Vossome 2.1

May Freebies: Conrad, the Wandering Design Ninja

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:29:00 +0000

Last month I gave away some special bonuses for people who either follow me on Twitter or are a part of the 36 Point group on Facebook. Well there's no such thing as too much love, so I'm doing it again! In addition to the same goodies from last month (ie: this iPhone wallpaper:

And this iChat/AIM/Buddy icon…)

… I also wanted to go ahead and give you a real, live, full-size Paper Dummy of Conrad, the Wandering Design Ninja himself. So, unlike last month, when you click on this image you'll get a link to the actual PDF and you can build your very own Conrad to watch over you at your desk, and threaten you with deadly ninja moves when your logo is the wrong size.

CLICK THIS RIGHT HERE FOR THE FULL SIZE REAL DEAL.

There's already a Newton up at 36 Point if you want the full dynamic duo and more will appear each month! Again, full access to 36 Point's downloads page is available to anyone who supports the site with a tiny, miniscule Paypal donation. All proceeds go to help us keep up on hosting costs and other necessities to keep the best graphic design site in the world stay strong! HUGZ.

In a Troubled Economy, Why Logo Design Contests and Crowdsourcing Can Do More Harm Than Good.

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:18:00 +0000

During tough economic times, many businesses big and small have tough choices to make. Often some of the first programs to be cut are marketing and design services, despite proven research to the contrary. Call it "protecting the core," if you will; focusing on your key business practices while stripping away excess in order to sustain a viable company. While this can be a sound economic strategy in some cases (cutting back on office supplies and employee perks, for example), it can be disastrous in the case of marketing and visual branding. (If no one knows about your company's products or services, no one can pay you for them!)

This line of thinking has been gaining traction in American businesses for the past several months after studies have shown companies who promote their way through a recession often come out the other side in a stronger market position than they went in with. But this still raises the question: "How do I pay for this work when money is so tight?"

Problem One: Your business needs a new logo or an updated look to attract new customers.

This problem surfaces a lot with startups and relatively new businesses who have been struggling to make it to the next level. It is not uncommon in these cases to put together a temporary company logo — something like a placeholder — to get the job done until you can afford to do it right. But now that time has arrived, and you've read enough articles to understand your need for better brand positioning, but there's no money to hire a design firm.

Problematic Solution: Hold a logo-design contest or utilize a "crowdsourcing" website.

Guaranteed to always sound like a good idea at the time, logo-design contests can seem like a low-risk, low-cost way to solve your identity crisis. They're ubiquitous enough that everyone knows the drill: You put out a call for entries and entice them with a snazzy prize, usually a couple hundred bucks in cash or services that your company provides (own a mall or a store? how about gift-certificates?). Then local artists go to work and send you tens if not hundreds of options to choose from. You pick your favorite, trade the prize for the artwork, and off you go! What problems could there possibly be?

First, thank you for continuing to read the article despite the last paragraph's glowing picture. Logo contests and crowdsourcing, although different in their approach, both yield similar enough results that we can look at them as a singular problem. The potential downsides are clear-cut, and some can even be devastating to your business:

Craftsmanship: Anyone entering a contest knows they are working only for a chance at winning, not for a guaranteed paycheck. As such, the Risk vs. Reward ratio on the project is high on risk, low on reward. So it does not make sense for them to spend a lot of time on it — and the same goes for crowdsourcing. At the end of the day, this leaves you and your business with an identifying mark that was rushed through the design process. Even if you have a hard time distinguishing between a polished and a rushed logo, your customers' subconscious reaction will pick up on the missed cues and lack of attention to detail in your logo, and begin to associate them with how you do business.

Craftsmanship Part 2: Professionals vs. Amateurs. The vast majority of professional designers wouldn't touch what they call "Spec" (speculative) work with a 20-foot pole. For them it is a professional discourtesy to ask them to give away for free a process of design that they have built a viable business upon. Many see the very thought of it as damaging to their profession. But who cares? If you can get the same quality product, let's say pencils or other office supplies, for a cheaper rate, why not? Simply put, because your company's main identifying face — its logo — is not a commodity. There is a big difference in both quality and longevity between professional and amateur design that comes from a learned process, not to mention the hours and hours of research and planning that generally come with hiring a professional. So in the end, if all the professionals are staying away from your contest, who do you think is going to be left applying to create your logo?

