New Stamp Drawings

I have a long time friend and great designer, Rick Anwyl, and it was such a pleasure to work with him on this project. He has been familiar with my stamp drawings since I started doing them and always wanted to find a way to use them. This certainly seemed a perfect match of intelligent application and clever design. These little drawings' ultimate use was for a recruitment brochure for an old Boston financial advisor, Cabot and Moore. Each spot was to represent an atribute and spark a memorable piece that would set them apart from the norm. A big step for such an old prestigious firm. A step that takes a lot of trust with clients and design firm. We started off doing samples of styles and settled on two diferent directions, One, the stamp drawing, and the second a playful use of the 40's New Yorker style I had been playing around with. But from the very beginning I think Rick wanted to use the stamps. Noone else has figured out how to make them work in a campaign or brochure or any application since Piauí picked up one of my sketchbook drawings and used it a year or so ago. It was a smart direction but we ran into snags trying to work out how to get the client on board. I did a few tests of stamp drawings and one of the little spots of the 1940's New Yorker style...Seemed like they were not quite getting there conceptually, so we went back to the conceptual stage and did some little thumbnails and picked a direction... did a few more little tests to show the client. Rick put together a dummy of the booklet and ran both styles past them. I did bunches of thumbnails... As you can imagine, I sorted the ones that were working out and sent them to Rick for his comments. He and whoever else was sitting in made their choices and I did a little thumbail version of the stamp drawings so I could try to keep from doing multiple versions of each concept and try also to keep some freshness to the final drawings. Ricky gave me carte blanche with these, to do anything I thought I wanted to try but ultimately I tried to keep itsimple and not do anything that would interfere with the play of the stoic little stamps and the clever little line drawings and how they work together. I almost redrew these little drawings... They were a little too tight for me but it was questionable if the looser drawings would be better or not. They seemed to work pretty nice the way they were.

Cliches Always Work

Another fun little project with SooJin, I got a layout and a short note..."let me know if you can fit this in" ..."Year in Preview—Risk Parity (story unavailable) Image: Balanced approach to investing. Hedging risk. Compensating Risk." Clichés always work with these things, and with just a litle twist the thumbnails are flying.I hammered these out in short time but it was so much fun I just couldn't stop at three or four. So twenty five works. Sent them off for SooJin to review...Got another short note that said, "12 please." so blew up the sketch and sent it off and we're off and running.Pretty tight on the deadline so no time to waste. Well maybe a nice walk while I wait for her to respond. I tried a lot of ideas , did some with the little guy balancing or juggling something dangerous. mainly because of the headline " Balanced approach to investing...hedging risk..." Still like the little guy balancing the knife on his nose. Reminds me of a game we used to play as kids. "Mumbly Peg" Sharp things always atracted me, but Lee says this scares her a bit so better to keep them in the sketchbooks and drawings. I like # 2 ,# 4,and number 23 too ,but these will have to sit it out for now. Number 12 is the winner. I wanted the water to be dark and murky and the little guy a bit unsettled, so I made the composition tilted to the right almost like the sea was in a storm. I did the little guy and mines in airbrush, everything else digital.I finally got around to looking up mines on google to see what they looked like( wish I had done that sooner) and noticed that in one photo they had chains anchoring them.Of course they were anchored just had not thought of that. so I scanned in a watch chain and distorted it and attached it to the mines from the bottom. I used the tops of the mines and flopped them for the part underwater. darkened, blurred , and they almost look like they fit... Clichés always work.

Bebo Part Deux. And Trois

The other day I was sketching in my sketchbook and I started drawing these little senarios for my little friend Bebo. In the same sexploitation and bad French (and now Norweigan) translations. This is a shameless jaunt through the rock and drug world, complete with a pair of Icelandic traveling companions Hotla and Helga, this story probably needs a rewrite but it was a lot of fun exploring. I am thinking it could still use a few more "fish" Clichés...all in all it was a blast to work on and I was pretty happy with the drawings ...writing well ,appologies in advance...Graphically I thought they turned out interesting enough to share....they were certainly a blast to play with. Couldn't resist throwing a few lines from one of my favorite parodies. If you Havn't seen "Fear of a Black Hat", put it on your Que. One of the funniest music parodies since "Spinal Tap." And yes just can't stop there is now a Bebo Trois...A rather stange trip back to the drug haze of Psychedelic Lutefisk, and a randy romp with Icelandic twins Helga and Hotla...Where the knulle this was going I have no idea but it was certainly a blast. I was trying to see if i could expand the pallet a bit. have the whole mess just pore out on the page and then suck it all back. I think it could definately use a little editing and maybe a rewrite. but graphically I was pretty happy with where this one went. Stay tuned for more developing stories..What's up next ? I don't know., I never have any idea where these little silly things are headed, just sort of hang on for the ride...

The Holidays Exposed

Here's a great little Xmas promo for a local agency here in Alanta. Patrick Scullin; at "Ames, Scullin, and O'Haire" wrote this funny little copy to define the most Horrendous Holiday Ever in "The Holidays Exposed!" All of the drawings would be presented in the form of an old retro "ViewMaster." The art director Jeff Stewart wanted something dark and a little sick...I told them that was not really a problem. I got the specs from Jeff via Cary Songy (Director of Clouds and Machines) and went to work on some fairly demented little thumbnails. Dark? yes, a bit dark... but funny... here's the link http://www.image3d.com/ So the way these little puppies work is you get about seven frames to tell your story and wrap it up neatly. you can use the 3-d to let the type float or in some cases the blood spatter... Patrick's idea was to have six little jokes in one, tie it all in to the agency's "Putting You and Yours together" and have something memorable people would hang onto. The round design would be for the center of the reel and the outside of the box... We decided to add a little of a bad flim look to the images in the end I think it will add to the overall 3d effect. Anyway funny little Christmas card....can't wait to see it all together. Next up Jack Frost as a Zombie..." Nipping on someones nose..." I know the walking dead zombie thing has gotten way out of hand. Sorry,