mckibillo

flickr bike

2008-09-19T05:33:03+00:00

Not too long ago, I finished up some technical illustrations for a Yahoo! project, informally known as the flickr bike. It's a bike modded to automatically snap pics and upload them to a flickr site, from riders all around the world. It's part of a new Yahoo! campaign, "start wearing purple".

It's fairly dry work, but it was an interesting project, plus the bikes are really sweet. Unfortunately, they only have one bike slated for Japan and it wasn't for me... poo. They already have a few deployed around the world, which you can check out at the official site. Lifehacker has also posted an excellent overview.You can also check out a video here.

They also did some cool after effects mojo and animated some of the exploded views in this video.

Art Below Tokyo

2008-09-05T06:04:38+00:00

The show just closed this week, but it was on the Ginza patform of Shibuya station, one of the busiest transit points anywhere in the world. Art Below has been buying ad space for art for the past few years in London (where it started) and this was their first foray into Tokyo. I was really pleased to part of the inuagural show.

For the show I decided to show something from my NaniBird series. Well not so much from the series, but part of the same universe, the same mythology.

Besides the at show art below website, the show also got picked up by a lot of local media. It was a pretty great experience. Poster of all the work are available at the art below site. I'm also selling copies of mine here.

I also made a (very) little movie about it.

For RobD

2008-06-23T21:34:09+00:00

Don't get too angry. This is what happens when you do.

Done for SELF magazine.

Don't Panic

2008-06-23T04:49:07+00:00

Here's some illos I did recently for a men's health/fashion/lifestyle magazine. The do's and dont's of first-aid.

How Tweet it is

2008-06-16T13:45:04+00:00

Batch Two of my NaniBird series of free papertoys has just hatched, with over 25 designs contributed by talented designers and artists from all around the world. Please visit and download some for fun.

Batch Three is wide open so if you'd like to participate, just let me know!

Asian ambient

2008-04-28T00:37:54+00:00

Heres some artwork I did recently for a CD of ambient sound effects from various cities around Asia. It's intended primarily for use by sound and film studios and not really the casual listener. The brief was pretty much wide open, the only request being to make sure it depicted urban sounds and not the stereotypical rice paddies and water buffalo imagery one might associate with the idea of "Asian".

Actually, the label head did request that I put a mole by the corner of the woman's eye as he thought she looked a little like his wife and wanted to surprise her. Sweet, I thought.

I pitched a few ideas during the sketch phase...

A mechanical/organic lotus with speakers set into the bud and various skyscrapers plugging in like audio jacks.

A street scene with speakers set into lanterns and boom mikes coming off utility poles, which here in Japan at least, are everywhere (the poles that is) and crowded with all kinds of wires and gizmos. The skyline is an amalgam of various buildings from across Asia.

And the one closest to the final, with a few changes.

Heavy Petting

2008-03-10T01:58:19+00:00

About a year ago, I did the illustration and type work for a title sequence of a small, indie romcom (romantic comedy, dontcha know... ^__^) called "Heavy Petting", about a man, the woman he loves and the dog that stands between them. I didn't do any of the actual animation, I just provided the boards that then got brought to life in After Effects. The film was stuck in distribution limbo for well over a year, but now it's finally making it's way around the festival circuit. It's really fun to see a drawing come to life. Makes me want to learn After Effects for myself.. along with the gazillion other things I'd like to do.

Thanks Rob!

2008-03-01T00:45:23+00:00

Inspired by Robd's submission to the Salomon board contest I decided to throw in a couple of my own. It's a tough shape to design in, but it was a fun challenge.

NaniBird flying!

2008-02-20T11:16:42+00:00

Nanibird, my new site for free paper birds, has launched with 15 new designs from some very talented folk, including from 2 fellow drawgers: Linzie and Robd. Thanks guys!

Please check it out!

Fortune China

2008-02-04T00:47:27+00:00

I recently did this cover for the Chinese edition of Fortune magazine. It's for their "‘Chinese Executive Health Survey in China", the focus for the image being keeping a good life/work balance. It went through allot(!!) of revisions, during which the AD demonstrator HER chops with Adobe Illustrator... very stressful. The final image may be a bit cheesy, but I'm still psyched to have a cover that something like a gazillion people will see.

