Applied Arts 2013 Illustration Annual

I was glad to see this personal piece I did get into the latest Applied Arts Annual. Thanks judges!

Lenin

Got to do a portrait of Lenin for the Wall Street Journal last week.

I love doing conceptual historical portraits, it was a dream job for me.

The article talked alot about Lenin's infamous micromanaging during the a sealed train ride from Switzerland to Russia in 1917, so I had to include the train angle.

I was glad my AD of AD's Keith Webb went with the more general graphic portrait...
But it still needed some work, here's a bit of the finessing....

Spin Doctors

 "Spin Doctors"  for M le magazine du Monde, Paris.
Art directed by Federica Rossi.

I don't think I had worked for a french client before, so that was exciting.
Luckily her english was great.

They wanted a secondary smaller illustration as well.

The spread, too bad I can't read french.

And in print I got in the mail.
Merci Federica!

Earth Day

Did this for the April 2013 cover of the Progressive, but was waiting to post it until today.
Article was on climate activism.

I don't usually go into color in roughs, but I had a favorite and wanted to make sure it would work and sell it a bitat the same time. Luckily Nick, the AD on this agreed.

I wanted to add more layers to the image, but pulled back when I remembered Nick had told me to remember to accomodate the address label and bar code in the design.

I wish I would have had a bit more time on it to make some subtle changes to make the smoke curl more naturally around the face and fist, but making the deadline was most important.

This poster on the wall at Facebook HQ always makes me feel better when that happens.

Music Monopoly

On Music company monopolies for the Huffington Post Magazine.

Here's the roughs, since the story was about a merger, I had to cover that angle as well.

The magazine is only on the iPad so the spread in this case was vertical as you tabbed down.

They cropped it nicely for the contents page.

Spouse Insider Trading

For a piece on spouses spying on each other's corporate knowledge and using the information to do some insider trading. I really loved how the typography turned out, thanks to Siung.

Here's the roughs. I liked the top one with the arrow lips at the time, but I feel Siung made the better choice as usual.

The playing around with arrows to make those lips wasn't a waste though. It gave me a big head start on this quick little piece on "Women Investors" for my man Keith at the Wall St. Journal a few weeks later.

Macho Vegetarians

Here's a little personal piece.

I wanted some healthy and manly for my kitchen.

I might turn it into a print....