Skinny Sneakers

Skinny sneakers sketch. Click for larger version
(they don't get any less skinny, though).

It's rare that I just sketch for sketching's sake these days - the closest I come to doing that is doodling while I'm on the phone, which sometimes yields some good results - only sometimes, though. But most of the time I'm sketching these days, I'm doing it for a project - roughing out ideas and getting layouts into shape. That's kind of a shame, but it's the result of being busy with client work, which is nothing to complain about.

The skinny sneakers piece was done when my band Restraining Order was in the studio in 2003, recording our five song E.P. Five on Blue. We spent a lot of long Saturdays in that studio, and once the basic tracks (drums, bass and a guide guitar) were recorded, it tends to then become only one band member at a time doing the recording - which leaves the rest of us plenty of down time in the control room.


Closeup. Isn't messy linework nifty?

We try to make that down time useful - tracking changes we've made or need to make to the songs, working on the track order, liner notes and other information for the CD packaging - but all of that doesn't take very long, and we wind up just b.s.ing and eating pizza for hours on end. Bands like pizza.

Somewhere in the midst of that down time, I grabbed my pen and paper and started sketching my bandmate Phil's Converse-covered feet. I'm not usually good with sketchbooks - I feel too much pressure to fill them with only great drawings - I'm way too conscious when I start working a sketchbook (especially if it's bound, and the pages can't be removed without ripping them out, leaving a noticeable torn edge - I hate that) but here it worked out pretty well. I was in a Zen state of relaxation, and the drawing came out nicely, I think.

Eventually, when I started mining my past work for use on my Print On-Demand stores, I found this piece and wondered if it would work on any product. It's more arty and less designy than most of my other pieces, and there's no real theme or clever double-meaning - but I still used it, adding it to (among other products) a greeting card design. The inside of the card says, "What's swingin'?" - because that one foot is swinging, you see.

I've sold a couple so far - probably from fans of Converse, or maybe sneakers in general. I've always seen sneaker loyalists as the biggest untapped resource in this country, and now it's proving to be true. I win.


Skinny Sneakers greeting card on Zazzle

My Girl Won't Recycle

The single cover, seen by at least a dozen people.

I the late 90's, I had an idea for a song about a young woman who had many positive attributes, but one fatal flaw: she would not recycle. I worked out the first verse and part of the second, writing it down in a notebook... where it sat for a few more years until 2002, when I finally fleshed it out in hopes of having my band Restraining Order learn it so we could perform, and ultimately record, the song. Here are the original lyrics:

My girlfriend wears her safety belt
She never lets it slide
She's always thinking of her health
When we go for a ride

She stays away from MSG
In her Chinese food
But if they inadvertently
Add some, she's never rude

Just one point of contention
That I feel I must mention

My girl won't recycle
She won't reuse - she won't reduce
My girl won't recycle
What the hell is her excuse?

She's quite aware of homeless pets
Funds all their charities
Sends money every chance she gets
She just can't deny their pleas

And when she's tired of her clothes
They go in plastic bags
Salvation Army always knows
She brings the finest rags

She's so considerate
There's one thing I don't get

My girl won't recycle
She won't reuse - she won't reduce
My girl won't recycle
What the hell is her excuse?

She backs up all her files
So careful changing aisles
Participates in walk-a-thons
Covers her mouth when she yawns
Gives blood when time allows
Drinks milk from free range cows
But why can't her plans
Include reusing cans?

Too many ugly contradictions
Just one thing left to do
Since I can't change her predilections
She'll be recycled for someone new

She's normally so nice
Except for this one vice

My girl won't recycle
She won't reuse - she won't reduce
My girl won't recycle
She has no excuse
My girl won't recycle
She won't reuse - she won't reduce
My girl won't recycle
There is no excuse

The tune was titled "My Girl Won't Recycle". I recorded a demo on a very primitive piece of Mac Recording software called Easy Beat, which I loved at the time, because it was the only MIDI software I had - this was a few years before GarageBand was released. The sounds are pretty crappy, but it hardly matters for a demo - this is just a guide for the band to learn the basic structure of the song, and for our singer to learn the lyrics - and for those purposes, it worked fine.

Here's the original demo, followed by the Restraining Order version below:

My Girl Won't Recyle - original demo version:




My Girl Won't Recycle - final studio version:



I recorded the vocals for the demo right after waking up one morning, at around 5:00 (I was going on a weekend trip to see a friend and wanted to get it done before I left) - my voice is not usually so hoarse and ominous-sounding.

Of course, many things change when a band records a song. For one, my demo only had simple bass, drums and "guitar" parts (which really sounded more like an old Casio keyboard), but our band has a couple guitarists, as well as a sax player - so the arrangement was changed - I think for the better.

The tempo also increased dramatically - also for the better. The demo is pretty dirge-like, which wasn't necessarily my intention - it just came out that way. That felt natural when only the demo existed, but after hearing the band version and playing it live a bunch of times, the faster, upbeat version is the "real" version to me now.

