ZOOM

Just before the holiday I did a quick spot for Philadelphia Magazine. It was an article on using existing Amtrack tracks for a train that would take people to the zoo. I was kind of hoping they would use the gorilla contemplating the train car ala a friendly King Kong, but I'm happy with the way it came out.
Thanks to AD's Jesse Southerland and Andy Zahn for a fun assignment.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Best wishes to all and peace and prosperity in the New Year. In the spirit of giving, above are two free wallpapers for your iPhone. The 17 Ambassadors of Fuzziness and It's not the size of your tree that matters. its the amount of love you give it.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

BERNARD! V.2

My forthcoming book Stop Snoring, Bernard! was held up recently for some minor changes to the story. This resulted in a couple new spreads and redoing a couple of the original ones. The new version now includes 20% more tears, a stolen zoo tuk-tuk and 80% more warm fuzzies.

Here they are drying in the studio before I pack them up for FEDEX.

Things I left and forgot in a safe place

These are a few Tee shirt designs that I found while backing up my files. The problem with backing things up, I almost never look back at the Lacie and even though I've taken care to preserve my old work and ideas, they are forgotten.

BEAT TRAIN SOUND SYSTEM

I did some illustrations for a DJ collective website in Boston recently. It entailed an illustrated strip for the background that would change as you navigated to each page in the site. I also designed the logo, various buttons and text on the site. For the logo, I did a type only version, then one reminiscent of a Jamaican sound system, a gramophone which was something the client had indicated they wanted on the site, and one (my favorite) that is based on the Boston T trolley as a hybrid Jamaican Sound System. I'm showing the rough sketches here along with my inspiration.

The site goes live the end of this month. Check it out here. And if you are in the Boston area, make sure you get to a party with these guys on the wheels.

15 USES FOR NEWSPRINT

The 15 Uses for Newsprint promo with my Pencil Factory peeps is blowing up. Gettin press from German nerds to Design Sponge. I finally got my hands on some and they will be for sale for $10 here. The first 10 people to send me their address get a free one.

THE PENCIL FACTORY

I used to share an amazing studio space with some good folks and amazing illustrators in the Greenpoint Pencil Factory. It was the original Eberhard Farber pencil factory.
I was very happy (and honored) to be asked to participate in a special collaborative holiday promo piece. Its printed on newsprint and it doubles as gift wrap, or anything else you can think of that you might use newspaper for.
Some ideas are included on its cover.
A companion website and links to each of the illustrators involved is here.

DAY FOR NIGHT

One thing I DON'T miss about New York, long lines and bullet proof glass at the Post Office.

THANKS FOR THE LOVE PHILLY CHIT CHAT

Hugh E Dillon Paralegal/Photographer about town covered my show at JimmyStyle on his blog. He even caught my homage to the Folsom Street Fair. Check out Philly Chit Chat for the latest celebrity and wanna be celebrity sightings in Philly.

Happy Halloween

The costume is modelled after the first known tin toy robot. Made in Japan in the 1940's.
The Lilliput Model

MONSTERS OF FOLK

Just sent off a really fun project. A poster for the Monsters of Folk. A little nod to Williamsburg in that I decided to draw the Billyburg bridge in there instead of the usual Brooklyn Bridge shot.

Free signed poster to the first person who can tell me which controversial landmark building is also pictured. Congrats to Elissa of Brooklyn, she guessed the correct answer THE DOMINO SUGAR FACTORY. Poster is in the mail.

The poster is to be hand silk screened by Kayrock in Brooklyn. I will have some up for sale on my site soon.

SKETCHES

WFUV in New York asked me to do some sketches for their new CD cover. I had done a couple of their CD covers in the past and I was happy to do another.  This is the twelfth CD comp they have issued for their annual fundraiser, so there are loose themes of twelve going on here.

They ended up going with photography instead, but they liked the tree sketch enough that they decided to use it for their Holiday concert poster.

SHOW AT JIMMYSTYLE

Thanks to everyone that came down to the show the other night. It was a lot of fun. Special thanks to Jimmy Contreras for his excellent hosting and special, SPECIAL thanks to everyone that bought artwork. Will post more photos soon.

