An Updates Post!

Earlier this summer, I set out with the goal to write more posts for this blog. Unfortunately, coming up with topics to write about that fit this particular format has been tricky. That’s not to say I have total writer’s block, the opposite actually! So instead, today I thought I’d share with you some cool things I have coming down the pike. I also thought I’d reach out to see if you had any ideas too! But don’t worry, this won’t be homework for you, I promise.

Big Projects

First up, I’m working on a piece for Raised by Rainbows Puppet Pals, a show curated by the very talented Luke Flowers to be shown virtually at Gallery 1988 this November. I am blown away by the caliber of other talented artists Luke has brought together for this, and I cannot wait to see what everyone brings to the table!

I’m also working on another project with Craig Shemin! It’s very exciting to get to be a part of another Henson related project and next year it should be available. I’d also like to take a minute to thank my brother–in–law and fellow monster puppet enthusiast Jerome Green for his help so far too.

Writing has become a bigger part of my personal life as well and I’m hoping to write a book! That’s the dream at least, but I only mention it now because hopefully soon I’ll be able to open up a bit more about it. In the meantime, I’m learning so much about how to properly do research, interview people, and (hopefully) become a better writer. It is most definitely a personal passion project and I hope that I can turn it into something for a more general audience.

This Blog

As I mentioned at the top of this post, coming up with articles that stay within the guardrails of graphic design, illustration, and inspiration create unique challenges while simultaneously providing a helpful road map of how to write. I am excited to let you know I’m currently interviewing an insanely talented artist that will hopefully be ready to post in the next couple weeks. I also have some fun ideas too. All of these posts should be coming out over the next few months and weeks.

That doesn’t mean I have tons of things planned to post, but I’m very curious if there are any topics you’d be interested in reading about. What about a tips and tricks article focusing on Procreate (the software I use to draw almost exclusively)? Are there any design trends you have strong feelings about? Step–by–step drawing guides? Are you a creative professional who’s interested in writing a guest article? Maybe you (or an artist you admire) would like to take part in an Artist Games back–and–forth like I’ve done with Will Carroll, Noah Ginex, or Justin Piatt?

I really would love to hear from you! So please comment below, or hit me up on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or Substack! You can also use the form submission page right here on my website to get in contact with me. Thanks again for stopping by!

The Wall of Suck

Man oh Manischewitz am I excited about today's post! This is one I've been putting together for a few years now and it is all inspired by my good friend and talented graphic designer & illustrator, Jamie Carroll (who is also available for hire and deserves the big bucks people!). Nearly a decade ago now, I interviewed Jamie for Muppet fan site ToughPigs about some of his work and he introduced me to his own home–brewed mood board he called the wall of suck. I know! I was just as intrigued as you are right now. Here's an excerpt from that interview explaining today's post's namesake:

Dave: ...What about the pieces that get completely rejected? Or even better, the ones you yourself scrap?

Jamie: That’s a good question. It’s an incredible privilege to be able to do this stuff. It’s also rather soul crushing when it doesn’t work out. It’s two sides of the same coin. We’re not supposed to admit that, but it stings. I assembled this thing that I refer to as the “wall of suck” in order to deal with the angst. I’m not saying the work sucks. A great deal of care goes into even the simplest pitch. The suck part is in reference to the time and effort. It seems wasted and I can’t really post the full pieces for public view. Those are the breaks. Still, it all needs to go somewhere so it goes to the wall. Projects get nixed for all sorts of reasons. Many of them can’t be predicted. The wall helps me keep a healthy perspective on all the silliness.

Artists often crow about the successes yet hide the many failures that lead up to them. I think all of it should be celebrated!

If you're in a creative field where you have to submit multiple concepts or have brought something nearly to completion if not finished and ready for the world to see it—only to have it completely go down the toilet for one reason or another—than the idea of an essentially failed trophy case for all the "Coulda' Shoulda' Woulda's" probably resonates with you too.

I have had countless concepts rejected that I knew with my whole heart were bangers, or projects that I worked on for hours, days, or weeks, that were scrapped and it can be so discouraging and frustrating when that happens. Most of them I'll never ever be able to show because of nondisclosure agreements (NDA's), or because I technically don't own the work. There are a few other nuanced reasons, but the work I'm writing about today doesn't fall into those categories! These are projects that I'm really proud of, and/or was super excited to develop further, but for one reason or another are now D.O.A.

10 Minute Portraits

I've written extensively about figure drawing and how much I have benefited from taking classes. For awhile, I was consumed with getting better and better with creating more realistic art using traditional mediums. I love soft charcoal on newsprint and was simultaneously discovering I had a knack for it too, so I decided to expand my abilities further. Figure drawing focuses on the body, but I was also interested in creating people's likeness in portraiture as well. So I had the idea of doing free portraits of my coworkers during lunch time. I would get the opportunity to study and draw multiple different models, get comfortable drawing in front of people, get an opportunity to talk with employees I normally wouldn't otherwise, and in turn my coworkers would get a free portrait drawing.

Figure drawing with Maria

I spoke to my boss about it and she gave me tips on how to present the idea to Human Resources. HR then had me write a full proposal on what, why, how, when, and where I planned to do this and how it would ultimately benefit the workplace. That proposal then went up to the building's advisory cabinet who set a trial period to test it out before evaluating further if it was something that could then be done regularly. I was so excited and worked really hard on the proposal. I did several more portraits of celebrities and created a poster to help sell the idea, and brother did it work! Everyone else was excited too, and it was eventually promoted as a trial period where for the next three weeks I would set up an easel and stool in our cafeteria with a small modesty wall to block my models from other coworkers, but put me on full display where anyone could come up and look over my shoulder and ask me questions.

On the premiere day, the front desk used the P.A. system to announce, "Dave Hulteen will be offering free portraits to anyone willing to sit and model for 10 minutes today at lunchtime in the cafeteria!" So cheesy, I know, but I was really proud that I managed to pull this together. That afternoon I did about 4 portraits and it went great! I got to meet new people, got some great feedback, and that feeling that this was going to be the start of something pretty great. I packed up, and left to go home for the weekend. It was Friday, March 6, 2020.

For those of you that need me to explain the punchline, this is right when the United States closed up shop for the Covid 19 Pandemic. My job shut the building down the following Monday, and while we all know how most everything played out, the opportunity to pick right back up kind of passed. Now yes, things are better again and I could resubmit my proposal and try again, but there are some interruptions that put ideas on hold indefinitely for various reasons, and for now, that's where this one will continue to chill.

Our backs are now against the wall? Listen all y'all, it's a sabotage

There are so many other concepts I want to show but can’t!

A common theme you may notice among each of these things is a sense of self–sabotage. I pride myself as a creative who doesn't take constructive criticism personally. "You don't like it? Well then neither do I. See? I'm a big boy!" I also pride myself on my passion and commitment to a project. "You like this direction? Well then I'm going to steer this thing all the way to the finish line and give you the best work you've ever had. See? I'm a big boy!" There are many times however when these two philosophies contradict themselves. That's self preservation lingo for, "Sometimes I can be a monumental pain in the @$s." For example, when I was given the opportunity to design the cover to one of our quarterly publications—something I was honored to even be asked to do—I took the direction of creating Wedha's Pop Art Portrait (WPAP) style to an overly scrutinous level, driving my poor boss crazy as I lectured him over the art form's intricacies that I was now an expert in and he was grossly out of his league to say otherwise. I was quick to admit he made the right call when he handed the work over to another artist. I'm still really pleased with my version, but it joins a growing collection of concepts I've created that were rejected at the time, but occasionally are retooled and resubmitted for other projects that are never quite the right fit for those either.

Coloring Book

Spoiler alert: this one goes the same way my 10 minute portraits did with coronavirus ruining everyone's capitalist dreams. But in a nutshell, I illustrated a coloring book that helps guide kids with how to visit the elderly in nursing homes—something that was absolutely taken off the table when the pandemic hit. What makes this one sting though is that I had nearly complete creative control. The original coloring book was created in 1989 by a brilliant Salvation Army officer who created a valuable resource for kids. The only issue with it was that she wasn't a great illustrator. So I was given carte blanche to recreate all the art however I wanted, and I jammed it with Easter eggs and references to 1980's pop culture, mixing in tributes to the Netflix original series Stranger Things and even nods to PAW Patrol (my daughter’s biggest fandom at the time) as well.

This is one that has the potential to make a come back though. I regularly check in with the client (who has changed over the years as departments continue to merge), and sometimes I get an encouraging update and other times my check in serves as a reminder for them to do do something about the coloring book.

School Mascot

Hoofa, I'd like to introduce this exhibit as the catalyst for this entire post.

I write about my daughter a lot on my blog. She is my world, so when her elementary school sent the call out for a community wide effort to design the school's new mascot, I saw multiple opportunities flash before my eyes. I have designed tons of characters for books, television, animation, puppets, brand identity, and even full bodied walk around costumes. So not only was this right up my alley, but I have dozens of contacts that could then develop my designs into physical media and even merchandising! After doing some quick research, I also learned that school mascots are a pretty limited subset of creatures; namely cubs. Do you have any idea how many school mascots across the country are cubs? Most are unisex creations, but when they're not, they almost always lean male. The sole direction of the mascot design challenge was to encourage kindness and my daughter is the poster child for being kind. After some rough sketches, I had the idea that my design would be an homage to my daughter and the best animalistic choice was an eaglet. "Fly high with the Evergreen Elementary Eaglet!" You guys, I went so hard on this.

I knew as I was working on every little thing that I was putting the cart in front of the horse, writing my own feel–good story of the decade that would appear on the front page of the local newspaper and this very blog. "Local Father Saves All of Humanity with School Mascot Competition That Resembles His Daughter." Oh my gosh you guys, I went way too hard on this.

I knew with every fiber of my being that I was getting way too involved and wrapped up in my presentation. I even sold myself as the professional illustrator to the principle who would work alongside the school to create clip art, promotional material, and provide possible vendors for merchandising opportunities. You guys... even my ego was begging me to step way off. I went so very hard on this.

Now I don't want to blame my friends and family for getting me so hyped, but they were all so supportive that I really wanted to exceed their expectations. In the end, I was actually really relieved when my design wasn't chosen. I was the overly excited dad you roll your eyes at during little league practice. Fortunately all that effort and exertion stayed within the walls of our home with my wife being the one who suffered the loss. I got her just as riled up as I was, so she took the rejection of the Evergreen Eaglet a lot harder than I did. That doesn't mean I'm not bummed out about it, but for the purposes of this post, my cute little eaglet now occupies the wall with a reminder not to overly invest oneself in similar future situations.

I have so many other pieces that belong on the wall of suck that I still can't show or talk about. Perhaps one day I'll do a follow up, but for now, I'd love to hear if you have your own wall of suck and what's on it? Follow me on Instagram and check back in a week here for a new post!