Re-Kindled

2008-01-28T03:40:23+00:00

I did something recently for the tech section of a men's magazine about a new "e-reader" from Amazon called the Kindle. Apparently, you can download newspapers and books to read on the thing over it's always on free wi-fi (provided of course, you're subscribed to the papers or have bought the book).

The AD asked me to incorporate a product shot of the thing in a crowded subway scene, the idea being the Kindle wins out over the paper versions because of it's small size and one thumb reading. I'm not too sure about the thing (I can see it putting allot of book designers out of business...) but I suppose I should reserve judgment until (or if) I actually handle it.

After the initial sketch round the AD asked me to incorporate some tone into the illo... maybe I went a bit overboard. In any case, the final version is a much more pared down affair. Not sure which one reads better...? But I'm kind of partial to the filled out one.

Deep Breaths

2008-01-24T01:53:57+00:00

Here's something I did recently for Family Circle. It's a "how to" for using an asthma inhaler. Thanks go to the AD, Lisa Kelsey, for letting me get pretty with something that could have been very dry. No, no pun intended.

Typhoon Nakamura

2008-01-22T02:26:06+00:00

Here's a poster I recently did for some friends, the kick-ass musical burlesque duo of Satoko Nakamura and Cherry Typhoon. Satoko is a fantastic singer and musician and Cherry is large, in charge and allot of fun to watch. Doing research for a gig was never this much fun.

Yahoo cafes in Vietnam

2008-01-14T03:30:59+00:00

A few months ago, I had a really fun but challenging gig... doing a mural for a chain of Yahoo internet cafes that were opening up in different cities across Vietnam. It was fun because I had a fair amount of creative freedom (initially the only 2 requests were that the Yahoo logo be included somewhere, anywhere really and that I incorporate lot's of scooters into the piece... more about that later) and challenging because I had less than a week to go from sketch to final. The challenge was in working so large... in one case the mural was about 12 ft wide by 10 ft tall. How much detail to include or discard when working so large? I can get a little crazy about depicting machinery... I just love all the nuts and bolts and especially when working so large, the temptation is to include every one. But there's only so much MORCRON 2000 (a KICKASS energy drink they sell here in Japan) one can safely ingest in a week period.

The scooter request came because in Vietnam, it seems that everyone drives one. So with the mural, the idea was incorporate various cafe activities with the scooters... reading, chatting, eating.

The whole gig went pretty smoothly, except for a few requests that came in from the Vietnamese staff involved in the project. One was to remove sunglasses from the main female figure, the objection being that it made her look blind. Another was to alter one figure from a squatting position to a seated one (they thought it looked too, uhm, "excretory")... which was really kind of weird to me since, at least here in Japan, folks squat all the time and no one thinks it's a prelude to doing the number dos. Put it down to cultural difference...

But the one change request that was kind of disappointing and troubling was to remove all the "foreign" landmarks and buildings that I had initially included on the various islands around the main scene. It was my way of showing the wired world. The Vietnamese staff thought it would be too confrontational for the Communist authorities in charge.

But it was still a great gig. My only regret was that I didn't get to actually GO to Vietnam to do it. It was all done and delivered digitally. It was printed out like a giant sticker and affixed to about 6-7 cafe walls across the country. Here's a couple of shot's taken by Jason Anello, the creative director, or more accurately, the "ideaologist" over at Yahoo who hooked me up.

PaperBirds in Singapore

2008-01-08T13:07:17+00:00

Cool little bit of news. My PaperBird project got some coverage in Home and Decor magazine, out of Singapore. Not sure how they found me. The blog-o-sphere at work I suppose. It's pretty wild considering I've only got 4 designs up there. But I'm hoping to add more....

Calling all Drawgers, let's get hatching! To get involved, go here and please just let me know if you do.

Thanks

Here's a detail of the one they ran (in case you didn't have your magnifying glass handy).

Tweet! Tweet! A Call for Drawgers!

2007-10-18T00:38:30+00:00

I've been playing around lately with some papercraft designs of birds. Using paper is a really fun, cheap, fast way of designing and making toys. I've got 4 designs done so far, but I'm looking forward to making more. I'm also hoping some of my fellow Drawgers might be so inclined to take a crack at it....