Originality: Designers who frequent crowdsourcing websites know the only way to turn a profit is to enter as many Call-for-Submissions as possible in hopes of striking gold. As even a halfway decent mark can take hours to create, it doesn't make sense to them to create something wholly new and original for each contest. From their perspective, entering the same design several (possibly hundred) times with a different company's name attached gives them more chances to win. The end result here is that your company's logo has nothing at all to do with your company, your goals, or your position in the competitive market. A logo shouldn't be a brochure for your company, but if it doesn't pay attention to those three key factors, it's a waste of your money and could potential sink your business.

Originality Part 2: Image Theft. A somewhat new phenomenon in this game is the advent of cheap, affordable stock art and illustrations from websites like iStock. The problem for you is that legally many, if not most of these websites do not allow the artwork on sale to be used in company logos. Problem is, this can be very difficult to identify, and if you accidentally pick a winner based on a royalty-free stock image you're going to wind up in legal hot water when the owners of the image come knocking. Some crowdsourcing websites have policies against this, but again, it can be a very difficult thing to police, and the policy is in place more to protect them than to protect you.

Beneficial Solution: Find an experienced professional designer to work through your logo with you.

By working with a designer or design firm with experience in company identity design you can avoid all of the potential pitfalls listed above. If you don't know anyone with more than three-to-five years of experience, find local companies with great logos, whether they are in your industry or not, and ask them who they hired. Or, visit a local AIGA chapter's website and ask them.

Be sure to contact at least two or three designers either by phone or by e-mail and let them know the basic particulars of you logo project, and ask them about their pricing structure. If their prices turn out too high, ask either about ways to reduce the cost, or if they would recommend someone in your price range — most designers would be happy to do so. Be sure whoever you choose to work with has an established professional reputation and samples of their previous work available for you to see on their website. Meet with them in person at least once, if possible, before beginning the project.

Do be aware that asking to "see some ideas" before committing to the project can turn a lot of designers off. In their business, their creativity is their product, so asking to get it for free is basically against their business model. Instead, use their past work examples to get a feel for what they can create for you, and be sure to ask a lot of questions until you feel comfortable.

Most logo-only projects will take a short few weeks to complete and you should see a few rounds of in-progress work along the way. In the end you can be confident that you have paid a fair price for the perfect logo for your new company, one that will be attuned to your business's goals and future, and built to last for years to come.

I'm Interviewed on Making Creative Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:38:00 +0000

My main man Donovan Beery and I were interviewed on the Making Creative Matter website for their 29 Questions segment. Usually these are written stories but they decided to leap into our world and record it — what follows is a tables-turning take on our lives as designers, what fuels us, how we approach our work, and how we stay creative. It's a little zany, I will tell you it gets more than a little nerdy when they start asking about what old-school toys and video games I'm into. They also get us to give actual, serious answers to the question: who's the best designer in Omaha? The answer may shock you!

We also talk a lot about our lives over at 36 Point, and what goes into both 1PT.Rule and The Reflex Blue Show. Big, big thanks to Justin Ahrens and the folks at Making Creative Matter and Rule29. Hugs —

New Newton Battle Wallpapers Available at 36 Point!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:38:00 +0000

First thing's first — that there above image is a freebie wallpaper for your iPhone or iPod touch, so grab it while the grabbin's good! And while we're at it, if you like the iChat or use forums a lot, I made you a little Newton avatar, too:

These are all for a set of giveaways on 36 Point for people who can now make small donations, for any amount they choose (yes, even 1¢), to help the site stay on top of hosting fees and other associated costs of running the site and the world's best graphic-design webcomic and podcast. I also made a Paper Dummy (our name) of Newton that builds into a 4" toy with only cutting and folding, no glue! The full-res PDF — as well as the desktop wallpaper in a myriad of sizes— is only available here, as a thanks to people who support 36 Point. HUGS.

1PT.Rule Special: The Hunt Goes Up at 36 Point

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:57:00 +0000

Well it's about time! The comic hardly anyone knew I was working on is finally finished and up for your reading pleasure at sister-site 36 Point.

I script a lot of my long-form comics like this, the left-hand page was used to tool around on the panel layout once the basic dialog was worked out.

So here's the pencil form with the rough text overlayed. You can see some differences here and there to the final comic where I felt like the panels needed to change a lot (or a little).

FWOOMP! Making a Webcomic: 1PT.Rule

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Since last October (2008), I've been writing and illustrating 1PT.Rule, a thrice-weekly webcomic, at the design-entertainment site 36 Point. At the time of this writing I'm nearing 60 strips, which feels like a lot, until you look at Penny Arcade or PVP who have ten years under their belts.

