Graphic Glitter & Sparkling Sentiments

Nosh Lab Logo

2010-11-29T11:10:00.003-06:00

A logo for another upstart food venture that I just finished up yesterday. The product is sheet's of half-baked perforated crackers to be basted, seasoned and baked by the foodie/crafty consumer. More parts of this brand to follow, for now enjoy the logo.

A Delicious Branding Sneak-Peak

2010-10-14T15:27:00.006-05:00

A client of mine came to me looking for a logo and name for his new business venture. He said his new product was organic candied fruits, and wanted to model his new business after the well established companies in France doing the same thing.

Now, here in the US we usually only find candied fruits in our fruit cake, here we call them Glacé fruits. Glacé meaning glass or crystal. However these Glacé fruits pale in comparison to the confections of their origin. True candied fruits are slowly steeped in honey, or simple syrup, until their fluids have all been replaced with sugars and they crystallize and preserve. They contain no false colors and still resemble their former selves. The process is called confit. And as you can see I used the phonetic pronunciation of this word as the business name and a playful nod to the confection's roots in France.

Overall I wanted this mark to look clean, classic, distinguished, a little rustic, but still modern. A mark that could denote an air of class, trust worthiness, and longevity. I'm excited to expand on the tone of this mark and I look forward to sharing more on the development of this brand with you down the road. So keep your eyes peeled.

Style & Grace Promotion

2010-04-19T16:23:00.004-05:00

Promotional postcard I designed for Linda Friend's on location photography exhibition and documentary film on Style & Grace Salon on a neighborhood hair-cuttery on Madison's South side.

Mix CDs Deserve Proper Album Art Too

2010-03-04T11:40:00.008-06:00

Recently I made a series of three mix CDs for my dear friend Jacob. The music on each disc was picked to suit the decor of our hotel for our last Chicago rendezvous, and each disc represents a different mood, or time of day. All mixes are meticulously sequenced for flow and transition. And if you ask me, any mix that has such care put into it's sound should have similar care put into it's album art. A mix CD is an experience.

So please behold the mixes, all designed and hand-cut by me and my trusty Exacto blade.

This mix is the 'Light of Day' mix, meant to wake up and start the day too. Here's the rundown of the playlist.

Light of Day
01. Concerto in G • Antonio Vivaldi / Reitzell
02. The Kindness of Strangers • The American Analog Set
03. Lonely Lonely (Frisbee’d Mix) • Feist
04. Other Towns and Cities • Camera Obscura
05. The Supine • Andrew Bird
06. Universal Traveler • Air
08. Saturdays (Reprise) • Cut // Copy
09. Ceremony • New Order
10. One (Blake’s Got a New Face) • Vampire Weekend
11. Two Weeks • Grizzly Bear
12. The Chills • Peter Bjorn and John
13. Missing • Beck
14. Big Big Love (Fig. 2) • Foals
15. Intermission III • Brisa Roché

The teal mix is the 'In Neon Glow' mix, my night life in the city mix, it starts out getting you pumped up, dance-y and feeling sexy, and mellows into world lounge-y feel.

In Neon Glow
01. Black History Month (Josh Homme Remix) • Death From Above 1979
02. Tant Pis Pour Toi • Nous Non Plus
03. Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above (Spank Rock Remix) • CSS
04. Over And Over (Maurice Fulton Remix) • Hot Chip
05. Fences • Phoenix
06. I’ve Got Your Number • Passion Pit
07. Tristesse/Joie • Yelle
08. That Was Just A Dream • Cut // Copy
09. Neon Theme • Neon Neon
10. Shadows • Midnight Juggernauts
11. Electric Feel • MGMT
12. To Let Myself Go (Malkyl Mix) • Ane Brun
13. Synchronize • Solid Gold
14. B-Rock • Pretty Lights
15. Ohm Suaa (Martin Morales Remix with Sainkho Namtchylak) • Ravin & David Visan
16. Sweet Sadness • Gabin
17. Fever (Mawglee Remix ft. The Lone Ranger) • Grant Phabao
18. A La Seine • Dum Dum

The 'Seen By Feel' mix, the late night winding down mix, starts with a little swagger and mood, then mellows into Jazz babes.

