Sneak peek! Just a sliver of the latest cover illo I finished today for an East Coast rag.

Cheers to Saul Bass, a design an illustration legend who would be 93 today! I would not be the designer and illustrator I am today without his influence.

You can purchase prints of this piece here. Free shipping until May 12th!

Catching up on some covers I never posted…

Black Market Street - October 24, 2012

Photo by Josh Edelson

MoMA | The Collection | Ikko Tanaka. World Commercial Design Exhibition. 1959

Hit an even number in the Flickr organizer. All the cover’s I’ve done here at SF Weekly.

Best of SF 2012: Food & Dining: Illustration by Adam McCauley

So apparently I am a “Graphic Designer of the Year” as stated by the International Design Awards. Does this mean I have to do more work? Like “Hey, you are chosen to to be our designer this year. Now get to work, slacker!”

All joking aside, I just found out some exciting news from the IDA Awards. I received 4 awards total:

• Graphic Designer of the Year [Worlds Apart cover with illustration by Brian Stauffer]
• Gold Medal / Print Editorial / Worlds Apart
• Silver Medal / Print Editorial / Your Rags to Their Riches
• Honorable Mention / Print Editorial / Shock the Junkie

Not sure what this really means but it’s nice to know that the design community can appreciate work done on a shoestring budget. Or maybe it means I was the only one who entered the “print editorial” category since there is no bronze medal. Either way, I’m happy to hear the news and owe a big thanks, again and again, to illustration heavy-hitter Brian Stauffer. That guy is a conceptual master and someone that all creative professionals should keep an eye on.

I am feeling very fortunate this morning. And must thanks my parents for that. Thanks Mom and Dad.

I just received two gigantic boxes, full of all of my past creative work from high school through college. I knew this was on it’s way here but had no idea how much there actually was or what I saved versus what my parents saved.

What I discovered was a treasure trove of all my past inspirations, experiments, successes, and more importantly, failures. I got hit in the gut when I when through the first thing I grabbed - my photo negative binder. I discovered that it contained almost every single roll of negatives and the corresponding contact sheets for every black and white photo I took since 1996. Whoa. Memories abound.

What I also came across in that binder was the very first thing I ever did with photo paper - my first photogram, which is what that image with this post is. Oh how excited I remember being about this assignment as the direct translation from 3D object to flat graphic was something so purely simple and beautiful. And something I could easy understand.

Armed with a piece of gauze, a couple drywall screws from my dad’s workshop, a Lego gear, a scrap of 35mm film, a flat gear key chain that came with my tennis shoes, a ball-chain, an old watch back, and most importantly, the packaging sleeve from my very first set of turntable cartridges (needles) - the Stanton Pro Disco 500AL-MP (matched pair, oh yeah!). It had type screen-printed on a thick clear sheet of plastic that just seemed too good of an option not to test out.

Looking at this image, I can still clearly remember hovering over the table, staring down at the components and rehearsing exactly what order and where I was going to place the items when in the dark room. I still get the same sense of focus and clarity when committing to the creative process in the work I do these days (as long as no one calls or knocks on the door…) - a focus that never came from reading history, doing math, or learning a new language.

But I was learning a new language.

I didn’t really know it then, but this was my first step towards becoming a designer. Or visual communicator, rather. And learning to speak visually, with intention. Seeing the word around me with the tools before me, and finding my own way to combine those two elements into something that I was happy to see the result of.

And that’s what it’s really about. Doing the work, experimenting along the way, and trying to reach a place where what you do makes you happy. It’s all really about happiness, isn’t it? Whether you dabble in numbers, or words, or big scientific lab experiments, underneath all the layers we are all trying to find what makes us happy.

And I am. I am happy to get to see all this old work that played a big part in making and keeping me happy over the years. And I’m happy that I get to work with amazing photographers and illustrators at my job now. Sure, not everything is always rainbows and butterflies, but finding ways to do the things that give back to and fulfill yourself are what make it all worth it.

So there ya go. Blah blah blah, crappy old work from high-school, snore, happiness, blah blah. I’m no writer and this is probably the longest public thing I’ve written but here’s to not knowing how to properly end things! Awesome. Now back to work…

Creative Quarterly 27 Winner

http://www.cqjournal.com/winners.html

Just got word that I have a winning piece in Creative Quarterly’s graphic design section as well as a few runner-ups. A cover photo by photographer Kelly Nicolaisen was also a winner. Can’t wait to see everyone else’s work that won!

Oh so nice.

(Source: supergraphic)

London International Creative Competition Shortlist!

Just found out that that the “Standing Up with the Aboriginal Blackmen United” cover made the LICC shortlist. Check out the other runners-up on the LICC shortlist as well as the winners.  Thanks to photographer Josh Edelson for letting me halftone his work to bits.

qrate:

Brandon James Scott

The dorky unicyclist in me will be buying this while the nerdy designer in me will proudly display it in my office. Going out to all those who ride a true fixie - no chain, no gears, no oury grips; as simple as it gets hipsters.