I have decided to redo color experiments with my venus boy trap story. I am moving the pallet to a more tertiary (behind the story and the drawing) role. The reason for this move stems from the power that the established line style of the drawing invokes. Any over color fights with this style and the resulting mix is forced and contrived. After some research I have decided that a color style somewhat between Maurice Sendak and Mercer Mayer should work. I will post new versions of this test soon. Really … I will get to it.

On the backside, I have geared down my advertising studio work in anticipation of the start of a new semester of school. I am working on a few menu boards for Green Gorilla, a new logo for another company, and some rack cards for a client. I hope to gear up again in a couple of weeks, once the semester starts to settle into place.

I’ve been asked to do a series of political cartoons featuring Obama and healthcare. The mercenary part of me really wants to do it. But there is an underlying reluctance to get involved in such a tired and polarizing topic. One of the cartoons depicts a Iraq veteran waiting 8 months for a properly fitting prosthetic. He has filled out a mountain of paperwork only to receive a reply from the VA that a picture of the effected “missing limb” (an obvious typo) must accompany the forms along with an affidavit from his unit commander that the injury actually occurred in combat. (Based on a true story) The veteran is using toilet paper and homemade velcro straps to hold the prosthetic in place. The cartoon should highlight “the impersonal bureaucracy of government controlled healthcare like the VA.”

Like I said; I may be too close to this issue to create an adequate cartoon.

Green Gorilla is a carwash located in Logan, Utah. The previous designer used cartoon clip art for a gorilla which the client hated. They asked me to create something that was more corporate, (at least not so cartoony) fun, but professional. “It should have the feeling of strength with a green environmentally friendly feel.” (Which gives you an idea how where the other logo did not end up.)

I started, as I always do, with thumbnails in Sketchbook pro. After finding something I liked, I looked up scrap from google and used it as a base for a quick high-contrast conversion. There is no button for this, I do it by sight. There are some who say you can do the same thing by using Threshold in Photoshop, but I like to add things that are not always there or conversely delete things which are there, but get in the way. The best conversions are those done with the mind as a filter not an algorithm. IMHO.

After I have the conversion done, I then jump into Photoshop and start distorting things. Again I could do this by hand, but I like the liquify filter for quickly pushing and pulling lines I have already drawn. It is also convenient to have an undo. After the filter is done creating a mess, I go back over it and redraw the art using the distortion as a base. I will again add or delete elements based on what I feel worked and what didn’t.

When the graphic is pretty much done I copy it over to Adobe Illustrator and do a hand-tracing. Again, there are some who think that Autotrace is the answer to all vector problems. While there is a time and a place for this tool, I often find I can do a cleaner trace, with less points, and a more natural flow, doing it by hand. (Quicker too; when you consider all the time that is saved by not having to clean up the Autotrace mess.)

From here I will start playing with “real” fonts, colors, and design elements. I can spend a lot of time down this hole; Time that is generally well spent. I try and control myself while at the same time giving myself permission to explore as many variables as possible. It is a balance sometimes between making money on a job and finding the best solution. In the process I try to find relationships between the graphic, the shape, the fonts etc. When I have something that begins to work I will clone it and pull it of to the side. This gives me a working file with a series of historical changes. This can be essential if I want to revisit a particular grouping or undo a customized font outline.

Along the way in all of this is the client’s input and direction. I think that their input is essential for a natural collaborative end product that we both share. With the final logo design nailed down, I will then start working on solutions for CMYK, 2 color, 1 color, Greyscale, and Black. I will also find a solution for reverse (if appropriate) or dark backgrounds. In the end I provide solutions in native .ai files as well as jpg, tif, .eps and png.

Between my bouncing around in advertising, web design, and illustration, my summer activities have included a new commitment to finish my children’s book. It is nothing of great importance, but if opposition is a measure of anything worth doing, then it must be of some value. Along with this undertaking, I am putting finishing touches on a English/Spanish flip book that may have some merit. When these are done I will offer them as e-books as well as your typical case-bound hard copy versions.

