Magic Johnson

A little while back I had the extreme pleasure of working with fantastic illustrator John Tomac (who also designs for Barron's) for an article about Closed End Mutual funds. In the brief John explained to me that they're a bit shadey and hoped to see some slight of hand / deception. John suggested pulling money from behind the investors ear and that seemed to be a good fit - as the returns seem to materialize from out of nowhere. Lots of fun working with John, and a bit intimidating, as Im such a big fan of his work - In the end I think the final looked pretty badass.
Thanks John! some roughs below, there were lots

muppets in Chi Town

sounds like a musical, right?
The is this weeks cover of the Chicago Reader - I painted it out Monday night. The whole process went really fast - It was about the "hidden hands" in the mayoral campaign - the people behind the scene, calling the shots. They wanted to feature one candidate in particular - Rahm Emanuel - so the idea was to do a conceptual portrait. Fun. this is what I came up with, along with some roughs.
Interesting side note Rahm is missing half his finger on his right hand - AND so is his campaign manager ... weird.

Heavy Metal (Detector)

Heres a piece for todays WSJ. I was working with the blurb "where jobs are" - then later the article which elaborated a bit more and was essentially explaining which industries are hiring in 2011. My initial idea was to show a circled job in the classifieds (as the article spoke of finding a job, as well as looking) the circle would double as the end of a metal detector. - kinda, you know, detecting the jobs that are hiring. I got the go ahead from Mark, who felt It would work better with just a regular metal detector. Fair enough - but I decided to see both through to final - Maybe when Mark saw it he'd get what I was going for. Below are the two finals, Mark decided to go with his version and he was right to do so. Mine just doesnt read as immediately. I still like the idea OF the idea - but Im glad I had someone to steer me away from the rocks. Thanks Mark, great working with you as always - love those quick overnight finishes. Winner

Baby New Year

2011 Whaaaaaaaaaatttttuuuuupppppppp!!!!!
I did this series for Alberta Venture over my break. I love working with them and usually get to do one big project for them a year. This one was about companies franchising!
The main image was just showing business franchising - i wanted to show everyone "in it together" as well as showing a clear leader. I was really happy with the solution, as a sidecar (or a bunch of them) seem to fit these requirements really well :)I also did a bunch of spots for this project -
one about how businesses get further with multiple revenue sources rather than one:
another about selecting valuable property locations among the bad / toxic onesI LOVE this crown / trap idea - it originated with another project I was also working on, but worked great for this too.
Thanks for stopping by!