The process of creating the comic usually takes about 2 hours, though it is longer when I add an extra row (or five), or color. Originally the strip started out in full color, but even at only three strips a week that workload was more than my life allowed. After a brief stint in two colors, the strip settled into black and white, where it remains, comfortably, to this day.

Here's how a strip gets started:

Sometimes I will, actually, just jump right into Photoshop and start typing, but when there's time I find things work out the best when I drop it into a sketchbook first. Above, you can see my notes as I tinkered with the number of panels in the layout, eventually settling on two half-length panels to establish characters and handle long dialog over three panels, with the middle left open to draw out the timing.

The dialog is just scribbles at this point, but you can see little numbers next to each chunk. I do this when scripting so I can easily reference where each bit will go in the final panel without wasting time writing it out over and over. Then I open up my Photoshop file and start typing. I have a template file for all of my strips that I open and "Save As…" with a new number. I work at full size, 300 dpi, and then flatten the image at the end, resize to 72 dpi (900 pixels wide), and Save for Web. I always keep my high-res file, because I think all webcomics creators want to make books someday, and low-res screen graphics won't cut it for that.

Once the text has been typed in and roughly placed, I use my Wacom Intuos tablet (the 4.5" x 6.5" model) to start roughing in characters. Sometimes I get a little caught up and spend too much time here. That's great in the beginning, especially if you are trying to get used to your tablet. But if you're like me and you spend a few months drawing the same characters nine to twelve times a week, you'll tend to develop a shorthand here that can save you time. On this strip, since the characters move very little, I duplicated most of the elements in the Roughs layer from panel to panel to save time.

Then it's time to ink. Digitally, of course. I set my Roughs layer's opacity down to about 20%, or whatever feels right, so when I draw over it on a new layer titled Inks, I can clearly see which is which. In this strip, the table, Munnys, and art supplies don't change, so I duplicated and repeated that artwork from panel to panel.

Occasionally I'll be so strapped for time that I'll duplicate character art, but this is only in extreme cases of me running long for some reason, or having too much real work on my plate. Some artists get away with using "sprites," or pre-drawn libraries of character art they can drag and drop into their strips. I find that repellent — if you don't want to draw your own strip, either hire an illustrator or just write funny blog posts!

To do the inks I use an elliptical brush in Photoshop, set at about a 45° angle (about 1:30 on a clock). I hated my artwork in the strip until I started using two weights of brush, 10 pixels and 20 pixels, which you can flip easily between on your keyboard using the "[" and "]" keys. Now I use those weights for all the character work and sometimes drop into larger brushes for foreground and background items. Here's the finished inks:

Then I turn off the Roughs layout, flatten the image, resize and save. You can click here to see final comic on 1PT.Rule!

Illustration Series: College Life

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Recently I was contacted by a company to produce a handful of scenes of life for a group of college students. I had a limited amount of time on the project, so the illustrations were kept kind of loose.

This project gave me a lot of opportunity to have some fun with color, utilizing a bright, energetic pallet and conveying, in some, the overall mood of the scene (this is really evident in the happy/sad illustrations that mirrors each other). Thought it went fast, it was super fun to illustrate. Bonus that the client was very nice and easy to work with. We always love that!

If you'd like to see these larger, check out my Work Page.

I'm Hosting Design Matters!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:43:00 +0000

Please listen in this Friday, February 13, on Voice America Business, as I guest host Design Matters with Debbie Millman, featuring special guest Joe Duffy of Duffy & Partners, Minneapolis. The show will be available in the iTunes Music Store a few days after the boradcast.

For the full write-up, head on over to 36Point.com.

36 Point Now on Twitter, Gets Awesome Backdrop

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:18:00 +0000

36 Point got a Twitter this morning, you can follow us here or check it out at the top of the page on 36 Point. We're going all the way down to Fort Smith, Arkansas to judge the ADDYS this weekend — so keep up to date with where we're at! Also, it gave me a chance to do this little guy for the backdrop:

Road Trip: Fort Smith, AR ADDYS Judging

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:52:00 +0000

This weekend Donovan Beery and I are traveling to Fort Smith, Arkansas, to judge their 2009 ADDYS. As a former member of the AIGA Nebraska board of directors, I've seen my share of competition judging from the side of the organization behind them. Passing judgment myself? Also not a new experience. (Ha!)

It's a very exciting thing to be involved in, but there is also a large amount of responsibility. Judging can be tough. You only get a few seconds to spend with each piece in which to assess its communicative value. Spend too long on one and you'll be shortchanged on others. Don't spend long enough and you may miss the vital key that takes a message from "clever" to "mind-blowing."

