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.
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.
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So starts the novel Anna Karenina, which was the subject of a poster project I completed a while ago. It was the first time I had worked directly for another creative entity (a local theater company), and I was excited to be working on a topic of literature with a fuzzy deadline entire months away.
After talking about the creative process we decided that we would volley ideas back and forth in various levels of completeness, ranging from very rough sketches to more refined digital comps, until we arrived at a final poster design. The first round of creative went over well, focusing on some main themes from the book.
The art director and I decided the strongest idea was the smoke type (upper left sketch), and that I should explore that further before we chose a final executional style.
Continue reading “Happy Projects Are All Alike”
Enjoy a good gastro-challenge? Love making tiny checkmarks? Need more refrigerator swag? Don’t we all! That’s why my friend Jen compiled the Eat Sheet, a stalwart Facestuffer’s best friend, to go along with her new guidebook. Affix it to your fridge, steering wheel, elliptical machine, or antacids bottle, then Go Forth And Eat!
You can download your very own Eat Sheet right here.
Enjoy a good gastro-challenge? Love making tiny checkmarks? Need more refrigerator swag? Don’t we all! That’s why my friend Jen compiled the Eat Sheet, a stalwart Facestuffer’s best friend, to go along with her new guidebook. Affix it to your fridge, steering wheel, elliptical machine, or antacids bottle, then Go Forth And Eat!
You can download your very own Eat Sheet right here.
For the past five months I have been working on a side project that IS…NOW…FINISHED. Written by Jen Stevenson, it’s a guidebook of all the best places to eat in Portland, Oregon. Between her hilarious writing style, meticulous research (seriously, who else eats three dinners a night?) and single-minded obsession with food, I think this one is a keeper.
Jen writes the blog Under the Table, and follows the mantra of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all”. It’s refreshing to work with somebody who focuses on the positive, and we all know it gets a bit tedious to sift through thousands of polarizing Yelp reviews. Instead, Jen only features what she considers is the best, and leaves the rest up to you. How you decide to stuff your face is, as we all know, a personal preference.
This project was a labor of love in many ways. As a fledgling self-publisher the budget was in the pro-bono range, so instead of cold hard money I accepted a few free meals, a flexible timeline, and a fair amount of creative freedom in exchange for my efforts. Having a single pro-bono project at a time is also a good way to get some kicks that you might not otherwise get from paid projects. Kicks like hand drawing maps of Portland…
To Jen’s credit, she chose the high road in the production phase by printing the book at local Brown Printing instead of producing the book in China or through an online vendor with less material options and size limitations.
With 220 pages of reviews and tips, over 80 illustrations and the afore-mentioned custom maps of Portland (whose streets do not care if you want to be orderly and label things in a consistent manner) this project was an undertaking, but well worth it. If you’re interested in the guidebook, you can buy it directly at www.bestplacestostuffyourfaces.com. If you’re competitive or like checking things off of lists, you can track your face stuffing progress with the Eat Sheet. Enjoy!
For the past five months I have been working on a side project that IS…NOW…FINISHED. Written by Jen Stevenson, it’s a guidebook of all the best places to eat in Portland, Oregon. Between her hilarious writing style, meticulous research (seriously, who else eats three dinners a night?) and single-minded obsession with food, I think this one is a keeper.
Jen writes the blog Under the Table, and follows the mantra of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all”. It’s refreshing to work with somebody who focuses on the positive, and we all know it gets a bit tedious to sift through thousands of polarizing Yelp reviews. Instead, Jen only features what she considers is the best, and leaves the rest up to you. How you decide to stuff your face is, as we all know, a personal preference.
This project was a labor of love in many ways. As a fledgling self-publisher the budget was in the pro-bono range, so instead of cold hard money I accepted a few free meals, a flexible timeline, and a fair amount of creative freedom in exchange for my efforts. Having a single pro-bono project at a time is also a good way to get some kicks that you might not otherwise get from paid projects. Kicks like hand drawing maps of Portland…
To Jen’s credit, she chose the high road in the production phase by printing the book at local Brown Printing instead of producing the book in China or through an online vendor with less material options and size limitations.
With 220 pages of reviews and tips, over 80 illustrations and the afore-mentioned custom maps of Portland (whose streets do not care if you want to be orderly and label things in a consistent manner) this project was an undertaking, but well worth it. If you’re interested in the guidebook, you can buy it directly at www.bestplacestostuffyourfaces.com. If you’re competitive or like checking things off of lists, you can track your face stuffing progress with the Eat Sheet. Enjoy!
Only a few letters go together well enough to create a ligature, but when they find each other it’s beautiful. Thanks to Wikipedia for this fi letterpress ligature (or as Michael accurately commented below, an si ligature).
The genesis of this project started quite a ways back, in ’05 or ’06 when Kyle Durrie took a letterpress class from me at the IPRC. I teach there frequently, so I see many students come and go with varying levels of interest in letterpressing. Many dabble a bit but never fully embrace the craft of it, which requires patience, skill and more patience. Kyle, however, decided to make it her mainstay and formed Power and Light Press.
A few years later we both became members of Em Space, a printing and book arts group. There I got to know her a bit better, her effervescent nature and gusto for everything letterpress. So I wasn’t surprised when she put up this Kickstarter video for her latest idea: building a mobile print shop and touring the US teaching letterpress.
The project got funded and I was thrilled to imagine Kyle in her trusty letterpress van on the open road, nothing but her and some moveable type. Wanting to get in on the action, I offered up my computer skills so she could have a logo and website to help make her adventure an even bigger success.
Kyle gave me some inspiration to start with, from which I made this hand drawn 3D type reminiscent of both old building signage and of those interchangeable letters that Gutenberg thought were a good idea. Turns out he was right.
Matthew Johnson also volunteered to help out by setting up a wordpress site that Kyle could update with the latest events from the road. Follow along on her adventures, see when she might stop by your town, or request a visit from one of Portland’s leading ladies of letterpress at www.type-truck.com!