Inspiration: Volk Clip Art

It’s 1995, and a teenage me (Hi! I’m Dave!) is up against the proverbial wall as my senior year of high school begins and I have absolutely no idea what the future holds for me. I have zero direction or ambition to know where I’ll go to further my education (if at all), I’m not even sure what I want to do in a best case scenario, and the bad news is there isn’t a best case scenario anyway because I may not even have enough credits to graduate with the rest of my class. My dad is getting frustrated because all I ever say that I want to do is draw, but how that translates into any kind of career is spectacularly vague and naive at best. Seemingly moments before the first day of school even starts, I’m enrolled in Monmouth County, New Jersey’s stellar vocational education program at the zero hour where my father finds a commercial art class which will give me a far better chance at achieving the necessary math and science credits I’ll need to get a high school diploma. The vocation curriculum is technically two years, meaning I’ll only complete the first and my fellow classmates will all be juniors, but there’s no time to split hairs. As far as Dad, the state of New Jersey, and any future higher education prospects are concerned, the name of the game is to simply graduate Neptune High School with a modest GPA.

Me and my fellow MCV classmates, 1996

If you know me or have read any other blog post here, you know that it all worked out. But I’m not actually writing about my time with the Monmouth County Vocational Commercial Art School in Aberdeen, nor how that class arguably saved my future career, how I made some great friends, or how we all relentlessly tortured our teacher Ms. Camp (I’m so sorry for all those headaches Ms. Camp! We all genuinely love you!), but rather how I discovered an art form that continues to inspire me to this day, the world of Volk Clip Art.

First let’s take a quick crash course through the history of what clip art actually is. As I mentioned when I wrote about stock image sites, designers are busy people, and may not always have the time or ability or money to cultivate graphics and images for their projects, so they turn to other methods by relying on pre–made works with varying licensing managements. Clip art specifically covers illustrated pieces for publishing products that offer a huge variety of content and illustrative styles. The term clip art comes from physically cutting images from printed works and pasting them into new publishing projects with type and/or other graphics. This would be done by a layout artist, mechanical artist, or production artist on a printing press back in the day. Thanks to desktop publishing though, we’ve condensed all that down to the noble graphic designer.

Now there’s a lot more to cover, but for brevity’s sake we’re just going to hit some bullet points here. Many publications and smaller businesses didn’t have the budget to hire illustrators, so clip art became a mainstay for consumption. I’m going to briefly skip over the main course of today’s post for a minute here, but eventually the ink–based, comic book style of clip art that I’m referencing today became dated, but not useless. So sometime in the 1970s, those higher quality, older designed and stylized clip art made it’s way into trade paperback books for the masses. At that point, all you needed was a collection of (mostly) public domain illustrations and a Xerox machine, and now anyone could create relatively high quality designs. Flash forward to today, and you can very easily get your hands on quality, royalty free clip art from a variety of online locations for dirt cheap or even free. In fact, a lot of those cool, vintage illustrations that we’ll be talking about in a second are even archived on sites like Flickr!

Back to 1995 and a young and green Dave is confronted with a fantastic collection of clip art and unlimited Xerox privileges. It’s at this point where we finally get to the meat of this post and the very specific art house that was arguably the titan of clip art: Volk. I’ve mentioned a few times before that even if you’ve never heard of a certain so–and–so, their work probably crossed your path. Unless you’ve been living under a rock and outside of the United States (and even then there’s an excellent chance), you have most definitely seen something from a Volk catalog. Ironically located just 84 miles south from my former vocational school, Harry Volk, Jr.—a former journalist—opened his art studio in Pleasantville, New Jersey in the mid 1950s that pumped out high quality, copyright free, clip art in saddle stitched paper booklets. These collections were organized into various themes that covered absolutely everything from popular holidays, space exploration, school activities, sales gimmicks, various occupations, elections, travel, and practically everything in between. Each booklet would cost just a few dollars and would be packed with fantastic, high quality illustrations that simultaneously reflected American values and societal changes surrounding race & gender, all at the same time somehow maintaining a specific but generic look.

The superstar of Volk was a man named Tom Sawyer. Yes, I know, but trust me, his name is the least intriguing thing about him. Thomas B. Sawyer’s work for Volk was ubiquitous, seen internationally in magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, sign boards, and on television. Mr. Sawyer isn’t just a top notch illustrator though. He’s a best selling novelist, author, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and story editor; but his biggest claim to fame was as the head writer and show runner for the classic CBS series Murder, She Wrote starring Angela Lansbury. I reached out to Mr. Sawyer for an interview seeing as his book, The Adventures of the Real Tom Sawyer shares the same publisher (Bear Mountain Media) as Sam and Friends – The Story of Jim Henson’s First Television Show by Craig Shemin, but I never heard back from him.

But Tom Sawyer was just one of the illustrators working for Volk. The vast collections of notable mid–century style drawings from Volk’s studio are exceptional. The weird thing is how little information there is anywhere about those other illustrators or even Harry Volk, Jr. himself! Seriously, there is almost nothing about him, his studio, or its employees other than Thomas Sawyer online. This blog post will hopefully garner him a few more fans. Perhaps one day I’ll even make the pilgrimage to his old studio!

Roughly a decade or so ago, I was helping a client/friend/coworker of mine who was working as the head preservationist, curator, and director of The Salvation Army’s Eastern Territory Heritage Museum when she presented me with a huge collection of Volk clip art, not only well preserved, but still in its plastic organizing case—an even rarer find than the art contained within! Opening that case (even still) is like a time machine, not only transporting me back to the essence of 1950s & 60s design, but even more specifically to Ms. Camp’s Commercial Art class to a host of Gen X teenagers irresponsibly taking advantage of the school’s copy machine and trying to get high off sniffing Krylon far away from the designated ventilation booth. Initially, that institutional green colored box was bound for the trash, but she gave it to me (a million thank you’s again, Kathy!).

Most of my collection is from the 70s through 90s

Ironically, this tale shares a much bigger, real world counterpart to publicly available clip art from Volk and other studios as well. A New York Times employee named Bart Solenthaler who worked in the advertising department was tasked with throwing away a massive collection of clip art, but instead took the time to scan and upload it to Flickr! You should absolutely check that collection out here.

Did you ever use clip art from Volk? All the images in this post are from my personal collection which are primarily from catalogs from the 80s and 90s, so they don’t reflect that cool mid–century style I’ve been talking about. However, you can find even more classic Volk clip art here. If you’d like to learn a little more detail about this type of clip art, check out my sources by visiting this article on Tedium and this one on Fast Company. For more vintage design inspiration, check out this article I wrote about my classic magazine collection.

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter and check back here on Fridays for more creative thinking and inspiration!

Personal Clients

Or Should You Ever Do Freelance for Friends and Family?

I will do a more expansive review for everything at the end of the year, but I wanted to write today about doing freelance work for friends and family. Now the old adage when it comes to working for friends and family is, “don’t.” There’s definitely merit to that but more often than not, I find that to be a pretty rare exception—at least on the basis of difficulty to work with, but I’ll break that down too.

My mom teaching her Sunday school class, early 90s

Truth be told, pretty much all beginner freelance is exclusively for friends and family when you start out. Realistically, no one else is going to hire you! While I certainly didn’t have a solid directional plan when I was younger, I knew that illustration was something that would figure into my adult career if even only tangentially. My mother recognized this and fostered that creativity by being my first and arguably only client for years if not decades. She was responsible for all the youth programs at our church and would ask me to draw giant “pages” for stories she would tell in Sunday school (Christian education geared for kids during or around church time). Now a mother’s admiration and love is hardly good justification for quality, but while she swore up and down my poster size drawings helped keep her kids attention, they were hardly good. However, they did enforce several very important things to me such as deadlines and keeping up with design trends (if only what cartoon characters were popular with a very specific demographic at the time). These “jobs” also helped me refine my ability, so while I’m thrilled no one outside of a very select few have ever seen them, they set things in motion.

This year, I was able to pay those things forward with more than a few friends and family, and I’d like to talk about how those experiences are still really important for experienced professionals and not just those starting out. Typically, you’re not getting a decent payday from friends and family because it will hopefully be important for you to maintain those relationships on a deeper level than just “Jane and Johnny Client,” but that doesn’t mean they can’t still have an impact on you and your career.

Now speaking of only getting hired by friends and family in the beginning, I was really excited to work with an old friend who arguably had one of, if not the most, influence on my career. Even before I started my education, John Lambert was one of the very first adults I ever knew that always treated me like an equal, never ever talking down to me as a child, but also taking a key role guiding and teaching me as well. I was even his ring bearer at his wedding!

He had started the Gramercy Brass of New York in 1982, so when I was starting to put together my portfolio, it was this prestigious organizational name that I exploited for my resume. John had me help with everything from building sets and stages to giving me the opportunity to create my very first print ad. When I went on an interview, it was almost exclusively the work I did for John that got me in the door. Now John will modestly tell you he was asking me because I was eager to help and only lived a few blocks away, but the reality is that he was the first person to set a standard of quality. I would have to develop multiple concepts, ensure overall print quality, and above all else—strive for something that actually looked somewhat professional. Now none of that early work is good, but it was the catalyst, so I was very excited and honored when he asked me to help with creating the Gramercy Brass’ 40th Anniversary Journal. I can’t say I did anything over the top or groundbreaking, but when you have a relationship that’s about as old as you are, there’s a freedom with candor and understanding that you just can’t manufacture with a client, even if you’ve known them for years. This is primarily because John isn’t just a dear friend, but someone I put on a pedestal for helping me get started.

Left to right: John & I at a Gramercy Brass Orchestra concert in August, 1997. The very bad—but also my very first—print ad for the orchestra’s newest album at the time, American Anthems (2001). The cover and a single page for the GBO’s 40th Anniversary Journal. And finally, two significantly older but wiser men still happy to work together.

One could argue that this could easily be seen as an obligation rather than a job, but neither of us saw it that way and I was so happy to get to work with him like this again. In so many ways, it felt like it was 1997 all over again, and I loved it.

The next project and “client” I want to mention is Lucas Ross. Now I’ve talked about Lucas and how great a guy he is ad nauseam in the past, and it’s possible because of all that adulation he reached out to me to help him with his newest live album, There Will Be Banjo. Again, taking on this job could be seen as the logical “thanks” for all the work Lucas did as the host for my documentary from earlier in the year, The Making of The Great Muppet Mural (which you should totally watch today!). But Lucas and I had that spark of a moment multiple times during the documentary where we really just enjoyed working and talking together. While my intentions were to do so much more for Lucas, he was gracious enough to take what he could get from me with several illustrations he then assembled together himself, but Lucas was also a great client as well as a friend with how we continued to communicate.

Lucas with the Oklahoma Opry and the album cover to the live album

You see, when your day job, freelance, and hobby are all the same thing—in my case, drawing—there’s a nuanced way of going about such a thing with equal respect and attention to all three. Lucas has somewhat of a similar understanding with his music, and so I not only felt comfortable being more open with him about everything from technique to personal concerns, but also letting him use and manipulate my illustrations however he wanted. Lucas was also the key person in helping me understand how I need to better manage and even understand my time (something I’ll most likely write about in the coming weeks or months), and I had no compunctions telling him this. My inside joke is that these things will help me to best work with (just) Lucas again soon, but my reality is Lucas really helped me understand myself better in that way, and I can guarantee that’s never something I would have recognized with “just another client.” (Thanks again for that, man!)

