Operation: Applbaum Poster

I was recently contacted by a good friend of ours to help with a unique project for the CMO of THE SHACK™ (aka Radio Shack), Lee Applbaum. She needed assistance in creating a holiday gift for him, and due to the unique challenge it posed and free reign I had, I jumped at the chance. My solution was to design a bespoke personal logo, a modern crest of sorts. I am told he is an art/design lover, an avid runner and now cyclist as a result of his relationship with Lance Armstrong, Livestrong, and the Team Radio Shack cycling team. I thought an athletic inspired, rock star approach would help keep him in good company with Lance and the team.

My recon crew says that the poster was a big hit, and he will be proudly displaying it. It's always incredibly gratifying both creatively and personally to know I was part of a successful execution, and there's a happy client in the process. It's a win-win for everyone...

The final posters were hand-printed with the incredible help of the fine folks at Danger Press in Atlanta, without whom it would not be a reality. I can't thank Ed and Spencer enough for their guidance and printing wisdom, Stephanie Smith of the Atlanta Printmaker's Studio who had an additional assist, and Kally and Radio Shack for their trust and the opportunity to do something really cool!

Claus Kids is now live

The Claus Kids site that we have been working on is now live and ready for playing! Click here to go to the site.

Christmas Belles selling worldwide!

According to the Robots and Cupcakes blog:

"Christmas Belles is doing amazing right out of the gate!
This is our favorite part: We've sold apps in the U.S., Russia, Italy, Canada, Brazil, France, China, United Arab Emirates, Luxemburg, South Korea, Singapore, Ecuador, Germany, Norway, Argentina, United Kingdom, Mexico, Indonesia and the Netherlands!!! And that's only in it's first two days. Very cool!"

Can't wait to be able to share stats!

The Christmas Belles iPad app

Just in time for Christmas, the musical iPad app that I worked on is finally available in the iTunes store! I'm really excited about it, this will be a great app for kids and those wanting to get into the Christmas spirit around the holiday!

The app is one of a few legs of the Claus Kids project, and it focuses on a set of musical characters called the Belles. Users can play 3 different classic Christmas melodies via a keyboard or the animated Belles. There is also a record feature and up to 3 sessions can be stored.

The app was splendidly developed by Robots and Cupcakes, the characters were designed/produced by Kurtz Art Studio and animated by Toonalooney Studios, and Rick Hinkle of Audiocam Music (and Pacman Fever fame!) did all the custom music. I designed and produced all the interfaces and icon design, the look and feel, and layout. I also did the scenic backgrounds behind the intro screens and the credits page. It was a really fun project to be a part of and everyone was terrific to work with. Hopefully this is the first of many more apps.

I'd love to know what everyone thinks, please send me an email to let me know.

Enjoy!

Bill Murray Appreciation Day

In honor of Frank Chimero's newly-declared Bill Murray Appreciation Day on dribbble, I created this quickie illustration of Dr. Venkman encountering the ectoplasm for the first time. Makes me want to break out the Ghostbusters DVD and rewatch!

Follow the link, there are some fantastic entries.

Salvation Army Tees

I had the good fortune of being introduced to a new client through a friend and fellow Art Director/Designer, Susie Fell Ehlen of Fell Ehlen Creative. These are some tee designs I worked on for said new client – Grizzard Communications – who focuses primarily on promotion for non-profits. I was really stoked to get the assignment. I went in to share my portfolio of work and I'm really glad that they trusted me after seeing the bumper stickers we made for the show My Gym Partner's a Monkey: "MY KID MARKED HIS TERRITORY AT CHARLES DARWIN MIDDLE SCHOOL" and "MY KID FLINGS POO AT CHARLES DARWIN..."

When these are locked and loaded, I will post the final printed shirts. These are just comps in all their hand-rendered vector Chrome glory. Special thanks to Douglas Broward and Aaron Holz for the opportunity and to Susie for the intro!

The final shirts for the proposal:

These are some design variations that didn't make the cut:

Claus Kids Backgrounds, Logo, Games, & Design

Things here have been pretty busy lately and I am incredibly thankful for all the projects that have been flowing in since starting Jayro Design / Illustration.

One of which will be a great holiday treat for kids. It's a project I'm working on for Kurtz Art Studio (you may know them for the Goldfish cracker fish characters) called Claus Kids. It centers around some new characters and a new adventure story in the North Pole at Christmas. There will be a book, a website with animated movies, games and interactive features and an iPad app available this holiday season. It's been a small passionate team working together to get everything done, and I think it will be a great experience for kids when it's completed. As things are launched, I will post links.

This is the first time I've worked directly with John Kurtz, but also with my long-time friend and fellow Ringling graduate, Jon Henshaw of Toonalooney Studios. Jon is providing all the Flash animation of the characters for the site and is doing an incredible job.

