Spacemen of Oz

This personal project was one of the most enjoyable illustrations I’ve done in the past year. When I was presented with the opportunity to design a piece for Mind Tempest’s current theme, The Wizard of Oz, I knew I wanted to do something with the Emerald City in it.

I’ve always enjoyed the retro-futuristic portrayal of Emerald City in the movie, and thought I’d take it a few steps further into a the sci-fi realm. This required re-imagining the characters from what I knew of the movie (I’ve never read the book)… a real lion, a robot tin-man, a slightly older Dorothy, and a less-mobile scarecrow. I thought about doing a robot dog, too, but hey… the Jetsons had a real family dog, so why should space-age Oz be any different?

Mind Tempest Feature

Hop on over to Mind Tempest to see their feature on the piece. There are links to buy prints and stickers (which is a first for me).

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Mind Tempest is a brand new artists’ network where each member contributes artwork to the site based on a theme (the currently theme is The Wizard of Oz). The theme will change several times a year, providing new challenges for the contributing artists. I look forward to having my work featured regularly alongside many others’.

Mind Tempest Branding

As it turns out, the first bit of my work Mind Tempest will publish is their logo (which is now featured on their site). As you can see, there are two versions of their logo pictured here. The “lightening bolt” is the primary Mind Tempest logo. The “tornado” was designed for the first theme, The Wizard of Oz. We’ll see how it works out, but the goal is to have a variation of the logo to promote each new theme.

In the meantime, keep your eyes open for my “retro-futuristic” take on The Wizard of Oz, which will of course be featured over at Mind Tempest.

Follow Mind Tempest

• facebook.com/mindtempest
• twitter.com/mind_tempest
• mindtempest.com/gplus

Poster for Spring Thaw 2013

Over the past year, I’ve found myself doing more event posters. Spring Thaw is a lot of fun because each year has a different theme (last year was retro-futurism… a favorite of mine) and I have the freedom to push the limits and apply a lot of craftsmanship. This year the event theme is the “old west” and the organizers requested a WANTED poster. There’s a shortage of good WANTED poster designs, so I decided to fix that.

Spring Thaw is a large youth event held on Multnomah University’s campus, which is organized by faculty and students. The array of activities is impressive, to say the least. I hear there may be paintball games this year that are themed after the “gunfight at the OK Coral” (Tombstone) and maybe even some quick-draw gunfights.

James White in Portland, Oregon

Spaceman Design and AIGA Portland are pleased to announce a special event featuring the mighty James White of Signalnoise. You’ll hear about his unorthodox and inspiring methods as well as his latest project, Gum Cards (think limited edition trading cards featuring famous graphic designers and other goodies). He’s making them available at the event, so you NEED to be there… don’t miss it!

DATE: November 15

TIME: 6:00 to 8:30 pm

LOCATION: UNION/PINE - 525 SE Pine Street, Portland, OR 97214

COST: $15 general admission, $10 for AIGA members

REGISTER NOW

DESIGN RENEGADE

Besides a killer presentation, there will be a Q&A, some time to mix and mingle, and chat with James yourself. There’ll be plenty of swag to go around!

Here’s the teaser for James’s presentation, Design Renegade…

In order to reach our goals in the upside-down world of graphic design, you need to be a rogue. A misfit. A renegade. James White from the Signalnoise Studio has based his career on doing things outside of the ordinary, turning his back on boardrooms and creative briefs in order to chase his design dreams with vengeance and rock n’ roll. He will be telling his story while discussing personal projects built from love and ambition in his small home office in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. These led to him working with respected people all over the world, from his favourite metal band to film juggernaut Kevin Smith. James will talk about chasing your creative path, building your personal body of work, the value of supporting friends, and never forgetting the artist inside.

Being “different” isn’t enough anymore. You need to be a renegade!

TEASER POSTER

The teaser poster you see here was designed by Dave Hardy (Spaceman Design) and features the likeness of James White in the style of Gum Cards, with his permission of course. It took quite a lot of time to get it just right, but it was rewarding and a lot of fun to delve into a new style! A huge “thank you” to my lovely wife who put up with several evenings of being unavailable, and to James White for the opportunity.

Another quick-and-dirty graphic I created for Multnomah’s Washington State site. The design is a continuation of the Reno graphic from earlier this year, but with colors more appropriate for the home of the “Emerald City”.

Inspired by the thrill of travel, and an age when traveling was a big deal (something you dressed up for, even), I created this “visit event” postcard for Multnomah University. I put time into making it feel vintage in a way that wasn’t a simple Instagram-style filter, layering effects, colors, and textures on top of each other. I even tried to mimic a printer whose registration was a bit off (which looks much better in print, by the way). It went to press today, so I’m excited to see the final, printed version.

My latest freelance project was a branding package for Grace Community Church in Dallas, Oregon. They are launching a new program that will take a scholarly approach to Christian theology. For the logo, I was asked to design something that felt like “university” or “higher education” branding. In addition to the logo, they needed a graphic that represented the six classes (101-601) and some graphics to use for slide backgrounds.

As I thought of possible ways to lay out a class schedule, portraying a “hierarchy” of difficulty (or the idea of “focusing in” on more and more advanced material with each class), the image of a skee ball machine came to mind. After a few drafts, we ended up with graphic you see above.

I am thrilled to partner with Signalnoise for the GUM CARDS project, and to sponsor a speaking event here in Portland (stay tuned for more information as details unfold).

gumcards:

I can’t even believe it. As of 2:15 pm Atlantic Time today the GUM CARDS project has surpassed it’s funding goal of $4000, and we still have 20 days of fundraising to go. Absolutely shaking with anticipation over here. This means we officially have the greenlight to move all the elements into production mode to get this thing moving. Amazing!

The sudden lurch forward in funding came from none other than Dave Hardy out in Portland, Oregon. Dave wrangled together the necessary resources to secure the whopping Diamond Pledge package, which means in November I’ll be flying out to Portland, partnering with Spaceman Design and AIGA Portland to do a DESIGN RENEGADE speaking event. Man oh man, you don’t even know how excited I am for this. Portland! You and me!

I want to thank each and every one of you who have helped move this little project forward over the last 10 days. Your support on every level means the absolute world to me. Can’t say that enough. Head is completely spinning.

So, beware next week as the GUM CARDS project takes on an entirely new life. Busy revving the engines over here!

More Branding…

Continuing with the new, stripped-down version of the Admissions branding I designed last year, this is the latest brochure to feature the design. I like the simplicity of it, and the interplay of Multnomah’s colors with the wood texture background.

Multnomah University Magazine Advertising

The design I developed last fall for Multnomah’s admissions booklets is reaching further and further into the school’s promotional material. I was recently asked to adapt the design for some magazine advertising, using a photo that “looks like it has been Instagrammed” (since MU now has its own Instagram account @multnomahu … another project of mine). This is one of the resulting ads.

A couple things I realized:

1. This stripped-down version of my design looks a lot better. I tried to cram way too much into it on the first go-round.
2. Instagram-looking effects really have to be dialed back to prevent looking out-of-place in the “real world”, especially when working within the confines of an established design.

So far, variations of this ad will be placed in Relevant Magazine, Portland Observer, and Christianity Today.