Toilet Paper Book Cover

I'm doing a series of Facebook Live drawing classes for the JCC of Greater Boston (Tuesdays at 9:30am ET), where I help kids learn to create characters using describing words.

In preparation for one of the classes (and in consideration of the Covid-19 pandemic currently in progress) I drew a TP Man who I liked enough that I wanted to finish the drawing. Well, once I got started I decided to turn the illustration into a book cover.

I hand lettered the title, and then like a high school student pulling a prank, I TPed the word "The".

Update: I turned this into an origin story! You can read the entire origin on my comics website: edfrednedcomics.com

I probably just touched my face

A reminder I hand lettered and then turned into a gif

Tips For Working From Home

As a long-time freelance illustrator and designer, I figured I might have a few tips to help people who are suddenly forced to work from home due to the Corona virus.

So here are just a few ways to keep us productive, awake, and sane.

Feel free to share!

Stickers for Your Business!

Camp Avoda has been a client of mine since 2014, entrusting me with the design of their brochure, ads, signage, and whatever else that comes down the pike.

They've begun putting together a prospective camper package and wanted to add stickers to the outside to get the recipient excited about the contents. 

I created a number of concepts, and the following are the first two that they went for. 

Once the designs were approved, I had them printed at about 4" x 4" (10cm x 10 cm). They were printed on vinyl and die cut because I find squares and circles boring ; )

Doesn't the die cutting make them look so much better?

I absolutely loved how they turned out, and my clients were very happy!

The designs were hand-lettered in Adobe Illustrator, and I even hand-drew the Camp Avoda logo so the whole piece would be matchy-matchy.

OH! And I printed the second one as a magnet, which came out great!

Where Lively Minds Go to Grow

Here's another sticker I designed. It's for a preschool, and we also did postcards and t-shirts.

Need stickers for your business? Talk to me!

The Salad Promoting Cucumber

More fruit bowl silliness. This time with a vegetable!

The Last Banana

Here's the next in my comics series. Again with a cocky banana...

The Noble Banana

So I've been making some comics lately. Here's the first in a new batch. 

More to come, or follow me on Instagram to see them sooner.

Speaking at RISD

This coming Saturday I'll be speaking at RISD's Art of Business Bootcamp with Justin Perricone. Our topic: Pricing Work as a Freelancer.

This is a new presentation that we've been putting together for the last few months and we're incredibly excited to pass on our experience to the attendees.

Along with the sharing the writing for our talk with Justin, I've been illustrating and hand lettering images and phrases to help convey some of our messages, and because I'm excited about how they came out, I decided to print up stickers to give away on Saturday.

The event is open to the public, and full of helpful information for those starting out or needing a little help with their freelance careers.

You can register here: Art of Business Bootcamp

Stickers are below: 

All You Need is STUFF; logo, print, icon

Does it sometimes feel like we only want more and more stuff? The new iPhone, apps, cars, and anything else you can get from Amazon with a single click…

That’s where this design was coming from.

Resist the STUFF

Portraits From the Second Debate

Portrait of a Camp Director

After 26 years at Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire, Director Debbie Sussman was stepping down and the camp held a celebration and created a memory book for her. Instead of submitting a few words I decided to create a portrait and include many words- highlights of her 26 years.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

I just felt like drawing and the first thing that popped into my head were lyrics that had been floating around in it.

And then I thought Why should only one Lucy have all the fun? so I drew three Lucys in the sky.

Tangerine trees, marmalade skies, cellophane flowers of yellow and green, flowers that grow so incredibly high, Lucys in the sky with diamonds.

Neil Gaiman Quote poster

Sometimes kids just need to be reminded how much they love to read so I illustrated and hand-lettered this poster and posted it on Etsy.

The quote is by the indefatigable Neil Gaiman, fan favorite writer of books and comic books (such as The Sandman from DC Comics).

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 Here's a detail. Click on the image to enlarge.

You can pick up a print in my Etsy shop.

Lying in Bed Just Like Brian Williams

Last week, NBC's news anchor, Brian Williams, admitted that his story of being under siege in a helicopter in Iraq in 2003 which prompted a forced landing was not based on fact. Two days ago, Williams decided to step aside from his anchor job for several days.

Here is what I imagine Brian Williams is doing as he takes some time off.

Lying in Bed Just Like Brian WILSON did is a Bare Naked Ladies song about the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson who had a nervous breakdown and stayed in bed for 3 years.

Hulk Smash (1 Liner)

I thought I'd finish up a Hulk illustration I had started a short time ago just to keep going with the superhero kick I seem to be on. My previous post, How Superheroes Use Social Media, seemed to have gotten a lot of shares online (thanks so much!), so why not keep going a little?

This one's a mixture of a single continuous line drawing (Start at the ear and end at his hair) and a lot of angry texture. And some hand lettering.

I'll have it up in my Etsy shop soon as an option for a print.

Posted by Anonymous

I thought I'd play around with hand-lettering while also trying to make a point. One of my favorite blogs to read was recently closed due to many anonymous commenters being exactly what my poster says they are.

Tickle Monsters

Here's a Sneak-Peek at Vanessa Trien's new stickers which will debut at her big Coolidge Corner Theatre show in Brookline, MA on December 11.

I designed Vanessa's logo, and her most recent CD, Carnival Day, a few years back and she's now recording a new CD. One of the most popular of her new songs is without a doubt Tickle Monster. In fact, after going to one of her shows, a friend asked me if I had a way of getting an advanced recording of that song since I have an 'in' with Vanessa!

Vanessa asked me to design some stickers (and tattoos later!) for her show and this is what I came up with in a very, very short amount of time. The text is all hand lettered to have a fun, organic feel to it.

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I’ve been doing a lot of character development lately and from time to time I show off new characters on my blog. Sometimes they’re black and white and sketchy and other times full color and finished. If you want to see more from this series, just click this “characters” tag. You can also see a collection of characters in my Behance portfolio or on my website.

Detail from holiday card

At the printer! 
I just finished up a holiday card for a client and although it wouldn't be fair to show it before my client's friends and family get to see it, I thought it would be ok to show some details.

Here is some script hand-lettering I did for the panels of the tri-fold which incorporated some little playful icons describing the text. All the colors match the envelope liners I will be creating out of a beautiful hand-printed paper.

I have to say, I really got hung up on the script 'p'. I couldn't remember how to write it so I had to look it up online. The letter 'h' was my fave though. I could do that letter forever with all its wavy, intersecting lines! I'm looking for a client named harry h. hohner...

I'll post the actual card (and custom liners and envelopes and Zazzle stamps) sometime in December when my client (who is wonderful to work with!) says it's ok.

Happy Groundhog Day 2010!

Welcome to another Groundhog Day. I'll just bet it's felt like so much more than 365 days since the last Groundhog's Day and I appreciate you coming by to check out my yearly GH card.

I've been creating a card for this rodentastic holiday since 1992 (To be honest, I've skipped a few along the way) and I'm happy to come back to it in 2010 despite the crushing deadlines, a sick 4 year old and lack of enough sleep. But enough about me...

See you again next year!
You can check out a bunch more Groundhog Day illustrations on this blog by clicking HERE.

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And for some, that's not a bad thing