Another big difference: the intro. I don't remember ever hearing "Judy In the Sky with Glasses" before, but the few people who heard the demo thought the songs' beginnings were way too similar, so the band worked out a totally different intro, with some dramatic guitar/sax interplay.

Also, once we got into the studio, our singer Jason realized that he couldn't fit in all the words in that last verse (the word"predilection" was especially hard for him to deliver at the new, faster tempo) - so he and I worked out a new verse with less syllables:

Although it may seem to severe
I know what I must do
My waste reduction plan is clear:
Recycle her for someone new

He also suggested changing one instance of "What the hell is her excuse?" to "What on Earth is her excuse?" to better tie in the environmental theme - and so we did. That was a cool idea and a nice way to vary the lyrics a little.

I did the sound effects in the bridge - the girly "Excuse me!" (for the aisle-changing reference), the yawn (for the mouth-covering reference) and the cow sounds. I love doing cow sounds.

The song came out on our five-song E.P. Five on Green (also available on iTunes) and garnered a good reaction from both those who heard the recorded and the live version. People like the funny, I guess.

I thought the song had potential to get us some publicity, so I created a single cover (using the same "mean girl" drawing I used on my Staring Problem products (I like to recycle for real, y'all), burnt about 50 copies of the CD (with only "Recycle" on it), and starting sending it out to people. I don't remember my distribution list, except I did send a copy to the Philadelphia Recycling Office.

That was a pretty bold move, but it paid off (I guess they're not used to receiving music submissions at city offices) - someone there liked the song and sent it to a P.R. firm who handled only environmental companies and causes. That agency was putting together an Earth Day celebration at Citizens Bank Park (home of the Phillies), and they asked us to play for a bunch of school kids who were being rewarded for their school's recycling efforts by having a day just for them at the park.

So we "kidfied" many of our songs ("Wars We Need to See" became "Smores We Need to Eat" - not very environmentally-themed, but much more kid-friendly as kids don't tend to like warfare) and spent the day performing. The Philly Phanatic actually came out in the middle of one of our sets and joined us. He came marching out during "This Land", and everyone went wild. The Phanatic alternated between conducting the band, mock-grabbing our instruments, and generally causing havoc amongst the kids. He really is a great performing, getting a huge reaction without even being able to speak. We were all very impressed with him - he's now my second-favorite green creature. And - we were on the evening news on at least one station - our biggest clam-to-fame thus far (unfortunately).


Restraining Order at Citizens Bank Park for Earth Day 2006. And no,
unfortunately, we aren't still in touch with the Phanatic.

It was a nice little run, all from one song idea. I should write another one, maybe about getting free drums, in the hopes that it will yield free drums in real life. I'm always prepared for more drums.

TuxScout

Final logo. Click for larger version.

This project is from the same client who I'm developing the Xipwire logo and website for - he might describe himself as a "serial entrepreneur" (an admittedly overused term), as he's developed several web-based businesses over the past few years - including five we've worked on together.

TuxScout, which is no longer in operation, was a web-based resource for Linux developers. If you're not familiar with Linux, it's an open-source operating system, and its mascot (all OS's should have a mascot) is a penguin. Therefore, most products and services having to do with Linux incorporate a penguin in some way. It's not necessary, but in researching the project it felt like anything non-penguin would be a mistake.

My client, who would be programming the website himself (as he always does), asked me to design a logo and website layout for TuxScout, with emphasis on friendliness. Here's what I came up with...


As you can tell from the top of this post, this was ultimately the winning concept. I was going to attempt to be dramatic and show this one last, but instead I decided to present the four options in the sequence the client saw them. It usually turns out that the first concept I show is the winner - I wonder if that has more to do with me showing what I perceive to be strongest first, or a client's predilection toward what they see first?

Regardless, the client liked the speedy quality of this one best, but he had some change requests: a little more of a 3D look (like the second concept, below), removal of the rear fin (for streamlining purposes), larger text and repositioning the text away from the penguin's belly. The dimensional effect definitely took this away from being a typical corporate logo (as you can see above) and into more of the friendly mascot/character realm (as you can see at the top of the post) - I still don't know that I prefer it either way, and though I often fear that the subtleties of a 3D version might be diminished in other uses (like when printed small on a business card), it wasn't an issue here as I don't think any typical corporate collateral was ever created.

On to the unused options:


This was even more of a mascot, and damn - he's fat. The font is fun (maybe too fun) and the gradients throughout give this one a CGI-generated look. The client liked that look, but wanted it applied to the more dynamic figure and pose in the final option.



A departure - an old-school pixel-based character. This might have appealed to the Atari-loving Linux developers, but ultimately my client thought it wasn't totally representative of the look and feel he was going for. I did find a use for it, eventually, which I'll show at the bottom of this entry.