I'm giving them all away, for free, at my site, here. Please take a look, download a few for fun and if you'd like to participate, just let me know. I've designed the bird so that I think (hope?) it'll be a really good "platform" for people to have fun designing their own. I'd like to post the new designs on the PaperBird site (if your cool with it, of course) for everyone to be able to download, make and play with for free.

Tweet!

New Nukes

2007-09-27T07:39:22+00:00

I just finished up a job for a digital lifestyle magazine that is the opposite of "Tired"... oops have I said too much? Lawyers, stop reading now please. OK....?

It was for a short article on new means of nuke detection in the "Age Of Terror", or as Bush and Orwell would have it, the "Eternal War" (paraphrasing here). The Ad wanted me to address the overall theme but still include some of the specific ways of detecting nukes mentioned in the piece. It was a fun gig and the AD really pushed me to get, in his words, "hurty" with the color.

I started out with a fairly conventional color palette for the first round.

Went pretty far out for my second go. I actually didn't submit this one as I thought it kind of well... sucked. Too garish.

I dialed it back for the second submission and while the palette was better it just wasn't "hurty" enough yet.

For the third go, I increased the size of the "bloom", the explosion pattern in the back, and switched the colors so it was going from light in the center to dark at the edges. I played more with the transparency of elements playing off solid blocks of color. We had a winner.

Some details.

will.i.am.

2007-09-10T08:37:00+00:00

I recently did a job for VIBE magazine for a profile they were doing on will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas that also talked about the future of digital music distribution. The nut of the article was about how in the future (like, tomorrow) consumers of music can also be co-producers of it and how will.i.am plans to release a full album as well as tracks specifically made for remixing. Nothing new there, but he plans to release it in some kind of internet player that will add revenue to both consumer and artist everytime the re-mixed tracks get played. Or something like that...

I approached the digital distribution side of it by basically making will.i.am up from his fans... I created a repeating pattern of musicians, hip-hop and otherwise that runs throughout the opener illo and the following ones in the article.

Pop, pop, fizz, fizz

2007-09-05T07:26:37+00:00

It's been a couple of months since I posted, but hey, it was the summer and any chance I had to escape from the confines of the screen and studio... I was gone. It was a hot, sweaty, sticky summer here in Japan and maybe, just maybe it's starting to break now. A line of typhoons are moving through (what they call hurricanes on this side of the globe) soaking everything, but hopefully cooling things down when they're all done. In any case...
I did another piece for Penthouse about a month ago, this one being about new products on the market to help delay premature ejaculation in men. Y' know, of course, not really knowing what those words even MEAN.... it has something to do with voting and elections, right? The champagne bottle metaphor was requested by the AD.

I had fun sketching this one out and was pretty pleased with it immediately upon finishing, but now I'm not too sure... feels like there's a whole lot of 80's going on, kind of like an homage to Nagel. I like it but is it corny?

Here's some of the sketches.

LOUD

2007-07-05T12:10:11+00:00

Did something recently for TimeOut NY. For about an article about noise pollution in the city and how actually, much of it is a result of nightlife. The article pits the needs of schoolkids versus the need to freak.

Now that I'm a Dad and all I should probably side with the kids but TONY is for the freaks after all.

Happy Freak Out

2007-07-04T14:32:48+00:00

Klezmer meets hip-hop meets full-on freak out... Happy Freak Out Day.

Sex Pills

2007-07-02T00:40:56+00:00

I recently finished a job for Penthouse magazine on a new class of sex pills for women, kind of like female Viagra. I had kind of forgotten that Penthouse even existed anymore. I mean, who goes to the newstand when the interwebs provide such a ready source for your "needs"?

Doing this illo for them is kind of a "full-circle" thing though.... My first gig as a magazine graphic designer was for Penthouse. One for which I was completely unqualified for. I was in way over my head, having never actually designed a single magazine page up until that point. It was a combination of nepotism and a willing AD that got me in the door. One of the first layouts that I did with the training wheels taken off was for, well, sex pills. It's amazing how compelling the idea of easy arousal in pill form continues to be.

