First time on a printing press

For being as infatuated as I am with hand-printed posters, I can't believe it took me until almost halfway through my junior year to print one for myself.

Today, with the instruction of my good friend and teacher Don Kilpatrick, I printed an edition of 50 posters from a linoleum cut design I made.  The posters are for the punk rock band I play in, The Directive, and are going to be shipped out with the first 50 orders of our new EP.

I printed on Vandercook press and after the first couple prints fell in love with using this machine. There is something very relaxing and meditative about the repetitious process of printing. The (roughly) 2 hours I spent alone in the printshop didn't drag on or seem lonely at all.  The sound Frank Turner playing from my phone, the rain falling outside, and the mechanical noises produced by the press with each print I would complete made for a great soundtrack to the experience.

Today really reinforced my idea that a print made by hand is not just the image on the paper, but an embodiment of the entire experience of printing that went into creating it.  Today's session was the first in what will hopefully be a lifetime of afternoons spent printing.

First Infographic Experience

As an illustrator and designer my job is to translate ideas into an image.  Often times this comes in the form of a logo, poster, tattoo or shirt design, or painting. But this week I was presented with the new task of creating an infographic.

An infographic is exactly what it sounds like, a graphic that displays information.  Having never created an official ‘infographic’ before, I was a bit unsure how to go about doing it.  After sketching up some thumbnails I quickly came to the realization that all the images I create are infographics, they are just not presented as such. 

Bringing together a combination of type treatments, poster design, and logo-like illustrations, I created this infographic on how to successfully run a facebook contest.

Moral of the story: Don’t dwell on categories and genres and approach any task like you know what you’re doing.  Chances are, you really do.

Inspiration

There are two types of artists: Those who draw inspiration from other artists, and liars.

I love getting inside another artist’s head and seeing the work that inspires them to create the way the do.  A lot can be learned from identifying what elements are borrowed and how they change those elements and collage them with others to create their own style.  I figured that since I enjoy getting a look at other artist’s inspiration, I would share some current, emerging artists I look at often!

Nathan Yoder

Nathan is an illustrator and designer who creates beautiful marriages of stylized images and typography.  His minimal, but sophisticated color pallets make me want to push myself to create more visual interest using the fewest colors possible.

Jim Sylvia

Jim is a tattoo artist working in Los Angeles.  He does incredible American traditional style work, with just the right amount of ‘new school’ added in to make the extremely classic designs uniquely his.  The most impressive thing about Jim’s work is the precision and cleanliness of his line work and how bold and interesting he is able to make solid colors look.

DKNG

DKNG Studios is made up of Dan Kuhlken and Nathan Goldman.  They create posters unlike any I have seen before.  They are both extremely clean and wonderfully textured at the same time and have some of the most beautiful, subtle color pallets I’ve seen. 

Seeing an Album

When I listen to music, I see just as much as I hear.

Maybe it’s because I’m an incredibly visual person, or maybe its something that’s not so specific to me, but the artwork a band creates for an album has a massive impact on how I hear that album.  The color pallet specifically influences the time of year I listen to albums more. 

The orange in this cover of Blink-182’s “Dude Ranch” as well as bright blue sky make me gravitate more towards this album on an early fall day.

Where as this desaturated cover for Kanye West’s “808’s and Heartbreak” makes the album seem perfect to throw on a cold, still winter evening.

I kept this in mind when designing the cover artwork for “I Hope This Helps” and EP by my band, The Directive.  I wanted to evoke the same fall feeling as Dude Ranch, but in a bit more of a subdued manner, to compliment the more reflective, nostalgic nature of the songs. 

What is some of your favorite album artwork? Let me know in the comments!