Denver, the mile high city

The challenge from Sam A was to make a logo/ text thingie for each town I lived in. I don't know if I can do that, because I'll probably get all fried by it after a while. It's hard to strike a balance between total love and a objective opinion and writing *like that* (the above) is. Seriously, I got a little worried that Denver, the actual Self of Denver would get angry at me (not the individuals/friends/teaches who live there, none of whom I would ever want to offend but probably understand where I'm coming from).

Anyway, behold the grid! The brown/black/white color scheme! HEXAGONS! The Star Warsish font! To be truthful, most of these elements are fragmented from my early kid-hood in Minneapolis, not Denver. But Denver really seemed to hit it's stride in that 70s post-oil crisis era, and believe you me, you can totally see it from the architecture. Don't get me wrong- downtown looks more like a City of the Future than anywhere I've ever been; there's nary a building more than 20 years old that shows up on the city-scape... downtown. But when you get out towards some subdevelopments in the foothills you can really get a sense of when the economy spiked. Slanty wood sidings, smoked glass, etc. I encourage any and all illustrators to mine their own past and memories of powerful commercial art and design rather than depend on a Google search for era-specific art, because I stayed up until 3 AM last night trying to find a certain "look" from the above described era, and it was pretty fruitless.

(Google> search> HEXAGONS SCI-FI 70s GRAPHICS COME ON SHOW ME IT)

SILICON VALLEY LOGOS LOOK REALLY 90S

So... seriously, what is the deal with the multi-colored letters making up a logo? Is that really what Google/ EBay/ want everybody in the whole wide world seeing every day? I know, maybe I'm being unfair- I mean they did get started in the early 90s. But you would think around '98 or so they'd be all "hmm, maybe we should try harder?".

Even YouTube seems to have lifted from the "As Seen on TV" logo- you know the one that hasn't changed since the late 70s? And although I like the new Adobe creative suite look, the old versions with the Photoshop eye and the Illustrator Boticelli chick makes it seem like my mom designed it. Thank you for changing your logos, Adobe! Now: Google, EBay, dont you want to be like your brother?

Train ad

I don't know what this is all about, sorry. It's from a combination of this deck of Burlington Northen playing cards we used to have and... uh, I guess a dream train line that I would like to exist. Stylisticly, I tried to get that 2-color printing effect, complete with the poorly offset printing and the kind of ink that bleeds and fades into total awesomness in like 12 years.

The F Bomb

Ok, this one is just plain silly. It was inspired by my cousin-in-law who only says the f-bomb on vacation.

I won't be doing stuff like this all the time- I have a big idea about what to do next, but it will take a loooong time to draw and I just wanted to get this out of the way before I forgot about it.

dusty

Dusty Springfield? Dusty blue? I don't know. The streets are from downtown Denver, if that makes you feel anything. This one was kind of a conglomeration of failed experiments. YAY

I forgot to mention the one below (peanut butter embryo) is an idea that Sam Aranda came up with. We have a ton of 'em- we spent a summer at a bar called the Longhorn (RIP) and totally did a ton of really strange cartoons. Did I mention this was at a bar?

Anyway, here are a couple more: SQUID DRESS is just a slice of life. Don't you have an anorexic friend who looks exactly like you, and you put on the same squid outfit and go to a club that has 70s game show backgrounds? That happens to me all the time.

The other one, Christmas Cat, is a technique I'm playing with- making a drawing and then photographing it and then doing ILLUSTRATOR MAGIC to give it color.

first one

Hi and hello! I am using this to post some art and graphic design and whatever else I feel like. I might say stuff about my life, but mostly it's gonna be easily digested pictures. Mmmm, yum.