Good morning. So, like... you know that thing, when a team of amazing, talented people spends a year making a gorgeous hour-long documentary about you, and then they put it online? Well... that just totally happened to me:
You know those annoying people who get awards and then say how they're all humbled? Well... I'm truly humbled. What a thing! Thank you so much to everybody at Lynda.com -- Lynda Weinman, Bruce Heavin, Sharon Ludtke, Scott, David, Mia, Loren, Fatima, Fiona, Deb, Andrew, Lucas... no, no, don't start the music yet... Tracy, Tony, Tanya, Michael, Ben and Billy. No question at all that 344 LOVES YOU
Good afternoon! As some of you may already know from other sources, I've written and illustrated a new book, published by the good people at Knock Knock. I've been meaning to tell you about it for weeks, and somehow the days just keep getting away from me. But now we've had the official launch party at Skylight Books, and it's getting more and more embarrassing that I haven't tolfd you about any of it here on the site.
Have you endured up to six months of involuntary abstinence while in a committed relationship? Bravely placed your toothbrush into the caddy of another? Designer Stefan G. Bucher thinks that you should get a medal for that. No, seriously, he has designed you a medal. Bucher's new book You Deserve a Medal: Honors on the Path to True Love (Knock Knock, $16) includes 40 medals that acknowledge the unique feats of strength required for modern relationships, from sending a poetic love letter via text message to inducting a successful (yet dignified) pet name.
Bucher, who recently entertained us with his Daily Monster project and his products for 826 LA's Time Travel Mart, uses his sharp pen and even sharper wit to transform even the most banal aspects of courtship into a worthy moment for commemoration. The book even includes a "love medals glossary" in which Bucher painstakingly explains the iconography behind the insignia, as well as criteria for earning the medals as decreed by fictional entities like the Council of Romantic Decorations. It's hilarious, sometimes heartbreakingly funny commentary on modern love.
Bucher has also produced some of the medals in their own ceremonial boxes. They can be worn proudly on formal wear, business attire, or pajamas, for those so depressed they cannot get out of bed.
Now, what was I saying? Oh yes! Photos! Here we go...
And, of course, my favorite part of any book, the headband:
And let's not forget the actual medals:
Lastly, how about me and the Knock Knock team being our most animated selves at the launch party?
You can see all the party pics at this link here. (And no, they won't all give you seizures. I just couldn't resist this one.)
Sorry it's taken me so long to put this up on the blog for you. I hope you'll check out the book and the medals -- at a quality gift store near you, at Skylight Books, at the Echo Park Time Travel Mart, or on Amazon -- and that you'll like what you'll see. For now, I hope you're having a great week, and that you're aware that 344 LOVES YOU
Good morning. Boy, I am so behind in posting right now, what with the release party for my new book coming up. But as I just got such a lovely shout-out on the Lynda.com blog yesterday, I thought I'd show you this little project I did on the side -- just to keep the recursive links going.
In honor of my friend Lynda's recent birthday I decided to render her company logo in Lego. Why Lego? Because A. her husband (and logo designer) Bruce is a big Lego geek, and B. because I haven't had a chance to fiddle with big bags of Lego in... oh... 25 years? What more reason do you need? I don't know, but what more reason do I need? None. None more reason.
So without further ado, the Lego Lynda logo:
Business in front, Death Star in the back:
Here's the side-by-side-by-side comparison, courtesy of Bruce:
If you'd like to know a little bit more about the genesis of the logo, here's Bruce and Lynda giving you the scoop:
As always, there's much more to come, but that's it for tonight! I hope you're clear on the fact that 344 LOVES YOU
Good evening. How are you? I hope you had a good week.
If you've been following the blog recently, you know that I hopped on a plane to Denver, Colrado on Wednesday, got a rental car, and made my way to Boulder. Why? Because I wanted to be there for the world premiere of a string concerto by composer Hunter Ewen. A string concerto inspired by the Daily Monsters! (Maybe there are illustrators out there who get blasé about having string concertos written about their work, but for me... very exciting! How could I possibly miss it?)
I rolled into Boulder not knowing what to expect. Hunter had contacted me back in September, and told me this:
I stumbled on your monsters while doing research for a new chamber piece. I'd like to ask your permission to reproduce a few of your images in my score. Each performer represents a different monster and I'd like to use your artwork as a visual cue for how to act and behave onstage.
Obviously that wasn't going to fly with me. Reproduce a few images in the score? Why not a whole bunch of animated Monster loops on stage? Much better! So Hunter went shopping among the Monsters, gathering his cast of characters. And I went to work (albeit slowly) animating nine of the Daily Monster Papers for the task. I finished the last two the night before the performance.
Through all this I took a holiday from being my usual control enthusiast self, and left Hunter to do his thing. All I knew was that he was writing a piece for eight violinists. He sent me a synthesizer demo a few weeks ago, and I have to admit with considerable shame that I never made the time to listen past the first minute, because deadlines were tugging at me from all sides. As per usual. Well, I'm glad for it, because this way I got to see the performance, and hear the piece with the same surprise and delight as the audience at Grusin Music Hall.
And I brought my camera. Check out what happened! (Go full-screen if you like. It's HD, don't you know!)
Isn't that the best thing ever? When you make a bunch of drawings and a few years later THAT happens, you know you're not wasting your life. I couldn't be more excited by this whole thing. Talk about a gift from the Universe!
Thank you so much to Hunter, and to Lina Bahn (formerly of the Corigliano Quartet) for commissioning the piece and performing it with the amazing CU Violin Studio cast and guests at the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Pendulum New Music Series. Thank you all for making such an incredible thing happen!
Here's a photo of the whole ensemble in mid-monstrosity. (You can click on all the images to enlarge, of course, but on this one you really get a nice sense of the hall in the bigger version.)
