it's official

i am now an award winning t-shirt designer.

*pats self on back*

the duluth superior adfed just had it's 33rd annual addy awards tonight, and one of my t-shirt designs for braggame rights went home with a silver award.



i was hired by nelson&company on august 4th last year, and my first 6 hours were spent creating that very t-shirt design.

i've actually known about my win for a few weeks, only because i have been helping out the adfed for the awards show. because of that, i had prepared the stills for the winner's reel. i got to work with the guys at tri-quantum productions putting together the winners reel and being taped telling a story about kicking a stranger in the butt in idaho. (true story)

the night was fun, i got to watch my boss drink, play a little electronic drum kit along with the dueling piano performers, play piano to some 80's hair metal song (that i can't remember right now) and then i got up and did my best (bad) will ferrel playing cowbell to "don't fear the reaper" impersonation.

interesting night indeed.

mid-february extravaganza!

lots of stuff going on, including a couple of ego-strokes i'm not yet at liberty to discuss.

i've submitted a few more designs to loiter:






i'm putting together a website for a church my grandfather is a part of, i don't have the site built yet, but i put together a logo for them that i'm currently pretty keen on:



and i also was charged with the creative challenge of making a visually interesting commercial for braggame rights (a local gaming store) with nothing but a pre-existing radio ad, so i put together the graphics and artistic direction for this ad:

the big time.

i have achieved another goal in my graphic design career.

any designer can tell you how elated they were to first see their work printed out, brochures, magazine ads etc.

i have seen all the small print possibilities (brochures, store displays, magazines, newsprint) and i've been waiting for my first billboard.

i got close once, but now i've actually reached the goal.



since this is a horrible nighttime camera-phone pic, i guess i should describe the details, the line through the middle is a power line, the background of the board is a concrete wall that darkens to black behind the braggame rights logo, and the logo is actually crisp and clean, but the photo doesn't tell that same tale.

i was the hands on this one, the copy and vision were dictated, but despite the donors, it's still my baby.

there are two billboards, this one is in superior, the other is in duluth and has the line "game on!" (game on was on a list of ideas i had once the single line, logo, location, web address layout was okayed by all parties)

some earlier versions were more ornate and used some of the design elements of the braggame rights' shopping bags.

i'm rambling.