The last instance is a combination of working with both a childhood, lifelong friend and my dad. Now both of these men have known me not just longer than everyone else, but better than everyone too. Plus, both of them needed my talents with a much quicker turnaround (although to be fair, with my dad, it was my fault as I kept putting it off). I grew up with (now Major) Myron Smith as one of my closest best friends. As tiny children, we would play basketball and music together—both for fun and competitively—to which Myron would always always best me. As teenagers, we would go to the beach and the ice rink weekly where we would skate and talk to girls—I was only slightly more adept at these over Myron, so I’ll take my trophy on this one. Technically, what my dad asked was just an update on something I had already done in the past, but as I’ve mentioned numerous times as well, my dad is a big deal to me, so it goes without saying he didn’t have to twist my arm (just remind me constantly!).

So if John and Lucas were varying levels of circles, Myron and dad are on the inner most ones. There are cons to working with people that know you that well for that long, but there’s also a freedom to it as well. You can experiment and try out techniques you wouldn’t with other clients because those close friends and family sure aren’t going to take their business elsewhere. You will also find rationalizing your own choices easier as well, because like them, you’re locked into those relationships too.

left to right: Myron an I in the mid 90s, all grown up (June, 2022), and my dad and I at an art show displaying his work (May, 2010)

In the end, all of these “jobs” secure a more fundamental appeal, and that’s getting the chance to reconnect with them. Do you ever say yes or no right away when friends or family commission you? What type of layering does it add to old relationships? How likely are you to work with or for an old friend or close family member? I’d love to hear your thoughts here, Instagram, or Twitter!

My Story with Sam and Friends, Part II

I was fortunate enough to be hired by Craig Shemin to create promotional materials for his new book, Sam and Friends The Story of Jim Henson’s First Television Show. I wrote about it in–depth last week, so please check that out first.

While the work was very exciting and fun, it really was a distant secondary project to the book as the pieces were intended to be handed out at events like the launch at The Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Other than that though, I wasn’t expecting any public connection to the book online, and that was fine because just getting to be a small part of Jim’s legacy by distant proxy was satisfying enough for me. However, that all changed a few months later when in July, Craig floated the idea that he would need me to polish up the book’s cover now as well.

On a book like Sam and Friends, there are a checklist of items that have to be met for legal purposes. Craig had created a mock up of the cover understanding it would need to be punched up later, but its main purpose was to get clearance from all the legal sides of The Jim Henson and Walt Disney Companies. However when he approached me about this new addition, there were several things I needed to be brought up to speed on.

The first was obvious, the mock up Craig had created was approved, so I wouldn’t be creating any new concepts. The job was to create a more refined version. Period. The second was a huge surprise to me: there was no high resolution graphic of the Sam and Friends title! This was one of those “seeing behind the curtain” scenarios where I had just assumed the assets were tucked away somewhere in the archives. Now I was responsible for creating that high resolution asset and beyond everything I had done, this felt the most significant to me. I had created something of this asset partially when I designed the campaign poster of Sam that was one of the original promotional items, but now I would fine tune it—purple swirls and all—for future use of the book and whatever else the Jim Henson Legacy saw fit for as well. The third was a later surprise, and that was that Craig’s mock up had been shown and announced back in early 2021 and now I was being announced as the cover artist! My 15 minutes had officially started.

Several color and effect variations of the title

The last thing was something a little more nuanced. The television set used to frame the photograph of Jim, Sam, Kermit, Yorick, and Harry was art Jim Henson himself had created for the show. Unlike the set design style illustrations I had created for the promotional items, or even the Sam and Friends title card, Craig felt the television set art needed to remain Jim’s and therefore would stay intact as is. As a fan, I wholeheartedly agreed. As a graphic designer, this was a massive problem.

NOTE: While this is the actual art of the original TV set, the colored photo of Jim is Photoshopped into the image.

If you’ve ever looked at a digital picture on your phone and just zoomed in as far as you possibly can, eventually you’ll start to see distortion to the image. This is because a digital image is made up of hundreds if not thousands of individual pixels. When you print a digital image, there has to be so many of those pixels crammed into one square inch so that it looks good whereas the numbers of pixels per inch (PPI or DPI–dots per inch) on a screen can be considerably fewer. If an image is too small and you then blow it up/enlarge it, those pixels will be more visible in a ruddy way that will look really bad. It’s a good rule of thumb to enlarge such an image only 130% at most. Anything beyond that will start to show the physical dimensions are of a much lower quality.

Craig had super high resolution scans of almost everything, but for this television set alone to be increased just for the book cover (never mind any promotional uses that would require it even larger), it would need to be blown up 10 times larger which means it would look terrible in print. I suggested letting me recreate the art so that we could avoid every conceivable problem I could think of, but Craig was understandably hesitant. Fortunately, he also trusted me (especially because I told him we could trash it if he wasn’t happy with it), and I digitally painted everything down to the tiniest detail including the speaker and its screen. I also allowed for a humongous bleed area so that the wood grain of the set could easily wrap around the hard cover’s extended borders. Not only was Craig pleased with the result, but now that I had organized every single part into its own unique layer in Photoshop, we could tweak everything for alignment as well as the additional promotional pieces that would come to be, like a standing retractable banner. If that wasn’t helpful enough, my new painting was 200% larger than the necessary size of the cover.

Craig’s mock–up, my illustrated design update, and the Photoshop layers

Fortunately, the scans for the back cover were of a high enough quality that I didn’t need to mess with them too much. Again, having all the high resolution scans from the show weren’t just easier to work with, but very cool to have something I could really look at and enjoy months before the book was published.

The old adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover” is always a thorn in a graphic designer’s side because creating book covers is literally our job. Craig was the perfect client to work for. He was very clear in his directions yet open to my suggestions. I wasn’t just providing him with my ability to create stuff for him but my years of experience as well. I don’t know how much any of those things played into his generous offers to have me join him when he signed copies of his book in Queens or be on the panel at New York Comic Con, but I was about to experience a whirlwind of notoriety and respect and it was super exciting.

The lined area for the dials now extends to the TV frame and the speaker mesh was painstakingly drawn with precision in Adobe Illustrator. The frame was digitally painted with a dry brush texture, the set itself was overlaid with a wood grain texture while the knobs have a felt texture over top.

Tune in next Friday when I share the last and most personal part of this story! Follow me on Instagram and Twitter and thanks for stopping by!

My Story with Sam and Friends, Part I

I’ve been waiting to really break down a huge and wonderful experience I had and today is the day I finally (start to) talk about the work I did for Sam and Friends: The Story of Jim Henson’s First Television Show. There’s a lot to cover so let’s start with some basics. As I have written about numerous times, I’m a huge fan of Jim Henson and all his creative works. Jim has always been my leading creative influence starting when I was a toddler all the way through to today. When Jim was a kid himself, he was fascinated with television and broke onto the scene with a black and white puppet series in 1955 on WRC–TV in Washington, DC. Craig Shemin—who I’ll also talk a whole lot more about in a bit—took on the huge task of writing a book about this particular introductory foray into Jim’s career, and would eventually bring me on to this fantastic adventure. But let’s slow it down now and get into more detail.

Images from the MuppetWiki

Every true Muppet fan knows who Craig Shemin is, but to the lay person, he’s a massive contributor to preserving the memory and legacy of Jim Henson. At his core, Craig is a writer who has written for television shows like The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, Telling Stories with Tomie dePaola, Donna's Day, and Dog City. He's also written short stories, video game scripts, press interviews & appearances, text for licensed products, concert scripts, and liner notes. He's also hosted live events, screenings, & panels and prepared additional video content for such things. He has a ton of other credits like director, curator, and consultant as well as his current title of president of The Jim Henson Legacy. To say he is incredibly talented is putting it mildly, but he's also genuinely a wonderful person.

Sam and Friends saw the birth of a lot of what would be in store for Jim Henson's future including the unique and newly innovated techniques in puppetry for what would become the Muppets as we know them today. Chief amongst those Muppets would be Kermit the Frog who was only vaguely amphibian at the time. Jim Henson's complete creative collective would be splintered after his untimely death in 1990 with Kermit and his friends from The Muppet Show eventually being purchased by The Walt Disney Company, Sesame Street transitioning full ownership to Sesame Workshop, and things like Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, and The Dark Crystal remaining with the Henson Company. Sam and Friends would become known as a "frozen property" essentially meaning that nothing new can be developed with the characters. I'll expand on that later, but ultimately this is a long and convoluted way of saying that if you really want to know more about Sam and Friends, then you should absolutely buy the book.

So now we come to late April of this year when Craig reached out to me asking if I'd be interested in creating promotional materials for the book. There were a few things I was really excited about for this, but the main draw was that I was being hired to create printed materials that would look like Jim Henson had created them himself. This was huge and I was stoked and honored. Initially I had to create four pieces: a bookplate that Craig could sign at publicity events, a campaign poster that was inspired by a 1960 sketch where Sam ran for president, a sticker, and a bookmark.

Professor Madcliffe's Bookmark

Of all of these, the bookmark was the most ambitious. Professor Madcliffe's Manual Marking Machine for Books would be completely illustrated save for the character himself whom I meticulously but lovingly masked from a 1959 photograph. This was where I set some guidelines for myself from here on out. Because I was drawing every other element aside from the professor, I wanted this particular piece to look like it was actual set design that would have been painted on wood or cardboard much like Jim had done for the actual show. As a result, the pieces that would be further set deeper in the background would be out of focus slightly on camera, so layering everything in Photoshop not only allowed me to move everything freely and easier, but the depth of field was changed as well. A subtle film grain was also added.

I need to quickly add something here that I neglected to before. While Craig was the gatekeeper on what I did, everything had to then be approved by The Jim Henson Company. For the most part that meant just making sure nothing from the show was being used without proper permission from the lawyers, but it also had to meet merit as to how it looked comparatively to what Jim was doing back in the late 50s and early 60s. I've talked about how a committee can complicate this process sometimes but also how scrutinous it can be. Higher–ups tend to need very good visual representation, so early on I was advised to have more fully fleshed out illustrations as opposed to sketches. Again, I've walked down this road thousands of times, so this wasn't a huge ask. Some of the notes that came back though made me tighten up where I found my creative direction.

All the props I created for the bookmark including the rejected ones!

For example, while I used a fantastic (and now out of print) book called Imagination Illustrated by Head Archivist for The Jim Henson Company, Karen Falk for reference, I quickly realized there wasn't quite enough material to re–create Jim's aesthetic without directly plagiarizing it. I found most of my design inspiration from the classic Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The mid century style was fun to create and a style I've enjoyed emulating for quite some time now.