And this one - a completely 3D isometric view. Maybe I was playing Zaxxon right before I came up with this one? I think the client liked it more than me, only because it was so different, but in the end its odd angle might have proven too difficult to integrate into the website, so it was not selected. Looking at it now, I feel like I should have kept all features cubic - those round eyes and conical beak are just too different from the rest of the shapes.

Once the tweaks were made to finalize the logo, I developed a website layout that my client put together himself. This was the sixth and final iteration, though it's not a screenshot of the actual site (which I don't have), so all the text was just temporary to give a feeling for how things could look. From what I recall, the final site didn't stray from this layout very much - the text size may have been reduced a bit, though. "Friendliness", again, was the theme here.


And so the site went live, had a lot of activity in the beginning (especially in the Job Market area, which was the meat and potatoes of the site), and then it slowed off and eventually died, and my client took it down. Such is life in the internet world. It's a pity it didn't really take off so it could still be around today, and I could post a link here. Now you just have to use your imagination.

When looking through the unused logo options, I really thought I could make use of that pixel penguin. I actually posted it to Zazzle but used "Linux" as a keyword tag, and they deleted my product. That was dumb of me - I've considered re-posting it without the tag, since the image alone has nothing to do directly with Linux (I just wanted to attract those developers), but I didn't want to get in trouble again (they may keep records of such things) so I instead posted it at CafePress and Skreened, now targeting the many penguin lovers of the world. I know they're out there... somewhere...



Pixel Penguin shirt on Skreened

MMC Lifestyle Coaching

This logo project came from a woman who had started her own lifestyle coaching consultancy. You want to improve your career, your social skills, your love life? You call her, and she helps you create a plan, then works with you over the course of several weeks or months to execute that plan. At least she did - it looks like the website is no longer live.

My client wanted her business's logo to show the qualities of strength, growth, power and potential (makes sense, right?). The company name, as you may have guessed, was based on her initials. I did some sketching and type work in Freehand, and came up with five original concepts for her:




This first one was a little impractical - that hard edge on the right, where the "M" and "C" hit, creates a nice opportunity to work with the negative space on other uses (business cards, letterhead) but without something to the right to give it balance, it looked too heavy on the right - and with something to the right, like the "Lifestyle Coaching" descriptor, it was too linear and would take up too much space or require it to be significantly shrunk to be used.




This second option came from some sketching. I sketched a kite, then drew two lines symbolizing gusts of wind lifting it up (get it? potential and growth?). The gusts were initially a second color and they looked harsh and heavy (I'm pretty sure wind is not supposed to be heavy) so instead I cut them out of the kite shape, adding little serify-shapes at the kite's edges to give the gusts a little more emphasis. The client liked it - she also pointed it, it looked like three cats. Nothing wrong with that, though.




This third concept was a pretty straightforward representation of power - probably a bit too straightforward, and either the client or I (can't remember), after reviewing it, felt it looked too masculine. It probably needed more subtlety, too.




This one was meant to show growth - I was thinking of Best, that chain of stores that went out of business about ten years ago. It's nearly impossible to find a logo - googling "best" plus "retail" or "store" just brings up lots of "Best Buy" images. But I remember seeing that logo when I was younger and thinking it was weird - each letter was a little bigger than the next. Then I read an interview with the designer, who said that was meant to show the quality of "best" - the "T" was the largest, and therefore (I assume) the best letter in the logo. Never noticed that before. I think it worked better here, with the two M's - the second M was the improved version of the first. That kind of left the C stranded, though - and the colors wound up being too feminine. I could have changed the color scheme, but that wasn't necessary because the client liked this concept most of all:



That doorway in the space between the serifs won her over, and this is the logo she chose. I was cool with it - I think it represented her company best (ha ha). Her only request was to darken the blue, which I did (see the top of the post). And then we were off to the races (never spoke or typed that phrase before - it feels weird).

After we finalized the logo, she applied it to the website (which I didn't design), and I developed business cards and a letterhead template for her. Here's the card:



Such a formal logo seems to require, to me at least, a centered treatment. Or, at least, you can't go wrong with centering. As I always do, I provided her with logo files of different file formats, resolutions, and color styles - a two-color version and an all-black version. I believe she used the all-black version for t-shirt embroidery, though she had it stitched in white on blue shirts, which looked pretty sweet.

When I opened my Zazzle store a year ago, I started looking at all of these unused logo options I'd created over the years. Since the client only pays for overall development and the buyout of the final logo, but not the unused options, I'm free to use these as I please - and I have. The type-based logos obviously are too specific to work, but the image-dependent concepts were cannibalized for business card templates and other products.

I think Zazzle's strongest feature is its ability to allow customization to its products through a very user-friendly interface. And while that feature works well on t-shirts, hats, bags, and other promo-type products, I find it's most useful on business card templates.

