Dentists? Hmmmm … let’s see. Pain, time holes, insurance worries, guilt? Dentists get a bad rap when all they are trying to do is help us avoid the car crash that is bound to happen when we don’t see them on a regular basis. It is a monument to the limitations of preventative medicine. Most dental ads try to dodge this bullet but showing happy, beautiful, pain-free people with nothing on their minds but happy thoughts. I decided to do a test in the local newspaper with a series of ads that don’t sugar coat (HA!) the issue. They ran in rotation for about two months and performed remarkably well. Simple direct graphics with a bit of edginess that don’t insult the reader. What’s even better is that they stand out from the rest of the Zoloft inspired dental ads running in the same paper. Gary is a good friend of mine (and my dentist). It is nice to have somebody who trusts my ideas and is not afraid to test outside of the box.

Just in case you were wondering. The best performing ad? The toothache guy. The least performing ad? The pretty girl with perfect teeth. Of course it could be the offer. I have never been excited by teeth whitening. It could be because it is an inexpensive loss leader. But since every dentist does it, it reads like white noise to me.

This is a model sheet for a new character I am working on. The Character is the mother of the protagonist; a little boy named Joshua. Whenever Joshua is faced with a problem, he goes to his mother who helps him “think it out” to find a solution. Joshua’s mom is a superhero of sorts (as all mothers are). She carries a purse which has EVERYTHING in it, and a utility belt that would make batman jealous. She always carries a Leatherman-type pocket tool and can usually be found in the Kitchen or Garage building or baking something wonderful.

I am unsure about the anime hair. It sort of works but it also feels too “trendy.”

It’s funny. Every once in a while, while I am rummaging through Amazon, I will run across a book cover that I have designed. I have done lots of these covers for a variety of clients. I have worked with big publishers and small independents. I have held the hands of self publishers, and have dealt with large bureaucracies of editors, project managers, art directors, and authors. I have worked in trade paperbacks and educational textbooks. I don’t do as many of these that I used to, (book covers I mean) but each time I run across something like this it makes me long to get back into it. This particular sample is not one of my best, but still, it was fun and a wonderful example of why I liked doing them. It has a feeling of a logo, but with a more intimate directed focus. The ultimate expression of integrated typographic design and illustrative visual.