BY: Red Nose Studio | April 20, 2012
I was delighted to get the opportunity to work with the always cheerful and positive Art Director April Montgomery at Computerworld. This piece dealt with technological issues that travel eons beyond my technological limitation, so it was a good challenge to find a way to illustrate Holistic Virtualization. Keywords from the creative brief included meditation, manipulating virtual technology, all-inclusive, organizing and streamlining.
here are the roughs:
and being that the cover was going to run again on the interior, we thought it would be nice have the spectrum flow across the gutter and above the text.
these were April’s initial rough layouts with the sketches
here is a progress shot of the figure
and my attempts at inking the spectrum lines…
there is something very meditative about the simplicity of pigment, water, bristles and paper.
the sound of the brush drawing over the paper, wonderful.
once the final shot was taken on set, the ink work was scanned in and then layered over the photo.
the backdrops were the backsides of an old roll of bathroom wallpaper, it had a beautiful, soft, off-white color.
and here is where April worked her magic and made everything ‘flow’.
BY: Red Nose Studio | March 6, 2012
I have been asked to create the website mastheads for Deliver Magazine for 2012. All in all, there will be four total.
This is the process for the current masthead. the goal of the project is to create a header image that embodies what Deliver can facilitate in the relationship between marketers and consumers. In this case, Deliver is the machine that utilizes many aspects of communication to help you best reach your customers.
Here is the thumbnail and refined sketch for the piece.
These are the junk boxes that I begin to source my materials from.
roughing out heads and sorting gears over a ‘actual size’ print out of sketch
machine starts to take shape. including everything from typewriter parts to dishwasher parts
the receiving end of the machine
assembling the heart of the machine with the deliver masthead
washing in the type
refining the heads and sourcing fabric
adding color to the type, late friday…. feeling good.
the weekend leads to waking up in night with cold sweat about how the masthead is too disjointed from the machine and doubting all my decisions up to this point…
this is my monday morning rush to redesign the masthead section of the machine to give it more of a unified look and create a better ‘heart’ to the machine.
here is how the final illustration works in the website setting. Follow this link to see it live Deliver Magazine .
I am looking forward to continuing on this series.
BY: Red Nose Studio | January 9, 2012
anyone who has dared to ascend the 13 creaky steps into the studio knows how unorganized and dusty this place is. i am not saying that its a bad thing, its just i am not the neatest illustrator out there. When i received a call from the organized and meticulous Creative Director SooJin Buzelli of Asset International to create an illustration for an upcoming survey on how Plan Advisers run their practices, i was a little stumped at first on how to best visually solve this one.
here are the four sketches i submitted, based on the theme of sorting complicated data:
we decided that the librarian on stilts was the best choice.
(honesty, looking back, i am not sure why i thought the basketball players would have worked very well…)
with this piece it came down to the light. getting that light to stream in at the right density and angle almost drove me nuts, but it finally worked out. it is the little things like that, that keep me fired up about what i get to do everyday.
and how it appears in the layout:
BY: Red Nose Studio | December 7, 2011
The largest east coast showing of my work is currently on display at the –gallery of The Art Institute of Boston through Dec. 18th.
the last time i visited Boston was for the 2008 HOW design conference, and i have to admit that i am growing quite fond of Boston.
i was asked to give a talk about my creative process and my career path on the opening night of the show, and this lovely group of folks were kind enough to sit through 60 minutes of my talking and 220+ slides.
a HUGE thanks to AIB for being such a welcoming institution. I immediately felt right at home.
i apparently am inept at using a camera outside of the studio, but fortunately the school has a nice set of photos of the show and my visit on their illustration and animation blog.
here are a few pages from my sketchbook during my brief trip to Boston.
BY: Red Nose Studio | November 7, 2011
Not long after Bob Hunt of the Hancock County Arts and Cultural Council asked me to consider creating an image for a downtown mural on our humble Main Street, I recalled the historical recollections and photos of the Interurban Rail that used to run right by that location. Starting up in 1899 the Interurban Rail Line ran right down the center of Main Street and was the ‘rapid transit’ compared to the common horse and buggy of the day. With the wide horizontal format of the space, it seemed like a perfect fit to be able to see an almost full scale interurban car on Main Street 70 years after the last one ran in Indiana.
My goal was to have the mural honor the innovative past of Indiana and Greenfield, encouraging the community to ‘tip their hat’ to the past but also look forward to the future and the possibilities of where Greenfield can go.
There will be a public dedication at 2 West Main St on Saturday November 12, at 10am where the model used in the mural image will also be on display.
Special thanks to Nathan Bilger for his knowledge and guidance in gathering historical and pictorial reference for this mural.
here are some behind the scenes images of the project:
proposal:
references:
the build:
chipboard, wood, old bearings, old screen door hinges:
more wood, old springs, wire:
first coat of paint:
final coat of paint, patina, grime, chrome railings, bits of found objects for details
on set:
the final:
on location: 36′ wide!