While I was at Penthouse though (late '90s) the magazine took, in what turned out to be a disastrous business move (along with many others... hello? Penthouse Cologne anyone?), a hard turn towards explicit pornography. Penthouse had always been the racier sister publication to Playboy but it had really taken a turn toward outright porn. Meanwhile "lad mags" like Maxim and FHM were racing up the circulation charts.

So it was a very pleasant surprise when one of the current AD's sent me a few issues to check out before taking on the job. It's looking really good these days... well designed, sharp writing, less adolescent than Maxim and bottomless as well. They even had Terry Richardson do a centerfold shoot. Smart but dirty.

But yeah, it ain't no internet.

Future meetings

2007-06-22T08:31:09+00:00

I just recently finished a couple of illos for a trade publication about how technology will change the way conventions will be held, as well as how meetings are planned.... "intelligent carpets", advanced GPS and holographic cell phone displays. Real sci-fi stuff, I had fun with it. This first one is meant to show some of these technologies in action.

The second one is a bit more conceptual... something about how "cross-functional" planning will be necessary as organizations get more and more globalized. I'm not really sure what it's all about but I picked up on a mention of "octopus-like" in the copy. Here's my take on it.

And yes, in the future you'll only need a mouth. Ain't evolution grand?

More pee pee silliness

2007-06-20T22:31:25+00:00

I posted once before about some of the amusing material we receive for our baby girl, Nico but the toilet stuff is the best. Here's a little clip about how everyones favorite tiger mascot, Shima Jiro takes a leak. Well in toy form at least. Oshiko Peton!!!!

Shi! Shi! Shi!

The best all female klezmer band in Japan

2007-06-13T11:51:23+00:00

...OK, perhaps the ONLY all female klezmer band in Japan. They're friends of a friend, but they RAWK! They're called Inouratomoe (say that 3 times fast, or really even once...) The song above is "Ichibameiro" or "Market Maze" and the one below is "Uchukazoku" or "Space Family". Enjoy!

Cupholder Cuisine

2007-06-11T12:18:58+00:00

This just came out over the weekend in West, the magazine of the L.A. Times. It's for a story about the ever expanding range of products you can stuff in your pie hole while stuck on the 405. It was a really fun gig. The brief was pretty wide open. Heidi Vople, the AD, basically just asked that I make it "slick but nasty", a product that seems like it might actually get made. I came up with Spaghetti and Meatballs 2 Go. I was considering Pizza in a Cup, but this just seemed way nastier... sucking meatballs out of a wide mouthed bendy straw. Yum.

How to: Poker

2007-06-08T02:20:51+00:00

Just finished a "how to" for a men's magazine (unnamed 'cause this thing isn't in print yet) on how to crush the world with mighty poker skills. Had fun on this one.

Festa Addendum

2007-06-07T12:34:28+00:00

If you find yourself overwhelmed by boredom, malaise or general turpitude you might find some small amusement from an interview I gave at last weekend's Design Festa in Tokyo. Either that or cutting just isn't satisfying your masochistic impulses fully enough.

The rest of the webcast (which is far more interesting) can be found here.

Design Festa

2007-05-28T11:47:16+00:00

So, I did the Design Festa this past weekend in Tokyo. And while it certainly wasn't a money making affair (which I suspected would be the case from the start) it was allot of fun. Enough that I think I'll do it again, provided I make a few changes to what I show...

While I only sold a few of the "nani" bird paintings (out of the hundred(!) I brought.... only half were ever on display) I did quite well on the postcards and buttons. I brought a couple hundred of each and they went quite briskly. While most folks seemed to get a kick out of the paintings (lots of smiles and exclamations of "kawaiii!" or "cute" in Japanese) and I got allot of people lingering around the booth, it didn't generate into many sales... except for the smaller stuff. It's almost like the paintings were promotions for the "real" products, the postcards and buttons. I took an informal survey of a few other people showing and found it to be the case for most of them. In fact, allot of folks just painted or drew directly on the walls of their booths and sold a bunch of smaller products.

Of course many of the exhibitors were just purely showing product. There were allot of excellent t-shirts and other fashion items on offer.

There were also displays of less tangible talents, like traditional music and dance on the main stage as well as an outdoor stage for what seemed like a whole lot of Japanese Death Metal. Sorry, no pics of that...

