Joannah Ralston of Insight Design commissioned me for a full pager and two spots for Milken Review. The job was in glorious black and white. I love the challenge of a limited palette assignment; it focuses my design chops.

The article is about the state of upward mobility in the USA. The myth is that if you work hard and are the best you will raise your economic status. The reality is that social class, education, and current economic realities are causing fewer and fewer opportunities for the underclass to improve their status.

SURTEX and LICENSING 08

This year I will be exhibiting in two trade shows. Both shows are in New York and are only three weeks apart. Fortunately I only need to design one booth for both shows as both supply the same display system. At the Licensing O8 show I will be a near neighbor of Studio Espinosa! Hopefully the traffic goes by my booth first ;-)

The past year has seen steady growth of my licensing business. After six years of doing SURTEX, I am getting greater industry recognition and most important, a solid track record of strong sales to the general buying public (yes, they really love me!). The momentum is building. In addition to obtaining new customers,  I have decided to work with an excellent agent/product developer, Dan Cowherd. Dan brings many years experience in developing and managing the creative and business end of licensing. He will be an invaluable partner in furthering my licensing career.

I am collaborating with a group of talented artists to produce animation for commissioned work in the advertising, publishing, manufacturing, and educational industries. Under the moniker of RAGanimation, we offer full service animation with original writing, design, music, and sound capabilities. It is a fun thing to be involved in. The problem solving process is similar to illustration starting with sketches, refining through comments and critiques and continuing through tweaking the final product.

 The storyboards here are from our first promotion. Our first concept stuck with us: Animation Magic. It was then a matter of back and forth “How’s this?” until we all agreed on a specific story. At that time, my writer Robin Brecker finalized the script. I drew the characters and settings directly in FLASH. The characters are designed to make the animation motions as easy as possible (per strict instructions of my animator Alex Budofsky!). Stephen Coates develops the music soundtrack with the script and it is then handed off to the animator. Jason Votner finishes off with sound effects. Our geographical spread is from London to Seattle. God bless the web for effective collaborating!

I went to the opening of Ken Burns’ World War Two documentary called “The War” the other night in Waterbury Connecticut. My father and uncle are in some episodes and we got to see a preview of the fourteen hour series. Burns stated that there were two compelling reasons to get the documentary finished. One was the fact that one thousand WW2 veterans are dying everyday. Their stories are our national histories and heritage. The other reason was a statistic that frightened Burns. A sizable percentage of graduating high school seniors think that the US was allied with Germany to fight against the Russians. The teaching of history is being trashed at the risk of unimaginable consequences. Talk to your Fathers and Grandfathers. Ask them about their experiences. Get their stories so that their knowledge can live on. And teach your children well.

My uncle Raymond Leopold is in about four of the episodes. At 92 he did not forget one thing he experienced those many years ago. Unfortunately he died just last month but thank God Burn’s recorded his incredibly interesting and valuable story for history and for the rest of us.