A Repeat Project


Original sketch for pattern.

After you create hundreds of patterns it's hard to ignore the urge when an idea crosses your mind. Last week I was sitting in my studio working and an idea for a pattern came to mind, so I grabbed my Flair pen and drew out my idea.

I've done enough now that I know right away if it'll work or not and this one felt good.


Thorny Pattern. (Color Option 1)

When I create patterns I prefer more organic motifs rather than geometric ones. I also like to create patterns that can be simplified too. For example this pattern could work just as well using the thorns alone without any background color or secondary thorns.


Thorny Pattern. (Color Option 2)

I used a color palette that fit with a current project I just finished last week on this pattern.

Patterns are the type of repeat project I enjoy, literally.




Ambigram I am


"Von" ambigram.

Ever since "The Da Vinci Code" was published in 2003 I've been wanting to play around with an ambigram design. I've just never found the time.

The other day I doodled out my first name and figured it wouldn't take too long to build so I put this design together.


Ambigram in action.

My name is pretty easy to do this type of treatment too since it's only one letter away from being a very simple palindrome.

A real creative challenge would be taking my last name "Glitschka" and creating an ambigram from that. It may take another six years however before I get around to that though.




"Metro map of Glasgow"


Very simple but nice map of the Glasgow Subway.
Author unknown.
1 AI : 200 KB

Download

"Smoking Icebear"


Very lovely made by Craig from Boston. Thanks for this nich vector icebear.
Visit http://hellocraigsilva.blogspot.com/
1 AI : 1 MB

Download

"Sillhouette collection"


Collection of some mixed up vector sillhouettes.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,3 MB

Download

"Puzzle elements"


Four vector Puzzle elements. Very rough made.
Author unknown.
1 AI : 1,2 MB

Download

"Metal texture"


Real cool rough vector metal texture.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 400 KB

Download

Billy Mays Magical Beard. (Take 2)


Impeccable + Grooming = Iconic

I've been fascinated with all things Billy Mays since I first saw him in person years ago pitching Quick N Brite at a state fair prior to his prime time pitchman glory. Nothing has changed really, he's still using the same modus operandi.

With the hit of the new reality TV show "Pitchmen" I've decided to repost the Billy Mays Magical Beard PDF I created back in January before I knew about the new TV show.

Accept no substitutes, this is the original, and authentic one of a kind "Magical Beard" from the worlds greatest pitchman. It's not the products, it's not his loud voice overs, it's not his thumbs up, it's the one and only mystical power of his immaculate facial hair that captivates viewers and closes the sale.

I'm honored that this design was included in The Best Custom Type List of 2009. (So far that is) Billy may no longer be among the living now but his infamous facial hair will live on via the wonder of the internet.

But wait there is more! You too can embrace the iconic whiskers of infomercial fame yourself! Download this hairy relic and hang it in your work area to inspire your own path to success.

PDF Art Download
Billy Mays Magical Beard PDF



mail art

envelope from travis millard
i got travis millard's most excellent new zine tear jerker in the above envelope.

i love the zines of travis & mel. and their envelopes.

in sharing my new zines (1, 2) with them, i printed my first envelope.
envelope for mel & travis

i heart my printer.

Beyond the Glory


"Fungi Film" Doodle Movie.

I'm always doodling. Most people never see my doodles except those I choose to post on my art blog. Over the last few years I've been creating what I call "Doodle Movies."

In an age of increasing multi-media via interactive web sites, touch screens and a continuous non-stop march towards ever increasing technology, the former stalwarts of web interactive are quickly becoming obsolete.

What I call a "Doodle Movie" others refer to as an "Animated Gif." They're of course technically correct but I prefer my moniker instead.


Root King.

I don't animate all my doodles. Sometimes I draw something and look at it later and think "What is that?" Such was the case with my "Root King" doodle. No clue why I drew it? It just kind of flowed out of me onto the paper like a stream of conscience captured via a doodle. I like it, even though I have no clue what it means.

Almost everything animated online today is handled through Adobe Flash. Be that as it may, I still enjoy working with the simple methods of creating unique animations via my "Doodle Movies."

I know if there was a "Beyond the Glory" TV show for design methods an animated gif would no doubt be featured.

That said I think it's fun creating simple animated "Doodle Movies." It's like the doodling of multi-media.



Beautiful Corruption


Scrambled Clown.

I rarely have any computer problems, mainly because I use a rock solid MAC work station and it's proven to be an iron horse year in and year out.


Digitized Doodle.

Every so often though I deceive myself into thinking I know something I don't regarding my computer. It usually happens late at night or on the weekends.


Imprisoned pixels.

A few weeks back I decided to use the "Sync" feature in my Transmit app. I'd never tried it before but decided to play around with it. I set up a folder on my FTP server with like two images on this thinking for some moronic reason that it would sync everything in a folder on my desktop with the folder on my FTP server. This would prove to be a big mistake on my part.


Illo with a bit problem.

You see the app did exactly what it was suppose to do. It synced the folder on my FTP with my desktop and since I only had two images in my FTP folder I saw folders on my desktop just start to vanish one by one. I immediately got that stomach dropping sensation and before I forced quit the app about 30 folders had literally just disappeared as if erased.


Pixelated Tattoo.

To compound the problem unknown to me my current backup system had broken four days prior. All my current projects had literally gone bye bye and I began to panic.


Binary pattern problem.

