I recently did some work for Region 4 Education Services whose core purpose is “Revolutionizing education to inspire and advance future generations.” I came in as a temporary designer to clean up & colorize some existing art, but stayed a while longer to create illustrations for an upcoming program. I created the artwork that would go on to their animator and while I can’t show you the final animations (which were pretty spectacular) I can share some of the illustrations that I made.

More illustrations after the jump…

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Here are a few examples of printed collateral I’ve worked on recently. In addition to product hangtags, there’s also a promotional brochure for Igloo Outdoors which was handed out at the Outdoor Expo show.

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In the past year Igloo has launched a line of outdoor products including tents and backpacks. While I was there I did a number of illustrations for the packaging which show the product and the features.

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I just finished an almost 2 year freelance gig with Igloo Products, the cooler company, helping them out with illustrations and various design work. Most of these are from their “softside” line of coolers, but there are a few others thrown in there. I have no idea how to present these illustrations due to the sheer amount of them, so I’ll just dump them all after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

I was approached recently by Trailnet to design a logo, print collateral and t-shirts for their annual Route 66 Festival at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. The bridge, which was built in the 1920s, was Route 66’s crossing of the Mississippi river until 1970. For nearly three decades the fate of the bridge was uncertain. It had become such an eyesore, the abandoned structure was even used in the film “Escape from New York”.
In 1998 the bridge was leased to Trailnet and subsequently renovated to be used as a cycling and pedestrian attraction.
Once a year, during the Route 66 Festival, the historic bridge once again welcomes vintage automobiles along with cyclists, hikers, music and food. I wanted the logo to not only capture the history of the bridge, but recall the aesthetics and feelings of the height of Route 66, when the “mother-road” stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles.
For more information on the Route 66 Festival, which takes place the first weekend in June, please visit Confluencegreenway.org or Trailnet.org.

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Sometimes the best part of a movie is the title sequence. While some of my favorites, North by Northwest and Psycho were created by Saul Bass, a few contemporary films like Catch Me if You Can, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Vacancy have brilliant title sequences as well. I’ve always marveled at the stark minimalism made by shapes and words, and the feeling they convey… setting the tone for the rest of the film. Most of my favorite title sequences employ a technique called Kinetic Typography, which first gained prominence in film in the 1960’s by the previously mentioned Saul Bass.

So here we are… my first attempt at Kinetic Typography. And while modern technology has made it significantly easier than it was in Bass’ time, it’s still a laborious and time-consuming project.
The song is Robot, by The Futureheads. The programs I used were Adobe Illustrator and After Effects. The fonts are Franchise and Rockwell Bold.

Enjoy.

There’s been a resurgence of minimalist designs on the web lately. Everything from movie posters to video game packaging have gotten the treatment, and a recent post on Reddit has inspired me to jump aboard the minimalism train too.

Fellow Redditor and talented graphic designer willby27 (aka William Rainbird of Melbourne) posted some redesigns of classic board games which, due partially to their familiarity, are the perfect subject for minimalist design.

Inspired, I decided to create a few of my own.
Enjoy.

More after the jump…

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There’s something fulfilling about designing a poster and seeing the finished product. I imagine it was all that time in my childhood spent staring at posters on the wall, whether at home or at school, staring at the imagery and imagining what I would do differently had I designed it.

That’s one of the cool things about being a graphic designer; whether it’s book covers, t-shirts, posters, magazine layouts, or advertisements – we design the things that others see every day.

“the Lost” is another design I’ve been working on for quite some time. What started as a tentacle grabbing a boom box has, now in it’s 3rd incarnation, finally become something I like.

Panda Dreams, my winning submission from the Urban Outfitters design competition, is no longer available on the UO website. While I’m not sure about individual stores, it appears as though they won’t be re-stocking them online. Meanwhile, enjoy it if you bought one…if not, enjoy this screen-cap from Urban Outfitters website.