A Truly Vicious Blog

I've had my blog here at blogger since the summer of 2008 and have recently decided on not just a redesign but a restructuring. I've noticed recently that apps like Gowalla and Hipstamatic which I love to play with have integrated an option for posting to Tumblr. Well after a little perusing I found Tumblr's code to be much more friendly to play with. Not to mention when I initially made this blog I had no clue what I was doing with code, I've come quite a ways. :) I even decided with this redesign to create a secondary version of my logo that could handle areas that are not so horizontal. So for future blog posts you can visit me at http://theviciouscircus.tumblr.com/ Enjoy!

Great Graphic Design

So half way through this last quarter I shared this formula of mine with a class of my students and was asked about it recently. I've never really shared this with anyone else before but here is how it goes. This scrawl from above is the first page in my moleskin and is usually redrawn at the beginning of every sketchbook I make.

While I was in graduate school I was constantly picking apart what design is (or for that matter what makes up Great Graphic Design). I see it as a system almost of checks and balances between three major parts. The Concept, The Content and The Application. I went on further to create this venn diagram of my formula, mainly because I have this odd obsession with venn diagrams.

I think the only confusion for some would be that I use Concept and Idea as separate entities. This is because a concept may be a theme, a word, a sentence, some ambiguous thing floating in the ether until it is combined with content to create an idea. An example would be my holiday cards for this season, the concept was to be able to interchange words to create new ones but I could have done that with any set of words. When combined with the Content of different holidays it became the Idea for my Holiday cards (the cards were the application of the Idea to create Great Fucking Design).

Pirates, Vikings, Wampas & More!

I love Christmas and the Holidays, I always have (I think especially since my birthday is in late December as well)! Well a couple of years ago I went off to Savannah, GA to go to grad school at SCAD. I had this nice place with a huge mantle and when the holidays came around I didn't really have any money to decorate. So I improvised by building my own decorations out of LEGO. Hence my annual LEGO Xmas town was born. Each year it grows and grows :) You can see more shots of this years over at Flickr. Enjoy!

Happy Holidays 2010

I love designing a holiday card every year and this years was quite a feat. I wanted to do more than just the ambiguous "Happy Holidays" but somehow still create a card for everyone. So I put together Festivus, Christmas, Hanukkah, Navidad, and Holidays each with their own positive expression and then cut the words up so the illustrations in the card could be mixed and matched. The result is you can celebrate everything! They are 4-color process on 65# Cover French's Parchtone Mist with A7 French's Poptone Blue Rasberry envelopes! Only 50 cards were made so if you got one Enjoy!

U is for U-Bend!

U is up at Alphabattle!

Arsenic & Old Lace

A new poster design on my site! :) A mixture of whimsical typography and clean illustration, which make up much of my personal style are used to create this poster for the play Arsenic & Old Lace. Arsenic & Old Lace is a play by American playwright Joseph Kesselring, written in 1939. This is not a client project but is my interpretation of how it could be done and was developed for a series of samples I'll be sending to art directors.

T is for Time

T is for Time :) Now up for Alphabattle!

SWARM Sans!

Thanks to Brain Carroll over on Dribbble I heard about Design*Sponge's Design Your Own Alphabet Contest. I however heard about it about 24 hours before the deadline so I came up with an entry of my own with SWARM Sans. Which honestly I think may be much stronger than the original serif version I designed. Look for a full typeface of it sometime in 2011 (I've got a pretty full plate right now).



You can see Brian's Icarus entry up on Dribbble. Awesome work Bri!

R & S

With my work on my Halloween costume I fell a bit behind on my lettering and missed out on R. I went ahead with it since it felt odd to not do so. So here is R and S. You can see all the others over at Alphabattle!


R is for Ribbon!


S is for Smoke!

My lettering is getting more and more narrative as this goes on, that is something I'm really enjoying! :)

Halloween

So Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I also see it as a chance to try my hand at something new. As in the case of last years There's Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself. So this year I ended up running down to the wire and decided to push myself even more. You see the Sunday before Halloween I bought a sewing machine. Having no clue how to use one I taught myself that evening. On Monday I cut fabric from a pattern I bought (which honestly figuring out the pattern instructions was more cryptic than the DaVinci Code and harder than learning to use the machine). Wednesday and Friday I put together the pirate coat and vest. The shirt and pants I had from another costume years ago. And Viola! Now I'm set for Renn Faire next year as well :)




I used this story as a parable to my freshman students that you can never think that you can't do something. Just fucking do it!

Q

Q is for the Queen of Hearts! :) Check out the rest of the letters over at Alphabattle!

Alice in Wonderland

I'm a big fan of Alice in Wonderland and felt it would make a great addition to a pitch of samples for art directors. This is not a client project and never took place but is my interpretation of how it could be done. It is 2 posters, the program cover, and a shirt design for the staff. I set this fictitious project with the Port Tobacco Players, they are an awesome local theater of volunteers that do great work.

TERCIO!

Tercio is a pastiche slab-serif of wood & metal tendencies. Originally construction was to create a slab-serif version of Camisado, but as the design progressed so many changes took place that Tercio became its own font. The steampunk inspired print is 12.5" x 19" four color process with a silk-screen overprint of metallic gold ink on French's 65# Cover Parchtone Aged. Download Tercio for free here. Enjoy!

P is for Pen

P is up at LetterCult. Enjoy!

Hello Kitty Commander!

So a couple of days ago I came across an illustration I did years ago and laughed my ass off. I called it Hello Kitty Commander and it may be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever drawn :)



I posted it on Dribbble and it got everyone who saw it laughing, as well as, Ryan's request for a desktop background. Well I'm not one to shrug at a request for my work. :) So here is a list of every conceivable monitor resolution I could think of:

1024x768
1152x864
1280x800
1280x960
1280x1024
1440x900
1600x1050
1920x1080
1920x1200
2560x1440

iPhone3
iPhone4

Crap! I don't know my monitor resolution and don't feel like checking. Can I download all of them in one zip file? Yep! :)

Enjoy!

O

O is up at LetterCult. I was originally trying to go for something that looked like lace but in the end it felt more like porcelain.

A Lesson on Typography

Cruz Skateshop Sacramento

My Brother Gordon and his girlfriend Sandy are opening a second shop location in Sacramento and got featured in the Sacramento Press! And one of these days he'll get around to making the shirt I illustrated for the shop last summer HAHA

N is for kNot!

N is up over at LetterCult's Alphabattle. Enjoy!

Never Underestimate the Power of the Stache!

So for a few weeks I've had this image in my head as a rebound to Rogie King's This Isn't The Mustache You Were Looking For... that was Vader with the oldstyle villain handlebar mustache. So last Friday I went ahead and threw down my rebound, liked it so much I took part of my weekend to make a screen and print silver ink on a black tee.