You'll be able to keep tabs on us during the trip by visiting 36Point.com. Wish us luck!

36 Point: An Interview with Sean Adams

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:36:00 +0000

My 2008 interview with highly-successful designer Sean Adams of Adams Morioka is now available to read over at 36 Point. Go check it out!

New Work: Omaha Fiesta Bus

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:05:00 +0000

The Challenge:
Two friends decide to start a business together with little more than a handful of buses and an idea and Omaha Fiesta Bus was born. Party buses in Omaha were scarce, hard to find, and uncool; but the benefits to the OFB approach — bar shuttles, fun party atmosphere, and a great sense of style — created a market opening. Omaha Fiesta Bus contacted us to help them launch their brand to the Omaha night life.

The Solution:
We worked with Omaha Fiesta Bus over a multiple-phase brand launch that included Target Audience Personality Profiling (TAPP), logo and visual identity design, website development, and extended brand consulting.

Near the launch, we coordinated a live radio remote and press coverage on multiple media outlets. A partnership with Power 106.9 was created to maximize the brand’s appeal to the right market, which led to the production of radio advertisements spearheaded by Stephanie and I.

We also produced and coordinated production of two large-scale vehicle wraps for the Fiesta Buses; Purple Haze and Orange Crush. The project was a huge amount of fun from start to finish and everyone was very happy with the results. If you haven't tried it yet, you should book yourself a bus today.

New Illustration Gallery

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:07:00 +0000

Just a heads up that we've updated our Work section with a new, streamlined Illustration gallery, which is something we plan to do shortly for our design work as well (which is sorely out of date). Thanks!

New Work: IT Superheroes

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:50:00 +0000

Trying to keep up with my man Von Glitschka over at Art Backwash by posting work more frequently.

It's a pretty easy sell to dial me up and say "do you want to draw superheroes today?" The answer is most likely going to be a resounding "yes." I've seen plenty of examples of what I'd call "corporate superheroes," where a company wants to pursue a comic-aesthetic for something and they tend to go overly generic and BAM! POW! ZAP! all over it. It hate that. I also believe that many of the artists who draw those didn't grow up reading and drawing their own comic books. So when the task finally came to me (6 years into my career!) I took it upon myself to do it right. Because of budget restraints, I didn't go full Jim Lee/Joe Madureira/J. Scott Campbell -style on it like I'd want to, but rather went to a style that most kids born after 1990 associate with superheroes: Bruce Timm, the amazing artist behind Batman: The Animated Series.

Started off with a sketch of each (Hero and Heroine, who I call Captain Keyboard and Mouse Girl), although they would be composited by the client and thus illustrated separately. One these were approved (with a few changes), I moved on to create the finals.

Captain Keyboard was originally based on Captain America, complete with giant shield and airborne ranger goggles, but the shield was axed in favor of a cape (which any reader of Watchmen or viewer of The Incredibles can tell you is a bad idea for costumed adventuring).

Mouse Girl was based on Wonder Woman, with some Batgirl thrown in on the costume (the Double-W shows a bit too much skin for the corporate environment, I guess).

I didn't quite nail the style — I suppose that's why he's Bruce Timm and I'm Nate Voss — but these were still a lot of fun to do. More than anything has me jonesing to dig up more of Timm's artwork — some of which seems to be not as safe-for-work/children as his Batman stuff. (fair warning for your Google Image Searches!)

media: brush and ink, digital color

The Legend of Lil' Red — I Got My First Copy!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:05:00 +0000

HOORAY!

Despite the delay (two weeks and counting now?), I was able to snag one of the … let's say … unique copies of the original print run. While the pages inside may be somewhat chronologically free-spirited, the cover looks like honey-in-a-glass-jar sweet!

Opening the envelope it arrived in was definitely a "moment," even knowing the book inside was flawed. It was an interesting experience, flipping through it, I was looking at the illustrations so close my nose was leaving marks on the pages. I think I'll do a complete project recap when the book is on store shelves, right now all I can say is "Geez, Nate. You sure did draw everything big enough to fill the entire page, didn't you?"

The Legend of Lil' Red Logo

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:07:00 +0000

Since The Legend of Lil' Red's release has been unfortunately delayed a few weeks, I thought I'd give you guys a glimpse of the logotype that I designed for the cover and the title page of the book. The idea was to keep the type treatment very "collegiate" and to reference sports graphics (hence the double and triple outlines) without getting all pointy and stabby like those logos tend to nowadays. It's for kids — you've got to keep the stabby to a minimum. Based on the typeface Serifa by Adrian Frutiger.