The way it works is, store owners like me set up card templates. I upload, size and position the image, then set up the lines of text I'd like to include. The typeface, color, size, position of the text are defined by me as well. Finally, the templates are tagged with keywords like "growth", "strength", "potential" - words appropriate to the design that help potential customers find a template that suits their needs.

Once a customer finds a card template they like, they fill in their information in a form field and the thumbnail of the card is updated on the fly. This is very helpful - the customer instantly sees exactly how their final card will look. If it's allowed by the store owner, they can delete text fields, move and resize the logo, pick a different typeface and color - but my experience is, most of the users trust the design and use it pretty much as is. If they were interested in designing their own card, they'd probably have done that instead. Maybe they even tried to do so in Word - if they did, my guess is they ran away screaming.

There's an ethical debate in the design community about these kinds of templates. Some designers say that providing custmoers with pre-made options that they can buy in (for example) 100-pack for as little as $20 or $30 plus shipping (the price depends on the percentage the store owner sets - I set mine at 30%, in case you're curious) impacts the need for design services. Horse pucky, I say - I can virtually guarantee you that anyone paying such a tiny amount for a card with a pre-made logo is not going to consider spending upwards of $2000 for a full identity design. It's inconceiveable (just watched The Princess Bride last week - couldn't help it).

As an example, my biggest seller by far is a fitness logo targeted at personal trainers - sometimes I sell a couple batches per day. I very much doubt that a personal trainer working out of a gym with a handful of clients, is going to want or need to contract the services of a designer for their logo and identity system. Maybe a few superstar trainers will go that route, or those expanding their services - but for the most part, the people who use these templates are happy with something that looks nice and represents them well.

The downside for these customers is that anyone else in the world - even their competitor in the same city - could be using that same template. And they don't have the ability or right to use the logo anywhere on their own - they're only purchasing the finished cards - nothing more. If they were to scan the card and use the logo? Well, for one it would look horrible. And it would also be a legal violation of my rights. That would be bad - I hope it never happens, though I doubt I'd find out about it if it did.

And not to toot my own horn, but I haven't seen anyone else use a Print On-Demand site to create a full line of customizable products with the same images, as I've done. Maybe I just haven't run across them yet, but I do a lot of browsing on Zazzle. Each of the logos in my Business Products product line is available on t-shirts, baseball caps, canvas bags, mugs, keychains, buttons, mousepads (do people ever get tired of giving away mousepads?), and the card templates themselves. This way, a small business owner can get a few customized shirts for themselves and their employees (if they have them), or they can buy the other items for office use or for promotional giveaways. It works out nicely - I've spent many hours setting up all of those templates, but now they're available for purchase - and I have sold quite a few. Passive income is nice.

So here are two of the unused designs from this project, transformed into business card templates. At this point, I've sold a few of the lightning bolt template, but none of the kite. Maybe it's too abstract for people, even though I mention the wind gusts in the item description. Perhaps I should market it to cat lovers instead.


Kite/Wind Business Card Template on Zazzle


Lightning Bolt Business Card Template on Zazzle

One More Quarter

I've been repurposing a lot of of my old band art - album covers, CD covers, images from flyers, t-shirts, even unused images - I'm pulling out all the stops. Most of this stuff was rarely seen when it came out, and much of it is out of production, so I'm happy to keep it alive via my various Print On-Demand stores.

This piece, which I now call One More Quarter, was originally done in 1995 for my band cuppa joe's 7" vinyl single Archipellago/Love Peace Anarchy Infinity (those were the song titles), released on Drive-In Records. I designed it to fit in the square format, alongside some handwritten text. The image was printed in one color (purple) on textured peach recycled paper. I liked the way it came out - the final product had a nice handmade look to it.


Archipellago/Love Peace Anarchy Infinity 7" vinyl single
cover- still for sale ten years after its release.

As far as the concept, it was a typical "romantic intentions gone wrong" image. Both songs on the single were about romances that didn't quite work out (what else is new, as far as song subjects?) so I took my cue from there.

The illustration was done with my trusty brush-tip markers, which was then photocopied, and then Zip-A-Tone was added for tone. If you're not familiar with that product, it was popular in the 70's and 80's, though scanning and digital production pretty much killed it. You bought it in sheets that were tacky on one side, and you'd lay it down on top of your finished image, then you'd cut it to the areas you wanted to fill and pressed it into place. Using it made me feel like a pro.


Detail of the illustration. Check out that crazy Zip-A-Tone!

Zip-A-Tone came in different variety, based on the percent of tone and also the screening size (how close the center of the dots were to each other). It was an efficient way to lay down tone, allowing the art to be shot as line art, and not grayscale - so the final printed piece was always totally crisp. It was a bit of a pain to use, but I do miss it - I admired a lot of cool Zip-A-Tone-based art when I was younger, especially in the many black and white horror and science magazines that I hoarded.

