LIFE OF AN IDENTITY MARK: Last week I went to the final day of the Quiksilver PRO NYC event to take some shots of the logo usage at the actual event site. Originally, I had sent David the "PRO" type (above), along with a variety of other type explorations, and through his transformative magic the O became integrated into the logo and identity of the event.

It was a stunning beach day and the surf was simply perfect.The shots that follow are from about a half hour before the final heat and the aftermath.

 

The sales people said the merch was really selling well, especially the shirt on the left that had the "Long Beach" scene on it as this was the most site specific shirt and folks seemed to want a memento of that site (another factor: Long Beach pride). They had actually run out of sizes for that shirt. As I mentioned in the previous post, that drawing was done in my sketchbook while thinking about 89the street in Rockaway but it looks pretty much just like Long Beach site.

There was some fantastic local surfing going on to the right and left of the event site but for the final heat everyone got out of the water to watch. Right before the heat began it got really crowded, but not too crowded. The vibe was something, charged, amped, electric yet beachy mellow...Final heat shots below.

The champ emerges victoriously from the sea.

 Love the big check...All in all it seemed like the actual surfing aspect of the event was a huge success for Quik despite the Irene problems and setbacks from that storm. We'll see if they are back next year. Good times.

 

FROM SKETCHBOOK TO PRODUCT: For some of the Quiksilver Pro NYC merch, work was taken directly out of my Moleskine sketchbooks and used for product. Above is a drawing I did of Rockaway that looks pretty much just like Long Beach. The planes were removed due to 9-11 sensitivity (wise move).

This is from my Travel Sketchbook. Done while relaxing out in Coney Island several years ago. Go get 'em while they're hot! Tomorrow is the last day of the event.

Here's the first i've seen of the official Quiksilver PRO France 2011 campaign I collaborated on with David Carson. The shot is from a storefront somewhere in Hossogor, France. No word on if this is the "window set" or if it's a work in progress and the painting will be "finished" like the final art I turned in (see below) .Right now I do love the scrappy bits hung about, as they are some of the campaign presentation David gave over there, but we'll see...

The image is roughly based on old travel posters from that particular area of France from the 30's&40's. I think what they are doing with the campaign it is much more interesting, adventurous and unique than the NYC campaign .David presented ALOT of stuff over there much like the NYC PRO campaign and perhaps we'll see it all some day as it's all really hot.

Collaboration with David Carson on campaigns for Quiksilver PRO NYC and FRANCE events. Gallery of poster campaign explorations originally posted on David's site.

Final logo in Quiksilver NYC storefront, July 2011.

Last fall I was invited to submit a proposal for the NYC URBAN CANVAS public art project which provides NYC constructions sites with scalable artwork for covering fences, scaffolds and buildings. In the end this proposal was not chosen but here's a glimpse at the proposal I submitted as I was really pleased with the outcome and was honored to be invited. All final art was submitted as vector files.

HEAD SNOWBOARD PDF NEWPAPER with George Bates interview conducted by Sven Hoffmann. Designed by DESIGNBURO

Here's the final printed cover for the Princeton Alumni Review Humor Issue. Below are some of the rejected sketches along with the approved sketch. Originally it seemed like the laughing mouth was the direction they were leaning but settled on the face with funny glasses in the end. I think i'm going to start showing some favorite rejected sketches more often in a REJECTED SKETCHES SPOTLIGHT. Enjoy.

Approved sketch.

 

This one was my personal fave.

In fall of 2010 the latest children's picture book i've illustrated (ON A WINDY NIGHThttp://www.abramsbooks.com/Books/On_a_Windy_Night-9780810939004.html) became available in stores. It's had a really nice reception with the little ones, parents and critics and i'm told it's quite the seller! Below is a bit of a glimpse into the process that went into the book.

The story is written by Nancy Raines Day and basically tells the tale of a boy traveling through the woods alone on Halloween night as he becomes frightened by what may, or may not, be lurking in the woods and following him home. The manuscript was really an illustrator's paradise as the story of a boy who's imagination may be running wild really lends itself to a very wide visual interpretation. I decided I wanted to try to get the viewer's experience as close as possible to that of the boy in the story's. That being, the experience of things being a little off balance as to the nature of reality. Around the thaT I was offered the story I had recently been hired to do a job that required crosshatching and thought that approach would lend itself well to seeing things and forms that may be vague and not quite there and set to experiment with the ideas, technique and compositions in my sketchbook.

Here is the first drawing I played with in my sketchbook. I created the original drawing rather small and enlarged it for the final art so that the hatching marks and line quality has an even rougher look to help with the mood of the story.

This is the  color image i submitted to Abrams and Nancy to get signed off on the look and feel of the illustrations. The final color image is an accident that I stumbled upon while playing with layers and textures in Photoshop. I thought that the technique helps the idea of the book by visually confusing the depth of the picture plane.

Here are some sketchbook explorations of the boy character in the book and some rough storyboard sketches. The boy is based on a photo I have of my younger brother who loved Halloween much more than I ever did.

Working on children's books is an extremely collaborative endeavor in terms of choosing and refining the best rythm, pacing, tone and marriage of text and image. Above are some of the first round of storyboards for the ending of the book that just didn't work. In total I think we did three passes of storyboards before settling on a final version. These didn't work because it shows the boy at that height of his fright and in these sketches he clearly leaves reality altogether into madness...not quite right for the age group. From the beginning of the sketching process the challenge was to find the right balance of scary and cute and i think we nailed it in the end. A favorite Maurice Sendak quote I love is "you can't frighten children, they are already frightened...". However, you can traumatize them and we wanted to steer clear of that. I thought it was interesting though that a friend who is a children's librarian told me many children come into the library requesting scary books and often claim the books they receive are not quite scary enough. 

Another significant difference between these original storyboards and the final version of the book is that here in the first pass it was decided that each page would be a spread so as to lend the book a more cinematic quality and deepen the reader's immersion each page and the story. I thought this worked out beautifully as a child who had recently read the book exclaimed " that's the best movie I ever read!".

Here is the final sketch for on of the pages from the book. I hired my sister to transfer the images to paper that was close in texture to the sketchbook paper I had been experimenting with in the sketchbooks. I then inked the lines with chisel edge pen. Below shows the final line art and process of adding the color. I can't say how it works exactly as it was an accident I stumbled upon while playing around in Photoshop but everyone was really pleased with the result and it really helps set the mood for the story.

Final line art. About half the size of the final color file. Approximately 18"x7".

The line art is blown up to about 27"x11" and the first layer of color is added. For some reason the first layer is brown with some adjustments for various elements.

The next layer has the texture and main color which is actually a very bright cyan before a filter is applied.

The previous layer is simply floated on top of itself and the image becomes brighter.Here there are  some adjustments to various elements like the clouds and boy.

Once more the layer is floated on top of itself, the image get's even brighter and it's finished. This is the final image that was sent to the printer. As with the original experiment with the owl above I loved the final look of the technique but it did take some time to figure out how to get it to function consistently. The final technique reminds me of under-painting and glazing techniques in oil painting. 

Here's the book trailer. Enjoy.

http://www.abramsbooks.com/Books/On_a_Windy_Night-9780810939004.html