Retail Traffic...

These were done a little over a year ago for a trade pub. called Retail Traffic, with A.D. Sean Barrow, this was before everything went spiraling down the commode. However even though the opening illo. was injected with as much positivity as we could muster, the spots seemed to hint at an uncertain future. 

The old guy with the oxygen tank was for the Gap and how they may have spread themselves too thin, expanded into too many markets and seriously diluted their brand. So much so that they were in need of some life support. The idea was to spoof their old television and prints ads.

The one with the giant robot was about Walmart and how smaller independant business' and local communities were doing their best to keep Walmart out of their towns.

Internet Super Villans

These character designs were done for what was going to be a very fun job for SmithGifford, an advertising and branding shop out of Falls Church Va.  The client was Apptix a company that offers internet services.  The A.D. on this job was Kevin Richards, when he called me for this job he said he needed some designs somewhat in the Marvel Comics style of  super villains that would represent different problems we all deal with every day on the internet, in this case spam and virus's. He wanted to develop two of the characters to show the client in conjunction with the rest of the campaign. We did, the client liked it but they did end up changing them from villains to heroes, probably a good idea. Unfortunately by the time SmithGifford was given the go ahead on the campaign I was knee deep in what turned into a 3 month long assignment for another client so I had to sadly decline the job. It would have been a gas, maybe next time.

Gift Cards Exposed...

This piece was done for Keith Whitney at USAA.COM magazine. It's a financial services trade publication and this article dealt with, obviously, gift cards and how they may not be giving the consumer everything they claim. What? Say it ain't so.

In the final Keith married the illustration with a photo of a guy holding the tabloid in his hands reading it with a look of consternation on his face. Unfortunately I don't have a file of his finish so this will have to do.

Global Warming...

This piece was done for for a local "alternative" tabloid called Brick back when Pete Humes was the Editor. I'm not sure how it qualifies as being alternative though, I believe it's supported by Media General, which puts out the local Richmond Times Dispatch and apparently 24 other daily newspapers. In fact They're a media conglomerate with interests in broadcasting and interactive media and who knows what else. My guess is like everyone else these days they're experiencing financial difficulties. One look at the paper and you'd think so. It unfortunately has little to offer in the way of real substance, it's full of trivial unnecessary information and lots of photo's of young people partying. I thought that's what Facebook and Myspace were for.

I don't mean to criticize the people who put the paper out week after week, I'm sure they're under staffed, underfunded and work very hard to meet their deadlines. I know that when Pete was putting out the paper he was lacking any meaningful support from Media General. It seems to me that this "alternative" paper is just a cynical ploy on the owners part to collect ad revenue. Unfortunately they don't seem to understand a basic rule of the marketplace, if you're going to ask people for something, in this case the advertisers, you need to give them something in return and that would be a paper worth picking up. If Media General really wants succeed at this they need to take a long range view of what they. want the paper to be and then give the staff the financial backing to achieve that goal.

After all is said and done though there's no escaping the insidiousness of a corporate conglomerate pretending that they have a sincere interest in putting out an "alternative" paper. I think people are smarter than that.

I Think I see a Yeti

This is another job that was done with Tyler Darden of Virginia Living Magazine about a year ago. I thought perhaps I'd post it before spring gets here. It was for a feature on extreme winter sports. I'm not sure how curling and ice fishing fit into this category but it wasn't my job to ask. Maybe because it's extremely cold ? All's I know is I was given the opportunity to draw a Yeti, who wouldn't jump at that? Tyler suggested developing a narrative of sorts which I did, however tenuous it may be. Anyways I always enjoy working with Tyler, he makes every job fun and challenging.