As well as a fair number of folk whose purpose at being there remain a mystery.

Yes, I'm much happier now, thanks for asking. You crazy horsey you.

Many of the attendees were just as , if not more creative than, the exhibitors. Lots and lots of cosplay going on. Made for a very good show...

There was also quite a number of folks seemingly willing to work out some pretty deep seated issues in public... not sure I need to know.

There was also some really lovely traditional arts on display. But even traditional shrine makers can have some fun... if you look closely there's some wooden robots at the front of the display.

There were some updates of other "traditional" art forms... like these big-eyed kids. Kind of like a latter day Walter Keane.

But of course, there was a fair amount of kick ass work as well. Like these from otoshimono, better known as Andrea Innocent, an illustrator from Australia. I came across her stuff at last years Design Festa and was really pleased to see that she was showing again.

But of course every arts festival needs a good old fashioned freak out. This time it's courtesy of Tokyo Circus.

So, Design Festa was allot of fun. Yup, I think I'll be doing it again.

100 little questions

2007-05-24T01:39:03+00:00

I mentioned in my last post that I was trying to get ready for a show at the end of the month. Well, I finally finished painting/collaging my last one of 100 birds all asking the same question.... "nani?", or "what?" in Japanese.

The number 100 has no special significance, it's just a goal I set for myself. Something to get my away from the screen and back to non-digital means. The birds are actually cut out from a kind of sticky backed velvet whose original purpose I have no idea of. But it makes for the most awesome, absolute black. It just sucks up all the light. The ? bubbles are done in flat gouache and the lines were drawn with this really cool brush pen they sell here.

I did these for a show I'll be participating in this weekend called Design Festa. It's a huge event held twice a year with hundreds of people showing all sorts of things. They'll be everything from graphic designers, t-shirt makers, painters, sculptors, toy makers, fashion folk, live bands, dancers... it's a real stew. I'm not sure if there's anything analogous to it back in the States. It is basically just a vanity show where anyone can exhibit if they pony up the entrance fee. But I'm not looking to make a profit from it, it's mostly just for fun, a way to meet and greet. At my site you can see the rest of the birds, as well as some postcards and buttons. Whatever's left after the show I'll be giving away.

Not quite dead....

2007-05-08T02:04:52+00:00

geez, my last post was March 16th... well work, family (and family visits), the sun, all are very good distractions. Also, I've been getting ready for a show at the end of May, where I'll be showing 100 paintings (gulp!). But more on that in the next post.

Here's a cover i did for Forbes a few weeks back. It was really a dream assignment... I was given a very loose brief, went through only one round of very minor revisions and best of all, I got to play with patterns.

My style has been changing a bit lately, or loosening up maybe. I'm trying to get more and more pattern and color into my stuff. Here's part of a package I did for Outside magazine, a feature about maintaining healthy vision. It's the opener image showing the anatomy of the eye. I wanted to keep it easily understandable as an infographic, but give it visual interest as well.

Smaller illustrations for the rest of the feature kept the same kind of style. These are about some common eye injuries and where really fun to do.

When I can, I've also tried to shake up some more traditional forms of infographic, like this flow chart I did for a Fast Company article on a new kind of "virtual closet" service for frequent business travelers.

It's fun when I can get away with it.

Doing the Remix

2007-03-16T06:06:24+00:00

A few weeks back I got an interesting inquiry from an AD based in Hong Kong with the Chinese edition of Fortune. She wanted a "remix" of one of my old pieces for her cover. She had gone through my portfolio and had cherry picked elements from various illustrations she wanted to use. She had even mocked up a fairly tight version in photoshop.

The fee she was offering was waaaaay less than what I would ordinarily accept, but she was also asking for less than half the work. Because of how I work, my stuff is fairly modular and can be reworked fairly easily. I've re-used parts of illos before but this was the first time I've ever been explicitly asked to do so. It felt kind of weird.

Here's the original main image for comparison. Actually the hardest part was altering the guy to look more Asian, as per the AD's request. I wasn't sure how far to take it and avoid stereotyping. I think it came out OK.

