Boldly into the Future!

For the last several year, I've made a holiday card to send out to our friends and family. Unfortunately, with the new arrival in the family, and a generally hectic schedule, things got away from me a little bit. So, this year we ended up sending out Happy New Year's cards. I guess, if nothing else, it's one way to have your cards stand apart from the crowd.

'09 Wine Label: Secret Cellars

As some of you no doubt know, in addition to illustration and design, I also make my own wine. Which, of course, means that I get to design the labels too. Some of my earlier labels are featured elsewhere on this blog and on my portfolio website. But, I thought I'd share this years label, for the 2009 Secret Cellars Syrah.



The "secret cellars" is a reference to the wine-making room that my dad and I have been building in the back of mine and Sarah's detached garage. It's still a work in progress, but we are happy with how its coming along. The owl is a plastic barn owl, which we've been using as our unofficial mascot since we started making wine in my dad's basement. The wood texture is from one of the walls of the room.

And, for good measure, here's a photo of the whole "family" featuring (from left to right): 2006 Round the World Red, 2007 Ranger Rick Red, 2008 Stella Rose's Stellar Red and the previously mentioned Secret Cellars.

Holiday Card 2010

This year (or, rather, last years) Holiday Card. Another family picture, based roughly on a photograph taken by my wife, Sarah... with her added in.

Happy Holiday's, everyone!

ORS 2010 Holiday Card

Client: Organizational Research Services
Description: Annual card created for the Seattle-based consulting company, Organizational Research Services. Each year, they provide me with a quote, and I create a card which incorporates that quote and a self-created image that ties together with it.

2009 card here.

"Combo #1" teaser image

The Bureau of Drawers is in the process of producing Combo #1, a "Happy Meal" box filled to the gills with mini-comics and other similar works of illustration. The above image is the cover to my submission, Doctor General Oswald P. Seawall's Book In Which Children May Color (If This Behavior Is To Be Their Inclination), which is sort of a coloring book that's run off its rails a bit.

I dropped it off at the printers (read: Kinkos) this morning, and I'm excited to see the final version. I'm even more excited to check out the other submissions by this talented group of Seattle-based illustrators.

If you are interested, keep your eyes peeled here and on the Bureau's blog too.

Volentine's Card

Client: Personal project
Description: A Valentine's Day card I made for my wife. Generally speaking, one wants to avoid creating cards that link rodents to the concept of love. But, my brain was fixated on the fact that "love" and "vole" were anagrams, so I figured why not run with it. The exterior of the card is above, the interior below.

Personal Holiday Card

Client: Personal Project
Description: This year's family Holiday card. Back after a one year hiatus. Featuring me, my wife and the newest addition (and reason for taking last year off): Stella!

ORS Holiday Card

Client: Organizational Research Services
Description: Design and illustrate a holiday card for Seattle-based Program Evalution firm, using a pre-chosen inspirational quote.

GCE Grant Map

Client The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Project Description: Informational graphic displaying the distribution of grants given out for the foundation's Grand Challenges Exploration initiative.

Patty Stonesifer Caricatures

Client: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Project Description: A pair of caricatures of departing CEO, Patty Stonesifer, for use at her going away party.

Happy Holidays 2007

Client: Personal
Project Description: The Happy Holiday's card I made for my wife and I to give out this year. I deliberately tried to do something a little different than wat I did the previous two years.

Quilt Pattern Clean Up (before and after)

Client: SuSun Designs
Project Description: The quilt pattern designer provided me with hand drawn diagrams laying out the overall arrangement and dimensions of her pattern. I was then tasked with cleaning up the designs, and reconstructing them in a vector format for the final pattern booklet.

Zumiez Couch Tour

Client: Zumiez
Project Description:
Working with a designer from Zumiez, and drawing upon the color scheme and designs of vintage postcards, we created a double page ad promoting the "Zumiez 2003 Couch Tour" - a tour of famous skateboarders and snowboarders that would visit six cities in the United States. This ad appeared in a number of major skateboarding and snowboarding magazines, and elements of it were translated into everything from T-shirts and visors to posters and ID badges.

In this project, I worked primarily as the illustrator, but also help with conceptualizing and layout.

Wedding Invites, Programs and Save the Day cards

Client: Personal
Project Description: One of the more pleasurable I've had the honor to work on was designing the Invitations, Programs and Save the Day cards for my wedding to my lovely wife, Sarah. Using the green, orange and off-white color scheme we had chosen, I developed a series of cards, invitations and programs which was both sophisticated andfun. The grand finale was definitely the program which featured a crossword puzzle and actvities page.


Beyond designing the programs and other print portions of our wedding, I worked with my wife to carry the same colors and feel through the rest of our wedding occasion. If you are interested, you can see photos here.

Rhapsody ads for TWICE Magazine

Client: RealNetworks
Project Description:
A copywriter and I were charged with creating a full page print ad for the technology industry magazine TWICE. With only several days to turn the project around, we had to create an ad that encouraged other companies to look into partnering opportunities with RealNetworks' Rhapsody technology. Of the many options that the copywriter and I explored was this personal favorite which was determined to be too "quirky."


The final ad, which appeared in TWICE magazine, was this elegant solution in which we combined a Yin-Yang motif with the Rhapsody play button, logo and the popular Sansa player which was recently released in partnership with RealNetworks.

Holiday Cards

Client: Personal
Project Description:
A set of two Holiday cards that I made for my wife and I to mail out for the 2005 (top) and 2006 (bottom) holiday season. Cards are hand drawn and computer colored illustrations printed out to fit into fit into standard envelopes with our greetings written on the back.