Speakin' in Lincoln

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:41:00 +0000

Yesterday I was invited to speak to a family-writing workshop of some 64 parents and kids about The Legend of Lil' Red at Walt Library in Lincoln, Nebraska. Read on for the story and a cool preview!

I'd never been to Walt Library before, it's in the newer, South-er part of town. I was always a Gear Library guy growing up. I showed up about a half-hour into the session as Paul Rea (the author) was winding down a reading of the story using what I supposed to be the final PDF of the book. I wasn't sure that the group would get to see the whole story (illustrations included) so the presentation I brought didn't include a lot from the second half of the book, because I didn't want to spoil anything. Too late!

There were lots of parents and children there, and after we were done talking they asked a lot of really great questions ranging from how the project got started, how many drafts the story took to complete, and a few questions on the process of illustration. Afterwards I got to talk to a few of the kids who really liked to draw; one girl beat out all the other first- and second-graders to win a local art contest — when she was still in Kindergarten!

This was the first group that ever got to see the book from start to finish, and they seemed to enjoy it. A few parts of my presentation elicited some laughs, including an "11-Nate" reference photo I'll post … someday. For now, here's a portion of what I was able to show; the complete coming together of one of the opening pages:

The Legend of Lil' Red: Sample Illustrations

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:38:00 +0000

Since the beginning of 2008 I have been hard at work on a new children's book titled The Legend of Lil' Red. Lil' Red, as most Nebraska sports fans know, is the Huskers' highly energetic inflatable mascot sidekick, seen on the sidelines of most UNL sporting events. He was first introduced in 1993 and has been a fixture ever since.

Lincoln author Paul W. Rea penned The Legend of Lil' Red as his first foray into children's books and hired me to illustrate it. The book is 64 pages long and required 28 full-color, two-page-spread illustrations to tell the tale. It will be available this Fall.

Click to enlarge.

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Keep your eyes posted here at Vossome.com for more news on The Legend of Lil' Red!

media: brush and ink, digital color

New Work: Bernard Uy

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:19:00 +0000

The third in my series of ten planned watercolors for the Reflex Blue Show, Bernard Uy is a designer who has lived everywhere, and now finds himself in Honolulu, Hawaii. He's brilliant and engaging, and shows off his mad ukulele skills in this video (just so you know I'm not playing to stereotypes here).

Check out all of The Relfex Blue Show with Nate Voss and Donovan Beery at 36 Point.com.

Illustration: Sean Adams

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:59:00 +0000

The Reflex Blue Show illustrations keep pouring on in.

Sean Adams reminds me of a classic movie star, like Sinatra, but with a bit more color and good humor. This time I got to use a bit of everything from rubber cement to salts to white-out over on unfortunate smear of ink. Watercolor's never officially been my thing, and while the bright colors are definitely very Adams Morioka, I think the next spot's going to see me experimenting with some more subdued tones. Hope you enjoy!

John Henry Müller & Dave Nelson

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:05:00 +0000

So one of the things I've been wanting to do for a while is quick illustrations of our guests on The Reflex Blue Show. I'd say 60% of this was completed during editing of the show, in between clicks and snips, then taken to town with a $1 watercolor set. I haven't used watercolors since college, but I've always loved the results you get when you go quickly. So while it's essentially a sloppy mess, it's a step back into my old shoes. Hope you like it.

As for the show we recorded with these two fine fellows, click here to listen. Or visit the links on the right-hand side of the page to check these guys' sites out.

Meet the Pros 2008: The Un-Poster

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:43:00 +0000

After watching Shaun of the Dead on DVD, I was struck by the similarities to zombies attacking humans, hungry for their brains, to an annual student event here in Omaha called Meet the Pros. I pitched the concept to their board of directors for their 2007 conference and they bit, resulting in on of the most thoroughly enjoyable and successful projects of my career (more on that one later). When the time came to handle Meet the Pros 2008, I was struck with the question: how does one follow-up the best thing they've ever done? Answer: Don't.

I pitched three ideas to the Meet the Pros board, instead of one, and they came back selecting the idea I'd tossed in as a personal aside: the comic book. It was an idea to show students at Meet the Pros and chronicle their experience in comic form, telling a story rather than selling a headline and an image. I pitched this idea because at the time I was becoming more serious about my illustration as a career and wanted a testbed — but I never thought they'd go for it. Sure enough, they did.

