Hey That's Me! n2 Quoted in Caffeine for the Creative Team

Late last year, members of the HOW Design forum were asked to contribute their thoughts about how the forum acted as a team for the book, Caffeine for the Creative Team. A couple of my quotes and photos that were submitted were used in the chapter on the HOW Forum.

Congrats to my fellow HOWies who also made an appearance in the book!

New T's on Zazzle: There's a Nap for That

I just created a new line of shirts for everyone who loves naps! "Whatever tires you, there's a nap for that." Enjoy! http://tinyurl.com/qm7kjz

DLM Pastry Show Book 2009

Last week was the fifth annual Dorothy Lane Market Pastry Show. This marks the second year that we've done a "book" for the show that features write-ups about the fine pastries, hors d'oeuvres, and beer and wine offered at the event. The book acts as an admission badge and event souvenir.

For this year's theme, I decided to go with "spring watercolors postcards" when I was developing the design for the advertising materials. I had found some awesome watercolor brushes for Illustrator that I was itching to try out, so I played with various combinations of strokes until I achieved that Impressionistic watercolor look that I had envisioned. I then turned the icons for the Eiffel Tower, pastry, and tulip that I'd used in previous years' materials into stamps to tie everything together.

I was surpised by the strong response by our associates to the finished piece: they all just fell in love with the simple design. It is quite a departure from previous years and from all the positive reactions I've heard, a good one at that! To steal a line from the A-Team: "I love it when a good design comes together." :)

Cover:


Inside page:

Doodle Swap

A friend of mine from the HOW Design Forum, Mary, came up with a brilliant idea to do a "doodle swap" on Artist Trading Cards. She described it as: "The Doodle Swap Project is an organized swap of original, trading-card-sized art between artists, designers and illustrators."

It sounded like fun so I signed up. I decided to go with an old standby that I tend to doodle: robots and sci-fi. I just had to give my new Faber-Castel Artist pens a workout, so I figured this would be a great way to use 'em. I tried to stay true to the art of doodling and I warmed up first and then drew directly on the final cards with the pens. I decided to add color with my favorite medium, colored pencil. Alas, the textured vellum was not very forgiving so for the sake of keeping the pen lines visible, I just put a light coating on. Next time I want to give the smooth ATC cards a crack, I think that will work better with the color pencils.

I did a total of nine images, you can view them all on my Flickr. I'm enjoying receiving the cards from my fellow designers in the mail, it's like a mini Christmas with each one that arrives!

You can view the entire Doodle Swap Project on Flickr here.

Below, from my Doodle Swap, "Hello HAL"...

New Zazzle Ts: Designer Math

New t-shirt design available from my Zazzle shop!

If you thought Algebra was hard, then you're probably a designer. We might have a job that's more fun, but our math isn't much easier, just different. Available in Men's and Women's sizes on my Zazzle shop.

T-shirt reads:
Can you place the Illy file into ID and try to either print it from
there or make a PDF and print the PDF?

Can you walk and chew gum at the same time?

Perhaps if you feed it cookies it will be all better? Or better yet,
feed you cookies and come back to it?

Did you export the AI file to make the PSD or JPG? What happens if
you just open the AI file in PSD?

Did you try doing a Save As, deleting the custom fills and seeing if
it will print?

Maybe you could photocopy it instead? :P

Testing Ping.fm...

Stimulate the Economy!

Well, my personal economy....shameless self promo: I just added 2 new shirts to my Zazzle store that poke fun at the economic situation. Stimulate the economy in style with these t-shirts! Both designs are available in men's and women's styles. If you like what ya see, you can buy 'em here.

Creative Postcard Club—R49 Numerals

This was a tough assignment for me. While I did actually vote for this theme, in general numbers make my eyes glaze over. So to find a meaningful number/numeral for me would prove to be the most challenging part of this assignment.

So I thought about numbers and did a littel research and then I realized that there was one number with a storied history that would work quite nicely, 13. While I don’t personally find 13 unlucky or bad luck, most people do. I decided to take advantage of this stereotype and create a creepy image.

I used some new tools for me: A Faber Castel Brush pen and my new Moleskine notebook to hand-render the numbers which I then scanned into Photoshop where I added texture and lighting to give the number the proper mood.

Click here to learn more about the Creative Postcard Club.

Friday Fun 2-Fer

So I was buying more paper for my inkjet printer on Amazon the other day and came across this oddity:


USED paper? Seriously? The worst part was the price was almost as much as a new, unopened box!


And my second "What the?!" of the week was this find on the Apple apps store:



So iBoob didn't make it past the almighty Apple censors, but this app where you can dress up women in different skimpy outfits did? No, I didn't download this one. And sadly, I can't remember what I was searching for when I found it, I got distracted. :P