was the Moose and me shown below. Everything else he just decided to do himself. I find it interesting that all of them with exception of the Snowman were an animal. He likes animals apparently?


A Chick.

I thought he did a great job on this baby Chicken. The color and detail came out awesome!


An Alien Moose.

Pats art reminds me of something Stefan Bucher might have animated.


The playful Snowman.

In the midst of drawing all his animals, Pat quickly drew out this snowman too.


The green Grouper.

I liked the simplicity of this art and the shape of it's mouth.

Uncle Pat Draws Me.




Pats drawing of me.

My youngest sister Amy told Pat to draw me and this was the end result.

I just wanted to thank everyone for commenting on the previous post I did about my uncle Pat. We were able to show Pat the blog post and read through all the comments for him and he enjoyed it a lot. We had fun drawing together and I thank God for him, he has a very gentle spirit and I think his art rocks!

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.

My Uncle Pat

My uncle Pat holding his dog drawing.

My uncle Pat is a gentle soul. He's always smiling and will laugh in a heart beat if you say something funny. I love him dearly.

Pat is the younger brother of my mom and he was born mentally handicapped. Pat is 58 years old now and even though his mental capacity is some where in the range of a 7-9 year old, he possesses more common sense than a lot of people I know.

So when I got to hang out with Pat this Thanks giving I handed him a sketch book and a pen and said "Pat, draw a dog." He smiled and started drawing.


Uncle Pats dog drawing.

I had no idea how this was going to turn out? As I watched him draw I found it curious that he seemed to be keeping the drawing symmetrical.

As he was drawing I heard him say softly "I'm not very good am I?" to which I responded "There is no wrong way to draw Pat. You're doing fine."

When he was done he handed the sketchbook back to me and I said "Is this a Martian dog Pat?" We all laughed. My wife said "It kind of looks like a cow." We all laughed again.


Separated at Birth: Ron Perlman and Uncle Pat

That same day I mentioned to Pat that he resembled the actor Ron Perlman. I googled a picture on my iPhone and showed him. I than asked him to pose the same way and told him I'd put it on my blog. He thought that was pretty cool and smiled.


The Cheshire Pat.

Pat's smile is infectious. And we always have fun joking around with him and laughing together. Pat also has a habit of saying "I'm Sorry." for absolutely no reason at all, which has also made us all laugh at times too as you'll see in the below video.

I'll be sharing this post with him at Christmas so take a few minutes and leave my uncle a comment, I know he'll get a kick when I share them with him. Thanks!

Meet Uncle Pat

H1N1

H1N1 design.

You can become a host to this infectious design and carry the graphic contagion wide and far transmitting this wonderful creative virus on a t-shirt.

Watchers

"Watcher" doodle via Paper Mate® Flair Pen.

I think Paper Mate® Flair Pens Rule! And, just in case the FTC (Nanny State) is reading this blog post and wants to say my endorsement breaches my right to freedom of speech they should know I wasn't given any FREE pens to say that.

I'd like to say I doodle every day religiously. Well, I'd like too but I have to be in the mood and last night I was. I didn't have any idea where it would lead I just started drawing an eyeball and the rest just kind of spawned itself over the next five minutes or so.


"Watcher" design. (Click Image to View Larger)

Like I've said before, I prefer doodling and drawing on note pads rather than a sketch book. But that said I do have a mole skin.

My doodles tend to contain all matter of nonsensical strangeness. I don't really think when I doodle I just open the flood gates and just see what spills out. I think it's more fun that way.


"Watcher" t-shirt design.

When ever I do doodles I always try to use them in some way. Many times I animate them, but being a fan of apparel graphics I enjoy offering them up as t-shirts.

I think this art makes for a cool t-shirt so I put a design together utilizing a halftone effect.

You can view and order this shirt from my Zazzle store.

Design Time

Ever since I was a little kid and would think about the topic of time, I would make a visual connection between it and the days of the week in my mind.

I've always been a visual thinker and no one told me not to do this, it was just how my imagination made sense of the topic that far greater minds have wrestled with through out history.

