ICON8 Portland
This week I’m off to Portland as the illustration conference also known as ICON8 finally happens. As a board member and treasurer this day has come faster than expected so now it’s time to put on a show.
I may be a bit biased, but the lineup of speakers and events is strong and having many new speakers mixed with the great vibe in Portland should make a good time for all.
Saturday morning I will be hosting a discussion with two of my favorite illustrators, Victo Ngai, a young illustrator in New York who has been on an amazing tear for such a short career and Leo Espinosa who has been tearing it up for over 20 years. It will be great to hear how they break through the noise in a very competitive world.
If you are at the conference, please say hi. It will be nice to finally place faces with names.
Genentech: The Trouble with Trials
Producer Nick Miller from Weber Shandwick called with an interesting problem to solve. Genentech has a few research articles on various subjects and was trying to find an illustrator who could catch various concepts regarding biotechnology in a fun yet informative manner. This was the first time to use an illustrator and requested the art be two color using colors from Genentech’s design bible. The colors had to be used as solids at 100 percent. The art was to be used for presentations on the web and conferences.
Being limited in colors turned out to be a blessing in disguise and was a wonderful chance to interpret my approach in a more graphic manner. Inspiration came from retro instructional videos with animation which I loved as a child.
Genentech and Weber Shandwick loved the approach and the process flew once we figured out the best way to explain biotech concepts to my non biotech head.
If you would d like to see the animated version of this presentation please visit here.
Numbers that say boo
American Teacher magazine called requesting a fun series of illustrations for a feature about math anxiety. Coming from a family of scientists and mathematicians, our house was surrounded with educational toys for math. My favorite was a scale which had numbers of various sizes which hooked on the scale to balance. For example if you hooked 2 and 4 on one side, you hooked 6 on the other to make the scale work. It was an ingenious way to learn addition.
My approach was simply to imagine the feeling of being overwhelmed with a flood of numbers. It certainly could feel that way for me as a child in school. Much thanks to Michelle Thurman for calling with this fun assignment.
Seek and hide
Ronn Campisi has a soft spot in my heart since he was one of the first influential art directors to hire me. Doing a cover for Ronn was a huge boost on a national level and I have always been grateful.
It was a pleasant surprise to hear from him and do a fun little project for Harvard Law Bulletin about privacy. Students from Harvard figured out a way for researchers to use student data without compromising their identity. I took a pseudo info graphic approach showing collection of data, building algorithms to strip identity and identity safe data in a sequential set of three illustrations.
I am sure there will be many projects with a similar theme in the post Snowden era.
Happy happy happy
One of the pleasant surprises this year has been the steady stream of assignments with multiple illustrations. I really enjoy the chance to develop and idea so it creates a mini story or look. SooJin Buzelli had an assignment which required a cover to be used as an opener plus a few inside pieces for an article about Financial advisors have learned making their clients happy will attract more clients. For the cover, the idea of flocking birds in a playful palette seemed to hit as right. As usually happens with SooJin, she also agreed it was the best approach.
In the art imitates life approach, I literally finished selecting a financial advisor before receiving this assignment. It was a relief to know my new advisor was doing all the things recommended in this feature.
This was the cover and opener for the feature.
How the unknown can be explained.
Diversifying explained.
Keeping people on track for their financial goals.
How to use social media to keep clients informed.
Worries
April Montgomery from Computerworld and I have worked together for many years and she is one of my favorite art directors. We have a very good flow which probably comes from working on multiple projects and she is one art director who always seems to pick my favorite sketch. She let me choose from a few articles and I chose a cover story about risk. The feature discusses how fear of risk paralyzes many projects. Ever since the financial meltdown there seems to be an abundance of “end of world” news stories so it was a fun concept to explore.
Much thanks for April for the fun assignment.
April is good about showing type options for the cover so I can compose the finals accordingly.
Spinning wheel
While traveling to Hong Kong this year I’ve heard a theme from friends common to friends in Brooklyn: You have to work harder to stay in place with rising costs. It never ceases to amaze me how assignments can echo life. Mark Tyner at The Wall St. Journal had an article about Social Security payments being less than you thought when retiring so people need to work longer. Naturally the idea of a treadmill or the hamster in a wheel metaphor came to mind. Seems like the spinning wheel feeling can be felt no matter where you look.
