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UTLTRN for a special day…

I am tired of riffling through the greeting card section at the local supermarkets to find just the right card for the occasion. You know, one that says I know you, but not enough to think of my own special greeting. This year I resolved to make my own greeting cards. It just makes more sense. They are more personal, more interesting and say exactly what I want. Here are some cards I made recently for friends and family. I am currently working on a linocut holiday card. I will post it when it’s finished.

dad_card

(Birthday card for my dad, front)

derrick_card

(Friend’s card front)

justin_card

(Brother’s card open. Shirt coming soon.)
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Create and Destroy

Here is some 80’s Thrasher throwback tag knockoff shizzel I drew with the calligraphy brushes on Illustrator. Maybe it will become a t-shirt. It’s up to you…

Create_Destroy

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Mountain Women’s Resource Center

Here are some posters I was commissioned for the local women’s support group. The first is an awareness flier and the second is a typographic illustration for a birthday gift.

mwrc

60_love_liz

Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you think you need it Contact them here.

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Sameness

Have you ever noticed the hundreds of different t-shirt companies out there that have designs that look the same? You know the shirts with off center skulls and wings? Maybe with a banner and some grunge type? Some ink splats and revolvers? It was pretty neat the first couple of times I saw it, but now it is mundane and obnoxious. The saturation of these images in today’s market is insulting.

I attended Las Vegas’ Fashion and Apparel trade show known as MAGIC earlier this year and counted a couple dozen booths with disgustingly similar, clip art covered shirts. I never understood how one booth was supposed to convince a buyer that their skull design was better than the next guy’s (Yeah, yeah I know I posted a skull t-shirt design earlier, but was created for a purpose and statement. It was satirical numb nuts). In recent web expeditions I discovered a cornucopia of sites that offer clip art packages. They sell sets of the same skulls, wings and Victorian flourishes to every Tom, Dick and Asshole who insists on calling themselves a “designer.” Where the fuck is the creativity and originality‽

I never understood how one booth was supposed to convince a buyer that their skull design was better than the next guy’s… Color pallets, imagery and composition are separate parts of an image/design.


I do not believe that designers must also be illustrators, photographers and copywriters. Your work will stand out and you will be a greater asset if your versatile, but they are separate job titles for a reason. Just do us all a favor and don’t simply regurgitate the first shirt you see in Hot Topic. It usually takes me a good year or so to get tired of a look, but these days the teeny-boppers and their expendable income go through attention whore fashion trends in a matter of months. As soon as they see one shitty dresser on MTV they go and try their best to become a carbon copy. That is not being creative and “showing your true colors”; it is showing how well you can be a fucking tool.

I understand that it is our job to be on top of the latest trends, but that DOES NOT mean that we must copy them. Color pallets, imagery and composition are separate parts of an image/design. They can be manipulated to reflect the popular styles without being completely unoriginal. Your clients want you to recreate looks they have seen in other collections so that there product moves better. It is your job to keep from plagiarizing the competition still making sales. Do your best to create something with the same essence as the referenced product while keeping it as different as possible. If not for yourself and your portfolio, do it for me, the viewer. I am tired of seeing the same tired shit over and over again.

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Support or Die

support

sod_shirts

This is my latest line of shirts. Over the summer I volunteered a lot of time to my local Arts Council and our Foothill Farmlands Arts Festival and I designed these shirts with our struggling arts community in mind. I designed and printed them all myself right here in ol’ Tuolumne County. They are a very limited run (especially the yellow ones) and are going fast. If you want to snatch one while they’re still available email me at tuo_cou@yahoo.com with the size and color you want along with your address and I will let you know what’s available. They are $20 a piece.