The cast of characters:
Flittle: Sarah Wood, Annelise Gilsdorf, Brittany Ware
Sir Beekington Cromwell III: Tee Tong Tang, Rachel Wilkinson
Pinchclock: Oscar Soler (solo cadenza), Allison Kim, Margaret Sopoer-Gutierrez
Dr. Chomps: Michael Brook, Veronica Pigeon, Molly Evans
Garblebob: Amanda Ramey, Matt Dendy, Grace Schneider
Mrs. Squirmwiggle: Lina Bahn, Haynn Tang
Conductor: Joel Schut
Check out the score! How cool is this?
Here's what Hunter had to say by way of program notes:
Monster Party (8:30, for violin ensemble) was composed as a musical response to the monsters of Stefan G. Bucher. These wicked, adorable, delicate, stinky, chompy, brilliant monsters are, on their own, just as interesting as their unusual methods of creation. The structure and form of each monster originates from the seemingly unpredictable effects of skillfully orchestrated blobs of ink and bursts of compressed air. Often drawing upside-down and backwards, Bucher's work springs to life, as if from the ether, fully formed, each with a unique personality, backstory, method of movement, and manor of speech. He actively avoids over-polished or plasticized monsters. Lines from Sharpie markers are often visible, and nothing is done with a ruler. Because background detail is rarely included, one never knows if the monsters are the size of a bullfrog or a building.
The piece takes its stylistic cues directly from Bucher's unique method of creation. Parts of the piece were composed upside down, and new sections often culminate with melodic or harmonic "explosions," mimicking Bucher's ink bursts. The piece is purposefully rough around the edges, with quick transitions, abrupt dynamic shifts, and crunchy harmonies. But at its core, it begs the question, "what happens if a bunch of these monsters get together and have a party?"
Rather than assigning each performer to a "violin 1, 2, 3" part, I have tasked them with adopting the personality of specific monsters from Bucher's collection. How the instruments interact musically is related to how I imagine the monsters would react to one another in real life. The harmonies, counterpoint, and special effects are best interpreted as statements of the monsters rather than as gestures of the composer. Movement and dance abounds. Various vocalizations are called for throughout as well as moments of visual drama and levity. Monsters, after all, never know when to be quiet!
And when he says MONSTER SCREAM, brother, he ain't kiddin'! Watch the whole concert and you'll see! Take a bow, Hunter:
Good afternoon. I just received the Christmas care package my folks sent from Germany on November 30th, which included a tin of cookies, individually wrapped, that I have to share with you (if only visually):
Good afternoon! No, those aren't just five random words strung together in the title for this post. The lovely people at Design Indaba Magazine asked me to design the cover for their Wonder-Lust issue with an ardent Monster. They also included a very kind (and beautifully designed) article about what I do. If you happen to be in South Africa, or have access to a well-stocked international newsstand, please check it out!
My great thanks to Ravi, Matthew, Nadine, Richard, and Marcel at Design Indaba for letting me play! Needless to say 344 LOVES YOU
Hello there! Just a quick sign of life from your friend in the ink business. Forgive me for being so un-posty these days. More Monsters are in the works, but right now I'm typing away furiously on a new book for Spring 2011 -- monsterless, but still funny, hopefully. In other words, I'm a lazy blogger, but not a lazy person, and I hope you'll stay tuned! And if you've forgotten, which I'd certainly understand, please let me remind you that 344 LOVES YOU
Three new Monsters live from Design Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa. You can click on the drawing for a larger view. More Daily Monsters to come after I get back into the office next week. See you all soon!
I was honored to design and illustrate issue 136 of the German science journal Der Donaldist.Now, just in case you're not familiar with this, allow me to explain: Donaldism is the scientific study of the universe occupied by Donald Duck -- Donald, Daisy, his nephews, Scrooge McDuck, the lot. We're not talking comic book collecting, either. The Donaldists are a group of writers, philosophers and scientists of every stripe (professors, applied physicists, journalists and judges among them) that have spent the last 32 years analyzing the available source material -- the canonical work of Carl Barks -- to formulate theories about the laws of physics and rules of society in Duckburgh.
They explained the scatter-shot nature of entropy in the duck universe, dealt with the phenomenon known as Veronkelung (literally uncle-ing -- there are only aunts and uncles, never parents), and they explained how ducks can have teeth when they're happy or angry. (Turns out that it's erectile tissue that pops up in emotionally heightened states.)
You'll be shocked -- shocked -- to learn that I was once one of them.
Back in 1985, thanks to my then brand-new friend Elke Imberger,Der Donaldist was the first magazine to ever publish one of my drawings. Issue 54, page 40, bottom left. I was 12 and I was hooked!
Since then I've designed a few of their covers, like issue 94 below, and the poster for their 2000 National Congress in Marburg (entitled M2K), and actually brought the National Congress to my hometown of Rinteln in 1989, driving the town fathers to complete distraction. So if you thought I was a nerd now, boy oh boy, you should've seen me then...
This cover marks my 25 year anniversary with the Donaldists. Good timing, don't you think? If you like, you can click on the image below to download a 1920 x 1200 pixel desktop image of the cover, with a handy white bar on the right for your icons.
I'll also add a few photos by Friend of the 344 Empire Dyana Valentine to give you an impression of the space. Thank you to all of you who came to visit, to Tim, Jennie, Jona, Dyana, Linda, Michael, and Scott for taking great photos of the event, to Maria and Steve at Skylight for organizing such a great night, and to Gustavo for spinning excellent photography themed tunes.
More things are in the work and on the way. For now, I hope you'll have a great weekend, safe in the knowledge that 344 LOVES YOU