There is a great amount of discussion lately on the validity of this new wave of “freeconomics” that seems to power the web. Within this idea, the creation of products (like books) are no longer the end focus. Rather; creating a channel where people can connect and take part in the evolving stream of conciseness, seems to be the order of the day. Within this collective hand wringing, products can be purchased, of course, but the driving distribution paradigm is in the building of this hive mind.

It is a dichotomy of sorts. Much like building a boat in the middle of a desert or building the same boat in the middle of an ocean; too early or too late can kill you.

Some have espoused social networking as a safe middle ground for the exercise. It is a natural base to gather a collective of “followers” if only passive in nature, and use it as a jumping off point for when you are ready to leverage the power of your channel (or network).

Along with this network, is the idea of “giving away” your product. For example, giving away an e-book that can be read on a iPhone, tablet, or computer. People watching such things say that free e-books drive sales to hard copy books of a more traditional nature and profit margin. I have reservations as how long this will last as technology becomes more and more portable over time. It feels like a transition solution. Still, the idea has merits.

It is all very interesting from many points of view. The new breed of publishers, marketers, advertising aficionados, and content producers are looking at this and saying: Hmmmmmm. Myself included.

School is out. This last couple of weeks has been intense, but I made it though. I honestly thought of not returning next year to teach. The time commitment is immense. I like the teaching, however, and it forces me to get out of the house and into the community and stops me from becoming a basement troll. (My studio is in the basement of my house; a side benefit of having a lot of clients that reside outside my state.)

This week I am doing some catching up on misc work and little projects that have been slipping into the cracks. There is a lot to do, but If I set up this week correctly, the rest of the week (summer) will be smooth and efficient.

In this vein, I am posting a brief project rundown of the Budget Storage phonebook ad. This includes where we started, where we ended up and what where my thoughts along the way. I won’t be doing this with all my projects, but I thought it would be good for a select few to be used as reference for my class.

Clicking on the thumbnail will bring you to the graphic. In Firefox and Safari you will get a magnifying glass icon to zoom in and out.

As always, feel free to comment as you see necessary.

I am currently creating a small illustration of a woman holding back a tide of crap from falling out her closet door. The client is a wonderful woman who owns a series of storage facilities (amongst other things). I sought to tone down the overt femininity of this character (read: not draw a bikini model) in an effort to be politically correct. This was my first mistake. I clothed her in baggy clothes, I de-emphasized certain parts of anatomy and I added a little age to the features. Nothing was drastic, but she did look a bit “manly.” When asked if I could make her more feminine in form I said “sure.” So I tucked the shirt in, broadened the hips, pumped up the chest, and dropped about 10 years from her age. I also fixed a number of other issues, but in the process, somewhere, somehow, I gave her bubble butt. I would really like to find a middle ground here.

A long time ago I received a demo copy of Comic Life from Plasq software. It was one of those rare chunks of engineering where you could tell they had a lot of fun developing it, and it actually did something very unique, using a unique tool set, in a very simple but special way. As a long time creator of comics, I fell in love with it immediately. I could now create in Photoshop or Sketchbook Pro and drop it into Comic life to finish up the bothersome chore of paneling and lettering.

Recently, I discovered a new version of Comic Life called Comic Life Magiq. With the success of Comic Life under their belts, the developing team; drunk with code driven excess, jumped off the cliff of infallibility into user-interface hell.

The upgrade (a cross-grade — because they still offer the original version of Comic Life) is not without some great improvements. More balloon and frame control (curving tails) and support for Photoshop layers makes it interesting and worthwhile. But the user interface is confusing, self indulgent, and often leaves you with that ever so wonderful “WTF?” look on your face.

The bottom line; There are parts of me that really like what they have done with the software and there are parts of the software that I really HATE. Comic life is built around the idea that you can use iPhoto as an image source for a comic-book-style layout using your own creative dialog and questionable wit. CLM takes this one step further and gives you special effects and retouching controls for your photos. These however are built into an artist’s pallet screen dialog that sacrifices clarity for gee-whiz smoke and mirrors. Instead of clearly labeled controls, I have icons that again leave me guessing at what I am doing and where I am.

