Wednesday, October 31, 2007

a sordid state of affairs.

i had created a coming soon sign for a local dental building a few weeks back.

there was an incredible hubbub as the sign company printed up the board, and then left it at the wrong work site.

after a day of phone calls, at five, the client called and the sign was still at the wrong place, so a little overtime getting abck with the sign company.

that night it's in the right spot, and i'm pleased as this is the closest to a billboard i've done in my professional career.

the next morning, the client calls us to inform us it's blown over as it wasn't weighted down.

we call the sign company again asking where the cinderblocks they spoke of (placed at the wrong site) didn't travel with the sign. they inform us they can't fix it till five.

my creative director and i decide to go and buy and place the cinderblocks ourselves.

we get to the site only to find the sign in three (3) pieces!

we haul the cinderblocks to the sign shop, let them know what's what; and thanks to their poor performance earlier, they are fixxing the sign.

it's up that night.

it's up monday morning.

monday afternoon... it's in three pieces, again.

my boss heads down and finds some "guilty puppy dog" reactions from the construction crew... one theory is that they got annoyed that they had to move it, so they busted it up... then when it was back up again, they were even more annoyed.

another theory revolves around some pickiters. it seems source group hired non union electricians, and they've had pickiters at their site.

then my boss nearly had a fit when she saw this headline:

confrontation at construction site

all our people involved, but luckily a different construction site... in fact, the one down the street that the sign company had erroniously placed the coming soon sign.

and to top it all off, this morning, there was a large sign outside of our sign's construction site stating "m&i bank funded" or something to that effect... turns out, that sign belonged at the other site...

what a sordid state of affairs.

may i present, peter griffin.

peter griffin.
peter griffin.

shaved little parts of my hair to be styled like peters.

created a butt-chin out of a styrafoam ball cur in half, hollowed and painted (kinda like) my skintone.

grabbed a pack of bloodshot eye glasses, took out the bloodshot and painted over the blue eye color for black pupils.

bought a white polo.

viola.

peter griffin.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

guitars revisited.

as seen in my last blog, i recently joined design by hümans and popped in an old design, and an unused design.

insomnia struck once again last night, and i decided to reinvigorate an old design.

i took this piece, and the critiques on this page to heart.

roots.

I then decided to redesign it and submit it here.

guitree.

i like the new one.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

design by humans

i stumbled onto a tshirt contest site called design by hümans

it takes a page from threadless and some pages from places like Oddica and Bountee.

the contest element (from threadless) wins you some more money.

the percentages the artists take home (Oddica and Bountee both do this) are a welcome addition to the expanded prize money.

and finally, the printing techniques are the most immersive i've seen on any of those other sites.

i've set up my own design by hümans account and i've already submitted a couple of designs.

i was led into the site knowing that they tend towards the artistic designs, and less cartoony. So I went through my personal library of designs and nabbed this one:

rock monster.

i also decided to add one that i always thought was a little too out there for threadless:

ghost.

feel free to join design by hümans and let me know what you think of my (and other's) designs.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

early adventures in design.

i began design by simply playing around in mspaint. creating random internet pictures trying too hard to make internet friends.

one of my favorite early mspaint designs was for my dad's birthday. i had taken an image of his head, slapped on his (early) nickname with some "typography skills" and made some shirts for the family.

i no longer have the still image (and the business that originally printed the shirts lost the screen) so this annoying animated gif will have to suffice.

montana flash

a year later, my mspaint skills had increased slightly, and my dad had another birthday, so the branding continued:

montana flash, represent

after seeing some of the random designs i had put together and made into shirts, a blockbuster coworker (i worked there for 7 years out of a 9 year video store career) who was in school for design started a fire under my ass suggesting i get into school for graphic design.

a year later, i decided to go for it and started some schooling. here is the second design i made for school, mind you, we had yet to touch the macs or any adobe programming, so this is still very much an mspaint project:

spray paint project

not the best looking work ever, but i'm still proud of my roots.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

halloween curse.

the annual curse has taken place.

3 months prior, i get stoked for a costume idea.

1 month prior, i begin planning everyhting down to the smallest detail.

2 weeks prior, i finally nab all the gear i need.

1 week, 6 days and 23 hours prior, i finally see that my costume looks nothing like i had planned it.

1 week, 6 days prior, i run back to each and every store and return items and swap out for alternates.

1 week, 5 days and 23 hours prior i remain dissatisfied.

3 days prior i come to grips with how bad it looks.

1 hour before going to work, i contemplate leaving it all behind.

3 minutes before work, i sink low in my car's seat hoping the only people to see me are my few coworkers and my family.

to leave on a happier note, here's a few where everything turned out nicely:

Papa the Clown

Mr T. the Blockbuster Employee

Friday, October 12, 2007

before it's cliche.

i decided to make a youtube page for my daughter.

1) because i was bored and wanted to do something creative that evening

2) because this is a quick easy way to preserve her at this age

3) because youtube blogging is becoming more and more passé, so she'll be able to show in 10 years she can say she did it before it wasn't cool.

i know i should really use my time editting to bone up on my editting skills... but i get bored subtitling it after a very short while.

speaking of editting, i did my first chunk of editting for pay today at work. the irony is that the creative department at my work doesn't meet the clients outside of creative meetings et al. but we were under odd circumstances and were asked to run to a car dealer with a budget for some web work i'd be doing. the guy had already gone over what he wanted to do with the page, yet when we got there, he was resistant to everything... despite them being his ideas.

at any rate, he basically said no and made us feel uncomfortable. yet today, a month or so later, i'm editting some v.o.d. clips for his website... the exact thing he made us feel small over.

i'm glad i'm not a salesman.

end rant.

i'm gald i'm getting a little bit of a handle on final cut pro. i've been so used to imovies lackluster control that i've become dependant on workarounds, so it's nice to feel the ability to stretch my creative mind with livetype and final cut.