Imagination Illustrated by Karen Falk and screenshots I took from Rocky & Bullwinkle

One of the notes that came back that I appreciated was the push to stray away from things like mechanical gloved hands and wooden signs as they were too reminiscent of the Looney Tunes, whereas Jim used more ornate and flowing designs as opposed to Warner Bros. more industrial style props. I did try and hide a few Easter eggs though. Here they are:

  • Professor Madcliffe's "Mirth–Meter" was changed from "Smiles per Second" to "Smiles per Page"

  • The wooden board is taken from a sketch where Chicken Liver plays a sheriff from the old west

  • A Wilkins Coffee cup (a main commercial entity who sponsored a lot of Jim's work) is obscured just enough to the left of Professor Madcliffe

  • The television EKG monitor, tape reals, machine with bulbs on it, and the odd phone looking device are all illustrations of things found from various Madcliffe sketches

  • The pickle jar is a reference to the campaign sketch from the Sam for President poster where the character Moldy Hay discovers there's no surplus of pickles

  • The red phone is my own tribute to the Muppet Newsman from The Muppet Show

  • The intricate round mirror on the back is a recreation of the frame used for their sponsor Esskay Meats

However, the best Easter eggs are the ones Craig created when I requested to label the dials, knobs, switches, and screens (much like Jim did on the show). Almost all of them are obscured, but he wrote so many great ones and then wrote more!

Paper Thickness
Ink Opacity
Avg. Read Speed (WPM)
Page Turn Count
Between the Lines Content
Font Definition
Binding Integrity
Indexing Index
Recycled paper content
Subtext Comprehension
Page Density
Chapter Adapter
Margin Marginalization
Hinge Protector
Colophonograph
Gutter Guard
Comprehension Override
Pulp Friction
Kerning Kompensation
Print Offset Offset
Paper Strength
Appendix Inflammation
Little to Big Word Ratio

Sam for President

The campaign poster seemed like it should be more straightforward and easy, but other campaign posters of the time were relatively bland. In 1960, the notable comparison was that of Kennedy and Nixon. To a modern audience though, it was important that Sam's poster looked nothing like favoring one political party over the other. I had varying degrees of making the poster look aged 60+ years, but the main goal was to reproduce (at least in aesthetic) how it would have looked printed from a 1950s press so I leaned heavily on exploiting its color halftone look.

I didn't realize it at the time, but just creating the "Sam for President" text (to match the Sam and Friends title card) would play a huge role later when I would design the cover, but I'll get more into that next week.

ToughPigs.com editor–in–chief and co–owner Joe Hennes and designer/illustrator extraordinaire Jamie Carroll (who frequently consults on classic Muppet character design for toy companies) became integral to me for notes and critiques. I relied heavily on their input to make sure everything I created here on out looked and felt authentic. When I say none of this stuff was created in a bubble, I genuinely mean it.

Sticker & Bookplate

The last two promotional pieces were the sticker and bookplate. As I mentioned before, Karen Falk's Imagination Illustrated was very helpful, particularly for these two pieces, especially because they really relied heavily on Jim's fanciful and fun, yet intricate border designs. Craig was insistent on having my art credit listed on all of these things primarily so no one thought Jim actually created them. This was one of the most appealing things for me because not only did I share legit credit with my hero, but a few people missed it and thought they actually were drawn by Jim.

Aside from a few non–specific looking creatures that may or may not evoke certain classic characters from all the Muppets, the only true Easter egg was my daughter's (and coincidentally, Craig's grandmother's) name in the first draft of the sticker's border that ultimately was removed.

Ironically, none of this is what I would be known for once the book's official release date was announced and I was then credited as the cover artist! But that's another story for part 2! Tune in next week when I discuss getting the honor to be a much bigger part of the history for Sam and Friends! In the meantime, follow me on Instagram and Twitter and you should also buy the book at Bear Manor Media in soft and hard cover.

Part 2

Part 3

Incompatible Clients

Today I want to write about something that may sound like it’s just complaining about people, but that’s 100% not the case. Well, maybe 80% not the case, but I’ll elaborate more as we go along. As the title suggests, this is about incompatibility. Like every other relationship, there are just some instances where two parties aren’t meant for each other. This is a very hard pill to swallow when it comes to a client and server/service relationship because of one key difference: an agreement based on work for pay.

Okay, maybe 70% not the case in regards to complaining.

This isn’t prevalent in any other relationship, but when it comes to a client and server/service based relationship, it’s foundational. The issue is that from every other angle, it resembles so many aspects of traditional relationships. Whether it’s familial, friendship, coworker, romantic, online, or even temporary; a client and server/service relationship hits a lot of the same bullet points. At the core, its strongest relational bond is that of collaboration. When you work with someone closely on anything, you can’t help but learn more about who they are and what makes them tick. You may find you really like each other too, but nothing is getting accomplished. The client doesn’t seem to like any of the server/service’s (Good grief, I’m just going to call the server/service a “designer” from here on out) concepts, the designer doesn’t seem to be understanding the client’s requests or critiques, and before you know it; there’s a general consensus that everyone is just wasting each other’s time.

In my experience, there are two four key reasons for these failings. This is going to seem very biased, but usually the problem is the client (Crap, maybe we’re at 60% not the case that this is just complaining). This isn’t a character flaw, but let’s dive deeper.

1. The Client Doesn’t Actually Know What They Want

Shots fired! Of course it’s their fault! How could it ever be that of the perfect designer (or illustrator… man, I’m already confounding the language again—we’re really flying by the seat of our pants here!). Okay, hear me out: a client traditionally hires a creative person to accomplish something they cannot. It could be because the client doesn’t have the tools or talents to do so or because they don’t know what they should even be going for. A healthy relationship then builds from collaboration to create something. Sometimes that lack of knowledge or understanding can be too much of a hurdle and the client realizes they may need to do a lot more soul searching to figure out what it is they need.

Now this is rare, as I’ve stated in the past, many times the client legitimately trusts the person they have hired. It can become clear and possibly even a little overwhelming at just how much thought (should) goes into things like personal branding or creating something that is attached so closely to the client.

2. The Client Is Too Passionate About Their Idea

I considered making this a subcategory of the first reason, but I have personal experience that’s unique. I was commissioned by an absolutely lovely human being who had a very clear vision for what they wanted. There was a lot of passion behind this project; real honest–to–goodness love that wasn’t just important to the direction, but the overall feel as well. If I were obtuse, I’d just brush it off as emotional baggage as the project was very much a tribute to people who are no longer alive. The truth was that this client had a lot invested in the project and had a difficult time disconnecting some of those emotions from the people they were now celebrating.

Maybe you can’t be too passionate about anything and the subtitle for this section is a little callous (I swear this post is 58% not about complaining about people). The point is that the world will continue to move on—even from the worst of tragedies—and that’s always going to be a lot harder for some people over others. This particular client really is a wonderful person, and we parted ways amicably. Just as I ended the last reason, when this happens, the client may need to do a lot more soul searching to figure out what it is they need, and it may not be something a creative person can fix.

3. The Client Is Insane

54% not the case that this post is complaining about people. Of course, while every human being has horror stories in regards to dealing with anyone, I have been very fortunate that I’ve never had a truly bad client. However, my friend and fellow creative Scott Modrzynski has. Here is his story.

There was a sobriety house in Los Angeles that I got in contact with through a mutual. The owner was looking for a logo, and I was more than happy to help. I don't remember what we settled on, price-wise, but it was inexpensive because 

A) I'm terrible-to-me at pricing, and
B) I have the additional guilt of charging people money for doing the lord's work. 

The initial concept, as it was conveyed to me, was vague, so I came up with something based on the operation's initials. The owner thought my usage of negative space to create letter forms was cool, but not his style. No problem. He sent me some examples of something he liked. It was sleek, classy, and minimalist. I mocked up some examples, and they weren't working for him. He liked Viking runes. I came up with something gruffer, that had a Nordic tilt to it. He thought it was great, but was hoping for something with a SoCal vibe. Throughout all our email exchanges, and occasional phone calls, there was a lot of flowery, bullshit language from his end that made no sense, and completely divergent ideas that seemed utterly incongruous to our previous contact. At that point, I realized what a piece of shit designer I am, because I don't know how to make a minimalist, Viking-inspired, SoCal logo that dives into the beating heart my own soul. I gave it a final go, and he said he'd get back to me after the weekend. That was at least five years ago. 

It was my first experience with a nightmare client, and made me appreciate my day job, since I wasn't really in a position where I needed to chase down these side gigs for any reason other than making some extra coin.

4. The Designer is Overly Ambitious

Every so often during a total solar eclipse while a volcano is erupting on your birthday as you and your ambidextrous twin sibling ride a two–headed Laquita porpoise on your way to pick up a winning lottery ticket in the Namib desert; a creative person will bite off more than they can chew. It’s easy for an inexperienced designer to insist everything they do needs to go in the portfolio and will go out of their way to convince the client that because of their creative experience (however extensive or limited it may be), they simply know best. That is to say it’s possible if not improbable that it’s the designers inability to communicate or properly deliver what’s been discussed and promised.

Such instances require a federal judge to prove such a rarity in which most cases prove it was actually the client who was wrong.

Okay, this post is officially drawing a line in the sand insisting that it is 52% not the case that it is complaining about people.

Yes, But What Should You Do?

Okay, let’s talk practically about solving these problems. Patience is key. Word of mouth about incompatibility is going to spread faster than any good work that you do, so remember the client is paying you and not everything has to go in the portfolio! Bad design is everywhere and the real shock is that good designers continually add to that because some clients just don’t care about the golden ratio, proper kerning, that a caricature is meant to exaggerate certain features, or that what you offer is actually a niche service that can’t be obtained at Target or created by AI (yet). Sometimes the best way through is to accept all directions regardless of how counter–intuitive they actually are to good taste, get paid, and forget about them; making sure to make a mental note to always be on vacation should they return for repeat business. Most importantly, separate your personal feelings from your work. I know I sound like a broken record, but not every piece has to go in the portfolio or on social media. Keep your emotions out of your responses and if you are feeling particularly revved up, make sure to burn off those heavy feels before contacting a client. I have seriously over–soured one or two bad business relationships because I didn’t walk off some anger and frustrations first.

Inevitably, there may come a tipping point where it’s clear that a particular relationship just isn’t going to work. Be honest with your client. It’s always good to know a bunch of other creatives in your field that you can recommend in place of yourself. Obviously make sure you give your buddies a heads up first, but having alternatives and providing other solutions really helps you out here. I always strive to never say, “no” to a client. That doesn’t mean I roll over and let someone take advantage of things, but saying, “You know what we can do…” shows you respect their opinion and that you’re listening as well. Solve the problem before acknowledging there actually is one.

If money has already been exchanged, there are a number of variables that could determine if anything is returned or still owed, so there’s no definitive answer you’ll find here. However, Scott’s nightmare is reason enough to consider applying the formula of deciding how much of a loss you may be willing to take just to bail. There may be zero chance of salvaging the relationship, but see what you can endure to make sure your reputation doesn’t take much shrapnel.

