Some Sketchbooks or How The Garden Grows

The Agency Group Poster

Above is the on-press, first run, of The Agency Group's informational poster. The poster serves to announces the impressive list of talent they represent in a wide variety of music, creative fields and public speaking and was a giveaway at conventions, for employees and associates. I was approached by MALCONTENT   (Mark Kingsley) to create an image for the front of the poster. There were only two main parameters: 1. Black and white. 2. Has to say The Agency Group on it.

Mark is simply one of my favorite creatives as I worked for his agency Greenberg/Kingsley back in the 90's, right out of art-school, and it's there where I learned most of what I know about presenting a wide range of ideas to clients, how solutions evolve through this process and how a willingness to explore options and accidents may emerge into fully realized, thoughtful and unexpected results.

Initially I though a "Teenage Makeout Session" might be an interesting idea to explore since this was going to be mostly for in-house distribution and the client seemed open to something adventurous that had an impact. The trick was to figure out the line between "Disney" and Tawdry. In the end the idea evolved into a dance-club scene that, to my eye, reminds me of club flyers and posters I loved from the 80's.

Mark picked up the Op-Art patterns from the front for the back of the poster. It brings the whole thing together and makes it sing.

Below are details from the poster, a few of the initially rejected sketches, the approved sketch, proccess shots of refining the sketch and finalizing the art, final PDF images of the poster and video of the press run.

!What If? Corporate Art

Here's a start to finish look at a Corporate Art piece created for the fine folks at !What If?. The only direction I was given was to consider three prompts that reflected the company's core values and use them as a guide to create an original piece of art that would eventually travel to their international, internal, gallery locations.

Exploring the possibilities for the quote "The Opposite Of Love Is Not Hate, It's Indifference" was the most alluring of the prompts. I had wanted to get into the silkscreen lab for a long time with the intent of creating some really large silkscreens of images from my tiny sketchbooks and thought this would be a great opportunity for this approach. !What If? loved the idea and told me to run with it.

Above is the final silkscreen that was signed as 1/1. After framing, the dimensions are 40"x52".

Below are original tiny sketchbook pages, initial "sketches" (rejected), silkscreen lab shots and a quick shot of the final framed image.

Was a fantastic project to work and a former (very talented) student suggested they consider my work. Good to see former students out in good company, finding their way.

Head Snowboards 2013

Here's the final product shots for the 2013 Head snowboard series I worked on with the creative team of Sven Hoffmann @ Design Büro and Christian Wolf @ Head. The art direction was —"They need to tell a story" and was was given total freedom to generate art that was then remixed by the designers at Design Büro. Really thrilled with the result and the co-lab experience. Below are some more product shots and some process stuff. Get one while they are still around.Tis a sweet ride..http://www.ridehead.com/snowboard/products/boards/unisex/the-evil-kers-flocka/4938/?region=ww

 

I was on the subway when I drew this in one of the my many little travel sketchbooks. It served as the original thoughts for the SheYeti & HeYeti boards.

Process for the He-Yeti art.

Original Tape Art, some Snowflake art on the wall and The Sun below (taken from a loose sketchbook exploration) that was later, heavily, remixed by the amazing crew at Design Büro. You can see the art from last year's He's Evli board hanging behind. Final result—She's Good, Flocka Board-http://www.ridehead.com/snowboard/products/boards/women/shes-good-flocka/4939/?region=ww

Pro Rider's Names Art for bottom of the boards.

Last year's She's Evil board I worked on along side this year's He's Evil Board. On a simply perfect day in Vermont this year. Love the ride on this thing. Go ride...

The Sun

George Bates Studio—Rule #3: Make Waves.

SOUTH WALL - 36TH ST. ROCKAWAY, FINAL ART

The South Wall of the NYC MTA 36th Street Subway Station Art has been installed. Above is a shot of the final art as you enter the station from the turnstiles. The walls are about 35'x8'. My original invitation to submit proposals to the MTA Arts for Transit came about because the art director had seen images of my surf art on Club of the Waves. I've been surfing out at Rockaway beach since the early 90's and had always been impressed with the area for a such a diverse array of reasons.

The original art form my small sketchbook that served as the inspiration for the walls. I started this drawing while I was stuck on a subway car while everyone was waiting for it to get moving again.

 Right stairwell art.

Left stairwell art.