OPENING

I'm having a little show of work at a boutique in South Philly. Its artwork inspired by roadtrips and street hustlers.  The store carries the BluQ product line and they are featuring the bag I did for them too. If you are in the hood, stop by and say hello.

 

Wednesday October 7th  5:30-8

JimmyStyle

1820 E Passyunk Ave 

www.shopjimmystyle.com

MY FIRST TIME

The ever restless and creative Alex Eben Meyer is running an illustration blog called Fuel your illustration. and he asked some illustrators about their first paid illustrations. Mine is up there along with a number of top notch illustrators. Interesting to see stylistic changes and hear the horror stories. Check it out by clicking on My First Time above.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF AUTUMN

Truly my favorite season of the year.

SNEEK PEEK

I'm having a little show in Philly that opens on October 7th. Its all about roadtrips and heres a sneak peak of a few pieces that will be in it. More details to follow.

LUNCHMEAT

I did the cover for this weeks Philly Weekly on newstands now. Its a disturbing story of racially motivated riots in Philly area high schools. Here it is plus an interior spot. 

Thanks to Tim Gough for another interesting story to work with. 

HOW LOVE

HOW magazine included my site in their September Top 10 Web Sites for Designers. Thanks for the love HOW Magazine.

http://blog.howdesign.com/

PROCESS- START TO FINISH

I recently did a job for a pitch for the Vendy Awards to come to Los Angeles. The client wanted a couple sketches to show the Los Angeles people what they had in mind. After I sent in the sketches, they wanted to combine all three concepts together into one piece. 

Normally, this is a nightmare descending into mediocrity, but in this case, the suggestions were good and the final piece is better for it. 

Below are the original thumb nails, followed by the sketches and then cleaned up and color dropped in with Photoshop.  The client asked for the wrestler guy to be driving the taco truck and the type style and copy added from the third one. I have also included my the untouched drawing of the wrestler as a taco truck driver followed by the finished piece.

DOES THIS BODY MAKE ME LOOK FAT?

MODES OF TRANSPORT

I have a bike.  Its an old rusty cruiser from the 40's its beautiful, but about every 10th time I ride it, I blow out the back tire for some reason.

LIKE A SEX MACHINE

Movin, you know, doin it.

SUMMADELPHIA!

Its summertime and we are off for a long weekend at the beach in Delaware. Is that still technically "down the shore" as they say here? Or is that phrase reserved for Jersey only?

POOP FREE DMZ

Friends and neighbors Michael and Kimberly were in dire need of a doggie doo-doo deterrent. I agreed to make one in the form of a humorous sign for a case of special beer. The beer is long gone, so I had to get the sign out.  Doggies of Narberth, you've been warned.

Bunny Bag

I've posted about this before, so excuse the redundancy. The bunny bag is out in stores. You can also purchase it here:

http://www.blueq.com/shop/item/114-productId.125845443_114-catId.117440696.html

DESIGN MAFIA

Recently I ended up on some list that was asking for submissions for a design motif/poster for Create Berlin. Which, I guess is some kind of agency promoting different cities as design capitals or something.  I was intrigued because I spent a semester in Berlin in college. 

I remember seeing a lot of amazing graffiti and street art, and that inspired this drawing.

Bears are the official symbol of  Berlin, taken from their coat of arms, and he's dressed in Polizei riot gear. Keeping bad design at bay, he's probably a pretty good hugger too.

Doot-Doo!

Oskar is obsessed with elephants right now. Everyday he wakes up and points to his nose and says "doot-doo? doot-doo?" which translates, "Are we going to the zoo to see the elephants?"

Over the holiday, the elephants were moved from the Philly Zoo to a preserve in Pittsburgh, he doesn't know that yet, but I made him a little elephant from some scrap wood, for when he finds out.

Desafinado

Just finished a poster for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.  The artist is Diana Krall who just released an album of Bossa Nova covers, so I tried to bring a little breezy Brazilian feel to it.

These are the sketches I sent, two beachy ones and a third of stacked pianos. I was thinking about a crazy party I went to years ago in Oakland. It was in a huge warehouse and they had stacked pianos five and six high to form all the walls.