Fun project for friends non-profit Nordic trail grooming project in Durango, CO.
Free Froyo!
Sweet new illustrations and campaign designs for Yogurtland - International Frozen Yogurt Day. Had a lot of fun getting lost in this "land"!
Sun Sand and Sea
Silkscreen poster part of limited edition of prints featured in an exhibit in Santa Monica called "Sun Sand and Sea".
Book Cover Design
Current book cover design I'm working on. Super fun project for the University of Virginia.
Dole'n
Busy doing some Dole stuff this week, namely a lockup for their national Banana Split Day. Super fun! Who knew however that banana split's are naturally ugly ... :/ Had to tweak this beast until it looked yum-able. Enjoy!
We've moved!
Welcome to Durango! It was a very difficult decision to leave our home in Long Beach and move out here but we're super excited for this new adventure. The captain is flying out of the airport here in town doing air-ambulance and charter, and I'm now doing contract design work out of our home (hopefully soon an office!).
Please feel free to send any design queries my way!
Leon
Just updated my Adobe Creative Cloud software. Always interesting to see where they take the design. Definitely not a fan of some of the changes so far but thought this piece of artwork was interesting, I wondered who the artist was and looked it up. It's fun to check out how students and professionals get published or awarded to do work like this: https://www.behance.net/gallery/13887469/Creative-Cloud-Illustrator-Lion-.
The "Dog Days are Over"
Meet my freelance partner—Bowie. This little guy has been keeping me company the last three weeks. Due to an unfortunate apartment rule we can't keep a pet permanently in Long Beach with us, so Zach's mini-Australian-shepherd has had to live with his parents the last year and a half. That doesn't keep us from 'babysitting' him frequently though!
Coincidentally, we ended up 'babysitting' Bowie the last 3 weeks, right as I wrapped up an in-house freelancing gig and started an app project from home. For the first time since I said I was 'freelancing' I finally found myself working from my own desk and not at an agency.
Bowie and me at first had our differences at first but finally found a good routine together. He'd lick my face every morning at 7, I'd stumble around and cuss at him until I got my running clothes on (I'm not a happy morning person) and we'd go for runs on the beach together until he was worn out enough that he'd just collapse on the hardwood all day instead of chewing my yoga mat. After that I could focus on my projects without constant fear for household objects. At night sometimes Zach would spontaneously have a flight and ask if I wanted to ride along, and I can finally go! We took Bowie with us for a few rides, he's officially earned his wings as an aero-dog.
Sadly, the dog days are over—we have to give him back next week.
Volar - Aerolineas Argentinas
Beautiful type design for Aerolineas Argentinas. A series of TV spots developed for the airline feature random candid moments in air—that awkward bathroom dance, that moment everyones quiet and trying to sleep but that one person keeps making noise, the terrible seat buddy, etc. It does a great job of capturing the true in-flight experience everyone has.
To bring to life the fun whimsical personality of Aerolineas Argentinas the agency hired South American type designers Yani & Guille to create a typeface to be used across all the campaign pieces and the spots. It's gorgeous!
http://yaniguille.com/portfolio/volar-script/
Feeling Angular
Unfortunately several holiday parties ago a coworker "won" a white-elephant painting. A hilarious nude self-portrait on fluorescent yellow. Because the canvas was taking up her garage space I took it off her hands and put it up above my couch! Who knew geometry could be so time consuming.
Jet Who?
Seems like the pitch work is always the best because its what we truly perceive about a client before agendas, approvals and signatures get in the way. I saw this agencies work on Behance and was totally inspired to realize that even big agency work never gets to see the light of day sometimes. It was a beautiful integrated campaign for Jet Blue that has a "retro" feeling that says heritage but still is totally modern and gorgeous. Loved this pitch concept!
The Lab - Jet Blue Pitch Concept
How to Art Direct A Video
This just in - my first ever art-directed commercial is going national next week!
I have no idea how its all getting pulled off. I know NOTHING about video but they've turned the sketches and ideas we pitched to the client into gold in a mere matter of months. It's all definitely a giant group effort from everyone here and everyone there, what my actual ROLE is in this whole thing has gotten more and more vague as it's progressed. We all kind of chime in and the production company tells us what is (and most often isn't) possible to change.
The most interesting part of this whole experience is the spot is animated, not live footage. Most art direction is back and forth between emails for the first few months while the wire frames and loose animatics get approved by us and then the client when we deem it ready. OR we start over and do it again, and again. Soak, wash, rinse and repeat.
After that month the MAGIC happens - and things start to get color, defined shapes, and lighting. And now we're adding the final touches of sound design. I keep sending tracks back and forth from movie clips, haha.
Hopefully announcing the launch soon! Stay tuned :)
Finally
Finally I’m posting…I feel like I’ve “fallen off the wagon” again and I’m getting back into the grove suddenly. So like all recovering anti-cyberists I’m starting slow. This will be a short one with a recycled facebook photo, but I promise more later!
So this last weekend I took a hiatus to San Francisco and came back with a fresh-eye. While Orange County may be full of promising advertising, 75 degrees, sunshine and amazing opportunities…its constant halo of Louis Vuitton products and stilettos can be creatively stifling sometimes. I didn’t realize how much I missed my eco-friendly “rough” design family until I caught myself snapping pictures of graffiti on Market St.
As impossible as it may seem to visit San Francisco for reasons other than to admire the creative genius that flourishes there…I was actually in town to run the Bay To Breakers 12k marathon. What at first sounds impossibly long to the faint of foot, was actually pretty comfortable with only moderate jogging. You definitely can’t go with the mind-set you’re competing for time. It’s really just a parade and everyone joins in! At first we couldn’t even run because we were shoulder to shoulder with everyone else, walking room only. Eventually the crowd began to even out and we could start jogging a few blocks down (once everyone noticed that at least 1 in every 50 people running were stark naked there was less shoulder rubbing). The costumes and atmosphere was fantastic, we saw several running tent-people that were pretending to “occupy Bay to Breakers”, the kid from Pixar’s UP! (complete with baloons), Salmon people running against the crowd (upstream!) and even Lego-block people. I’d highly recommend an insane marathon to spark anyone’s creative genius.
Unfortunately I haven’t written in so long you’ve also missed the second most entertaining thing in my life recently…the Seal Beach dolphin fiasco! Several weeks ago our neighborhood was alerted to the presence of a lone dolphin trapped in the wetlands to the South of us (our charming beach-bum town is sandwhiched between a marsh/wetlands and the beach on a peninsula). One poor dolphin managed to squeeze over to the wetlands during high-tide, apparently chased over by a pod of aggressive dolphins. Afraid to leave and scared of going out a different route that led past the Huntington Harbor Yacht Club, he stuck around for about a week generating all kinds of chaos. People came from all over to visit him, News-Crews were all over our streets, and everyone gossiped about it in the apartment hot-tub. Coincidentally, Zach and me went out paddle-boarding the same weekend in the harbor and ended up swimming with the aggressive pod the whole time thinking “We found his family!” only to realize later we were fraternizing with the enemy! Fortunately the dolphin is now free (no thanks to us) and that concludes our local drama for the year…
vsco.co
A new photo app for aspiring and professional photographers complete with classic filters mimicing old film styles. Also includes editing software for Adobe programs and ability to create your own homepage "grid" to share with friends.
Potentially a new competitor to Instagram?
The Noise of Stuff
Great article on how organization can improve creativity and productivity. Simple things you could do daily (ex. cleaning your desktop) that improve your state of mind at work. Truly inspiring advice!