Oh, Baby!

OOOOOH BABY am I ever excited that my first board book, "Oh, Baby!" will be released in September (from POW Kids)! It notes a number of interesting moments in a baby's life that often go uncelebrated.

You can pre-order here.

Wallzical

Hurray! Wallzical.com has launched!

I had a great time creating illustrations for three sets of Wallzical's reusable, educational wall decals: The Big Race, Alice the Camel and Zoo Escape.

For the month of October, use the code WALLZICHAD10 to get a 10% discount! (Wallzical only ships to the USA for now.)

Work/Life 3

I'm pretty excited to be part of Work/Life 3: the UPPERCASE directory of illustration. This edition's theme is "An Illustrated Life" in which participants explore the good (and the not-so-good) aspects of working in illustration. Each illustrator offers their unique take on this theme and have created an original illustration specific to their interests and their life, based on a custom assignment from UPPERCASE editor Janine Vangool.

My assignment was based on a comment I made during my interview with Janine.

You wrote, “Having a son put a schedule and structure into our lives.” How else has he changed you? Create a humorous illustration showing how your child is in charge of your life.

During my concept development process I wrote in my sketchbook, "In my house, Brin is the centre of the universe." You can see my execution of this idea is below. Better yet, check out all the illustrators' work by getting yourself a copy of Work/Life 3!

Sketches

I always love to see the sketches from illustration that I admire. I'm often surprised by the decisions the illustrator has made from sketch to the final piece. 

In my own work, I often encounter unexpected visual problems translating line-based sketches to shape-based illustrations. Because my sketches are usually small and fast, I tend solve a lot of visual problems on-screen, where I can zoom in and see small elements in detail. 

If you find these sketches interesting or helpful, let me know!

13

I was honoured to be asked to participate in the Southern Saskatchewan Chapter of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada and Not Nowhere's collaborative, fundraising poster project, "13".

Thirteen Saskatchewan Photographers and thirteen Saskatchewan Designers were asked to develop a poster which explored the subject of "13".

I was very fortunate to get the chance to work with photographer Andrew Hudyma.

Before I started developing ideas for the poster I knew that I wanted to keep Andrew's photo completely intact. This meant I wouldn't retouch the photo, crop it, change the colours, or apply any filters.  

As an unexpected result of this rule I made for myself, both Andrew's photograph and the elements I created for the poster design work well independently. However, I like to think together they create a poster which is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Andrew's photo:

My design:

The final poster:

 You can check out the rest of the poster designs here.

A big thanks to Rhea Liebel, Carey Shaw and Danielle Tuchelt for creating this wonderful event. 

No Junk Mail

I've been super-frustrated with the amount of flyers and other junk mail I've been receiving in the last while. So, I looked online and at a few stores for a nice-looking "No Junk Mail" sign. Unfortunately, I couldn't find one. So, I thought I'd create my own.

It turned out pretty well so I'm offering the high-resolution file to anyone who might like it, for free!

The file is 5 x 7 inches at 300 dpi. Print it on your desktop printer, or at your local photo lab. 

Get the high-resolution file here: http://bit.ly/TLTKcd

Dr. Octopus on Threadless

Once in a while I'll create a superhero illustration. You may have seen my Batman or Iron Man. Because I'm a total nerd for Dr. Octopus, I entered the Threadless / Marvel Entertainment Spider-man contest.

If you're into scoring Threadless designs, I'd appreciate if you'd consider giving my Doc Oc submission a big, fat 5!

You can score my design here. Thanks!