Would you like to hear one of the songs, Archipellago? Here it is:



I played drums AND tambourine on that one - but not at the same time. That's what they call "the magic of multi-track recording". We even called in a small string section for maximum bittersweet sound quality.

Recently, I started applying the image to shirts and other products, and I worked well. I was initially worried that the dot pattern wouldn't reproduce well, especially on clothing, but I ordered a sample shirt and it turned out just fine... even if it does make me look a little lovelorn. I can take it.


One More Quarter on Skreened

Hatch

Click for biggerness.

Another weird one. I was reading a lot of Moebius at the time I did this - sometime around 1993 or 1994. The influence is clear - I never really worked in this crosshatching style before or since. I usually avoid adding any kind of linear tone to my illustrations these days, though I did flirt with a horizontal messy line crosshatching style around this same time.

This piece was different, tough - I think I created it as a possible piece of art for my band cuppa joe - I can't remember if this was supposed to be a CD cover, a 7" vinyl single cover of something else. Regardless, I got a bit spacey (obviously), which was not too appropriate for our homegrown musical stylings, and the illustration never saw the light of day... initially.


Closeup of the illustration. Look at all the pretty, intersecting lines.

A quick aside about Moebius: In the early 90's, I was very much into him - as I still am, but I'd just discovered him then. And as he lived in France, I didn't expect I'd be seeing him anytime soon. However, at the end of my senior year of college, I decided to get my long hair cut off, so I went to a salon in a mall in central New Jersey (don't laugh) and asked them to give me what would be my "college graduation cut" - the shortest, most militaristic hair style of my life. It was also the longest haircut of my life, given by a guy who, ironically, had even longer hair than me.

Here's the kicker: while he was in the middle of my lengthy hair cut, my stylist and I were talking about art. This guy mentioned he was into comic books and asked me if I liked Moebius. I said yes (of course) and he looked at my curious and said, "Then man, I'm surprised you're not across the street seeing him! I'd be there if I wasn't working." Turns out Moebius - from frickin' France! - was making an appearance at the comic book store across the highway. I couldn't escape, though - I was mid-cut - and by the time I was finished and rushed to the store (five minutes away!), Jean "Moebius" Giraud was gone. I hate that story - I could have picked any other day to get my hair cut! Why then?!

So anyway... the reason I think this image was an alternate concept for my band's CD cover is the concept. The CD was eventually called Nurture - this was the actual cover I designed:


Actual Nurture CD cover. No crosshatching here.

You can see that either image works for the concept of "nurture", but in pretty different ways. And I was definitely locked into the same color scheme. I think the idea of such a sci-fi image just didn't work for our music - especially an image containing some nudity, allthough mild nudity (I was reading lots of Heavy Metal at the time - this is pretty tame by comparison). The other possibility, though, is that I did the alien-egg-hatching image after the CD came out, just riffing on the concept of nurture. Who knows? I can't remember. I also did a similar black and white image of a human woman breastfeeding an alien. I guess I was into aliens and motherhood back then.

For years the Hatch piece sat in my portfolio (a physical portfolio, pre-internet), most likely offending sensitive female art directors everywhere. Once I stopped using a physical portfolio, the piece pretty much disappeared. And then when I opened my online Print On-Demand stores, I decided it might appeal to some of the more spacey folks out there. I've sold a few mousepads and a couple t-shirts - here's one of them.

Check out the full Hatch product line on CaféPress

My Tail Is Long

Click for larger image. Sorry, you won't see anymore of his elusive tail.

I have no idea where this one came from. I just drew the eyes in FreeHand one day, and started adding features. Eventually I had a head. Then I cloned the ears and made them into tail spikes. Water, sky, super-de-duper simple clouds, a reflection, and I called the image done.

Then I added some text in the same simple, unplanned style - I just typed some words, making each line shorter, mirroring the tail. The text suddenly made the sea monster seem neurotic, which fit in well with his wide, lidless eyes. The guy needs help.


Absolute symmetry, they say, does not occur in human faces - but my
sea monster possesses this attribute. Oh - except, I guess, for the higlights
in his eyes. Darn.

As I've mentioned in other posts, I sometimes feel guilty when working in such a simplistic style - but it's very freeing, and it isn't always any faster, either. I need to work on those feelings. Maybe I can find a support group.

I didn't do anything with this illustration for a couple years, and then I opened my Zazzle store and applied the graphic to a bunch of products. I've sold a few My Tail Is Long t-shirts in kids' sizes, but I think it works best on a mug - I like the way it wraps around the product. If you spin it fast enough, it gives the illusion that the creature is swimming past you (this works especially well if you've been drinking).


My Tail Is Long mug on Zazzle

I've started working on another monster in this style - maybe there's a future animation project or book in the future, filled with imaginary creatures, each with unique personality disorders. Could be fun - fun and therapeutic at the same time.

