Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

Hey, Mickey you’re so… old

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Rarely in the history of cartooning have we ever seen a cartoon star fall so tragically out of the limelight as we have in the case of Mickey Mouse.

In a box by pier 23 he whiles away the days looking for his next smack fix and finding creative places to store his leavings. The once great star and spokestoon for the Disney corporation fell into trouble during the great depression of 2008.

An art community I used to frequent before I became so heavily ingrained in advertising was having an activity to re-interpret Mickey Mouse. This was my sarcastic little poke at wholesome family entertainment.

After about three months of nearly fully (at some points, almost every waking hour) dedicated time to my company and an incredibly fast paced project I’ve been allowed some vacation time. I’m only on day one of my 3 day vacation but it’s already been great. I feel like I’ve gotten so much done in terms of restoring order to my system. On top of that I’ve had a chance to work on my website design, visual identity, paint and be lazy. It’s pretty much everything I thought it would be and more.

miscellaneous pictures

Looking at this picture of my computer setup made me realize how out of date my technology is. CRTs? Old-ass 4.1 stereo setup? 4×5 intuos 3 tablet? $20 logitech mouse from 6 years ago? I need to upgrade. My hard drives are filling up like an overweight person in a buffet line. Maybe I’ll suddenly become rich…

I got a new plant to replace the one that died. It’s already helped to improve my mood.

Here’s another mood enhancer for me lately. This is one of the greatest parts about my place and one of the things I’ll miss the most if I ever move (I should say: when).

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A Doodle a’Day…

Monday, May 12th, 2008

I’m having a massive new-music-gasm right now. I’ve got so much to listen to and it’s all very good and very inspiring. The M83 album from my previous post is currently killing my last.fm statistics. Whenever I’m done designing the new wordpress theme and website design there will be a last.fm reader on the page so you can see how many times I listen to “Skin of the Night” in a week. I’ll probably be sick of it in a week but I reiterate: radical.

I was working on some hand-made textures and type this weekend and doodled this little guy. It’s pencil and acrylic, and actually must have spurred a few creative synapses in my brain because I’ve got the urge to paint traditionally again. Sometime in June (the 14th I think) I’ll be auctioning off a painting for “Head for the Art,” a charity event sponsored by my company. Since the crow was the last thing I painted and it was done digitally I’m considering doing a new traditional painting and framing it exclusively for the show. Of course, if I work toward that goal I will keep the blog updated with progress.

Here is another color study I did with color and a bit of the new mark I’ve been working on. I don’t think the texture is working out. I think I may have to stick with hand-made textures as opposed to vector texture (try to say that 10 times fast).

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A Little Here, A Little There

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Juggling all of my commitments is starting to get a little easier and I’m hoping it stays that way for a while. I could use some fun for a change.

Some things recently in the moleskin. I can’t wait to enjoy more of the nice weather. I anticipate more moleskinnery and artistry will take place as a result. I might turn the one up top into an oil painting. I bought some nice linen over the weekend. It might deserve a few more thumbnails and a color study before I put all of those expensive oil paints to use though…

the obsession never ends…

The guy with half a hand came from a commercial I saw at a friend’s house for a television show about how dangerous the logging industry could be. The guy was boasting about how manly he was on the commercial. I then felt compelled to record it in the sketchbook. Of course, pictured below it and completely unrelated: more mice. This time they’re portraying Hispanic gang stereotypes.

As far as free-time design goes, here is a color study I did using things from the morphology of this identity I’ve been developing—I need to add more than shapes—but it’s kind of a hodge podge of shapes (designed using the golden section) to see how the color palette I worked out might look.

Lastly, I have to recommend some more music. I recently discovered M83 put out a new album and it’s so boss I can’t even find better words than “boss” to describe it. It’s a bit of spacey electronic shoegazing goodness and I highly recommend it.

Listen to the full thing on Last.fm FTW

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