In a form on the Adobe site a question asked for my assessment of Adobe Products. This is what I wrote:

You are my love, my life, my sun, my moon, my stars, my reason for being. When I arise in the morning, I am lost in the sweet folded caress of your software. During the day, you provide the focus for my creative ecstasy ; and when I lay down at night, I dream in the pixel inspired excesses of your unrestrained digital abandon.

I am addicted to your creative mojo. My blood flows in the color of Adobe Red. I hunger for your updates, and revel in your playful inventiveness.

You complete me. Without you I am nothing. I am your willing submissive slave, and ardent champion.

I am, and will always be, yours; completely, until the end of time. I look forward to our growing old together, hand in hand; a single pure expression of that multifaceted sensibility called love.

****
Some how it seemed appropriate to post this answer here in my creative collective catch-all.

This is a mock up of a branded car wash franchise I created from (literally) a napkin sketch. I actually did the rendering last November, but becasue of NDA’s etc, I was not able to talk about it. (But now I am!) The rendering was created using Google Sketch-up. This gave me a completely fictitious 3D building from which I could rotate, and send different views, from different angles, to my client from which he could pick and choose. For the final rendering, I jumped into Photoshop and created custom surface textures. I am not really into 3D modeling, but Google Sketch-up makes it really easy to create quick three dimensional doodles. It helped that I had some experience in creating gaming textures. The client saved thousands of dollars by NOT having an architectural, structured rendering done from engineered plans. It was created expressly for a pitch in Tennessee; A speculative proposal backed by some very well-heeled VC partners. The franchise company loved it (Making my client VERY happy).

The project is a go. I am now bidding on creating the branded logo and collateral for the Car Wash. (The one on the flags was for the presentation only). Getting that gig would be cool beans!

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.

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.

This is the final for the Motivity logo. I ended up modifying the logotype by hand. That is always fun. A unique letterform for a unique client. So much to do, so little time. Yep. You guessed it. The end of the semester.

My rant of the day that appeared on Gizmodo speaking to idiots who are so locked into the what the iPad is “not” that they forget to see the tool that it “is.”

RANT:
I am a professional illustrator and designer. About 5 years ago my publishers required me to move 100% digital. I was hesitant, but saw the writing on the wall. I used (and still use) Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop and Painter to accomplish this task. I rarely touch paper /pencils / pens / or paint anymore. All of my thumbnails are done digital. All of my concepts are rendered digital. And my drawing and paintings are completely digital.

Sketchbook Pro has a built-in email feature that allows me to sketch hi-rez and and email low-rez concepts on the fly with one button. This past year I bought SBP for my iPhone. It works the same way. I use it a lot for “napkin doodles” as I sit in lunch meetings with clients, or sit in my car (parked!) sending off creative ideas in one direction as I travel in another.

As a long time Wacom user, it took a conceptual jump to produce anything of value on the device using my finger. But like making the jump from pen to stylus; jumping from stylus to finger is worth the small investment of time.

I can’t wait for this app and my iPad.I am not obtuse enough in my thinking to assume that it is meant to replace the tablet or even my desktop. It is a tool. I turn it on, the software and hardware disappear, and I work productively and transparently — just like Apple devices are meant to do.

If you are waiting for Microsoft to engineer something innovative that reflects the cultural meme of creative gestalt; You have other serious issues than not being able to draw with your finger.

Sometimes, logos come easy for me. I see them clearly in my mind’s eye and trace them from this vision I have inside my head. Sometimes I struggle. This generally comes from me trying to push a square solution into a round hole. Regardless, it is a frustrating exercise to almost be there, to be so close, and see that I am close, but recognize that something is missing. It is a loop that I visit again and again. The loop will spawn new ideas, and I will start tangent paths, that end up in the same place. Close, but no cigar.

This grouping of logos fall onto this tortured creative ground. I have been working them on-and-off for two weeks. They are making progress, but the final solution eludes me.

Yep, three posts within the same week. Life is getting back to normal. School is covered, Studio work is doing good, and I actually spent time with the family this weekend. OK. So, a client gives me a thumbnail of a character they want drawn for a product display. The client sells (amongst other things) custom barrettes for little girls. This client gives me a thumbnail for the design / illustration and gets me started.

Over the course of my career, I have seen hundreds of client provided illustration thumbnails. They range in quality from the vaguely intelligible hieroglyphic, to the amazingly adept.

This is an example of one of the latter. The thumbnail gives me great distinguishable lines, direction, size, product display, gender, and proportion.

When I receive thumbnails from clients, I will often provide thumbnails back to make sure we are talking about the same thing. In this instance, I drew a nice tight mockup in Sketchbook Pro, directly from their thumbnail.

I finished up the illustration, in Adobe illustrator using a custom pressure sensitive brush. To top it all off, I have been using it as a classroom sample for an assignment we are currently working on.

I can honestly say that from the view of the lifeboats I now know exactly what not to do when Icebergs unexpectedly enter the mix. In other words; I am going to handle next semester in a different more successful way. These past three months have been a nightmare of developing course curriculum, grading, juggling studio work, and family. Although all four were addressed and tasks completed, all four suffered. It was a mess that I am still pulling out of. I know that it can be done. That fact that I have finsihed the race at all is a testiment to the viability of the concept. But my process was nieve and not very organzized.

Luckily, I have survived the test and I have somewhat firm ideas to manage the second round.

As a side note: I am thinking about redoing the blogfolio again. I am split between the traffic that I get from making and keeping a blog updated and the self-promo aspect of new clients just wanting to see my work. Most of my new clients say that the blog is a great reflection of my laid-back style and practical “no hidden agenda” approach.

Then again. Some people just want to see work samples. This part is not really me. Not sure, not sure, not sure. Well … like I said, I am thinking about it.

After TV commercials, billboards, handbills, lawn signs, newspaper ads, and a website, I am now creating postcards for the final push towards election day. Here are the set of the final four. I have really enjoyed this years election. It has been a lot of fun and of course Mike is a great guy. I really ought to put together a self promo sheet documenting all the integrated campaign materials.