Monster Mollie is my sister, and I made her this monster portrait for her birthday. Dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes (with an extra eye added just for good all-seeing measure) sit above her bear trap chompers. Don’t want to get in the way of those while she’s arguing or going for the last slice of pie.
Monster Mollie measures 5.5 x 7.5 inches and was made using 39 cent felt squares, stuffed animal eyes and faux fur fabric wrapped around the back/stand portion of IKEA’s Ribba picture frame. The stand was left over from my original monster portraits, which only used the frame portion.
Just in time for Halloween! Over the weekend my friend Mark and I put the finishing touches on the Goodie Monster: a vending machine filled with healthy, tasty snacks. Not only does it taste good, it looks good too. Check out the full project process and see more pictures of us sewing and painting nonstop to create a green fur-clad monster complete with a mountainous environment where pears fly south for the winter. Read more >>
Here is the last of the type and illustration I did for some Keen videos for their Recess is Back site. The work was done through North, a local design/advertising agency. I am more of a black thumb, but I still enjoyed creating this vine-like typography.
Here is the last of the type and illustration I did for some Keen videos for their Recess is Back site. The work was done through North, a local design/advertising agency. I am more of a black thumb, but I still enjoyed creating this vine-like typography.
One of the projects I’ve worked on recently for Jelly Helm Studio was to design the studio’s business cards. Several ideas were sketched out (monograms, pop-up castles, and a series of tableaus, among others), but early in the brainstorming process we decided that simple was better. To support this direction, internet research turned up calling cards from way back when.
Most business cards from days of yore included only the person’s name. Additional notations on the card (in the lower corners) were left for specific reasons and were part of the intricate etiquette system surrounding the calling card, which are detailed in The Gentleman’s Guide to the Calling Card. We took the calling card structure and updated for the 21st century. Done and done.
Simple does it.
The smaller-than-usual cards were letterpress printed by Kyle van Horn of Baltimore Print Studios with a nice deep plum ink on French Muscletone Whip Cream. During the project, Kyle sent us this slip taped to a furniture cabinet at the Baltimore Print Studios.
According to this, Jelly Helm’s business card size (1.75″ x 3″) is somewhere between a Miss and a Mister. According to me, it’s just the right size to carry the information on it.
Other people get cards too.A calling card for the digital era.
Here are a few more pieces I helped North with for Keen’s RECESS IS BACK site. I created the hand drawn typography for these two spots, “Fresh Air” and “Grab a Paddle”, which are part of a video series about outdoor activities. I love the outdoors and this summer went both camping and paddling, the spirit of which I think are captured nicely in these little snippets. Although not quite as risqué as the biking-troll-powering-a-hot-spring “Get Naked” illustration.
I like to make things for others, and since NJ had recently received so many trophies, I thought I would make an award for the man who subsidized those trophies: Jelly. But what do you give a man who seemingly has everything? He’s won awards galore and his bookshelf is littered with treasures: a gold watch, a paper hot air balloon replica, gifts from various years of WK12, a dismembered stuffed animal squirrel, some rocks, and an empty juice bottle. It would be a tough act to follow, but I was up for the challenge.
Ladies and Gentlemen, THE FULLITZER.
To give a little background, my inspiration came from three places. One: Jelly’s constant quoting of Buckminster Fuller, a big-picture-thinker, the man who built geodesic domes and wrote Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Two: Before going to a conference to give a presentation, Jelly claimed he was nervous because previous speakers had won Pulitzer Prizes. HE hadn’t won one, and what was a veteran public speaker with lofty notions of finding your purpose to do…without a Pulitzer? And Three: At a friend’s wedding, decorations included some exquisite paper balls that I instantly wanted to filch. I didn’t take one, but another guest did.
One. Two. Three. That is how I made and presented the ONE and ONLY Fullitzer Prize to Mr. Jelly Helm. It’s a bit small and delicate, but I think its recipient will find infinite possibilities with it in his possession.
Thanks to the internet, I found some patterns to decorate the Fullitzer with.
If you’d like to make a paper ball and name it something special for someone in your life, here are the instructions. My personal tip is to invest in a circular paper punch so you don’t have to cut out 20 circles by hand. I had one already from doing some wedding invites and my sketchbook project. Once you have one, you’ll want to punch circles out of everything.