A Gift From Scotland

An excerpt from my forthcoming book, "It Must Be Me":

I have a sister and two brothers, all significantly older than me - seventeen to nineteen years. Yes, I was not created on purpose. Some call it an "accident"; I refer to it as "unintentional conception". It makes for some interesting familial situations.

Because of this, when I was a little kid, my siblings were all off doing adult things like drinking soda straight out of the bottle, wearing deodorant, and joining the armed forces. The younger of my brothers, Mike, did the latter and entered the U.S. Navy, who sent him off to Scotland.

No, he did not locate Nessie (though he did spend a day of his shore leave trying to her), nor did he develop a taste for haggis with a whiskey chaser (unless he kept it hidden). He did, however, purchase a child-size kilt and tam (a Scottish hat), which he sent home for me, his little brother. Mike probably thought it would be cute. Instead, it traumatized me for years.

I never wanted to wear the foreign clothing. I think my father protested as well, but mt mother explained that Mike had been nice enough to buy these things for me and to send the package across the planet, so the least we could do was to get some photos for him. So my parents and grandparents (who lived with us) trotted me out for an improvised photo shoot in our back yard. It became another opportunity for me to be exposed to public ridicule.

The problem was that a kilt looks a whole lot like a dress... oh wait – it IS a dress, except it comes from Scotland, where it is commonly worn by men. That's fine if you live in that particular country, but while I was old enough to know that the difference between a dress and a kilt was negligible at best, I had not quite reached the age of understanding about what a country is, or how social mores differ in other lands. That would be asking a bit much of a five year old.

It was no surprise to anyone that I started crying once I put on the exotic attire. My mother kept insisting, "Every boy in Scotland wears a kilt like you are, Stevie!". Maybe if she'd pulled out a globe or a Mercator Projection, that would have helped. A travel book with large illustrations may have even done the trick. But instead, I was struggling with the concept that my parents were trying to turn me into a girl, and simultaneously having a hard time grappling with the idea of different nations and their customs. The tears kept flowing.

The vultures got their precious photos, but that wasn't enough for them. For some reason, my mother wanted to parade me in front of the house – ostensibly for the amusement of the neighborhood. I was still sobbing, but she told me everyone would love my new outfit. Her words did not prove to be true.

The older people in the neighborhood said I looked adorable, and that calmed me down a bit. But then my "friends" – some older kids I looked up to – walked by. They were not especially receptive to my freshly imported clothing, especially the kilt, which to them was not very different from what they called it - my dress. They openly taunted me, asking "Who's the new girl?" while t pointing and making me cry even more. I quickly decided that I should probably stop looking up to these cretins.

After an interminable period of time, my parents brought me back inside the house. Unable to contain my indignation any longer, I yanked off the kilt and threw it on the floor. My father told my mother I'd never be wearing "that thing" again. I was happy, though the photos still survive. Years later, my brother heard the story from me, and apologized. If only he'd had better luck at Loch Ness... a package from Scotland containing Nessie (or at least a photo of her) would have made me so much happier.


The horrible evidence. If only they'd taken a closeup, you'd be able to see the tears.

I Am All These Things And More

This piece started out as a client project that just didn't pan out. Once of the agencies I work with wanted to rebrand themselves, or really to create a secondary site that they could show to people in the video game industry that they were trying to woo as clients - a site that would be much more fun and irreverent than their existing site, which was traditional-looking and catered to their more conservative clients.

The agency described their plant to me, and I began working on the piece without any kind of formal agreement, which was not smart. It was a handshake kind of deal - "Here's what we'd like to do - an Otaku-influenced site - do you have anything you can show us in this style?" I didn't, but just thinking about it inspired me, so I started drawing in my favorite vector program, FreeHand. Within half an hour, I had a ninja, and I liked that ninja. I kept building from there.

I was working on my It Must Be Me book illustrations during this same period, and I enjoyed the challenge of working in that style - conveying the different characters in simple geometric shapes. Sometimes I feel almost guilty, creating pieces like this with so little detail - but whatever speed comes from the lack of complexity is often made up for in the time required to get the shapes that are there just right. I kept these colors desaturated as well, and I gave each of them a radial gradient in one or two places, to give their forms a sense of dimension. Background strips were added, each a little thinner than the characters' widths, so the six dudes could pop forward a bit.

And then nothing happened. The agency absolutely loved the images, which originally didn't have their descriptions beneath them. Each of the six characters were meant to be animated, and when clicked the backgrounds were to expand, bringing up one of six different areas of this new website. But the agency wasn't ready to commit to launching the new site (and as far as I know, three years later, they never did), and though I was disappointed, it was my fault - they were so enthused to get started, that I let myself get sucked in, moving forward without good reason. My bad.

