5 Faces: One Liners

I have a section of my website I call one-liners (you'll find it as a category in the "ed" section) where each illustration is made up of, you guessed it, one line. These were some illustrations I sketched in my sketchbook before I transposed them to my computer and redid them with cleaner lines.

Sometimes I like to trace the lines with my eyes just to make me dizzy = )

Holiday Card 2009

On November 17 I received an email from a client asking me to produce her family's holiday card to make it into the mail by December 10. Sounds like plenty of time until you consider what needed to be done:

• Conceive and design a tri-fold card (and in this case I was provided with wonderful photos by Steve Robb). Make revisions based on client's feedback.
  
• Hunt for paper samples at multiple stores to line the envelopes and scan and email them for client to choose.
  
• Order the envelopes.
• Order the chosen liner paper (this took 10 days to arrive. TEN DAYS and the day before I received them I was informed that my order would be short!).
  
• Find someone to address the envelopes (both regular and return addresses). Lauren Karp is a goddess.
  
• Go away for Thanksgiving. Wait for printer to reopen and send approved design.
  
• Get postage stamp options from which client may choose.
• Design the outside of the envelopes using colors from the card as well as colors from the liner and the postage stamp.
  
• Cut the liner paper. I did this by hand to make sure they were done right.
  
• Assemble the envelopes (attach the liners and stamps- thank goodness for self-sticking stamps!).
• Fold and stuff the cards (while keeping a critical eye out for any printing issue).
• Lick (bleh!). OK, not really- I used a sponge to seal the envelopes.
  
• Hand cancel at the P.O.
• Send client the following photo taken at the P.O. with my phone so she could see the completed package as I was canceling them.

In the end, the cards arrived on the 11th and after assembly the cards were in the mail by 12 p.m. on the 12th. Not bad!

I was so happy to work with this particular client on her card. She was clear about what she wanted/liked and was able to communicate the changes she wanted to see.

Thank you C.M.!

Happy Halloween!

(Click the image to see it LARGER)

I'm really looking forward to seeing all the Trick-or-Treaters running around Saturday night, especially because this will be the first Halloween in our new house! My son is going as an astronaut (he's so cute in that costume with the HUGE helmet) despite his obsession with superheroes (can it be fueled by my obsession with superheroes? Hmm...).

As an added bonus, I've included a sort of before and after to show how one of the characters looks with all the shading and lighting taken out. That's the most time-consuming part but also one of my favorites: A different area of my brain takes over so I get to listen to podcast after podcast of This American Life and it doesn't distract me.

Happy Halloween! Please make sure your trick-or-treaters stay safe, and please drive extra slow Saturday evening.

What I'm Working On: Damn Batcave

I've been working on this Batman illustration for a t-shirt design and finally came up with what I want on the iphone. It's late at night and he's trying to drunk dial (you don't have to have been drinking to drunk dial someone- just very, very tired) but his choice of headquarters is thwarting his hook-up attempt. 
 


It was fun to illustrate just a small amount of the character to let the viewer figure out who he is (hopefully without hitting anyone over the head with it).



Whattaya think?

 Anyone want Catwoman's digits?

my photo reference 

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HELVETICA

I saw the HELVETICA movie this week. Yes, it's a movie about a font, but it has a rich and interesting history and the movie is interspersed with a variety of designers (a few big names and then a few smaller ones) who either extoll the font's virtues or rip it to shreds.

It was nice to see how excited some designers were when they described HELVETICA while others were quite funny in their criticism (either of the font or those who use it).

I walked away uncertain whether or not I wanted to use the font ever again- and that's what this drawing is about.

Baby- that's my logo!

I was at a party with friends this past weekend when I spotted something familiar. A 7-week old named Jonah was sporting the logo that I had created for a summer camp! What a kick it was to see something I had designed, completely out of context and while in my civilian identity (when I wasn't working). Isn't he a cutie?

Here's the logo:The logo went through many, many incarnations before we finally settled on this look, these colors and the gazebo which is one of the first things you see when you drive into the camp. I'm very proud of how it turned out.

Harvard Square

My tribute to Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA where you will always find a musician performing, usually right near the Harvard Coop (pronounced Coop, not Co-op) which is the building I depicted.

Nationally known performers who got their start in Harvard Square include Tracy Chapman and Joan Baez.

When you're not watching the street musicians, there are SO many great restaurants and stores to check out (Favorite restaurants: Border Cafe, Fire and Ice, Grafton Street).

Keys

Perhaps because my wife and I are closing on our new house tomorrow I decided to finish up this illustration. What more need be said?

Vaulting ahead

Getting ahead despite being stuck in the same size box as your coworkers.

An editorial illustration I began some time ago (portfolio pieces sometimes have the luxury of time) and finally got around to finishing recently.

Cape Cod Map- download a free version

If you're heading to Cape Cod this summer, here's a simplified map I just finished illustrating and designing. I did a simpler version (1 color) for a wedding program and then decided to finish the map to a higher degree.

For a free higher resolution PDF of this map to actually use when you visit the Cape, click here to download it.

