CHAMBER BAND & MIKHAEL PASKALEV // TUMBLR WEDNESDAY

I had the honor of working on another fine poster for Chris Littler over in Chamber Band. They’re about to release an album and in doing so are performing in its celebration.

They’re also sharing the bill with a fella named Mikhael Paskalev — a Norewegian-Bulgarian singer-songwriter. The real trick now was to make sure that both he and Chris got equal importance so…

…we mashed Chris and Mikhael’s heads together and I colored it up snazzily and wouldn’t you know it, POSTER! I’ve taken the liberty to go back and simplify things before posting here, but that’s the pleasure in having the files. Moving on…

If you happen to be in New York on June 2nd, I would implore you to go say hello to these fine folk and enjoy a tune or two. Maybe all of them if they strike your fancy.

GYPSYHAWK: SORCERESS OF BLADES // DTAFM // TUMBLR WEDNESDAY

I can’t seem to stop drawing things for these guys. Seriously, have you listened to them yet? WHY NOT!? Go, now. Here, you like Game of Thrones, right? Watch This! Pretty cool, right? Baratheon was a badass.

That said, I keep having ideas for posters and shirts and all sorts of things so I just keep making them. And they’ve been receptive to ALL of it. I see no reason to stop traveling down this path anytime soon. Ride onward! This piece was put together completely in Photoshop! I’m getting rather comfortable in there again.

GYPSYHAWK: SILVER QUEEN // DTAFM // TUMBLR WEDNESDAY

After finishing this little piece, I challenged myself to whip up one more poster for the ever righteous Gypsyhawk one week before they were to perform in town. After a lot of struggles with her proportions (note the first two sketches) I finally hit on something I was super excited about.

I printed up 75 of the Queen and 40 of the Witches and delivered them before the show. The guys were extremely surprised that someone randomly whipped up art for them and were super excited about the final products. You can pick up one if the band swings through your town. By far one of my favorite pieces of late.

Keep an eye out as I’ll be teaming up with them in the future for some more artwork!

By the Way, in conversation with Jeff Garlin

What’s that? Mr. Garlin is starting a podcast on the Earwolf network? I get to do the art? He wants something really cool? Awesome.

I reeeeeally got to stretch my feet with this one. the directive was simple enough:

Less is more, simple, clean, 50’s style hipster, cool jazz, Miles Davis font.

I did my best to replicate a lot of the looks I was able to scrounge up online. There are a few elements that I really liked, and probably will try to integrate somewhere down the road. I’m extremely happy with how ALL of these turned out. And I think the final option is pretty… nifty? Yes.

OWEN & TJ READ THE NEWS

Chalk it up to another Earwolf podcast letting me flex my illustrative and technical muscles. Big shout out to Ben Adventureface Braman for direction on how to get my brushes kicking in high gear. Thanks to Owen and Adam for being so supportive and helpful in the process!

CHAMPIONS BIOTECHNOLOGY // Patient Brochure

Champions Biotechnology focuses on figuring out which cancer treatments will be most effective for a patient. This brochure was handed out to patient’s in doctor’s offices when looking for solutions. It needed to show them that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and that this company knew what they were doing.

The piece featured an embossed slip-cover and was perfect bound. Minimal colors allowed for more interesting finishing techniques like French Folds that incorporated “gene” patterns and translucent fly sheets that overlaid flooded colors and bold blocks of short text. Black and white photography accompanied the copy and reinforced the positive messaging of “life beyond cancer”.

The piece won Gold in the 2010 National Aster Awards. Completed at Davidson & Belluso.

InCaseNothingHappens.com  // Davidson & Belluso

By far one of my FAVORITE projects I’ve worked on at Davidson & Belluso. I was tasked with developing a look and direction for out self-promotion. We decided to make it a year long event in honor of all the doomsday prophecies. We figured, you should actually be prepared for when NOTHING happens. So get your business in order!

I directed the entire look of the campaign — from the website and it’s games, to the main illustrations and overall aesthetic. It was my hand. Well, with the splendidly amazing help of my coworkers and creative director. TEAM EFFORT!

These are the types of projects I wish I got to work on all the time. HUGE amount of effort, but totally worth it. We sent out eblasts to our clients and vendors every other month, expounding upon a new business “survival tip” to think about implementing into their business plan. It ranged from getting them to think about rebranding using our design services (Start a FIre) or taking advantage of everything social media has to offer (Build a Community).