Now I'd read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics a few times back in the day and had recently picked up his newer Making Comics a few months before this. Added to a childhood spent reading the things and patterning my illustrations after my heroes, I felt confident, just untested.

As with any good story, it starts with characters. I needed a few: a hero, and antagonist, a love-interest/triangle, and a few complicating members of the cast. You can see their genesis below:

For the Hero, it all began with one sketch of his panicked face (which ultimately was inked and included in the final poster) and was expanded in the sketches below. Astute designers will notice his shirt is an homage to Saul Bass. Detailing was heavily inspired by Japanese anime and manga character designs — not out of fandom on my part, but an appropriateness to the subject matter. These kids would essentially be "battling" with their work, and they should be dressed for combat as such.

For the love interest, I created Hytome. Short and spunky — intelligent to a fault. As a copywriter, she doesn't know when to say when and often tries to say too much at once in her work. Her design was, well, not exactly "conservative," and it was my goal to make up for this with her strong personality. The jury's still out on how successful that was.

The other characters, including the main antagonist, Corden, filled out in sketches over the next few weeks. At one point I realized I had designed Corden and the brutish Ox essentially the same, so a few nips and tucks were put into place to separate the two, and Ox was introduced much later in the comic than originally planned. Student-X is directly based off the character Racer-X from Speed Racer, and the end of the story gives a wink to this fact as well.

Once character design was complete, I began scripting with a basic outline of the story and a loose sketch of the page layout. Being a designer, I couldn't let myself make a page that reads simply left to right, top to bottom. No, I had to go and make it hard. The comic would travel clockwise in a spiral, ending in the center of the poster where the relevant information regarding the event would be stored. This would prove to be a problematic decision.

The panels were then sketched out along side dialog markers, and the whole thing looked like this:

Once complete, they were cut out and assembled as such on an 18" x 24" poster.

Then it was the long and laborious process of fleshing out the illustrations, inking them, scanning them, and assembling them into the layout.

At this point the text was refined with the client, and small details such as the negative space in between the panels were tweaked. On a few occasions I tossed the poster onto the HOW Forums for assistance, as I was still acclimating to working solo ad needed some help getting past a few rough spots. I really have to hand it to the folks over there on the forums. They were both a great help and very encouraging.

In the end, the final poster looks like this: (click for a bigger size)

I call it "The Un-Poster." It has no central focal point. No short message. It cannot be read in passing, it requires you to stop and interact with it. And after it was posted on college campuses I heard from several teachers that their classes would, in fact, stop and read it. Some even going so far as to skip their smoke breaks. I don't know if it was that successful everywhere it was posted, but in as far as ambitious projects go — I'd rank this one a 9 out of 10.

I also handled their website — which you can check out at MeetThePros.org.

Today's Wacom Test: Bone

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:35:00 +0000

Big props to Steve Hamaker who does this job for a living. Originally I hated the idea of seeing Jeff Smith's seminal Bone series reproduced in color, but Hamaker has really grown as an artist over the course of the run, or at the least he's found a lot more confidence in his use of color. Those books look good.

This morning I warmed up on a black and white Bone drawing I found on the internet. I think Phoney (middle) turned out the best, because I did the least amount of shading. Less is more?

New Tool: Wacom Intuos, 4x6

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:41:00 +0000

Just got my new Wacom in yesterday and I've been playing around, trying to remaster the tools of digital painting. I've had plenty of Wacoms before, but this is the first time I've had one all to myself, and more importantly, at the home office. The new design of the tablet is much nicer than I've had in the past, and the pen tool is larger — offhand I'd say about 50% bigger — which makes it much more substantial and easier to hold. Love it.

I thought about getting a bigger tablet, but they have a new Cintiq model for about $1,000 now, so I am officially saving up for one of those. Any illustrator who's seen one in action knows what I'm talking about.

For now, here's a test colorization of a Jim Lee sketch of Batman and Wonder Woman I did this morning. The Intuos rolled right into Photoshop without hesitation or installation, and I used flat base colors with Multiply and Screen brushes at different opacities to shape the colors. Like I said, just a test, I can't wait to really see what this baby can do.

—nv—

Read the Story of How This Site Was Created!

noreply@blogger.com (Nate Voss) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:10:00 +0000

Over on Be A Design Group I've retold the story of this site's creation. From it's disaster-laden beginnings to it's current form, you can read all about it here:

Part One: The Original Site

Part Two: The Reversal

Part Three: The Current Site