It's rare to find projects where you're not just the "________ guy" (fill in the blank of said job duty). Since this has been such a small operation, I've been really lucky to be involved in providing pretty much all the background illustrations for the animation, designing the UI's and intro screens for the web games and iPad apps, designing the logo, and other things that pop up. It's been really nice to have an opportunity like this, and John and everyone at Kurtz Art Studio has been great to work with.

I will keep you posted as things progress, but for now here are a few tidbits. These are backgrounds for a few of the locations within the story. All done in Illustrator CS5.

Cartoon Network Alumni Logos

Here are a few contenders for the newly formed Cartoon Network Alumni group on LinkedIn. Oh Cartoon Network, how you've evolved!

Obviously all trademarks belong to Cartoon Network (this is not officially endorsed by the network), and the fine people in their legal department would want you to know this: CARTOON NETWORK, the logo, and all related characters and elements TM & © 2010 Cartoon Network.

If the PPG version is chosen, perhaps I may do some more interpretations of the logos of their classic shows.

I'll let you know how it goes!

Adobe CS5 2 Day Teaching Course

So a lot has happened since my last post. That's not incredibly unusual since I'm typically not a frequent poster, however my situation has recently changed and so will the frequency of the blog (for the better!).

My job at Cartoon Network and I broke up at the end of July, so we're seeing other people now. I've started my own design and illustration studio, and I've got a few live jobs in the hopper. ( I'm available for new projects, too, if you know of any! ) One is a logo/branding project, the other is a big illustration project for an upcoming children's story for Christmas. The illustrator that is working on the book needs help bringing things to life via web and other applications. Both are fun and challenging projects, so I will be busy for awhile chewing on them.

I also had the good fortune to teach a 2-day introduction class to Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and In Design CS5 at a training center called MicroTek last week. They had a very comfortable facility with amazingly friendly staff right off a major highway in Atlanta. The intensive, hands-on class was geared specifically for an in-house team of non-designers. In addition to the software, we reviewed the foundations of print & web, and a little bit about typography to get them more familiar with the universe all these programs operate within.

I threw a lot at them, and they were teriffic students. They all kept up, asked some great questions and did a great job at the class exercises. I really enjoyed the experience, and I am hoping to pursue more teaching opportunities in both design/illustration and CS5 software.

As soon as I'm able to post new work, and project updates I will. It should be very shortly.

Stay tuned!

Brushes With Pogo stylus

This was done with the Brushes App on the iPhone with the Pogo Stylus pen.

Featured in Creative Loafing!

This week's Creative Loafing had a nice article about the lunchbox show. I am very excited to have a mention in one of the lead paragraphs!

Link here: CREATIVE LOAFING ARTICLE

Lunchbox Show at Alcove Gallery: The show

The show was a great success, and the variety of content was pretty incredible. Most people opted to paint directly on the lunchbox, but there were a few amazing sculptures (a lunchbox gone mad [above], a urinal, and a giant robot), and some modifications (pal Kevin Rej's insanely detailed pen & ink Movie Monster lunchbox had a light installed to backlight the front panel).

When my family and I stopped by to check out the show, we were greeted by girls in plaid skirts hanging from a ring dangling from the ceiling, and a really great turnout. Unfortunately we didn't stay long. Our dinner beforehand took a really long time and our 3-year-old was spent by the time we arrived. I wasn't able to get very many pictures, but there are images up here on Alcove's website: LINK. Georgia Public Broadcasting was there filming, so I will update a post with links and hopefully video if it becomes available.

I do have to give a HUGE THANKS and major plug to James Thorpe from Graphic Communications in Lawrenceville, GA who generously and unexpectedly donated the printing of my piece. In addition to the great customer service, they did a fantastic job with the printing. You can find out more about Graphic Communications here: LINK.

For you citizens of Atlanta, the show runs until May 9th.

Lunchbox Show @ Alcove Gallery

I just finished up a custom lunchbox design for a gallery show at Alcove Gallery in Atlanta. The show is this Saturday from 7PM-12AM. Link for more information HERE. Every artist customized their own, and my understanding is that there are over 70 different lunchboxes in the show. If you are in the Atlanta area, you should check it out. I will post some pictures from the opening in a subsequent post.

Some technical deets: I did the piece digitally and had it output with UV resistant inks on adhesive and hand-mounted it to the lunchbox with a decal squeegee.

AIGA Screenprinting Workshop: Ink & Drink #2

It's been a long while, but thanks to an AIGA Screenprinting workshop at the Atlanta Printmakers Society on Friday, I got to do some limited edition screen prints on paper. It felt great to get back into that and get my hands dirty – literally. The piece was drawn in Photoshop with the Wacom tablet and supplemented with a pattern from Illustrator. I'm really happy with the result. Many thanks to Shari Margolin for co-organizing it and Matthew Crouch for donating paper samples so I had something to print on!