I wasn't sure about the ethics (ethics? professional standards? ...not sure what) of the job. Is it stock, is it an original, does it matter? Should I even care? I'm not too bothered by it, but I'm wondering if any other Drawgers have had a similar experience.

Paper or Plastic...?

2007-01-24T02:23:51+00:00

Well, not really plastic but I couldn't really think of a pithy alternative to "digital"...

I'm getting in gear (slowly) to revamp my website, which for all intents and purposes, IS my portfolio. As part of the prep process I've started to take shots of my tearsheets. Which has led me to 2 thoughts: first, if I'm gonna continue with this I really need a better photoshoot set-up and secondly, is it really the way to go?

The one advantage of a physical portfolio is that the tearsheets within act as a kind of physical "proof" of jobs completed. Also, since 99.9% of my gigs are editorial, they allow AD's to see my work in the context of the printed page. Which hopefully, will let them visualize my work on THEIR printed page.

But is it really necessary?

This is a cover I did not too long ago for Junior Scholastic, a news magazine aimed at kids and tweens. Does the image gain anything from being seen in a printed form? Even if my photo set-up was better and the colors truer to the digital original (is that an oxymoron right there?), still in the printing process the colors go all kerflooey anyhow.

In this job for LA magazine, I think it's a toss-up.

But in this infographic for Runner's World it definitely looks better in context.

And in the case of spots, it definitely seems to work better.

But then, how does one consistently approach it? Should ALL work be presented this way? Would it make the website look sloppy if it was a hodgepodge approach. Is it better just to showcase the work itself, independent of the commission?

I appeal to the Drawger collective for guidance.

How to Poo

2007-01-19T04:23:38+00:00

A company here called Benesse puts out series of instructional/educational materials for kids, basically starting from birth up through elementary school age. We've been subscribing (they send out items on a monthly basis) to it since Nico was born and the products are generally excellent, very age appropriate, very tactile and interactive; she seems to love them. When Nico turned 1 year old they starting introducing the brand mascot, Shimajiro, a little boy tiger, and his family.

We've also received a bunch of toys from friends who already have kids, some older than Nico. Including some Shimajiro material for kids around 3-4. Which brings me to this gem... the Shimajiro toilet training supplement.

Seated on the throne is lil' Shimajiro, trying his darndest to push his business through. At the top of the page is the lyrics for a sing-along to help cheer him on (rough translation is "poo, poo, gonna push it out").

Success! Business 1 and 2 successfully completed. The publishers even include a little poo-man sticker to mark the effort. There's a pee one too, but we seem to have lost that one.

Now all this blew me away, but it's nothing compared to what you get on the DVD. Check it out below:

I'm kinda digging Japan even more now.

hmm... can't seem to get YouTube embedded correctly. Anyone got any advice?

Celebrity Gossip

2007-01-16T08:31:43+00:00

A little before the New Year I did a few illos for one of the weekly news magazines that was protoyping redesigns for their gossip page. The first one was for when Jessica Simpson flubbed her tribute to Dolly Parton and ran crying from the stage.

The second one was for when Nicole Richie got pulled over for a DUI and when she was weighed in at the station, barely topped out at 85 lbs. thus fueling even more speculation on her poor dietary habits.

I can see that there's been allot of interest lately here at Drawger in likenesses... luckily if these ever ran they'd run so small as to make a definitive ID pretty tough anyhow. Thankfully.

I've never felt too confident of my skill in that area.

But as these things go, the redesign has probably dropped by the wayside and I'm off the hook.

Escape from Brooklyn

2007-01-16T08:12:01+00:00

A few months back an old editor acquaintance from my art directing days at The Source (a hip-hop mag) asked me if I'd like to contribute an interview to an article he was doing on ex-pats and why they've decided to leave the Homeland. It was for the NYPress, and while I've never held that particular paper in very high regard, it was more or less a free promotional opportunity and I had carte blanche on the imagery. I only had a turnaround time of a day and a half, but being 14 hours ahead of East Coast (is that properly capitalized?) time does sometime have it's advantages.

If so inclined, you can read the article here.

I'm back...