When most people think of a timeline be it historical or otherwise it tends to be a horizontal linear line moving from left to right. They view if almost from a third person perspective, an observer if you will.

When I view the subject of time in my mind I see it more from a first person perspective with me in the current/now looking ahead to the next minute, hour, day, month, year etc.


How I see a week in my mind.

Even though I've pictured this concept in my head my whole life I've never bothered to share it with anyone, it just never came up and when I have thought about it I've never spent more then a few seconds analyzing it.

One day about five years ago while driving with my wife I was telling her about a cool program I watched on the string theory. During that conversation I thought about my view of time and shared it the best I could.

My wife furrowed her brow and said "Your mind is weird."

I tried doodling out what I meant but it didn't help and we started talking about something else and I once again let the topic slip back into the recesses of my subconscious.

A week in my mind starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. I think that is pretty normal. But for some reason I've always pictured Sunday being off to the left of Saturday. In other words you take a left at Saturday and arrive at Sunday. Why you ask? I have no idea. It just feels that way to me.

So in my head time marches onward forever stair stepping to the left.

( I tried to show my diagram in more of a perspective but I kept having errors with Illustrator.)

This same stair stepping format applies not just to the days in a week but also to the hours in a given day. Instead of a circular aspect for time I've always thought of it within the same visual framework as I do days in a week.

Midnight is like Saturday and so on. At this point in my post you're probably saying the same thing my wife said to me? You have to admit it's at least interesting even if you think it's a bit psycho. But if you think this is weird you should read up on the latest in Quantum Mechanics.


How I see a year in my mind.

This same structure of thinking also shapes my view of an entire year. But I'll admit this has more to do with a feeling then anything else. July and August feel like a Saturday, September feels like a Sunday and so on. And once everything is moving to the left.


The Stair Stepping of Time.

So why would I devote a blog post to this? Well, because it came up again today. I was driving somewhere with my daughter and she asked "Where are we going?" to which I replied "We'll take a left at Saturday."

When I got home today I decided to document what has been floating around in my head since childhood. The diagrams in this post represent how I see time in my own minds eye.


A new day: Someday

Have you ever wondered where the days of the week got their name? It's an interesting bit of history. I've often fantasized about creating a new day to add to the calendar.

It would fit in between Sunday and Monday and I'd call it Someday. Basically forever creating a three day weekend and serving the purpose of playing catch up on all those things you never have time to do or finish. You know what I mean. How many times have you heard someone say:

"I'll get to that someday."

Well now they could, literally.


Creating a bigger step.

I know someone will read this post, neglect to discern the sarcasm and humor and feel obligated to post a comment that this idea wouldn't work because of the lunar calendar or it would conflict with the time continuum. Regardless I welcome your feedback.

There are other aspects to this that I could expand upon and perhaps I'll get to that Someday? We'll see. ;-P

A Graphic Skeleton from my Design Closet

Hitler and cheap font CD.

A good friend and talented designer Tim Frame emailed me the link to the above video earlier today. I drank my latte and chuckled as the video played and then nearly did a spit take as the following came on screen...


Guilty as charged.

There in front of me was my own typeface "Whutevur" which I had designed back in 1998 starring at me, mocking me, and being mentioned along side infamous design eye sores like "Comic Sans." I legitimately LOL when I saw it and emailed Tim back.

I should point out that my font was never included on a "Cheap Font CD" but I can't say I disagree with the videos assessment either. I tend to always cringe looking at work I produced in the past and seeing this font again gave me that same sense of artistic foreboding.


Whutevur font designed in 1998.

For those who've asked me if I've ever posted bad work, here you go. Behold the glory of my custom font "Whutevur" designed to be marketed with an art collection of the same name.

I liked it at the time but I look at it now and think "What was I thinking?"

Whutevur Art Collection created in 1998.

I think the art collection holds up well though. I still can't believe step by step graphics who published it wrote off on the concept. I basically sketched these out while working at Upper Deck during the day and built them at night until I had the whole set of 130+ done. It was like getting paid to do glorified doodles.