A year or so later, I started putting up my Zazzle store, and revisited the image. I thought it would make a fun t-shirt idea, and since no one had paid for or used the piece, it was mine to use however I wished. I came up with the title "I Am All These Things And More" to tie the six characters together, added the descriptions below, and posted it for sale. I think I sold my first shirt in an hour. I should have known - people like ninjas, people like pirates, but combining those two characters with the other four seemed to be a winning combination. Lesson learned. It's now one of my top selling items. I've even sold one to someone named Esmaeil in Falun, Sweden. I hope he/she is wearing it - maybe even right now - and feeling like a Pirate, Clown, Viking, Robot, Ninja and Monster, all at once.


I Am All These Things And More on Zazzle

Underwear on the Outside

An excerpt from what I will obnoxiously call my forthcoming book, "It Must Be Me":

Underoos were a popular fad when I was around eight or nine years old, which meant that I owned them. I loved fads. My proclivity for superhero-related products made me a prime candidate for Underoos, as they were essentially colored underwear with a big insignia on the chest, and maybe a printed version of the hero's belt at the top of the briefs. That's it. You didn't get gloves, boots, or a mask, as those items would be tough to conceal under one's outerwear.

Of course, Batman was always my favorite superhero, so I chose to honor the Dark Knight by clothing my my stick-like body in a watered-down version of his costume. Like many other kids at that time, wearing Underoos gave me the slightest taste of what it might be like to have a real secret identity as I sat in the comfort of my elementary school classroom - and all while enjoying the secure barrier that underwear provides between skin and clothing. Good stuff.

And it all remained good until my mother started suggesting that I wear my Batman Underoo top to school on the outside - as my actual shirt. She thought it would be "so cute". Now, there's no logical reason this should have been seen as a sensational act - it was a light gray cotton shirt with an iron-on of the yellow-and-black Batman symbol. As far as shirts go, that's not crazy. People wear clothes with superhero logos on them all the time these days. It's accepted, as it should have been back in 1979. However, that was not the case.

These were children we're talking about, and they're doubly dangerous while in packs. So despite my protests, my mother won out and on a gentle Spring morning, cool enough that I didn't need to wear an undershirt, my love for Batman took over and, with some trepidation, I wore the top portion of my Underoos to school.

It took about three minutes before my schoolmates attacked. We were standing in the auditorium, lining up before the school day officially began, when one little girl noticed my shirt. She immediately sniffed it out for what it was, pointed to me and shouted "He's wearing underwear!" I don't think she even knew my name. The other kids smelled blood in the water and rushed over to feed on my carcass.

In no way did I want to disrespect Batman, but the fear I'd denied was quickly becoming reality. I should have heeded my instincts. The kids were pulling at my shirt, stretching it out and crackling the logo at its edges. Their cackles filled the auditorium (much like the Golden Age Joker - ed.). I was defeated.

I had no choice but to finish out the day in the decimated Underoo, though a smock in Art Class did provide brief reprieve. When I got home my mother was excited - clearly she thought she'd helped me live out my dream as a would-be hero. "How did the other kids like your Batman shirt?!" she prodded.

I couldn't tell her that the only joy I had that day was when I finally jumped off the bus and managed to sprint home before a final pummeling occurred. "They liked it," I offered, with a modicum of forced smile on my lips. It was obvious that she was looking for more of a reaction, but that's all the fake delight I could summon. I hope Bruce Wayne would empathize with me, but from that point forward, the Underoos never saw the light of day again.

Nico's Monster Bash Invitation

My wife is cool for reasons too numerous to go into here (though she'd love it - who wouldn't?), but one recent example of her Fonzie-ness is when she suggested to me that our son Nico's birthday party be monster-themed. His birthday is in mid-September - not really close enough to October to be a logical tie-in - which makes it even cooler in my mind. Monsters just for the heck of it! Sharon's a pastry chef by trade, so she may just have been hankering to create some monstrous cupcakes, but whatever the reason, I was very happy with the theme and immediately began sketching. Here's the first concept I came up with:

Yes, Nico being surrounded by monsters is a dream of mine. Brings me back to my childhood. I wanted a Brady Bunch kind of feel for this layout, with Nico smushed in the middle, but that forced me to go outside the bounds of what I consider to be the five classic monsters (for the uninitiated: Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) so I had to add a witch, a King Kong (looks too close to the Wolfman), and a skull - traditional Halloween stuff, but I don't think the lesser creatures can really hold their ground when put next to the five legends. Sorry, Kong fans.

I reworked the concept a bit, limiting it to the main five monsters. I wanted to keep the style light and fun (this is a kid's party, after all) and I wanted each shape to be distinct. Round two of the layout:

I was pretty happy with this, though I think I pushed the Wolfman too far into a cartoony realm, and too far away from Lon Chaney Jr.'s alter ego. I redrew him, then I inked the sketch by hand, using my favored brush-tip markers. I discovered these markers in 1988 and haven't stopped using them. They create a nice varied line weight, and they're easier to use than a traditional brush and ink combo. The downside of the brush-tip markers is that you've got to give the lines some time to dry (a few minutes) before your hand goes over them, or they'll smear. And the ink is water-soluble, so you can't color directly on the inked page. This was not a problem, however, since I knew I'd be coloring digitally anyway. The inked piece:


I think the Wolfman and Mummy were much improved here. So I scanned in the inked version of the art and pulled it into Adobe Illustrator. Using the Live Trace feature, I vectorized the outlines, making them into solid digital shapes. Some people don't like this automated feature, but I did some early tests and really liked the way it treated my linework. It was a little rough in some places, but that was perfect. My monsters can take it - they're tough.