Since I draw my own content, and I own Photoshop, I find the new interface to be underwhelming.

For fun I used a half-finished editorial cartoon from last year as the basis of my test. I have been thinking of reviving this part of my creative expression for a while. Maybe even starting a depository for it using ComicPress under a subdomain.

I will be using CLM for the next week or so to create some comics. Maybe my viewpoint will change. Maybe the interface will grown on me. Maybe I will see the everlasting light of truth buried under a pink button. It could happen.

We will see.

Phone book ads remind me of protection rackets. “Youz are gonna pay us $650 a month, for your full page display adz. And we promise to cash your check and forget who you are for the next year. And ifs youz nice, and don’t scream too much, weez will actually attempt to get your phone number correct — no extra charge.”

I am creating a new phone book ad for a client to replace last years (freebie) ad that they (the phone book people) screwed up. Freebie is a loose term really. They design it for “free,” although at $8,000 a year it’s hard to call anything free. And the quality of the design is three steps above Bongo the chimpanzee and his amazing finger paints.

To compensate for the screw up, they are giving my client a “free” color upgrade this year. Yes, my client had to live with the awful ad all of last year. (Phone books don’t do reprints.) And yes, my client lost business because of it. But the best the phone book people could do was a color upgrade?

(In my best Tony Soprano voice.) “It’s just bitness, nuttin personal … you understand?”

Speaking of which … when was the last time you used a phone book? It might just be geeky me, but when I need to find a company, I Google it. When my client asked me to look at their ad, I had to quickly dig up the book, which was buried under winter coats and boots. It was placed in this place of respect by my son, who distributed them as a Boy Scout fund raising project last fall, and dropped it here when he walked through the front door. We must have kicked it around for three weeks before the accumulating strata hid its whereabouts from view. Otherwise, I would have had NO clue where to find it.

Which reminds me … I need to add my address and phone number to my big yellow blog header.

OK, this is a thinly veiled Blogo test. I am nowhere near the net. Exciting isn’t it? I thought that it was time that I blogged the Thunderbird project. The initial brief asked for a design for a 6 foot by 4 foot standee. (A store display). I started with a thumbnail that was actually headed towards an illustrative solution. However, after playing with the type a little, I thought I might be able to create a photo composite using the logo, the storefront shot, and a stock photo. In the end the client liked the photo composite; they changed the jacket from blue to red and then ordered a counter card, a flyer, a 12 foot x 3 foot banner, and a button. The banner called for a major redesign of the type element as well as some tweaking to the photos and backgrounds. All in all it was a fun job. I enjoy photo composites as much as I enjoy illustrations so this project was a win/win.

Before the holidays, I was commissioned to create a custom caricature of a husband who liked to step out on his wife — with a hot dog. This artery clogging temptress was apparently too much for him to resist and she caught him red handed. It has been a topic of conversation within this family for the year. So what do you give a person who has everything? How about a editorial cartoon of the event? This was a lot of fun to do, and the wife/mother-in-law tag team on the creation was a hoot. Since it was a gift, I waited until the holidays were over before posting.

The concept, thumbnails, and final rendering were created using SketchBook Pro (all digital). Now If I could convince him that turnabout is fair play?

It’s time to catch up with some old posts. We start with a class project run amok. One of my Students (Meagan!) took my challenge to heart and turned her high contrast portrait assignment into a pumkin carving. I always try to point out real world applications for all of my assignments. The real world application for high contrast art is almost endless. I use it all the time in logo creation as well as masks in Photoshop. However, farther down on the list is pumkin carving. Most great pumkin designs start as a high contrast conversion from a picture that is a lot more complex. Being able to look at this picture, decide what to drop, what to simplify and what to keep while still maintianing a recognizable image is quite the trick. Putting it onto a pumkin is even trickeir! Thanks Meagan for a job well done!