My favorite quote regarding this project was shared with me by a creative director at step by step. As the story goes a marketing person who apparently had never seen this art before it launched saw the final product sitting on her desk and exclaimed:

"Who would buy this?"

To which I replied "Whutevur." ;-P

So there you go, a graphic skeleton from my design closet.

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.

Billy Mays Magical Beard. (Take 2)

Impeccable + Grooming = Iconic

I've been fascinated with all things Billy Mays since I first saw him in person years ago pitching Quick N Brite at a state fair prior to his prime time pitchman glory. Nothing has changed really, he's still using the same modus operandi.

With the hit of the new reality TV show "Pitchmen" I've decided to repost the Billy Mays Magical Beard PDF I created back in January before I knew about the new TV show.

Accept no substitutes, this is the original, and authentic one of a kind "Magical Beard" from the worlds greatest pitchman. It's not the products, it's not his loud voice overs, it's not his thumbs up, it's the one and only mystical power of his immaculate facial hair that captivates viewers and closes the sale.

I'm honored that this design was included in The Best Custom Type List of 2009. (So far that is) Billy may no longer be among the living now but his infamous facial hair will live on via the wonder of the internet.

But wait there is more! You too can embrace the iconic whiskers of infomercial fame yourself! Download this hairy relic and hang it in your work area to inspire your own path to success.

PDF Art Download
Billy Mays Magical Beard PDF

Beautiful Corruption

Scrambled Clown.

I rarely have any computer problems, mainly because I use a rock solid MAC work station and it's proven to be an iron horse year in and year out.


Digitized Doodle.

Every so often though I deceive myself into thinking I know something I don't regarding my computer. It usually happens late at night or on the weekends.


Imprisoned pixels.

A few weeks back I decided to use the "Sync" feature in my Transmit app. I'd never tried it before but decided to play around with it. I set up a folder on my FTP server with like two images on this thinking for some moronic reason that it would sync everything in a folder on my desktop with the folder on my FTP server. This would prove to be a big mistake on my part.


Illo with a bit problem.

You see the app did exactly what it was suppose to do. It synced the folder on my FTP with my desktop and since I only had two images in my FTP folder I saw folders on my desktop just start to vanish one by one. I immediately got that stomach dropping sensation and before I forced quit the app about 30 folders had literally just disappeared as if erased.


Pixelated Tattoo.

To compound the problem unknown to me my current backup system had broken four days prior. All my current projects had literally gone bye bye and I began to panic.


Binary pattern problem.

Thank God for IT friends like my buddy Tony Knight who came over that night and ran a recovery application that took about four hours to recover what I had managed to do in a matter of seconds. About 98% of all my files were recovered in the end.


001011010011 gone wild.

I then spent about a week re-organizing all my work files and re-compiling project folders because the recovery app just renames all files with a number and recovers them into format type folders like "tif" or "jpg" or "pdf" or "psd" so nothing had the correct name and I had wade through thousands of files one by one and sort them all out. (Well most of them at least) It was a major pain in the @$$!

I now have safe guards in place to prevent this from happening again. I have installed a drobo so my files are more secure and I have time machine running for my backup. I won't be playing with unfamiliar functions anytime soon.


Truncated Wormwood.

As I went through all my jpeg images I noticed a handful didn't survive the recovery very well. They were corrupted. If I tried to open them in Photoshop it would give me an error message stating the files were corrupted. In other words the base binary code that makes up the image was scrambled. I could view the images using "Quick View" though and proceeded to capture the scrambled beauty corruption produced.

The may be screwed up but the end result visually is still pretty cool looking.


Beautiful Corruption.

I've take the scrambled beautifully broken code and compiled it into a larger image you can use. Didn't intend on any of this to happen but it all worked out OK in the end and produced a pretty cool effect to boot.

I guess you can say this is a creative side-effect of my recent computer problems?

Download "Beautiful Corruption Here."