Don’t write off the client’s frustration either. They may not be able to communicate their ideas well at all, and as a non–creative person that can be difficult. It bears repeating to make sure your head is out of the fire when responding so that if there is a strong hate–hate relationship; you’re not the hothead. Openly admit you’re not the right fit for the job and that you don’t want to waste the client’s time, even if they’ve wasted yours. Remember, you want out of this, so take it on the chin and never look back. If the client is a real problem, make sure you warn all your creative peers on the down low.

If all else fails, start a blog and write about how you’re totally not complaining about people and vent your problems there!

A big thanks to Scott Modrzynski for taking the time to share his insights today! The dude is a very talented artist and designer who I’ve had the privilege of working with on three different collaborative projects together.

Just some of Scott’s incredible work!

Check him out on Instagram and Twitter, and also take a peak at some of his really cool stuff like this Batman Typography or his Cereal Freaks. You can also follow me on Instagram and Twitter and come back here on Fridays for more creative thinking!

I [still] Know What You Meme!

There’s nothing like laughing your life away with a batch of memes that may or may not hit just a little too close to home. So with that being said, here are some memes!

Stock image sites are wild!

Not quite what you expect with figure drawing

This more accurate than anyone wants to admit

This one is legit my favorite.

Follow me on Instagram and Twitter and tune in to this blog on (most) Fridays for more fun!

Opinion = Influence

Several years ago I learned a very valuable lesson about how an innocuous and common gesture all creatives deal with, can dramatically change an entire concept. Now that that weighty and boring introductory sentence is out of the way, let me tell you a story.

I was creating concepts for a client who is very talented, smart, and respected. She held a significant position in management where I work and had impeccable taste, especially when it came to design. She was genuinely invested in the work I was helping her to produce and we worked very well together. I was really proud of the final concept I had done for her which I have to admit was a truly collaborative effort. I was excited for it to go into final production when on my way out of her office she uttered a very common phrase I hear many clients say, “I just want to show it to a few people first to get their opinion.”

Sure, no problem. All designers have heard this and usually it results in either a few changes or the client deciding they’re not interested in others opinions and just moving forward. This time things hit a little differently though. For starters, my client had a real eye for what she wanted and worked very hard with me to attain that aesthetic. She was also a trend setter herself who exuded class, grace, and style. The only reason she even needed me was because she didn’t have access to Adobe Creative Suite. We created something perfect for her needs. Naturally I assumed this was a courtesy she was extending to her colleagues and little, if anything, would change.

A few days later, she came back to me with a long list of notes; things her peers suggested and boy was it a tedious list. What bothered me was her commitment to making these changes, not because she believed in any of them, but out of professional courtesy to her coworkers. None of these changes made any logical sense (change the font color to a slightly darker blue, move this text box a quarter inch up, make the logo 5% smaller, etc.) That’s when I recognized the big problem: A smart and successful person asked someone their opinion and they then felt obligated to give one. As I mentioned before, this particular client was a very prominent person and everyone felt special when they got to interact with her. The changes they suggested reflect that as they were inconsequential and insignificant. Having been able to work so closely with her though, I definitely understood the excitement those people felt at the chance to be a part of her project. “She wants my opinion?! Wow! I must be important!”

Don’t get me wrong, it can be hard to get a proper perspective on something you’re working on, especially if it’s your pet project or you’ve been working on it for an extended period of time and have tunnel vision. Another set of eyes can be crucial. What needs to be considered is the validity of those changes and opinions. Do they bring about substantive change or does someone just like hearing themselves talk? Since this interaction, I always reflect on that when a fellow designer or illustrator asks my opinion. First and foremost, I consider what I would have done and how in line with their concept that idea fits. Then I consider their past works and how those align with their current concept. Then I take my own feelings, tastes, and methods into account and decide how and if they align with this concept. It’s a long thought out way to actually consider if

  1. I have strong feelings about anything related to the concept one way or another

  2. If I have any past experience with the design aesthetic, client, designer, or subject matter and how it might affect my opinion on it

  3. And if any immediate changes I would personally make would have any purposeful impact on the other designers concept or is simply my own personal tastes vs. what I know of theirs

9 out of 10 times I come to the conclusion that my own opinions are simply reflective of my own taste and don’t necessarily impact the message or overall aesthetic of the concept. In other words, my opinion might just be a suggestion for a whole new concept rather than changes to what’s already been done. So despite being quite fond of my own voice, I have to objectively say I have no opinion and that it looks fine. Of course different associates will get different responses depending on how well I know them, but I think that when it comes to getting feedback, it’s important those being asked be honest with themselves as well as the client and recognize that sometimes not having an opinion is just as valid as having one.

TL;DR Just because someone asks you what you think does not mean you have to create a whole new set of values so you sound important.

This can most likely be extended to all areas of life, but the bottom line is this: if you commission someone to do work for you and you really like it, trust your gut. Now if you really don’t know and want honest feedback, trust your designer. You didn’t hire them just for their access to design software.

As always, I would love if you follow me on Instagram and Twitter, and please check back here for creative thinking ideas!

Inspiration: Vintage Graphic Design

I’ve never watched Mad Men, I don’t consider myself an old soul, I love being mindful of the present, and I’m allergic to mold. None of that has stopped me from enjoying one of my true delights and a great source of inspiration, vintage graphic design.

Some of the cool items from my collection.

I’ve written about my collection of Muppet memorabilia, and when I was actively coming to the conclusion I wasn’t as interested in collecting that stuff anymore, I moved towards other interests, and my obsessions in vintage advertisements took root. It all started with a book; Ad Boy by Warren Dotz. Others followed from there, but I really got sucked in when I started collecting old magazines and clip art.

Warren Dotz loves vintage graphic design too!

I honed in on things from the 1930s–1960s (and maybe a few from the early 70s) and fell in love with Collier’s, Life, Look, Movie Story, American Artist, The Saturday Evening Post, Classics Illustrated, and Volk Artfile clip art. Whether the illustrations were simple mascots or full spread paintings, I was hooked.

Several fantastic illustrations from throughout the 1950s.

I love masking images (a reversible way to isolate an image or hide part of a picture), and even restoring some of these old ads. Collecting these dusty old publications then is quite literally a layered process (that was a Photoshop pun if you missed it), giving my hobby more validation than just taking up shelf space.

Ads I restored for the Santa Fe Traffic Office (June 23, 1959), Big Yank from Reliance Manufacturing Co. (April 30, 1957), and Barbasol (May 14, 1957) all from various issues of Look Magazine.

I’m not saying these were simpler times. I know my American history. Vintage advertisements do boil down everything to create an aesthetic that presents an idealized life and country. Life was not simpler, but it’s presentation sure was.

All from Collier’s Magazine, April 1944.

More from Collier’s, March & April 1944

It’s not just advertisements but art accompanying headlines and stories too. As you can see, some are fantastical and care free. The style of art captures the atmosphere of the decade and times. I didn’t live in the 40s or 50s (or 60s or even most of the 70s), but looking at all these great pieces transport me there as if I had.

General Dual 90 tires featured in Look Magazine (June 23, 1959), the cover of The Saturday Evening Post (1952), art from the short story Three Day Leave in Colliers (March 1944), Karo Syrup in Look Magazine (June 23, 1959), and a whimsical ad for Admiral Radio in Collier’s (March 1944).

It’s not all cheerful and poppy though. The art and photographs also capture the darkness and troubles of the era as well. Granted it may not always reflect so clear. Many ads and stories are shockingly racist and sexist. I’ve decided not to share those, but to everyone who thinks these were simpler and lighter times, even the public narrative at the time didn’t (always) reflect that. Dramatic paintings project a much stronger emotional reaction.

From the news article Twilight in Germany, Champion Spark Plugs, and Scotch Tape (all from Collier’s March 1944)

Now it wouldn’t be much of an illustrator’s blog about inspiration without a few samples of my own. Anything can be made to look vintage with some paper textures and layer blending, but authenticity feels more parallel to the times when the artwork is pushed to a fun and exaggerated level.

Various illustrations from the last 5 years.

Please follow me on Instagram and Twitter and tune into this blog every Friday for more creative thinking and inspiration!

Creative Daddy

I’ve had this website for quite some time now, but only recently decided to start using it more actively via this blog as some of you may have noticed. Part of this is simply to justify my annual registration fees, but the other part is more personal and something I’ve touched on briefly before. The reality is that the pandemic has really hit home the idea of just getting stuff done. As the parents of a toddler/pre–schooler, that’s a different scenario my wife and I have faced than others. I don’t mean to insinuate we had/have it harder than anyone else, only that any creative endeavors or dreams pursuant to such did not have the luxury of “finally getting to with all this spare time” during quarantine, you dig?

I’ll spare you the long version, but in short; we weren’t able to have a child when we were ready to. It was many years of heartache, determination, and frustration before our daughter was born. It didn’t just happen, so when it finally did, I was thrilled to put all my dreams, aspirations, and even just basic creative habits on hold for the time being knowing full well I’d resume them eventually and with a new ethos. A lot easier said than done, especially at first, but now that she’s getting older and we can explore our innovative sides together, the internal creative renaissance I’m experiencing through her is greater than I could have ever imagined. Hence this blog! So fade to black, roll credits, “They lived happily ever after” and toss in a copyright so everyone knows to leave the theater.

My daughter and father coloring one of our big posters (Dec. 4, 2019) and my daughter fixing up my own drawing (Aug. 16, 2020)

What’s actually happened is a wellspring of ideas thanks to seeing the world almost fully through the eyes of a child again, and if I’m being honest, I’m a bit overwhelmed by it.

A fun experiment I did with my niece back in 2014.

I’m gonna’ take it back for a second and heap all this ridiculous need to show love and guidance to a child on my nibling & niece. How dare they make me love them so much. Anyway, being around kids from a creative standpoint is just—and I am not exaggerating here—the best. I once went way off topic on an article I wrote for ToughPigs that touched upon all of this, just so I could use my niece as a way to explore creativity and how effortlessly kids tear down rules in the most brilliant ways. And I’m sure my sister–and–brother–in–law wouldn’t mind if I took fractional credit for the artistic direction my insanely consummate nibling has taken along with their sister who is also a very talented artist. The three of us based almost all of our time together around creating and creativity. Whether it was making up stories, art projects, silly home movies (a continued childhood tradition with my own sister and brother when they were kids), or drawing games where we’d each “add” to the others picture for a minute before passing it back again. Both of them are almost solely responsible for our desire to have a kid of our own (I love you Z & G!).

My nibling, niece, and I draw their amenable uncle (Sept. 18, 2016).

So now my daughter is Little Miss Personality like all toddlers, and instead of putting innovation and imagination on hold, it extends to every inch of our home. We create giant posters that we hang all over the playroom, we have our own “Big Show” where we talk about every and anything that interests us, we play dress up, we do puppet shows, make books, science experiments, crafts all the time, toys, and even a newspaper!

Paper maché helmets (Jan. 12, 2021) and The Bella Daddy News (March 24, 2019).

I swear, I am not putting all this out there to go, “Whee! Parenting is fun and easy when you’re creative! Look at the things I did!” Because every parent will tell you this life is rewarding but exhausting. I’ll expand more in a bit about getting back on the road towards creative independence, but in the meantime, here’s an actual conversation I had with my daughter one night when I was struggling with how to properly channel all my re–found inspiration.