Justin Horton and I developed a supporting game to go along with each new survival tip. It was a real chance to let another passion of mine get showcased in a unique light. I’m really happy with each one we came up with, but I think that the “Use Your Tools” is still my favorite.

Overall, I wish I would have been more “on top” of this project, and was able to implement some of the more grandiose ideas we had, but I think that a little bit of failure is even more motivating than success. Next time….next time is gonna be even better. I can’t wait!

The site is still up, and if you get a free minute, please give it a look and try to outlast those radioactive raccoons!

WIZARD OF ARTS // Arts & Business Council

One of the first projects I had the pleasure working on at Davidson & Belluso. I’m still really proud of the illustrations, but I think I could’ve done a better job on the die-cut structure. Live and learn!

PHOENIX PUBLIC LIBRARY // Winter Reading Program (2011)

I love dragons. I love reading. Mash those together at Davidson & Belluso and you have something I’m thrilled to be apart of. It’s all about getting gets reading over the winter months in Phoenix Public Libraries. Hopefully ol’ BookBreath was able to convince a young eyeball or two that books should be read. If he didn’t, I’m sure the prizes did. 

They originally wanted to really mimic the Dreamworks film How To Train Your Dragon, but eventually worked back to something a bit more “traditional”. You can see those first explorations in the sketches.

DAVIDSON & BELLUSO // Holiday Eblast Assets

Every year at Davidson & Belluso, we send out a holiday greeting to all of our clients and vendors and basically anyone we regularly deal with. For 2011, we decided we wanted to let all of our clients share in the creativity and have them decorate their own trees with decorations inspired by everyone that worked at Davidson & Belluso. I’d be lying if I said the tree wasn’t inspired by the master of the season, Dr. Seuss.

Get ready for the holidays! Not by purchasing a bunch of junk. By saying “Hey, I care about you” to the people you care about.

GOOSEBUMPS COOKIES

I had the pleasure of putting this happy set of graphics together at Davidson & Belluso. The client asked for us to come up with our own ideas, as well as possibly presenting an option with her as a cartoon chef. I don’t pass up that opportunity very often. I’ve included a few of the alternate ideas I presented for the first round. The cuteness won out and I’m happy because of it.

SCOTTSDALE CULINARY FESTIVAL

I didn’t think that after hiring on at Davidson & Belluso I would be getting to design around tasty treats and the week-long Scottsdale Culinary Festival four years in a row. Nor did I anticipate what a large role I would have in the overall look of each year’s advertising and event materials.

Each year we would meet with the chairpeople of the event, see what they were looking for and then off we went. A lot of sketching, a lot of photoshopping, a lot of hard work and we’d eventually craft the overall look for the year. After that it was just a matter of extrapolating and expanding on the themes established by the core image. Of course I still have a few ideas laying around that I thought deserved a better shot. I mean, who doesn’t love the idea of a herd of chefs?!

YO, IS THIS RACIST?

Another day, another Earwolf podcast that needs my skills! This one was a breeze. Andrew and I had a 10 minute chat and off I went to produce a few drafts based on his initial ideas. Through it all, we ended up leaning towards the first super ‘90’s approach. I’m happy, Andrew’s happy. Done and done. Give the show a listen to find out if Andrew and his rotating cadre of comedians ever do find something that isn’t racist. And since you’re probably already on Tumblr, why don’t you go check out his site that gave birth to the show?!

HOT SAUCERMAN HOT SAUCE

Did you get a limited edition hot sauce from Earwolf? No?! Wow. Too bad. There were only 100 made. I designed them. You can discern that from the sketch and final photo of the bottle I have on display. See ‘em? Yeah. Pretty neat. Scott even signed it! I’m never going to know what it tastes like though….stupid portfolio.

GELMANIA

Brett told me that for the Gelmania logo he wanted “some heavy handed political/social angle.  Somewhat controversial.” Along with a handful of rough ideas, I went off to the sketchbook to produce a handful of rough directions. After some quick back and forth we narrowed down a direction or two to pursue further.

I went ahead and made a slew of vector options, playing with elements size, color, placement, etc. until we settled on what is the face of the show now. I still think “FUCK YOU. GO LISTEN TO GELMANIA” is one of my better ideas. Maybe a shirt?! Come on Brett, let’s make a shirt!