Volkswagen GTI promotional "Crest" poster printed in black velvet.
This crest illustration was the culmination of a handful of sleepless nights and I'm proud to say it has now been featured in the VW gear catalog for almost a decade.
The subtitle for this is "Killing as Many Birds with One Stone as Possible" and the best day for a project like this is when you're trapped inside due to New England-style weather.
The first "bird" to kill is that I've been meaning to do some designing JUST for me. It's been a while and with work being work it's sometimes hard to be completely satisfied making car ads. The second mission was to fill the one remaining blank wall in my living room with something. Finally, I've been telling myself for a while that I should make my own typeface. Now, I usually do a lot of hand-done type in my posters, but I wanted to make something that was much more elaborate and maybe a bit ridiculous.
And then earlier this afternoon while listening to some Woody Guthrie songs it all came together.
To begin with, the typeface was created in this weird 3D perspective and is one of those things I'll probably never do again (ever). It's got a very low center point which makes it stocky and the lowercase E's and G's hanging out with the rest of the capital characters kinda makes it a little less tough. I like the Y's and the R's the best. All of the coloring and half-toning was done once in Photoshop.
And since Woody was never much for copyright laws I'm putting up a very high resolution version of this (34" x 24" at 300dpi) and giving it a Creative Commons' Attribution Non-Commercial license. So print it out if you want. Print a whole lot of them if it moves you. In my case, I'll be placing each half into its own frame for hanging.
Download it from FLICKR
13" x 19" 4-color poster for The Fillmore, SF
Poster to support show and EP "We All Look Better in the Dark".
3 color silkscreen print on 100lb French paper. The moon and stars are overprinted with glow in the dark ink.
Final size 15" x 25"
Patrick is an advertising colleague and a good friend so when he asked me to do his wedding invite (and that the event was just one big party at a historic SF music venue) I couldn't say no.
Because of the location, they specifically wanted something in the vein of my Fillmore work which made the whole thing even more fun.
PS. Congrats Patrick and Celena.
2 color silkscreen poster for Hot Hot Heat show in Boston. Also featuring: Louis XIV and The Information.
The arrow in the eye of the skull pointed to the stat at the bottom of the t-shirt: EVERY 6.5 SECONDS SOMEONE DIES FROM A SMOKING-RELATED ILLNESS.
2-color silk screen print for Les Savy Fav show, Camrbidge, MA.
Saw these vintage oil cans at a car show and traded some old parts for them. They were a bit too beat up for display, but I thought they'd photograph well.
I was right.
After some focus stacking and a couple quarts of Photoshop work they kind of look like pop art done by Norman Rockwell.
20” x 28” digital archival print
13" x 19" 4-color poster for The Fillmore, SF
13" x 19" 4-color poster for The Fillmore, SF
It's good to get away from the computer a bit (but not too far cause that would make me uncomfortable). It started with a photo taken a while back and the rest of the process involved spray paint, silkscreen ink, some ancient and nearly useless watercolors, and a whole LOT of Photoshop.
I really like the concept of making something that seems very organic, but in reality not giving up the OCD ability to control every paint splatter and drip digitally. Feels good.
2 color silkscreen poster for The Wrens show in Boston. Also featuring: The Information
Painting is way outside my comfort zone. But I found some cans of spray paint in my room and decided to give them a purpose.
Why a street light? I don't know. It was just in my head (same goes for the title). Regardless, it was nice doing something messy.
13" x 19" 4-color poster for The Fillmore, SF
4-color poster for Grace Potter show in San Francisco.
Tattoo-style illustrations for US Puma stores.
13" x 19" 2-color poster for The Fillmore, SF
The quote is an excerpt from an article in The New Yorker (May, 1942). It's about a woman building a massive quilt made from articles once owned by (sometimes subjectively) famous people. This is the last line from the short piece and the prose of it just stuck with me. Not sure if it was a common term back in the 40's, but I felt it needed a bit of a spotlight.
18" x 24" digital archival print.
Taking the idea of "Fatal Flaws" literally for a series of individual song releases.
Cover art for The Information's "Natural Language" EP.