To be a zombie...

Design is...

What's the purpose of all these pictures? Why is art relevant? Why do I design?

I try and answer this for myself on a daily basis, whilst scribbling in my books and tooling around on the computer. I love drawing, and design gives the drawings I make structure. If anything, design is a powerful language that communicates worldwide.

I get stoked when I see that someone as far away as Moscow stumbled upon my website. It could be a bot for all I know, but who cares. I put my heart and soul into my work, and the work means nothing until it's viewed by an outside source. I hope to be drawing and creating graphics for the rest of my life. If there's anything I want to reveal with my work, it's that every day is an adventure. It may sound cheezy, but honestly, boredom is a killer. Try to see things in a new way each day.

Today my adventure involves making a mask for halloween. I've got some cardboard boxes, tape and acrylic paint. I'll be documenting my process like usual, so expect to see it up here soon. Hope everyone has an awesome Halloween, get in touch with your macabre side right?

I remember Halloween...

Halloween is just around the corner. I'm not usually so macabre, but I figure it's a good chance to play around with some horror movie themes that I don't usually get a chance to use. My good friend Sean needed a flyer for his Karaoke night's Halloween party, so I offered to knock one out for him.
For the flyer, I utilized the monsters I'd created for the Tender Loving Empire art piece that on display this month. I didn't have a chance to scan the piece before it was hung, so I had to make do with a lower-res photo I had taken. I did my best to sharpen the images in photoshop, but gave way to any resolution issues under the reasoning of making the poster old-school. I just tried to have fun with it, I'm pretty satisfied on how it turned out. It's nice to work on something that doesn't need to be over-conceptualized for a change.

Squirrel...

Today I discovered the amazing www.icanhascheezburger.com. It's a rolling blog of brilliant wildlife photography coupled with artful captions. I could spend hours looking through the pictures. I looked out my window today and saw this guy, and decided to give it shot. Sometimes I take an ok photograph.

Voxtrot Via Art Chantry

Art Chantry is speaking at PNCA tonight. As an exercise for the C4D, each of us in the studio produced a poster for the upcoming Voxtrot show in December. The image above represents my latest efforts. We showed our posters and Mr. Chantry gave us his thoughts, interspersed amongst anecdotes about working in the poster design field.
To design this poster I started by listening to the band. Their sound is an appealing sort of indie pop, that draws from the likes of Morrissey, Belle & Sebastian and Ted Leo. I have enjoyed every track I have listened too. I listened to the music and picked out instruments I heard, illustrating examples with silhouettes. Taking it to the next level I outlined the silhouettes on vellum paper, working backwards from my usual process.
From the critique, Mr. Chantry suggested that the hand drawn type was working well, it just needed to be further integrated with the linework. It got me thinking that the design itself might serve a better purpose as a t-shirt graphic. I'm now planning on restructuring it as a t-shirt, rather than a poster.

Bird's Nest

Command Centre

This is my studio, Micron Hero HQ, or the Command Centre. Everything happens here at this desk.

Lately, I've been reflecting on the world of design and my place within it. Design is such an epic universe, populated by such amazingly talented folks that I can't help but feel like a small fish in a very large ocean. I've been surrounded by design my entire life, watching my dad cutting photocopied type from antique novels to paste into layouts. I've been on roadtrips and abroad. Design exists everywhere, from vernacular typography on general stores to the most exlusive haute couture clothing items. The rabit hole goes so deep, and there are so many corners of the design world. I try to assume nothing, I'm just a guy with a sketchbook. I'm trying my best to make a name for myself, but all I really want to do in life is continue doing what I've been doing since I was a kid. I'm just trying to make sense of this world we live in.

Back in action...

This is my first day back in the real world after spending the weekend at the Oregon Coast. After Cut & Paste wrapped up I felt a weight off of my shoulders in terms of stress, but I wasn't completely unwound until this weekend. It's crucial in this digital age to spend some time away from the computer, getting in touch with reality again.


This is a piece I drew while at the coast. It's funny because even when I'm drawing on a piece of bristol with no computer in sight, I'm still thinking of how I'm going to color it once I get the line art completed. In a sense, the software exists in my head while I'm drawing analog style.

Speaking of software, in the middle of writing this entry, the FedEx truck pulled up to deliver my CS3 Master Collection. This signals a turning point here at the Micron Hero Design & Illustration Studio. I now declare this here studio a full service shop. Now it will take me some time to get up to speed on the new software, but I now have video editing and effects capabilities. What does this mean? Two words: Motion Graphics. Word.

Headless Body at a Topless Bar...

Last night, being First Thursday, was the opening of the Headless Body in a Topless Bar show at Tender Loving Empire. It's a monster themed group show, with contributions from over a dozen local artists, illustrators and photographers. For my piece I channeled everything fearful I could think of, getting into the Halloween spirit. It was a fun piece to make. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to scan it before turning it in to the curator. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get a high quality scan up on my website once the show is over. The show will be up all through october, so be sure to stop by Tender Loving Empire (NW 18th & Lovejoy) and check it out.

I like this one...

This guy will probably show up a bit more in the very near future. Painting perhaps?