Here is an image created by friend & satisfied customer April:

april_support

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Artist Survey #5: TaVon Sampson

TaVon is an art director at Island Def Jam Music Group along with my friend Todd Russell. Check your local music store for some of his work.

malcom_x_drawing

(Malcom X : Graphite)

pckg_beaniesigel_pckg

(Beanie Siegel CD Packaging)

pckg_usda_pckg

(USDA CD Packaging)

cvr_nas_cvr_nologo_w_pa

(NAS CD Concept)

Name: TaVon Sampson

Location: MANHATTAN (Keeps on makin’ it) / BROOKLYN (Keeps on Takin’ it)

Medium(s): Pencil & Graphic Design

What do you consider yourself (artist/designer/other)? Artist & Designer

Where can we see your work (place/publications/url)? At a Record store Near You, magazines Billboards.

When did you start gaining interest in artistic forms of expression? Since Birth as far as I know…I think I was drawing inside the walls of the womb…lol

Who/What inspired your interest? Nobody really but myself…I always liked to see what I create because it always amazes me in the end. Im my biggest fan.

Where do you first remember being exposed to art? When I first picked up a pencil…I used to draw all of these comic books and send them to my uncle every week when I was like 4 or 5 years old and ask him if I gotten better since the last week

What is your day job? Art Director/ Graphic Designer

Why do you create? Self Satisfaction, I love to see what Im going to do next, adding another piece onto the collection…Love to show the world how my brain works visually.

Is there any recurring theme in your work? No theme, except for the fact that I try to create something better each time.

What do you want from your work? I want to look at it and get goosebumps…if I don’t look at it and say damn that’s that shit right there….I don’t ever want to look at it again.

What do you want viewers to take from your work? I want them to want to meet the person behind the visual and to appreciate the talent.

How often do you work on personal projects? Every single second I’m breathing.

How often do you work on commissions or commercial work? Every day.

Does your art support you financially? Yes it does.

Do you feel preoccupied with your art, do you think about it often during the day and night and do you anticipate your next session? Yeah pretty much…Since its my job and my natural talent & hobby…I’m always doing art and during the day and night, so the only time I am thinking about it is when I am dreaming.

What do you do in your spare time besides your art? Research and figure out a way to take it to the next level, I try to make business contacts and look at other art for inspiration…never did that as I child but Now that I have matured I see the importance…and also hang out with my family and my lady.

Which musicians are you currently interested in? The list goes on…but…Marvin Gaye and Nas when I’m in creative mode.

Are there any events you are looking forward to attending? Yes, My future Grammy acceptance…lol ( Hasn’t happened yet)

How long do you generally take on a piece? Personal project – no time limit, I have an idea I’ve been developing for 14 years. Commercial piece…from the time given to the deadline.

Have you jeopardized or risked the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of your art? No not really everything I’ve been around has always dealing with art, I’ve gained a lot of relationships through it honestly, people really appreciate the talent. Only thing I lose is sleep.

Do you work on multiple projects at once? Yes all of the time, I really don’t like to work that way though.

Do you have trouble parting with your finished work? Yeah all of the time, it feels like I’m giving someone an undiscovered organ in my body. Its like your child. When you get a canvas or a blank document its an empty placenta…then throughout your art process It’s the last thing I look at before I go to sleep and the first thing I look at when I wake up…you work on it and work on it working to improve it to be the closest to perfect as you can, like raising a child. Once you finish and you sell it to the customer, its like sending your kid off to college, you are so proud of what it as become since that blank piece of paper, screen or canvas.

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Propaganda

mojib

With it being National Election Day I feel that it is appropriate to bring the Mojib Revolution to your attention. Mojib Revolution is a guerrilla propaganda campaign started in the seedy underbelly of Long Beach by Team Euclid. They kidnapped me a couple years back and forced me at spork point to illustrate a portrait of their leader. I also did a follow-up piece.

sergeant_page

Here are their words:

It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming… The revolution will come, just you wait. And when it does all those capitalist pigdogs who subjugate the masses with their materialism and false idols will feel the brunt of all that is Mojib.

Look for the signs of a Mojib Patriot in a dark alley near you.

mojib_gondola

Join the Revolution?

