Eight years ago, I doodled out this strange, tentacle armed fellow on pencil and paper, and for whatever reason he’s always stuck out in my head. So I decided to give him some color and a second digital life here. And green looks good on him. Anyway, Happy Halloween, everyone!
To celebrate Earth Day, Seattle Goodwill teamed up with KEXP to put on a concert with local bands Ivan & Alyosha and Lemolo to help raise awareness about how donating to Goodwill can help keep more clothing, books and other household items out of landfills.
Research showed the average person throws away 70 lbs. of clothing every year. So along with the Sustainable Sounds concert, we also partnered with local Seattle influencers to promote #Give1Pound to help reduce clothing waste in landfills—so we asked them to just Give1Pound of donations to Goodwill.
Seattle is one of the few cities lucky enough to now have a Carhartt Store in its limits. Because of this, Wexley School for Girls and I were lucky enough for the opportunity to design a few t-shirts for this new store, one of which was picked to be given away during the Grand Opening held back on 3/22/12. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, they even invited me down to sign each and every shirt during the event.
It’s already quite an honor to work on and wrap your head around a great and historic brand like Carhartt as it is. But then for the opportunity be at the Grand Opening of only their fifth retail store, representing both the brand and myself as a local artist, was unbelievable. I still almost don’t believe it actually happened. Everyone who came through the door was directed toward a table with a big pile of black t-shirts, and me with a silver Sharpie in hand. And the coolest part was how happy everyone was about the shirt and to have my signature on it. I was sure people wouldn’t give two shits about me and my signature, but was I wrong. People were taking pictures of me, and with me. One with someone’s daughter holding up my shirt. Everyone had great things to say (a nice woman even complemented me on my dimples). People actually wanted me to sign it. And of the 120 total shirts, I’m positive I signed at least 116 of them (unfortunately a few people grabbed a shirt and immediately wandered off into the crowd).
Anyway, the experience was amazing to say the least, and I’m really happy with how the shirts turned out. And I hope everyone who received a shirt at the Grand Opening gets many happy years out of their new Carhartt Seattle shirts. You should also stop by to see the store in person. It’s beautifully decorated like an old logging camp, and the attention to detail is impeccable.
If you weren’t able to be there for the Grand Opening, here’s a quick video to encapsulate things a little. And in perfect Carhartt fashion, the ribbon cutting was replaced by a section of drywall that was busted up with sledgehammers by baseball legend Edgar Martinez and Carhartt CEO Mark Valade. And if you watch closely, you can even see me pop up a few times when the camera pans to the left during the ribbon cutting, and in the store signing the t-shirts.
Back in November, we got to help Ford promote and run an awesome event they were doing in conjunction with the Seattle Auto Show. The plan was to let people test drive the new Ford Focus around the warning track of Safeco Field (which is across the street from the Auto Show) that uses all these fancy cameras and sensors to track you as you drive the course. Then after people do the drive, they get a video sent to them showing the whole experience as if it’s a video game. It’s very cool. So cool in fact, that’s it’s almost one of those “build it and they will come” situations. So our job was fairly easy.
It should be added that getting to walk and drive around one of the most beautiful stadiums in the country is a pretty awesome feeling. It’s sort of magical with a side of, “I’m not supposed to be here.” Which makes it all the more impressive that Ford was willing to do such a thing, and do it for free. You can even check out my drive around the bases right here:
Have you ever worked with leather before? A little over a year ago I got my first chance to do so while making some brand books for Redhook Ale. If you haven’t done any leather work before you should, because it’s pretty cool. And slightly weird. Especially when you think about the fact you’re using the skin of a formally alive animal for something other than it was originally intended.
The best thing about making these was being able to get away from the computer and having a chance to work with your hands. Tangible stuff. Stuff you can feel. Every cover piece was cut out by hand, as was every bit of the type. That’s a heck of a lot more rewarding than just printing everything off and binding it with a piece of plastic.
During a visit to S.C.R.A.P. this weekend, I became the lucky discoverer of some 2006 test prints made by the talented Mr. Dan Stiles out of Portland, OR. If you’re not familiar with Dan’s work, he makes some of the most strikingly beautiful poster art you can find out there for bands such as The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, Wilco (the list goes on and on), plus brands like Nike and promotional work Bumbershoot.
Because of this, I was pretty pleased to stumble upon this glorious bounty. So was the drab office wall they now call home. And by the looks of them, coupled with the fact that S.C.R.A.P. is run on peoples donations of art supplies, I have to believe they were donated by none other than Mr. Dan Stiles himself. So thank you, Mr. Dan Stiles.
Here you can even see the different screens they were made from during the test prints in the second image.
Update: A few weeks after posting this, GrainEdit posted a great interview with Mr. Dan Stiles that you may want to check out as well.
Yesterday the mailbox greeted me with a little surprise. A Surprise of giant posters and lots of them, from none other than the School of Visual Concepts from right here in Seattle, WA. Not only were they nice posters all around, but they were done by none other then the legendary letterpress shop, Hatch Show Print.
Now for those who don’t know about SVC, it’s one of the best creative resources in all of Seattle. It’s both an portfolio school and school filled with all other kinds of goodies like a complete letterpress studio and computer classes for anything that can take place on your monitor. Take a look for yourself here.
A big thanks goes out to everyone over at SVC for the great posters. Now I have to uphold my end of the deal and do my best to hand them out and spread the word.