Seen By Feel
01. Aphrodisiac • Bow Wow Wow
02. Small Stakes • Spoon
03. Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.) • Monsters of Folk
04. Anne • Santigold
05. Little Bit • Lykke Li
06. Icarus • Santigold vs Diplo
07. Exchange • Massive Attack
08. All Mine • Portishead
09. Feeling Good • My Brightest Diamond
10. Dans Le Vert De Ses Yeux • Brisa Roché
11. Look For Me (I’ll Be Around) • Neko Case
12. Pretty Bird • Jenny Lewis
13. Beat It / Billy Jean • Mathieu Boogaerts
14. Un Jour Comme Un Autre • Brigitte Bardot
15. Que N’ai Je • Keren Ann
16. What Me Worry? • St. Vincent
17. Lived In Bars • Cat Power

The ADDY goes to...

2010-03-01T12:23:00.008-06:00

This past weekend I was honored to receive not one, but three awards at the Madison ADDY Awards Gala. One Silver Student ADDY for my Children & Nature Network series, as well as a Gold Student ADDY for my painstakingly hand-cut URBN Annual Report. The very same annual report that also earned me a glass Best In Show award to adorn my bookcase and a lovely check, which will buy many art supplies. Thank you AAF Madison.

In celebration of this momentous event, I would like take this opportunity to share with you this. A slide show of the cutting of the cover.

Children & Nature Network: Public Service Campaign

2009-11-16T15:56:00.005-06:00

I got really excited about this public service campaign. Though, as I dug in I found it was a bit of struggle to come up with a concise enough approach, every aspect of the idea of reconnecting kids with nature was rich with possibilities to me. At first I had considered taking a nostalgic illustrative approach to play on parents memories of their youth spent outside. However as I began to concept some illustrations my excitement began to wain and I struggled to bring any life to the illustrations without them resembling cheesy old greeting cards. There was something tenuous about how the illustrations played with my intended approach to language and copy. Illustration which had initially felt nostalgic, now just seemed too distant and stale. I wanted it to feel more fresh, approachable and positive. This is where my focus shifted to the main areas where children benefit from outdoor play; in their social development, cognitive function, and overall health and well-being. This shift may not seem sysmic to anyone, but it was just the ticket to get the concept rolling. I began digging around my mother's house looking for objects I thought could represent these focuses. In the end, I had a photograph, a report card, and a bathroom scale. I scattered them across my 'lush' (read as un-mowed) lawn to put them in context, and the rest is history.

If you're interested in some light reading here is the dowloadable PDF from which I found the most inspiration while researching. "Resurrecting Free Play in Young Children: Looking Beyond Fitness and Fatness to Attention, Affiliation and Affect." by Burdette, Hillary L., M.D., M.S.; and Robert C. Whitaker, M.D, M.P.H. © 2005 American Medical Association.

Fashion Illustrations: Prints

2009-11-13T11:21:00.002-06:00

I finally got around to scanning some of my favorite prints from semesters past. I have to say, I've always loved printing, mmm...the smell of ink. The results always have so much character. Little miss adventures and serendipitous glitches can make for infinitely fascinating layers of texture and color. So satisfying.

The first print here is a process called faux printing, that's a Garganism. One inks a plate of glass, does a blank pull of the excess, and then places their paper gently onto the plate and draws the image by hand on the backside. The result is the mirror image draw completely from the pen pressure, and in some cases the pressure of where one rested their hands.

The second below is a collagraph print. For this I made a plate from corrugated cardboard and poster board. I stacked the layers of board to ad depth to the print. I ran this plate until it wore out, just re-inking over and over. As the ink began to build up and get tacky on my plate some really interesting color mixing started to occur, this pull in particular is appears almost like stone in it's texture. I love that you can see the fatigue of the corrugated cardboard coming through in the vertical banding.

I Made "The Cut": New York Magazine's Fashion Blog

2009-03-20T10:26:00.000-05:00

I'm the feature photo for New York Magazine's Fashion Blog article on Pinup-girl Style. Not bad for a self-styled shoot in the MATC studios. This photo shoot was a collaborative effort between, Audre Rae Photography, myself and three other local models to build a catalog of photos to represent the killer work of swimwear designer Elizabeth O'Brien Berg. Seems her line will likely be taking off after this bit of exposure. Isn't the internet a crazy place? Congrats to everyone involved with the shoot. Check out the article in full and it's slideshow {here}

Daily Deviation Deux

2009-02-23T10:17:00.000-06:00

I got my second Daily Deviation on deviantART Saturday. This time on a photo I took to commemorate and showcase my memorial tattoo. I'm still recovering from the onslaught of attention. So far there are 3,400+ unanswered accolades and support in my inbox there. I'm most struck by the timing of my new found DD. Today is my Father's Birthday. The first one we've had without him. It was also my late sister Robyn's birthday a couple of weeks ago. And today is nearly the anniversary of my Uncle James' death. Hard to believe it's been an entire year since those dark 3 months. The universe has impeccable timing.