Over to the right and up above you’ll see buttons that will lead you to areas of my portfolio. If you like what you see and maybe think we could work together, the contact button (also to the right and above) will help you get in touch with me. Just give me a call or send me an email. For instance, you might email me with a message like, “Gosh Rob, you’re really good.” Or, “Smashing good work, I’ve got a project for you!”

See how easy that is? Thanks for visiting, and I’ll be in touch.

Appetizer Illustrations

Just completed a job with The Alchemedia Project. All together there were 23 plated illustrations, and 84 ingredient illustrations.

New logo for Color-My-I, a service that adds colorful skins to your iphone. Check out their website here  http://www.color-my-i.com/

Here’s a logo we just finished for the Missouri Restoration Party, a political action group concerned with our food supply, and specifically, locally grown food. In their words – The Missouri Restoration Party’s goal is to educate residents of our 27 County Food-Shed to the fact that we can’t feed ourselves, recruit farmers, producers, processors, and merchants to the need and the economic opportunity, identify supply and demand for the Well-Fed Neighbor Farmers’ Coop, introduce the County Sustainability handbook, and, ultimately, re-localize food production and a vibrant sustainable economy.

If you have a minute I’ll walk you through my design process.

We were a little unsure (as was the client) how much of a corporate vs growing vs historic look would be appropriate, so we presented more pencils than we normally do. After much discussion, we landed on #4. The client liked its historic feel and focus on the farmer. Plus, they liked showing someone working for their food. I also thought the planting imagery was especially appropriate.

My first step was roughing in the type. After looking at a few dozen fonts, none of which seemed to fit, I was afraid I would have to draw the type from scratch when I came across this font – CGWoodblock.  The word Alliance was set in Bank Gothic, borders were roughed in and I was ready to work on the figure and field.

I needed a reference photo for the farmer, but couldn’t find anything close to what I wanted, so I took my own. Yes, that’s me, and yes, I do occasionally wear overalls.

I quickly framed the photo in and put it in place with the type to make sure everything looked good.

My next step was to trace the photo in pencil and work out the tonal range. Then I scanned my pencil trace, brought it into Illustrator and used the pen tool to trace it.

With the type and figure roughed in, I turned to the background. I felt it important to keep the background simple to not detract from the other elements. I really like how the type, the figure’s gesture and gaze all point the same way. It adds a lot of movement to the logo, and I didn’t want the background to close it in. I landed on a simple, faded plowed field shape.

With all the elements in place things looked good, but the type balance seemed off and the rule lines didn’t work – they seemed too contrived. Also I thought the Well Fed type was overpowering Neighbor. I enlarged Neighbor, simplified the rule lines and reversed the rectangle to give the logo more weight at the bottom.

Everything was coming together, so it was time to look at color. I usually keep my art in black & white until I’m finished because color can dramatically effect the interplay of shapes – it’s easier to see the balance in greyscale.

I did several full color options, but nothing seemed to work – all the elements drifted apart. After a while it hit me – why not do a sepia tone? People relate sepia tone with historic, which would reinforce the look I was after. A true sepia didn’t look quite right, so I went with an olive green with a little burnt orange to add depth.

First is the Child Advocacy Center. They do great work investigating child abuse in a way that doesn’t cause the child additional trauma. You can visit their website here.

We’ll also be working with the Dickerson Park Zoo, redesigning their quarterly magazine. You can visit their website here. We’ve already done a little work on it – here’s a work-in-progress illustration where we tried to draw four animals with one line.

Thirdly, we’ll be working with the Well Fed Neighbor Alliance. Their website is here. From their site -

“The Well-Fed Neighbor Alliance is a grassroots movement working to restore resilience and sustainability across the Ozarks.

“We specialize in fostering independent neighbor-to-neighbor partnerships that are united by a single vision.  We have a road map for bringing back a main street economy, re-localizing our food supply, and establishing energy independence.

“The 1000 Gardens Project, the Well-Fed Neighbor Farmer’s Co-Op, and the Ozarks Local Cuisine project are just three of many activities dedicated to achieving these goals.”

We’re actually trying to help everyone who sent in a request, but it may take some time to fit it all in. Will post more work as we make progress.

The creatives portrayed in the film are truly fascinating and are all expert communicators – I could listen to brilliant/gruff/foul-mouthed George Lois all day. Likewise the work portrayed is fascinating. Groundbreaking, trendsetting stuff that has had profound effects on our entire culture. (My favorite part of the film was when Lee Clow said that every ad for every computer brand had probably been created on a Mac.)

The film is a celebration of all things great in advertising, and the campaigns highlighted are great, no question. But other than a few brief captions citing number of hours we spend watching TV and thousands of ad impressions we receive, the film never addresses the negative impacts advertising has had on society. For every great ad, there are thousands that do nothing but contribute noise and irritation to our daily lives. That intrude with their false claims and empty dreams. That make us feel incomplete and diminished.

You may be surprised to hear such criticism from one in the industry, but we should hold ourselves accountable for the messages we manufacture. We have the potential to inform, educate, enlighten and entertain. We can build great brands, and we can help consumers make informed decisions. Too often we stop at good enough. We should follow the lead of the brilliant men and women in this film and do everything we can to rise above the pale monotony of bland messaging.

So, what can I do as an advertiser, and what can you do as my potential client? First we need to make sure that we have something worth saying. Then we need to say it in a compelling, thought provoking, original way. Certainly there’s more to it than that, but if we follow these two points we’ll be about 90% of the way there. Now I may not be as talented as Wieden & Kennedy, and I’m sure you don’t have the deep pockets of a client like Nike, but I bet that if we try, really try, we can craft advertising that will be worth listening to.

Give me a call and we’ll get started, 417-839-5133.