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Communication

I believe that communication is the most important factor in every aspect of human life, you need to when you are in the field of visual communications. It is my job to communicate a message, emotion or point of view to the unsuspecting viewer. When it comes to commissioned work, without proper communication you are wasting your time and someone’s money (hopefully not yours). I believe that it is exceedingly important to sit down face to face (not over the phone, IM or email) with your client and discuss every fathomable aspect of a project, weather it be an illustration, lobby art or brochure layout.

I have recently determined that my communication skills have been lacking. I put too much trust in my clients and expect them to tell me what they want out of a project. Silly me. I do not ask the obvious questions early on and end up going over trivial aspects of a design that could have been cleared up with one conversation in the beginning. Do not expect your clients to know what they want. They don’t fucking know! They only know what they don’t like after they see it, after you spend several hours on dozens of comps to get the piece you are showing them. I fucking hate it, so now I try to concentrate on my communication skills. I am building a list of questions that I know I must ask my current employer on nearly every task. I do this because I have no idea what she is thinking or why she wants what she is asking for. Of course I only know this because I have been working in house since January.

Maybe once every couple years you get someone who knows exactly what they want and you get a paycheck without struggle. Maybe. Or hopefully you are being hired because your client has actually looked through your portfolio and appreciates your style. They trust your vision and enjoy what you do, not your career title. The majority of the jobs I have done were because a client heard that I am a graphic designer, not because my work jumped out at them.

A couple years back I was working for a scholastic products company doing page layout for educational book series’. One book I worked on was about the life of Siddhartha the original Buddha. Every other spread was to have a background color to break up the monotony of white pages and keep the little ones visually satisfied. Being a man who enjoys historical accuracy, I researched the religion and chose colors that were symbolic to Buddhists and reflected the events in Buddha’s life. When showing the first version to my boss she said that the colors “weren’t cute enough.” Not fucking cute enough! You better give me a better god damn reason to go back and change all of the colors than their cuteness factor! If she would have told me to stick to colors of previous collections or gave me a list of appropriately “cute” colors I would not have minded so much, but to tell me after I bothered to put the time and thought into generating a historically appropriate color pallet just pissed me off. After that I just regurgitated the “cute” colors from previous spreads and went numb to the idea of deeper thought on the projects that were ahead of me. She was satisfied, but I wasn’t. As you can imagine it made for a really exciting 9-to-5.

Seemingly little things like this happened on nearly every new project I started with that company. I wouldn’t be properly brought up to speed on the old books and ended up rearranging layouts and color schemes several times on the new ones. A five minute conversation that consisted with a reference to previous books would have cleared it all up. Make science books predominantly blue, history only uses earth tones (heaven forbid I throw some lime green into the radiation issue), all math books need to be formatted like the old ones. If you tell me your rules I can follow them! Communi-fucking-cation! So again I beg you to ask the obvious questions when you are starting out just to make sure that you aren’t going to waste your time.

As some movie once told me: “There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.” Of course that doesn’t mean that the stupid one is the person who has to ask the questions.

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Wish I was There

Every once in a while I hear about an event that seems as if it were ment just for me. In this case I am talking about the Feast Your Eyes art show in none other that beautiful Portland, OR! It was an art show that featured:

mountains of Heavy Metal-inspired works of art in all variety of mediums from some of the most talented illustrators and poster artists around.

Meaning these humans:

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I stumbled upon it! A heavy metal based art show in a city that I have been wanting to visit for years! Of course I couldn’t go seeing as have a job, and bills, and family and other obligations to attend to. Stupid life. You may be wondering why I am even bothering posting about a show that has already ended and I didn’t attend‽ Well I am marking next years calendar in advance and keeping my ears open for the much needed second coming of this magnificant show. I wish someone else had notified me well ahead of time, so consider this your first notification. Once I find out the next showing I will mark it on my Calendar page, so stay tuned.