“Daddy, let’s talk about your feelings”
“Okay.”
“Are you feeling sad?”
“Yes, I have a little sadness right now.”
“Are you feeling angry?”
“Um, maybe a little bit angry, sure.”
“Are you happy?”
“Oh yes, I’m very much happy. In fact all my feelings are connected to you and mommy. I’m a little sad and angry I have to leave you both tomorrow when I go to work. But I’m very happy I’m with you right now and that I get to be with you when I get home.”
“Are you feeling tentinary?”
“What’s tentinary mean?”
“Tentinary means you’re feeling a little soddish. And soddish means you’re feeling a little shy about meeting someone you don’t know. Not like somebody you don’t know, but like somebody you do know. Not really that thinkable like your head is feeling a little weird.”
“Bella, I need help coming up with a word to describe how I’m feeling. If I tell you what I’m feeling, will you come up with a word for it? A word that will describe it?”
“Yes.”
“I have a whole lot of ideas in my head. Like, a whole lot of ideas just running around inside my head, but I don’t know how many—if any—of them are good ideas. What would you call that?”
“How about… snotty?”
“Snotty?!”
“Yeah, snotty.”
“Wait, snotty with a ‘T’ or snoddy with a ‘D’?”
“How about snotty with an ‘S’?
“So… snossy?”
Lots of laughing. “Yeah, snossy!”
“We’ll then, tonight I’m feeling very snossy.”

“Blocks” of varying sorts happen in all creative fields and the solution is usually to view things from a different point of view. Kids have zero regard or understanding for creative rules that we build around us so they can easily demolish them. They’re not all brilliant ideas, they just facilitate very helpful ways to see around a problem. For example, my daughter doesn’t have any obligation to kerning (optical, metrical, or otherwise) when writing her name or even to keep it aligned, level, or baselined. You could very easily write it off as a little kid just learning to properly write their name, or you could ask her why she does it like that. The insight proves to be a different point of view and it’s refreshing, even if it defies your personal aesthetic.

When my sister, brother, and I were making home movies without any editing suite, we created things off the cuff, spontaneously, and—in the eyes of a cinematographer—completely wrong. That in turn pushed me to learn more by the time my nibling and niece came along and helped form my sense of storytelling. Now my daughter not only gets to enjoy all that experience but help build upon it for both our benefits. I’m not saying these things made me a consummate professional when it comes to media and video editing, but I don’t think I would have ever been able to make The Making of The Great Muppet Mural without those personal points of reference, and yes I absolutely am still talking about that documentary!

Rockin’ out with my sister & brother (circa 1993) and Attack of the Killer Guinea Pig! with my nibling & niece (May 2015)

Now that my daughter is older, I’m finding (a little) more free time of my own creative volition. This is significant in a few ways. For starters, I’m transitioning back into something familiar but with a newfound and invigorated angle. It’s also like having the training wheels taken off all over again as we enter this new stage of her life. A more world–wary five–year–old will bring new ideas, and her old dad will happily navigate those waters with her. If I could find ways to entertain and teach her as a baby and toddler, imagine what she’ll show me with a full vocabulary, fantastic sense of humor, and an end to doggedly asking me to draw Cookie Monster over and over again (now being replaced with Luisa from Disney’s Encanto).

Luisa Madrigal

My whole point and belief has not changed in nearly twenty years though; kids are one of if not the best resource for finding one’s creative wellspring. It’s not just about breaking down walls and getting new perspectives, it’s about tapping into your own unrestricted and unrequited passion for being a creative person. Misery may love company, but creativity cherishes collaboration, even if it’s with someone who is a fraction of your own age. Inject the musings and whims of a child into your process just once and see if it captures any of your old flares and dreams. As a bonus, the child will benefit immensely as well! The best way to foster creativity and imagination is to show how accessible it is. Don’t try to be “cool” in front of other parents or adults. All that does is build back up the walls of restriction and shows a child they’re not your main priority.

We are normal family.

For stuff other than illustrations of Luisa, I’d love it if you followed me on Instagram & Twitter!

Of course one of my biggest thrills was drawing Luisa for her class!

The Wild World of Stock Image Sites

Recently, I was part of a very informative meeting regarding depictions of human trafficking in media. Essentially, our editorial and design staff were made to understand how common images that were originally used to bring awareness to modern day slavery are now outdated and even harmful as they inaccurately portray trafficking and its survivors. It is crucial for creative people to have an open dialog with professionals from other fields to progressively create content that can inform the public properly and in cases such as human trafficking, even assist law enforcement. These conversations can be difficult and awkward for both sides to understand each other in hopes to produce potent tools that can be used effectively. While right brained designers want to grab your attention with bold graphics and a clear narrative, left brained social workers prefer ethical empowerment and avoid sensationalism.

Human trafficking is a very serious issue that affects tens of millions of people, and as graphic designer, I personally recognize how important it is to have an open dialog with service providers, allied professionals, and government officials so that I can create materials that inform and assist the public in a helpful and sensitive way. There are a lot of solemn instances with different contextual uses of media that require a deft hand when designing resources for such heavy issues, and it’s definitely something all creative people need to be aware of. This particular blog entry—and I cannot stress this enough— is not that conversation. Sorry to lead you on like that, but I think it’s very important to highlight just how oblivious the creative industry can be and how image sites in particular seem to be day drinking heavily.

First off, let me take a minute to explain image sites to those who might not be familiar with them. Every advertisement and publication you see has two sides. The editorial side, and the design side. The editorial side provides all the information you need to know: what something costs, where something goes, and when something starts. The design side is what gets you to look and lets you know who something is for, how it works, and why you should get it. The visual content is usually the last piece of the puzzle to come about because editors and writers are slow and think they are more important than designers. If you have a budget and time, a designer can photograph or illustrate or film whatever they need and make a really cool piece of media they will proudly show everywhere. More often than not however, designers are pressed for time and need to get their hands on photographs, illustrations, or video immediately, I.e.; something that has already been created. Hence, stock image sites.

You’ve no doubt seen a news story with a Getty Images watermark front and center over it. For a fee, an image site will license media to you for an extended period of time. Unsplash, iStock, Story Blocks, Shutter Stock, Adobe Stock, and the multitudes that have been absorbed like Veer, Dollar Photo, and Corbis just to name a few. Image sites are helpful tools for creativity too and usually have media under a truckload of search tags so you can narrow down what you’re looking for to something very specific and still have a decent selection to choose from. Whether or not these sites pricing structures are fair and what cut they pay to the content creator is not what we’re talking about today either. Instead, I’d like to focus on some of the absolutely bananas content these places think creative people need and how out of touch they can sometimes feel.

Disclaimer 1: Initially I thought I’d do cross checks on multiple image stock sites, but the honest to God’s truth is that they are almost all the same. Not only do they feature the same content, they feature the same search results so while I may slip in an image from somewhere else here and there, the majority of what you’ll see here is from Adobestock. I actually really love Adobestock and Adobe products, but if I’m being honest, I’m still a little miffed they bought out Dollar Photos.

Disclaimer 2: There’s a good chance you’ve seen Reddit or other meme sites feature weird, WTF collections of pictures from image sites, but this isn’t that either. There’s a few images that I can’t fathom what they’d be used for, but nothing incredibly out of the ordinary. No “Hide the Pain Harold” here!

Disclaimer 3: I could write a book about this verses a blog post. The images shown here tell their own story and were not cherry picked to prove a point. I will probably write another post in the future with a more studied and researched collection, but for today, these are all images that came up within the first few pages of a search. It’s not rocket science and the algorithm for these searches are something every designer is familiar with and I’ve always found these results to be either hysterical or infuriating.

Words Bad Good

Sometimes a concept is just so lofty an idea that creatively the only way to convey it is to have a picture of the word you’re searching for.

“Okay, so this our new campaign regarding lunch programs for underprivileged…”

“LUNCH!!!”

“Er, what’s that Ralph?”

“LUNCH!! LUNCH!!”

“Sure, okay, let’s go with that.”

Either there’s a much higher demand for pictures of neon signs that say Ralph than I would imagine, or AI is responsible for a lot of these images.

Maybe it’s effective if it’s being used really well, but otherwise, this is the laziest of lazy design. To be fair also, this type of conveyance is heavily used when a concept is a little too abstract like searching for images related to ASAP for example.

Yes, “Condyloma” was one of the very first images that came up when searching for dynamic text.

Totally Not Racist

Everyone wants you to know they’re not racists… well, not overtly racist people because that’s their thing, but on a professional level, corporate America wants you to know they’re not racist. So clients understandably like images that show diversity. To an image site algorithm, “diversity” is a weird metaphor for racial harmony. Like a hit–you–over–the–head–to–say–we–swear–to–God–we’re–not–racist type of energy that tries way too hard. Why are you making hand hearts, or holding hands, or standing so uncomfortably close together? I want something other than just white people, you don’t have to invade each other’s personal space. And why is everyone so happy just to be standing around? To be fair, “diversity” as a search term is very slowly expanding. Now instead of a couple of black people, someone is also wearing a hijab usually so progress, I guess. Asians still can’t catch a break, they’re not invited to the stand around and smile parties.

We’re diverse AND awkward!

Anger, The Funniest Emotion

The easiest thing about capturing happiness on film (Hi! I’m old and say things like ‘on film’!) is that you can elicit a genuine look of it from a subject. All you need is a funny photographer, a wonderful memory, or the threat of not getting paid. Sadness is a little trickier, but good lighting, focusing on trauma, or the threat of not getting paid can make a believable image come to life. Anger? Well, maybe real anger looks too angsty or doesn’t convey just how dark the average human being is, so image sites portray anger as OH MY GOD!

You wouldn’t like me when I’m psychotic.

We’ve all been angry, but somewhere along the journey of visually presenting emotions, people translated “angry” to psycho murder demon. It’s funny, but usually “anger” in advertisements is used in relation to stress relief of some sort. Is your job getting you mad? Is your old appliance on the fritz? Is your internet slow? Are weasels deliberately mispronouncing your name? Well then you need our product! And to get your attention, we’ve used this very relatable approximation of you; violently screaming or punching something because that’s what normal people do every day.

They really hate laptops.

Maybe bullying is tangential to anger, but I get charged per subhead, so it’s going here as well. Also a serious and topical issue, bullying affects way more kids nowadays then when I was a kid. People who think bullying is just a part of childhood and that kids today are pansies can seriously go suck it because way back in the day (before the internet), you had a safe space called home or church or some extracurricular aside where you fit in. Your bully didn’t follow you everywhere which, thanks to social media, that’s exactly what they do today.

That woman in the gray dress is boldly playing both sides.

So again, I don’t mean to make light of a serious situation here. I’m Gen X, I sympathize with people and understand the world’s gonna’ keep changing regardless of how I feel. That being said, typically we relate bullying to adolescence. Yeah, I know it exists everywhere in every facet of life, but some of these images are hilarious. Not because someone is being bullied, but the setting for all of these is clearly a corporate environment and the idea that multiple adult coworkers would comedically harass other adult coworkers like they’re in an 80s Ivan Reitman film raises more questions than it sets out to solve. Why are they using a bullhorn? Why does their office have a bullhorn? They’re standing right in front of him, how necessary is the bullhorn?