Thank God for IT friends like my buddy Tony Knight who came over that night and ran a recovery application that took about four hours to recover what I had managed to do in a matter of seconds. About 98% of all my files were recovered in the end.


001011010011 gone wild.

I then spent about a week re-organizing all my work files and re-compiling project folders because the recovery app just renames all files with a number and recovers them into format type folders like "tif" or "jpg" or "pdf" or "psd" so nothing had the correct name and I had wade through thousands of files one by one and sort them all out. (Well most of them at least) It was a major pain in the @$$!

I now have safe guards in place to prevent this from happening again. I have installed a drobo so my files are more secure and I have time machine running for my backup. I won't be playing with unfamiliar functions anytime soon.


Truncated Wormwood.

As I went through all my jpeg images I noticed a handful didn't survive the recovery very well. They were corrupted. If I tried to open them in Photoshop it would give me an error message stating the files were corrupted. In other words the base binary code that makes up the image was scrambled. I could view the images using "Quick View" though and proceeded to capture the scrambled beauty corruption produced.

The may be screwed up but the end result visually is still pretty cool looking.


Beautiful Corruption.

I've take the scrambled beautifully broken code and compiled it into a larger image you can use. Didn't intend on any of this to happen but it all worked out OK in the end and produced a pretty cool effect to boot.

I guess you can say this is a creative side-effect of my recent computer problems?

Download "Beautiful Corruption Here."



Serial Design Killers


My original "Fa La La La Lifetime" Seasonal Branding.

For the past two holiday seasons Lifetime Television has used the Christmas Seasonal Branding I created to promote with. They keep using my art to promote because it's proven to be marketing gold and a ratings winner each year. Awesome!


Lifetime Lovers' Lame.

In our industry a marketing person falls into one of two categories IMO:

A Good Marketing Person: They understand and appreciate the role a designer plays in a project. They communicate well with creatives and equip them to produce appropriate solutions by providing a coherent marketing strategy. They avoid playing art director, and let the designer steer the design. They desire well conceived and executed design and artwork just as much as the designer does. And they know that when combined with common sense marketing the end result will be far more effective and compelling in the end. In other words the recipe for success is founded upon a solid creative process and a mutual respect relationship between creative and marketing.

A Bad Marketing Person: They don't care to understand nor appreciate the role a designer plays in a project. Their opinion is paramount. They think they communicate well with everyone, until someone questions their opinion. Their idea of an appropriate solution doesn't come about from a coherent marketing strategy, but rather based off of what they see someone else doing. Cloaking it in their own psycho-babble, they sell it as an original idea they came up with. They love to play art director, and can often be heard saying "I took art class in college." or "Can you make the logo bigger?" They desire to just get the job done, because designers are too picky and no one will notice or care about that anyway. They think the creative process is a derived formula, so re-heating borrowed ideas is their recipe for success. If it fails they blame the designer, if it succeeds they take all the credit and further feed their self-deception.


When I first worked on the Christmas Seasonal Branding for Lifetime I worked with a good marketing person. The end result was a very successful campaign using nice artwork.

Back in February a designer friend emailed me and asked if I'd done a "Valentines" project for Lifetime because she saw something on the channel that looked like my work but wasn't sure. I dialed in and discovered the above "Lifetime Lovers' Lane" being used to promote another seasonal campaign that was clearly derived from my original artwork. Someone at Lifetime had hacked together the words they needed and crudely Frankensteined a design worthy of flaming torches and pitch forks.

My first thought was "That looks like complete crap!" followed by "Why didn't they hire me to do something fresh?" It didn't make sense, this marketing person (Good) knew better than to do this so I contacted him and he was as surprised as I was. He had moved on to another division and a new marketing person (Bad) was running the show now. He agreed they should have hired me to do it and apologized. He passed my name on to the new marketing weasel...uh...person and that was the end of that.


Mother #$@! Lifetime.

It's now May and one thing is for sure, Lifetime wouldn't know good design if it sat in their lap and called them Mama.

The bad marketing person is playing art director again. A new type of Frankensteined design has been birthed to promote "Mothers Day." I wonder what the next bastardized incarnation will be?

Years ago me and former co-worker coined a phrase to define this type of marketing genius. We referred to them as "Serial Design Killers." This bad marketing person is headed for a Lifetime of design crime and the body count now stands at two.



A Pattern for Success!


"Drip.Dot.Swirl. 94 incredible patterns for design and illustration."

I'm happy to announce that after a year of hard creative work my illustrative pattern book has finally hit the shelves!


A diverse assortment of themes and styles.

Even though the cover says "94" the DVD that comes with the book actually contains "106" patterns total. Each of the pattern designs comes in three color options. So basically you get a stink load of cool art.


Precision, tileable, and easy to use vector patterns.

For more information, preview sample spreads, and to download another free pattern other than the one in this post just head on over to VonsterBooks.com


FREE Bonus Set of "12" Patterns for those who order the book.

If you do order my book be sure to email me a copy of your receipt and you'll get a FREE set of "12" bonus patterns not included with the book! That brings the total pattern count to "118." (Not including the FREEBIES in this post or on VonsterBooks.com)


Free pattern "Memory Lock" tiled out.

This FREE pattern download is exactly like all the patterns in the book. They are vector based artwork, easy to tile, easy to customize and adapt for your own projects.

FREE Download: "Memory Lock"
- Four Color Themes
- Includes CS2, CS3 and CS4 File Formats
- Royalty Free

Download "Memory Lock" Pattern here.

I hope your enjoy my new book!

Go forth and create!