High/Buy

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What it is, Blog. We are officially "happy" about "holidays". Personally, I think any holiday not spent acquiring a DUI is a good one.

Over Thanksgiving I worked on some pieces for the lovely people at BusinessWeek and my first one for The New Yorker (!), which I'll post another time. The piece above is the BW half-page about e-tailers (I guess that's a word now) using social media to attract customers in droves for discounted items. Has anyone ever drawn a flock of Twitter birds? I hope not, I like to think I invented it.

I also did a smaller piece concerning the inadequacies of young managers, which you can view here.

In other news, I am included in the Society of Illustrators 52 sequential category for both "Let There Be Stuff" and "Rabbits". Wine and cheese please.

That's about it, Blog. Live to be stoked.

A Little Trouble in Big China

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Happy Columbus Day Blog. This is a piece I did for Business Week and a story about intellectual property rights violations. Apparently China is one of biggest culprits when it comes to IPR violations, and now they're starting to get a taste of their own medicine as Chinese versions of YouTube are allowing the posting of copyrighted material.

I've never attempted Chinese calligraphy before, but the symbols on the movie screen read "The End", and were a nice suggestion by the art director. Hopefully I didn't butcher them too bad.

As a bonus, here's another concept I had for the story. Ultimately it didn't really involve IPR violations specifically, but it just really made me laugh:

Alternate Chinese Piracy Concept

See you later this week Blog.

The Fix is In

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Sup Blog. I was privileged once again to work with Business Week on a half page illustration for a discussion on Stephen Roach's book The Next Asia. The gist of the piece is that the world's economy needs fixing. If only the economy had tech support...

Also, two of my prints are for sale at Little Paper Planes. The pieces in question are Solomon Wears His Father's Skin and Gleaning For Boaz (After Millet). They are roughly 8"x11" and are individually signed and stamped. I've been fan of LLP for a long time now and feel honored that they wished to include me among their artists.

Gotta go. Some BIG stuff coming up. Later Blog.

*update* I just found out that I'm featured on both BEAUTIFUL/DECAY's and Design For Mankind's blogs. That's kind of AWESOME.

Back In Business [Week]

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Hey Blog. I have finally discovered The Wire, and I'm slightly obsessed.

Also, I had opportunity work with the good people at Business Week for a couple of illustrations. The first one is a half page that deals with the FCC regulating smart phone apps. The second is a smaller piece is about the recent decrease in credit card delinquency. I suppose that constitutes a good sign for the future.

Lastly, The Altpick Awards have officially been extended until September 30. This is good news for all you talented procrastinators out there.

Ad CamPains

Hey Blog. So graduating with a Master's Degree is a long and arduous process. Who knew? The past couple of weeks have been full of galleries, gowns, goodbyes, and something else that probably starts with a "G". Once I clear out my studio/storage space then it'll really be goodbye. Two crazy years of MFA Illustration will make for a big notch on the ol' art belt.

On the work front, last week I received a commission from Business Week for a piece on ad campaigns in the current social and economic climate. Due to both the recession and the present state of media consumption, ad campaigns are no longer using television ads as their centerpieces. This makes a lot of sense, as I rarely even watch television anymore in favor of online streaming (God bless you Hulu).

My approved idea was to have an unseen individual pulling the plug on a television while still surrounded by adverts from other sources. Here's the approved sketch:

and the final:

The simple palette felt like the way to go and I'm proud of the results. Many thanks to Nick Torello for the alley-oop on that.

That's it for now. Later Blog.

P.S. The show comes down today. Manual labor!

big ass red tags

Wassup Blog. My sister recently had her huge baby shower and the house was pretty packed. We had about 120 people running around and tons of food. Two BBQ grills were going, and we ordered a ton of Filipino good. It all got eaten too! The next day there was nothing to eat in the house and I was rummaging for cans of tuna, as my eating schedule is insane in-and-of-itself.

Anyway, right before the shin-dig we acquired a large LCD screen along with a couple of Blu-Ray players. My first Blu-Ray dvd was I Am Legend (I know, I know... I hadn't seen it, and I'm a sucker for Will Smith movies. Shut up). The movie itself was ok, but the ending was totally flat and left me disappointed. However, the alternate ending was actually better IMHO, because it backlit the rest of the movie. Also, the screen uses tru-motion technology, so seeing images that big in 1080dpi was like looking out a window. A window full of rabid zombies.

As for work, here's another piece a did for Business Week concerning consumers in search of a cheaper shopping experience. It seems that rising gas and food costs have driven shoppers to dollar stores and Wal-Marts, with grocery stores feeling the effects. I did a couple of things differently with this piece, mostly concerning the use of shadows. I don't usually deal with lighting, but I really wanted the red tag to appear huge and monolithic so I felt almost obligated to do it. I really liked the results tho.


The shadows definitely gave my work a more polished look than I'm used to. We'll see if I continue to use them. Also, here's the sketch that preceded it. I always look at the sketch afterwards like "how'd I go from that to that?"


Anyway, that's about it for right now and this appears in the August 25th issue of Business Week.

Peace Blog.

Summer Reading

Hey Blog, it's that time again. I hope you had a good Eagle Day. It was raining here for the entire weekend, which put a damper on planned festivities. However, the "Beer Olympics" went well, and we even go through four events before the frustration of intense competition and Mother Nature killed the day. We had two more planned, but ended up having a big water balloon fight, thus undermining the intended water-balloon-toss. There was also a hose present, there were many casualties.

Anyway, I did a couple of chill pieces for Business Week for their Summer Reading list. It wasn't anything too high concept, I just wanted to show Summer + Chillin' + Reading. This one is a half page.


I also did a (smaller) follow-up illustration using a similar theme.


One thing I like about these two is how the background elements of the first piece become the main players in the second piece. I think that gives them both a little extra life.

So that's it for now, as I wait patiently for The Dark Knight. Later Blog.

Business Week Piece

Sup Blog. Look at me updating twice in a week. That's ridiculousness. It's been a lot of the same ol' this week. We're renovating the house so contractors have been in and out, but fortunately it hasn't been too distracting. I recently did a piece for Don Besom of Business Week for their marketing section. Apparently a decrease in tourism has lead a lot of hotels and resorts to cater to a local crowd, so my piece reflects that (the guy has a tube and floaties!)


Also, here's my crude idea sketch to give you an idea of the creative process going on:


See, I told ya I'd update soon.