A bullhorn isn’t a way to get people to listen, it’s a way to force people to hear you.

I’ve been in offices and on teams like this one. When computers are lined up side by side like this, it’s because everyone is working on the same project. Those two idiots are harassing someone who is most likely very consequential to their work and by proxy; deadline and paycheck. Help her out you lunatics! At the very least shun her for bringing unnecessary drama into the office and talk $#!t about her behind her back like a real American!

“Ha ha ha! Bob has a headache! Isn’t that hilarious?!”

Now this could be anxiety over an oppressive boss, or even something more serious like sexual harassment in the workplace. The problem is the focus is all off. She’s very strangely infatuated with the clipboard and he seems terrified of the succubus’ mouth forming from her chest, ready to devour his head. “Don’t these sales and revenue reports turn you on?”

You’re Doing It All Wrong!

If you have a talent, hobby, or interest that requires some degree of knowledge beyond what most people know of said subject, then an image site is rife with inaccuracies. That’s not how you hold a trumpet. The world at large may not know that or even care, so sue me and every other brass aficionado; but some of these are just confounding as to how anyone would use them for any purpose.

Is that woman playing Weird Al? Because it’s clearly a very funny song. Is that boy preaching to God himself? Wouldn’t he be pretty familiar with His own book? Are these people Jedis? Why are their hands so close to the ground? What is the relationship between planes and guitar strings? Did this couple stumble upon a guitar player in the middle of the woods or did they just drag him out in the middle of a forest to play because they’re tired of people criticizing how they clap? What the %@$# is going on?!

You know how you have to transfer all that digital information to paper? How tedious! Why do we even have computers?!

Sexism Everywhere

The initial idea that made me want to write this blog post in particularly however surrounded the overtly sexist tones image descriptions and key search words use. Take a look at these images and see if you can pick up on the subtle theme of angry male vs. angry female.

When a male supervisor is yelling at a female subordinate in a lot of these images, the description mentions blame on an ineffective or guilty employee. The male boss is usually labeled as frustrated. When a female supervisor yells at anyone, she’s labeled as unbalanced, superior, rude, or at the very least acknowledging the subordinates are stressed because of her. I understand that when these images are used, they may not be contextualized exactly as their descriptions indicate; but another interesting subtext from a visual standpoint is how often the camera angle changes depending on the sex of the boss. If it’s a dude, the camera is usually perched high, taking on the perspective of the man and from a position of power. When it’s a woman, the camera tends to sit low, taking on the perspective of the worker and from a position of vulnerability. It’s also curious and arguably unnecessary when the image shows just a singular angry person. The guy gets labeled as “handsome” while they double–down with “rage” for the lady.

I realize I’m only showing just a few images, but I’m not overly skewing information here. As mentioned in my earlier disclaimer, these are results from just the first 2 pages of my search. I also realize I’m not saying anything every single woman reading this already knows. “The image sites are sexist too?!” Yeah guys, this is what systemic sexism and racism coupled with unconscious bias look like. It’s literally everywhere.

All in all, stock image sites really are a valuable resource and the algorithms, subject matter, and overall quality continue to improve, but if we’re being honest, it will never be perfect. I had way to much fun with this post and I will most likely tackle this subject again. In fact, I would love to hear if anyone has had similar or other unique experiences when it comes to the world of stock images! Comment below or tell me on Instagram or Twitter!

Do You Have To Be Creative To Be A Graphic Designer?

When I write regarding graphic design or even just introduce myself professionally, I make very little distinction between that and being an illustrator. My professional title is “Graphic Designer/Illustrator” which is driven by pure hubris. Getting that “illustrator” addition was the most satisfying moment of my career, but if we’re going by a definitional account of my job, it’s redundant. A graphic designer is the Swiss Army knife of media professionals. We need to have a working knowledge of published, printed, and digital media and that encompasses a lot of stuff. Typesetting, illustration, user interfaces, web design, production & rendering methods, communications, plus keeping up with changing trends and social & cultural norms just to give a broad perspective of our day–to–day responsibilities.

I’m getting ahead of myself though. Let’s travel back to the very early start of the 21st century when I was still in school. I’ll give a more detailed account another time, but in short, I was enrolled in a trade school for graphic art and design at the corporately named Brick Computer Science Institute. We were finishing up our class for Adobe InDesign (which is a desktop publishing and page layout design software program) when the instructor decided to kill two birds with one stone for our final project assignment. We had to design a “How To” book based on any subject we wanted, then present this instruction manual to our classmates to clumsily complete our public speaking portion of the curriculum. At the time, I was heavily involved in puppetry, even working in local productions, so my “thesis” was how to perform a puppet. The whole farce was good enough to elicit a lot of questions afterwards from my fellow classmates. The one that hit me harder than anything else, and one I still think about today (hence this entire post), was when a kid asked, “(Regarding puppetry) How do you get involved in something like this?” I started by stating rather matter–of–factly that it is similar to any other creative endeavor one might be interested in like dancing or painting. So I asked the class, “Has anyone ever taken singing lessons or gone to an acting camp?” Silence. “Okay, what about figure drawing, sculpting, or even writing short stories?” Heads shook whilst still fixating on me with deadpan stares. I took a breath and went out on a limb convinced I’d get a a tiny bite when I sheepishly asked, “Has anyone here ever tried to do anything creative?” In a mumble from a now awkward choir, the collective replied, “No.” My head began to spin and I have almost no memory of what happened after. I just felt so dizzy wondering how so many kids without even an inkling of desire to be creative in any way had all enrolled in a program with “art” in its title. Was I going into the right field? Was I going to have a leg up of any kind because I could draw? Was I completely off about what I assumed graphic design to be?

My brief stint as a puppeteer in 1999 and then again only slightly better in 2016.

Maybe it’s not a huge surprise, but of the nearly 60 kids who enrolled, myself and one other student were the only two to graduate from our class. Everyone else dropped out. The institutional credibility of the school notwithstanding, I had placed all my eggs in this basket and headed out into the world afterwards as a green but still hopeful and determined graphic designer. My first job at a flatware company however proved the unimaginative dropouts may have been the majority as nothing I did required an ounce of creativity. My job was to be imitative and unoriginal by simply copying the designs of our competitors so that the work could then be outsourced to our manufacturer in China. One day I decided to take initiative by designing my own line of tableware for the company, fully understanding the Employment Agreement I signed had a strict statement of ownership that any ideas would belong to the company. My boss was visibly very upset at this ambitious move towards his good graces and gave me a real dressing down. One week later I was let go. Two years later I saw my designed tableware from the company on full display on an end cap at Target.

Now very depressing allusions to the life of a graphic designer aside, my story is not uncommon, and it can be justified repeatedly simply by looking at the world around you steeped in really bad graphic design. Graphic design runs along a very substantial bell curve because it’s one of those industries where anyone can—and does—label themselves a “graphic designer” just for owning an outdated, bootleg copy of Photoshop. Every time—and I mean every single time—I see really spectacularly bad design, I wonder if it may have been done by one of my dropout classmates who decided they didn’t need the student loan debt or color theory from good old BCSI and ventured into their own stint as a “graphic designer.” I think of those blank faces staring back at me who openly admit they had, nor would have, any creative interests at all and wonder how widespread that idea may be. It begs the question, do you have to be creative to be a graphic designer?

If you’re asking me, then the answer is obviously and unequivocally yes, but we can be a bit more diplomatic here. I reached out to a bunch of designers whom I admire to get their take on this idea. A lot of them were busy with deadlines and couldn’t contribute (again, the life of a graphic designer), but I cast a large net and spoke with both professional actual real life graphic designers as well as those who successfully manage things on the side as freelancers. There’s a wide range of education and experience here, but all are people I consider talented so I posed the question directly to get their take on this idea of if it’s even necessary to be creative in order to be a graphic designer. Also understanding deadlines and client specifications, I asked them to consider how much of their drive is motivated by inspiration verses profit, art verses functionality, and if they are moved in anyway when seeing good design verses bad design. Here’s what they had to say.

I consider the role of graphic designer most of all as a tool of communication. Anything I produce in that capacity has to send an easily understood message — Read this! Buy that! Being creative doesn't mean having a special sensitivity to taste and aesthetic choices, neither is it a special talent to draw, compose or write a novel — it simply means to effectively use whatever tools at your disposal to get a job done. Problem solving requires creativity. How much does it influence my work? I'd say it's the main ingredient, along with curiosity. One of my professors at SVA used to tell us: "Be informed! Read! Learn! The more you know about the world around you, the better you'll be able to communicate ideas through design." I profoundly agree with that notion. 

Mabel Zorzano

Even if it’s a project that is conceptually dictated or a simple layout, I can’t function without putting some creative spin on it. I don’t necessarily see myself as an “artist” but more of a creative creator 😂 so I can’t help but try to be creative in my approach to any project.  

I’m definitely moved by bad design…moved to hurl. But that doesn’t mean that someone with basic “functional” skills can’t create something pleasing to the eye. My main day job isn’t graphic design, so I feel I can still be motivated by inspiration. It’s still thrilling to start with nothing and end up with a creation.

Doug Berry

Being creative is integral to being a graphic designer. Our role is to take a client’s vision and deliver it in a way that stands out, draws in the desired audience and tells a story. Without creativity, anyone could do what we do. Creativity is what gets both you and your client noticed.

Christine Senak

How creative I get depends on the client. They lead everything. For me, creativity begins with listening to and learning from the client. Sometimes they have a very clear idea, but can't quite articulate it. New ideas are born through collaboration of some sort. I try to be more intimate, so I don't bombard them with a gazillion font choices and colors. I'd rather spend that time talking to them about what they really want. That seems to be rare in this business.

Many artists draw a distinction between artistry and craftsmanship. I think that line has always been a blurry one. Beautifully so. No matter what a design evokes in us, it's going to give each viewer a unique experience and that can never be cynically focus–grouped by a client or executive. I see bad design every day on busses and billboards in the city. Truth be told, it gives me more confidence in mine. Oof! Bad kerning is an epidemic. Good design, however, feeds the soul.

James Carroll

To be honest I have taken for granted the idea that “I am creative” hence “I am a graphic designer.” But, as I reflect on this question, I realize I have some doubts about how axiomatic that link is between creator and designer. In many ways, I feel like a painter is creative but a graphic designer, not so much. When asked if I am an artist, I frequently hesitate and my husband always jumps in to say, “You are an artist.”

I am a formally trained artist, there I said it. I attended the School of Visual Arts, but ultimately picked a marketable art form, graphic design. To be fair, as I dove into the art of graphic design I truly fell in love with letter form, typography, grids – an almost mathematical (I always liked math) approach to art. The experience of the reader, the audience, the consumer of my design is always foremost in my mind. I constantly ask myself and my colleagues: will the message be clear? Will the design entice the viewer to consume the content on offer?