Following Instructions

This is an illustration of a group of people I created for Flash Kids/Barnes & Noble books. The instructions were much more complex than what I usually get (draw a tree with a squirrel running on a branch, for example) and it took a lot of rechecking to make sure I got everyone right. Here's the description from my client:

Assignment: illustration of a group photo of 3 older men, 1 with short hair, 1 with no hair and 1 with long hair, 1 with glasses, 1 with a hat; 2 older women with short hair; 1 middle-aged man with no hair and glasses; 2 middle-aged women: 1 with a hat and short hair and the other with long hair and glasses; 3 girls, 2 with long hair and 1 with short hair, 1 wearing glasses; 2 boys with short hair 1 with glasses and 1 with a hat; 4 large dogs, 1 spotted black and white, another just black, and 2 golden; 1 small white dog; and 1 small brown dog.

Are you dizzy yet?

Housing market

An editorial piece I completed a few days ago about the housing market and how every house that gets sold is another step out of the recession hole. This could either be a broker or a buyer proudly displaying the house that has just sold.

So everyone, go do your part and buy a house. Or a cup of coffee...

2 (Cool) Old Guys

I decided to put myself through an exercise today: Design a poster that makes these old guys cool.

My motivation was to keep things fresh while also updating my website (this will go in the 'design' section under 'posters'). Yeah, I used some popular conventions in the design (the style of the photo, edgy type) but I hope you will agree that I made the design my own with the concept.

First, I decided that these guys should be in a band, and what better name for a band than going with exactly what they are? It helps that they are dressed hip (certainly better than I was dressed when I shot the photo in Boston. I recall a pair of flip flops.). Then I gave them a venue and a couple of performance dates. (If you took a few minutes to Google the venue you would find out that it's an assisted living community where the median age is 80. Just having fun!)

I considered putting something about the type of music they play but decided against it- leaving this out suggests that if you were cool you would already know what they play.

Wolverine's secret identity...

In honor of the new Wolverine movie, I was sketching the other day in my book and started playing with the idea: What if Wolverine had a secret identity (old-school style)? So I pretended that he's a normal-looking guy (with glasses and all) with a 9 to 5 as a real estate broker or a lawyer and when he hears the scream of a mugging victim he transforms, Hulk-style, into the feral, hirsute Wolverine!

My favorite part: The familiar 'SNIKT!" that you hear when he pops his claws also occurs when his sideburns pop out.

Oh, and those forehead lines are inspired by Art Adams (for those of you who remember his kick-ass Wolverine from The Asgardian Wars).

Hope you enjoy this make-fun piece...

Art Shmooze

This is a logo I created recently for a non-profit artists advocacy group called the Graphic Artists Guild. I became president of the Boston chapter a few months back and have been working on building up membership and attendance to our events. One of our recurring events is an Art Shmooze: members and non-members get together to discuss current events in our industries, get help with hard/software issues, discuss social networking and drink some beer.

Really, I wanted to call the events "Shoot the Sh*t" but didn't think that some of our older members would appreciate that. Plus the imagery would have been visually quite unappealing.

The text is hand lettered and I created the icon to show exactly what the events are about: food goes in, words come out.

Portrait for Twitter and Facebook

Cindy Bernat is a successful real estate agent in NYC who decided she wanted to shake things up a little bit, which, during a down economy and terrible housing market, isn't such a bad idea. So she contacted me to illustrate her portrait for use on her Twitter and Facebook accounts (with a revamp to her email signature).

I worked from a photo she supplied me to create the portrait, then we discussed what the background might look like. My first pass (see below) was a background comprised of random New York buildings.
Cindy felt that the buildings were too non-specific and the feel was of an area of NY that she doesn't represent. She also wanted to be wearing a white shirt with a collar and a more straight-forward necklace. She provided me with some thoughts of what she wanted in her background and I began to work on it.

And then I pulled it all together, adding color but keeping the buildings a gray tone so they wouldn't compete with the portrait.
Finally, as you'll see in the final image at the top of this post, we added the 'SOLD' sign and pulled her collar out to overlap her jacket (she knows fashion much better than I do!). And the image is complete.

If you want to see her new image in action, Cindy can be found at www.twitter.com/cindybernat

Children's Musician CD

Vanessa is a wonderfully talented musician/singer/songwriter whose newest album, Carnival Day, has just debuted and has already won an iParenting Media Award. I was fortunate enough to work with Vanessa on the illustration and design of her CD, including the creation of a Vanessa character and plenty of other characters from her songs.

This was a very fun, multifaceted job and I'm thrilled with how it all turned out.

The bottom image shows a few fully illustrated pages from the CD booklet, again incorporating the characters from the songs.

Snowman wants coffee. And no more winter.

Okay, I've had enough of this winter already. I'm not usually a cold weather complainer but enough is enough. I mean we're halfway through March and I should be able to leave my coat at home when I run to the store. Or leave a window open while I sleep without freezing the leg I habitually leave outside the covers. Sigh.

So I got to thinking I probably wasn't the only one- in fact I could probably name 127,354 others who feel the same way, but the snowman is a very poignant extreme and that's why I chose him for this book/editorial illustration... 'cause if HE'S sick of winter then there's a problem!

To Spring!

There's a Donkey in the Tree!

An illustration I just finished for a book that my agent is hocking. It's based on a story that my father loves to tell us (and his father told it to him and his siblings) about the Jewish holiday Tu B'Shevat. The holiday is the new year for the trees and as the story goes, all trees, bushes and plants bow down to God at midnight on Tu B'Shevat. Well, it's at this time that a traveler ties his donkey to a tree and goes to sleep at an Inn. He wakes to find his donkey is now at the top of the tree...

Math Map

Here's an interesting map I illustrated for a math book. In order to find the proper route from Start to End, you have to finish 10 math problems correctly and match the answers with the streets. Click on the picture to enlarge.