2007-01-16T08:01:40+00:00

So, after a prolooooonged absence, I sneak back in here, hat in hand. Now that our baby girl, Nico is old enough to entertain herself for slightly longer than the time it takes to turn around (but not much more...) and now that I'm on the mend from some nasty knee surgeries (I won't bore you with the details, suffice it to say, luckily I had a spare on hand for the part they dropped... no, really they dropped it. On the floor...!) I promise to be a good blogger.

Or at least to try harder.

More later. No really.

Pitagora Suwichi

2006-04-08T01:51:48+00:00

This is not really illustration related, but it's just too cool not to share. Here's some incredible video of just some of the fantastic "rube goldberg" machines that play everyday on "Pitagora Suwichi" (Pythagoras Switch), one of my favorite kid's TV shows here in Japan.

New illo

2006-04-06T12:16:09+00:00

Just finished up a small illo about a new type of elevator being developed in Japan by Hitachi. It's based on the idea of a merry-go-round.... more cars are available in the same space that would normally be taken up by just 2. The cars themselves don't move any faster, but because there are more available at any given time, the whole system transports people quicker.

This is actually my favorite kind of assignment, where I get to combine factual information with decorative picture making. Also, I got away with putting in the little samurai and geisha.

Channel Frederator

2006-03-29T12:04:29+00:00

This may be old news to everyone, but Channel Frederator has been releasing weekly episode (up to week 23 now) of some outstanding animation. You can either subscribe to the (video) podcast or just watch the 'toons online.

This week they've got a new animation from Tim Biskup.

Tuesdays are the new Saturday morning.

I feel so "adjectivied"...

2006-03-29T11:42:08+00:00

Because I'm either completely self-obsessed or paranoid, (probably both) or just like seeing every bit of tangetial reference to myself that the magic of Google can bring... I have a daily Google alert setup running for the terms, "mckibillo" or "Josh McKible ".

Well, this one came across my inbox the other day. If you scroll down to the comments section, cleanupdottk sites me as a reference, as in, the work in question is "very Josh McKible".

I'm really flattered and a bit shocked to be sited as a precedent.

BTW, among all of the adolescent dross, some of the work at the deviantART site is very impressive.

Too pretty

2006-03-26T05:47:23+00:00

I recently finished a small job for Business 2.0, a 1/4 illustration about "pharming", or the pratice of using gene modded crops to produce pharmaceuticals. Lately, I've been trying to get more color and pattern into my work, maybe it's the Japanese influence... or maybe I've just been feeling "purty". In any case, the first go I submitted looked like this.

The AD emailed me back and politely suggested that the image was, "pretty.. perhaps too pretty" and that the idea of the article was geting lost. So I simplified it, increase the visual contrast, etc. Everything was then copacetic with the AD.

I initially liked both version, but having to go back into it and clarify and simplify things maybe produced the better result. I still want to push my work in a more decorative direction, but maybe this was a case of wrong place, wrong time. I like the cleanliness of vector, but lately I've been wanting more texture in my work.

SPD win

2006-03-23T12:43:10+00:00

I recently found out that several illustrations that I submitted for the SPD 41st annual won in the "entire story" category, "merit" division. Above is the opening image that ran with the article, the subject of which was, mental doping... or as the headline put it, "Will Drugs Make Us Happier and Smarter?" .

This is actually the second time I've made it in (as it turns out, in the exact same category and division) , the first time being in the 39th annual. I'm still enough of a newbie to get excited about this... and the calls did seem to increase a bit after the last annual was published. Do these kinds of awards really make that much of an impression? Has it been anyone else's experience that a win translates into more work?

Hi there

2006-03-22T12:09:32+00:00

OK, well here we go... and thanks to Steve over at the House O' Wax for turning me onto this litttle community. There's allot of folk already here whose work I greatly admire and have for quite some time.

I'm a relative newbie to illustration, having only started doing it professionally in 2002. So far, so good... (sound of hand knocking on head). Before doing illustration I was working on the other side of the hiring divide... I was a magazine AD for a number of years. I've since learned the error of my ways.

About this blogging thing, I've already got a personal blog that I started when we first moved to Japan; mostly just as a way to keep folks back home updated on our life here and as a way for me to record my impressions of it. I would also occasionally post about work matters, but with the birth of our daughter that blog got quickly subsumed to all things baby related. So I'm hoping to have this place for the other stuff.

Anyhow, more as I go along...