Graphic design is most certainly an art form. Look around and one will see design that does not clearly and creatively inform a viewer. Leading and kerning (what a nerd) that seems somehow “off,” making the message hard to discern. Good design is marked by answering the question: why? The answer should never be – it looks cool. The why may not always be the right way to go, but diving into the why is where the creativity lies. It is from “the why” that one builds the design.

Fundamentally, graphic design taught me that creativity is where you find it. I was at heart a photographer, but chose my profession to make a living in the arts. Now I realize, it was perhaps the most creative choice I ever made; seeing how to make the functional beautiful and the seemingly mundane eye–catching. Graphic design, while seemingly all about utility and “marketability” contributes a great deal to our cultural aesthetic and I am proud to be a creative professional that does that.

Lea La Notte Greene

So in the end, the answer is not a definitive yes or no. On the one hand, this is a job and it has to get done if we want to keep the lights on. Clients can be fickle and stubborn and we’ve all created things we’re not proud of. Not everything has to go in the portfolio, but I find this to be rare as most people (clients) are hiring you because they like what you do and trust you to do it well. Granted, things like budgets, personal tastes, changing trends, and omnipotent deadlines can hamper these things and make even the greatest designers add to the pantheon of bad design. On the other hand though, it’s impossible to not admire really good graphic design. For me personally, I see some designers as master artists like Aaron Draplin, Martina Flor, Jed Chisholm, Krill Richert, Demas Rusli, or Gary Percival.

I think this is what tips this idea to an extreme; drawing a direct line between “graphic design” to its more definitively creative based cousin: “art.” We admire good graphic design like we admire good art; ergo graphic design is art, art is creative, therefore graphic design must be creative, right? Dain Walker prefers the title “brand strategist” to graphic designer, but at this point I’m splitting so many semantical hairs I think it’s better to just get to his point. He writes,

"In the minds of business owners, creative design can often be misunderstood as functioning alike art. However there are some important distinctions that must be understood between art & design. First allow me to express that they share things in common, often times they can even overlap or one piece could be both art & design all at once. Many even argue they are the same thing… That design is not art, but a very pointed item created with an objective rather than being subjective, essentially art sends a different message to everyone (pending their interpretation) whereas design tells the same message to everyone."

He goes on to make very broad but effective points like, “Art is to be admired, design has a job to do.” Noting that both art and design can be interchangeable, there’s most certainly two different languages an artist and designer have to speak fluently, that of a creative and that of the client. So effectively we live in a world where both of these are very true and open to a lot of interpretation. We know that graphic design can exist without any creativity because it’s literally everywhere. Whether it’s actual bad design or serves only the purpose of functionality, there is a lot of demand for uncreative graphic design. However, and this is the real silver lining, graphic design—good graphic design—aspires to be so much more.

Just like the work of all the very wonderful people who contributed to this post! Very special thanks to Doug Berry, Jamie Carroll, Lea La Notte Greene, Christine Senak, and Mabel Zorzano for taking the time to reflect on this idea and write me their thoughts. Please check out their stuff and as always, I would love if you followed me on Instagram & Twitter.

I Know What You Meme

I have a nice long list of ideas for blog topics, so “Yay!” I also love to write and make long in–depth posts that are full of ideas and concepts that can take awhile to read, so “Yay?” My point is I wrote a super long post last week and have a super long post next week, but I don’t want to drown the scant number of people who visit this blog and feel like I’m just lecturing, so today is a little dose of fun and silliness. Plus I stole literally all of these memes.

That dafont one hits hard

TheDesignTip on Instagram has lots of relatable graphic design and artist/illustrator memes as well as some great inspiration and follow suggestions. I think the great part about career specific jokes and memes is that they make you feel like you’re part of a greater collective who’s in on the joke… or in on the pain and suffering. Pick your poison!

Behance also has a bunch of humorous observations, rather than memes, but strangely I couldn’t find any in my collection. They’re also a good place for inspiration.

As always, I would love it if you followed me on Instagram and Twitter! Do you have any favorite graphic design/creative memes? I’ll leave you with my absolute favorite one:

I really do love this so much!

I NEED THIS ASAP! What Every Client Should Know About Actual Deadlines

Recently I had a chat with my boss where we (unfairly probably) lambasted clients behind their backs for not fully comprehending deadlines—both for their own sake and ours. Indeed, it’s a mindset everyone gets into for any number of things. Most people don’t fill up their gas tanks when they’re 3/4s full. If you’re like me, you might push your cars understanding of just exactly what “empty” actually means and push the record of how far you can get after your display informs you the range has been passed. In those instances, filling up really does become “as soon as possible.”

Now from an illustrator/graphic designer’s perspective who tends to like busting chops, if you commission me and say, “I need this ASAP!” I’ll respond, “Okay, so that’s sometime three years from now.” I’ve got Netflix shows to catch up on, comics to read, video games to play, and my daughter and I have tons of toys to play with; so if prioritizing my work based on how important I think what you’re asking for is any kind of barometer of our relationship; you should expect that to be very low.

Okay, okay, but we do it for the money, right? Sure, but let’s really ask about your timeline. Sometimes that’s obvious. “This is a Christmas present, I need it for Christmas and I’d like a few minutes to wrap it.” If you’re making that request in October, we’re looking at a reasonable deadline to get that to you by the beginning to middle of December the absolute latest. Screaming “AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!” before Halloween makes you so full of baloney that you could open up your own deli (my daughter and I came up with that sick burn!).

Now sometimes ASAP really means right away. “I have a wedding in 3 weeks and I still haven’t sent invitations out.” First of all, yikes. Secondly, that’s now a rush and ASAP probably means, “What I really need is a time machine.” Now we’re talking lots of cash too, and don’t think for a minute I’m not going to charge you out the wazoo for your own procrastination. Not just because I have to bust my hump getting these invitations done, but also because your nervous energy is really going to cramp my style as well.

But none of those are what my boss and I were talking about. No, my experience is that most people request ASAP because they are projecting their own self image onto you, the creative. Sometimes, we really don’t take the time to actually figure out when we need something, but more often than not, we just want to be done with it. That’s understandable (if not insulting), but a good freelance artist of any kind is going to manage their time in a way that’s conducive to their client. Again, if you’re like me, you’ll even be up front about that. I have not been very good at all managing my creative free time since my daughter was born because I just happen to love devoting as much time to my own family as I possibly can. Having the benefit of a full–time job also allows me to turn down requests and commissions relatively freely. When a client is persistent or the job seems fun, I’ll lay out my parameters and let them decide if I’m still worth it.

The bottom line is that it’s so important to trust a professional with your deadlines. I can tell you that if I have a super long time to get something done, I’m not putting it off until last minute. I’m either planning, getting it to the client early, or working within my own schedule to properly accommodate the work and clients expectations. In other words, try to avoid saying “ASAP.” The work will suffer for it.

If you are a freelance creative person, Philip VanDusen has a great video on time management you should check out below and follow him for design trends to digital marketing and everything else in between.

As always, please follow me on Instagram and Twitter and thanks for stopping by!

A Beginners Guide to Passive–Aggressive Clients

When I was a young and green, fresh–faced graphic designer brand new to the professional world, I was extremely fortunate to get some of the best career advice from a great and wise art director: “Detach yourself from your work.” Especially when you are young, it is firmly believed you know what is best and which concepts a client needs to choose, and in reality, you’re probably right. It is antithetical to your creative insight that they should choose anything other than what you know is “the one,” and so it is mind boggling when they don’t heed your sagacity or experience (regardless of how much of it you actually have) and choose to contribute to the already over populated world of “bad design.” You may even then proceed to take on bad habits like creating black cats, but nothing is more shocking than being told directly that your work—and hence personal taste—is not good.

It’s a stereotype that creative people are sensitive, but real artists have thick skin. In fact, if you’re willing to put yourself out there, even if you’re a delusional narcissist, you have to expect a notable chunk of the world’s population just isn’t going to dig your stuff, and that’s okay. Truth be told, I felt like I finally “made it” when someone flat-out told me I suck on deviantArt once, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to that art director of mine. I was crestfallen that a client was unhappy with the concepts I had done and wanted new ones. Now I need you to know, this is not a blog to build up your self esteem and affirm that you’re good enough. You’re not. To quote one of my favorite mantras: “Nobody cares, work harder.” The reality is that this client who didn’t mix words and said, “Do it again.” Is the most wonderful type of client a designer/illustrator can have.

Don’t worry if you don’t get this comic, no one else did either.

Most people (believe it or not) don’t want to be horrible human beings, so they won’t tell you that you suck on a free online art community. Clients have opinions too though, so they need to convey if they want something else, primarily because they are paying for it. Welcome to the world of passive–aggressive commentary on your artistic endeavors. I’m not personally familiar with the Catholic theology surrounding Limbo, but if I had to take a guess, it probably sounds a lot like the electronic correspondences between a client and the artist they hired. I think it stems from the idea that someone has reached out to a person with a unique skill set that they themselves do not possess and are possibly even in awe of, only to discover what they got isn’t what they expected. They’re gracious, but unsatisfied. It then (eventually) becomes desirable to the artist to be hired by someone direct and clear who won’t beat around the bush and make you guess as to how to proceed (although it’s possible you just stop caring as you age I suppose). The sting to all of this is that when I posted the above comic strip—which I thought clearly spoke this idea—most people didn’t get it at all which ironically lead to a flurry of passive–aggressive comments in response. C’est la vie.

Awesome concept, okay delivery… but he LOVES it!

Now on the other end of the bell curve are clients and critics who just want to watch the world burn. In the American vernacular, they’re known as @$$holes. It’s one thing to be direct and tell a creative person, “This just isn’t what I’m looking for.” It’s another thing entirely to insult their life choices and curse their children for generations to come. That being said, “Detach yourself from your work” clearly becomes a necessary tool, especially if you’re submitting your work to a large audience. Sure, it’s not nice to be reminded that the internet’s toxicity can and does in fact extend to you personally; but there’s a reason the first rule of the internet is ‘never read the comments.’ I think that those dumpster fire responses are critical though for developing a thick skin and understanding that not everything you do has to make it into your portfolio. In other words, whether they are faceless trolls or paying customers; being a creative person requires abject criticism if for nothing more than a heaping dose of humility. Oh yeah, and ultimately the chance to grow as an individual, yada, yada, yada.

In the end, you have to ultimately decide if your creative side is going to be a weekend hobbyist or the breadwinner archetype. The starving artist isn’t so much a lifestyle choice as it is a reality and if taking criticism is antithetical to your nature, you are facing a lifelong climb with few to no plateaus. Everyone is in fact a critic, but many of them will absolutely build you up. The rest keep you humble, and God bless every horrible one of them. Besides, everyone gets compliments when they try something, even if said compliment is lukewarm at best. It takes a real artist to not just roll with the punches, but maybe even grow with them too.

Some of the actual and very real comments and messages I’ve received.

I’d love to hear any stories you have from nightmarish clients to online trolls! Please reach out in the comments below or follow me on Instagram or Twitter to let me know!