light in the dark

every few months i seem to do a fairly large set of illustrations for Alberta Venture. more and more i've seen the piece i do for them deviate from regular business illustration. This piece was for a big package i did on trade shows. I've wanted to do a more ..."surreal" piece for a while, and usually offer sketches of that nature, but they're almost never picked. This time Lindsay (the AD)took a shot! the subject was little trade booths stealing the focus from big booths - i had this idea that all the lights could be on the little table, and added a fun touch by tying the lights together, like a curtain. initially, i had the small booth featured very large in the drawing, but Lindsay suggested really zooming out, and showing the other booths looming. i was nervous, because i dont normally do such small figures w/ so much background - but it was an awesome bit of growth, and i really appreciate her pushing for it!

Boom boom boom boom, I want you in my room.

This piece, for Seattle Weekly, was a follow-up to the nuclear kickback story I worked on a few months ago. The article picked up where the other left off. Initially, this made coming up with a whole new set of different ideas on the same subject matter pretty difficult. Jane suggested I focus on some elements that were really stressed in the new piece, like the whistle blowing, and the potential catastrophe that awaits the clean-up. This image was originally meant as a cover, but Washington had some great news and legalized gay marriage, so I got bumped to a full page inside.
There were close to 15 ideas, heres a few:

ConnCan, can you do the ConnCan, can you do the ConnCan, can you do the can?

Last month I worked with the fine people at ConnCan on their newest education reform campaign called "Wake up Connecticut". The Job required creating a logo for the campaign, as well as a series of illustrations to help roll out the corresponding initiatives.
The logo needed to get across a sense of Urgency, and tie it simply back to education. there were a lot of steps taken before i realized that a simple siren was a great way to get across a feeling of emergency and urgency, and conveniently its the same shape as the eraser on the end of a pencil.
excellent.
Thus:The logo appears in a variety of incarnations - and will also be seen writing out "Wake up Connecticut" on a sheet of lined paper (conveniently mimicking the shape of the state).
The next part of this is the illustration for the first initiative - we needed to get across the idea that people werent taking action, they were just ignoring the problem. thus:I was pretty excited about the solution, because it seemed to capture what we were going for perfectly. I'll post more of the campaigns as they spring into action!

Vitamin P (for Pete)

two fun new pieces for Family Circle Magazine. The article was about using caution when choosing what vitamins to take. Vitamins, like all things related should not be "one size fits all" - they should be tailored to the user - as too much of anything can be useless or harmful. The pill bottles were part of a chart, and had to look a certain way - but i had a lot of fun designing one of those tacky labels, and cutting out all the little stencils for the letters, so they could be silkscreened. on the back, where that would clearly be impossible, i wrote it out in pencil (trying to find excuses to draw into my work - more and more) - I thought these turned out cool. The "caution pill" piece is cropped from a full page - essentially it looked just like this, but with type running down the side. Heres some ideas too, that didnt make the cut (many of them focused on the "one size does not fit all" angle):

something's fishy

New piece for Steve at Canadian Wildlife, about the massive amount of carbon and methane coming up out of the ocean and into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming. after reading the article, it seemed a bit like the ocean was fighting back, it had had enough of our BS, and was doing something to retaliate - that got me thinking of Poseidon, the ruler of the seas - and what power he had. Naturally this turned into his trident doubling as smoke stacks - belching toxins into the air.

snow more mr. nice guy

New piece for for the super awesome Lesley Palmer, and AARP about time banking and time bank participation. if you're not familiar with the term, time banking is a community initiative where individuals "log" hours by performing tasks for others, and by doing so, build up hours they can use to receive help from others. example, i shovel your driveway, you unclog my sink. get it? my idea was pretty straight up, to show someone performing a task, and link that up with the concept of time keeping. couple of ideas - there were lots more...

eggs-actly

Very quick piece for the WSJ, about knowing the right direction to take your investment. will it be in your companies 401k, or an IRA? etc. This idea came up pretty organically. I was thinking about the line "whatever direction the wind takes you" - which got me thinking of a weather vane. I always think of a rooster or goose as part of the weather vane, and it didnt take much thought to add a little egg under that goose. A no brainer, and a solid solution for the problem, i think.
However, this wasnt the initial image that was chosen. this was: but, as it turns out - another illustration printed today had a question mark - so we went with plan B. always fun working with the WSJ.