Next, I used Illustrator's Live Paint feature to drop big flat colors into the shapes. The colors were very literal at this point (the Wolfman's outline was incomplete, so he's not colored here) and didn't have the subtlety I was going for - but that was fine, too, as this was only an intermediate stage:

Those colors absolutely suck. That's the problem with coloring everything as you "know" they should be - everything looks right on its own, but the colors are so far apart, the full piece isn't cohesive.

My next step was an not a traditional one - I pulled the vector art from Illustrator into Freehand, the best vector drawing tool ever created. Never mind that it's a dead program. In Freehand, I pushed all the colors toward green so the monsters and Nico would work harmoniously with each other. Even the Wolfman's fur is really a very greenified brown, though in the spectrum used, it winds up looking natural (at least, to my eyes). I also manually added the highlights and shadows to each monster, giving them a bit of depth. This was probably the most time-consuming step, but it made the monsters pop (a way overused term) more, which is what I was going for. I like things that pop. Like Pop Rocks. Or those snappy things with gunpowder that you thrown on the sidewalk ("Snappers"?). Those are awesome.

Once I was happy with the colors, I added a white outline, radial gradient purple background for maximum contrast (complimentary colors, you see), and text in Mufferaw and a great free font (Feast of Flesh) I'd recently found online, and used for the word "Monster" and some additional text on the reverse side of the invitation. What a serendipitous font discovery. The result:



The biggest wildcard here is Nico him - I'm sure I'll be tweaking him more before the invitation gets printed. I may have made his flesh too yellowish, but a natural flesh color didn't blend with the monsters' palette - and he needs to blend. He is "one of them" after all. It's also difficult to render fuzzy baby hair in a flat vector style. And his face is still changing, too - that'll need some modifying before I "go to press" (probably Kinko's or VistaPrint).

Because I am an unabashed entrepreneur, I reworked the art into a product design, adding the text "Everybody Needs A Little Monster Love", and repositioning the five monsters onto a crackly heart shape. The new art was uploaded onto my online stores, and the pieces were up for sale. Hopefully all the monster fans of the world will eventually find the products and decide to show their love.


Everybody Needs A Little Monster Love on Zazzle

And of course, Nico will be wearing one of these shirts at his actual birthday party. I've also designed stickers of each monster's individual face, and Sharon is going to recreate the illustration for the cake. Hey, you've got to reinforce the theme, right?

It Must Be Me

Way back in 2004, I started writing a book collecting all of the strange crap that's happened to me in my life - strange men stalking me, women nuzzling up against me in bookstores, unnecessary altercations with retail workers - that kind of stuff. Guess what? It's still not done. But it's more than halfway done, which is something. It turns out writing a book about your life takes some time. Actually, just remembering and categorizing all of these tales has taken a huge amount of hours. I have no one to blame but myself.



Though the book's interior isn't illustrated, I did develop a front cover image, as well as illustrations for nine of the stories' subjects. I took a different tact with these illustrations, severely limiting the color palette and using only very basic geometric shapes. I really enjoyed working this way, and besides being a fun alternative to my usual cartoony style, it helped me retain the anonymity of my subjects.

It Must Be Me: Anecdotes from the Life of a Weird Magnet will be available through Xlibris in (cross your fingers) 2009. In the meantime, you can read a sampling of the stories on the site.

It Must Be Me

Credit to my wife Sharon for giving me the book's title. It was perfect and, surprisingly, the domain was available a few years ago. That made me happy.

Skreened Shop

I have shops on three Print On-Demand sizes - CafePress, Zazzle, and (just recently) Skreened, which I've heard great things about.

So far, I've never sold a product on CafePress - maybe the marketplace is just too crowded. I sell products on Zazzle almost daily, which I attribute to the customization options they give you (my fitness business card templates are my top seller by far). And I've just put up my Skreened store, and wound up selling one product only one day after it was online.

After the tedium of setting up shops on CafePress and Zazzle (not their faults - they both offer a wide array of products that require lots of size and positioning tweaks, and different images are usually required for their dark clothing) I wasn't ready to set up another shop, but Skreened's ethics (no sweatshop labor, environmentally-friendly shirts) won me over. Plus, they only offer light colored shirts and a canvas bags, so the shop took just a couple hours to get up (even with over 40 designs) due to the limited product categories. You can't even customize the look of your shop - who would have thought that was a benefit?

My Skreened Shop