Forget Me (not)

My dad, Harry O. Nawroth, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in the final years of his life. He lost his fight last year on this date at the age of 83. Some days he had good days, some days not so good. But deep down inside, my dad was in there. I'm glad that he's no longer suffering. I didn't realize how far he had slipped away from us until he had passed away. As I perused old photos of him, I remembered how he used to be. I was mad at myself for accepting this new version of my dad in his final years. Even though it is a blessing that he's no longer suffering, there are many other fathers, mothers, and other family members suffering this disease. That's why I'm again participating in my local Alzheimer's Walk in September.


I had a vision of this print in my head since last year, and while it didn't turn out quite as I originally saw it, I think this version is much stronger.


The flower is a forget-me-not, which is the flower of September, my dad's birth month. I used blues tones because it was my dad's favorite color. The white/light blue lines of the flower represent the chaotic nature of the disease as it destroys the brain while the dark blue lines represent the person's true self that is being consuming.


The textures are rough and coarse, reflecting the aggravation of not only person suffering, but their family members suffering too.


The line "forget me" is easily legible, but the word "not" is nearly invisible to represent the lost of memory.


This print is not for sale, but for those who donate $35 or more to my Alzheimer's Walk, I will give away a hand-signed and numbered 11x17 archival print. Once the fundraising for 2012 is over, this print will not be made again.

Custom Fit Construction Logo

This was my first-ever barter project. My friend started his own construction business, Custom Fit Construction after being downsized in the economic downturn. He and his wife had developed a tagline and had a starter logo to get them off the ground, but wanted something a bit more clean and crisp as he expands his business and looks for a larger customer base.

I happened to need a new patio, so we worked out an agreement and work began just as the weather turned cold at the end of 2010. Alas, my long-desired patio would have to wait until Spring, but that's okay, I could still work on the logo in the meantime...

The original concept for his logo was "Solving Your Remodeling Puzzles" and they wanted to stick with that, so I used that as my basis and went to work and developed four concepts. I mocked up the logo in a business card format to help the client visualize the final outcome and help speed up development time.

Version A: standard "wood" version to imply the basis of nearly all construction. Cliché, but hey, gotta get it out of your system, plus you can't go wrong with an awesome background texture:

Version B: I kept the wood texture (from my friend Von's book: Crumble. Crackle. Burn. Great resource for any designer!) and added a puzzle element in keeping with the company's tagline:

Version C: I custom fit each letter of the words "Custom Fit Construction" together like puzzle pieces:

Version D: I developed a more puzzle look for the logo while keeping the type clean and crisp. For the background I took photos of wood, concrete, brick, floor tile and gravel all around my house one sunny Saturday in November:

My friends really liked version D, but wanted it to be a bit cleaner looking so I made the the background white and changed the type to the green from version C to reflect that he does do green construction too.

I reworked the textures a bit for the final version as seen here:

So far my friend really likes the new logo and looks forward to implementing it across all media.

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.

Cool Leaves

I was out mowing my yard last week and I found a clump of leaves that had freed itself from my tree in the front yard. I was about to toss them into my yard waste bag, but I took a moment to look at the leaves first and discovered that they were beautifully textured, so instead, I put them aside, finished my yardwork and when I was done, took them out back to this old wooden bench and shot some photos. I did enhance the photos a bit, but it helped that Mother Nature made them neato-cool to begin with. BTW, if you like these images, they are for sale here.