My reasoning

Silly little post, with a silly little design. While I was watching TV today, I saw a man that was absolutely amazing at guitar. I can’t do that. My guitar skills do not exceed anything past Green Day songs. So my point is, if I can’t be that guy on television, I guess being a designer is decent too.

Toys…

For about a week I suddenly got into the whole vinyl toy craze. I went out and bought two blank toys, started researching Dunnies, and a bunch of other related stuff. This is the first custom I’ve ever done. It was fun, though clearly not a strong point of mine. This is not something I’m going to pursue that much or do, but it was a good stray from my norm. As well as learning about a new sub-division of design.

If you want to see some real great toy design check out these on behance.

Here’s a shot of Bernard the Panda ‘Demolitionist’

(Yes, the photo is a little weak but I’m not in photoshoot mode tonight)

Wow. Long Time

It has been four months since my last post. In terms of blogs, not posting for a week makes it a dead site. Four months is pretty much dino-age extinct for the web. While I don’t have any legitimate reasons why I slacked off the extent I have, I offer the following excuse. New job/real job: Working anywhere from 40-60 hours a week killed my motivation to do anything other than sleep once I got home. Now I know in reality this is the type of stuff all creatives have to deal with so I shouldn’t be complaining, but I just wasn’t used to it.

I do however have some exciting news(at least to me) to mention.  A buddy of mine from work has inspired me to get off my ass and start doing something I want to do. While my job is basically creating and producing college sport tee shirts, there are so many other projects I would love to create. We are going to start a company based on more old school print techniques.

In terms of mediums, screen printing and letterpress own everything else in my book. Web design can be awesome and for a while I told myself this is the direction I want to go. Partly because it’s the trend of what everyone is turning to, as well the capabilities of creativity it now offers (web-fonts, hmtl5, etc.). But you always have to try something before you can decide if you like it. That is why after a year or two about pondering how to get in the web business, I realize I’m not cut out for it.

I get excited for print. I see a blind embossed business card and I begin to think of all the projects that could be done with that technique. I seek the challenge of registering a multicolor screen print. If anything, I enjoy printing just as much as designing. The enthusiasm is just not there for web design.

All that being said, the new site and logo is in the works. I am shooting for the site to go live before the end of the year. From then on, this site will probably go cold(not that is hasn’t already) and all updates will be through the new one.

Just to make this post have something other than my rambling type, I’ve posted a little exercise poster I made the other day. My istockphoto credits were expiring and I only had 4 left. So I gave myself 30 minutes to take a line art drawing(from Istock) and incorporate it into a slogan poster. I know the whole old distressed look has been overdone almost as much as mustaches, but it was a quick way to give it a finishing touch. I would really like some feedback or thoughts.

I made something….

So my job mostly consists of taking templates and putting school logo’s on them. In fact the normal list that we have to convert each design to is currently at 325 schools. I will actually be putting a list of the best mascot logos I’ve seen along with the worst.

Anyway, today I got to design some icons for the website (I think) basic sport art for a shirt template. Not really a big deal, but considering what I normally do this was much more interesting.

Japanese Town Logos

I stumbledupon these Japanese Town Logos that are absolutely amazing. The line work and meaning behind most of them are extremely impressive. It makes me wish my hometown had something that badass for a symbol.

Nick Brandt

Photo and Copyright: Nick Brandt

I’m normally not one to post photography on here but these photo’s by Nick Brandt caught my eye. Here’s the link.

All the photo’s have great composition. While some are HDR, others look like they were barely touched. Very impressive body of work.

Wood Carving Continued..

So here he is. I will probably send this to my buddy Colin. He was the one who created this character that still is the side of my desk.

It was fun working with wood, something I’d like to get back into more. Using only the random tools I had from design I class, some of the edges are a little sloppy. However I am hoping that if I do decide to do anymore projects like this I will get proper tools.
Here are some other shots of the process:

Wood Carving

So I decided to do a little two day project involving woodworking. A few years ago I worked at a boatyard building sailboats. I also was the framer at Micheal’s for a bit too. Home Depot is legit one of my favorite stores.

Anyway wood is awesome and I wanted to do a piece with it. Essentially I am bringing back an old character my buddy Colin used to draw all the time. Not really sure how this will turn out considering I haven’t worked with wood in a long time, but I’ll keep everything posted on here.

Sketching

This is just a sketch I did yesterday to kill some time. I saw a commercial for Alice in Wonderland and just thought about the Cheshire Cat. Always liked how creepy the older illustrations of him has been.

I am trying out CS5, so I figured I’d throw this into illustrator. The new width tool is awesome. It helped me turn this sketch into vector in about half the time. And that was with learning the little ins and outs of the actual tool.

Robert Reemus

This is the start of a personal project I have always wanted to do. It is going to be an illustrative guide of information. The book will be called “The Robert Reemus Guide to Information.” The alliteration is a name a buddy of mine thought up way back in high school. It is totally random but I just like it.

Basically this project will illustration of things that just annoy me in daily life. For example one rule would be, ‘To be a good neighbor, do not mow your lawn at 7am on a Saturday.’ It amazes me the lack of respect people have for others these days. This will be my opportunity to vent and do something creative in the process. Before I start the illustrations a logo had to be made, that is what you see up top. I wanted a very quirky, odd feel to it. Think The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus meets A Series of Unfortunate Events type character. Essentially I started with the two R’s and transformed it into a face. The mark is abstract enough to give it the look I wanted. While the hat and bow tie help the viewer perceive it is a person.

Now that the logo is done it is time to really start the fun part. I am still unsure about the illustration style to use, or whether I should mix it up or keep it uniform. Upon more thinking, this should really be a web project with the possible cross over to print. That way I can just update on here one piece at a time to get feedback.