My wife and I updated the Death & Co. menu about a week ago. I made 8 new illustrations and created the category titles, inspired by old Stock Certificate lettering. The general design is mostly similar to before, but Kate had to change out all of the food and drink items with new stuff, rearrange some sections, and add in more quotes. It's head bartender Brian Miller's first menu, and I can't wait to try out some of their new concoctions. They have a new chef now, too, so the small-plates are all new... and sound rather tasty.
"The {Sketch}book" is the first volume of a new series of books showcasing all of my favorite sketchbook pages. This first volume is a rather large compilation of 114 pages from multiple sketchbooks I've kept over the past nine years. I included the cover and 7 interior spreads, above, as examples.
I spent the last 2 months compiling images and designing the book in my free time, and am really happy with the results. Originally, I started creating the book as an addition to my larger portfolio of commissioned jobs and gallery work that gets shown around by my agents. But I realized that I could offer it up for sale, as well, to whomever would be interested.
If interested, I highly recommend getting the hardcover version, but there is also a cheaper softcover version available. Both options are 8" x 10", 114 pages, on Premium Paper. Keep in mind that these books will likely be a pretty limited run as they were not mass-produced for book stores. Each book ordered is professionally printed and bound on-demand, and shipped within about 8 days. Please email with any other questions: timtomkinson@mac.com
The group show "Idiot Box" opens at 7pm tonight, April 2nd, at Gallery 1988 in LA. It's the gallery's 5-year anniversary, and they're celebrating with a show devoted to "guilty pleasure television." They even got Mr. Belding from Saved By the Bell to be the host of the show!
I contributed these two pieces, nodding to several of my favorite shows from the past. The top one is a piece based on the shows Alf and The X-Files, titled "The Alf-Files". It's a play on the concept of Mulder's and Scully's relentless search for aliens, and finding a rather silly one in the form of Alf. The second one is titled "Miscellaneous TV Outerwear" and is pretty self-explanatory, unless you've been living as a Neo-Luddite for the past several decades.
I picked these frames for their gaudy, kitschy flavor, to reflect the feeling of most of these TV shows. There should be a great mix of killer work, given the lineup of artists and the subject matter, so be sure to check it out if you're in the LA area. Here's the gallery website for more info: http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com
I worked on these two promotional ads for Lurzer's Archive. The top one was made just a couple weeks ago, to be published in the near future.. and the bottom was in the vol. 4, 2008 issue.
The top ad was designed by Coco Connolly using some of the new branding for my agent, Friend & Johnson. The photo on the left was taken by Charles Shotwell, and I decided to make my page into a play off of his photo. I had free reign to do whatever I wanted, but thought it would be sort of funny to somehow use the missing chair from his photo. For some reason the first thing that popped into my head was a guy balancing a chair on his nose. So I went with that idea, and also pushed it to the more ridiculous side with the juggling of live grenades and the unicycle riding (which i've always wanted to try).
I designed the bottom ad myself, since I had the entire spread. And since I was extremely busy at the time, I used existing images: the left side being from a sketchbook, and the right side from a series of spots for Skiing Magazine.
Here's the first of 3 ads I did for IBM. I was asked to keep the people pretty graphic, so they're a bit different than the usual type of people I draw.. which ended up being sort of a fun challenge. I also needed to keep the color pretty graphic and limited, so I employed the same blotchy, loose look that I've been getting into lately (see the elephant down below)
The ads showed up mostly in magazines and newspapers in Europe. You can see some of the work done by other artists as part of the same campaign here. Click to the left or right to scroll through the gallery. I'm not sure what everything says, since it's in French.. but it's probably only interesting if you're an IT guy anyways. I'll post the other two ads I've been working on in the near future.
These are the last 3 portraits I did for Spirit Magazine - Howard Stoeckel, Richard Nelson Bolles, and T. Boone Pickens. The Howard Stoeckel portrait (top) is out in the current issue. Apparently he's the CEO of Wawa Food Markets, so he's got that going for him. My wife is from New Jersey, so I've purchased many a convenient snack from Wawa. Plus, it's fun to say.. Wawa!!
By the way, if you're thinking those words in their heads look sort of difficult to design and draw.. you would be absolutely correct.
Here's the piece I did for the latest Friend & Johnson promotion (my rep), to be mailed out within the next couple of weeks. It's another group promo, and is being used to tie into a relationship with the non-profit 826 Valencia:
"Founded in 2002 by author Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari, 826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their writing skills, and to helping teachers get their students excited about the writing. Our work is based on the understanding that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success and that great leaps in learning can be made when skilled tutors work one-on-one with students." – 826valencia.org
So in addition to this being a normal promotional mailer, it will be donated to the organization for use by teachers to show students how visual people respond to words. The concept was to show the inspiration of language based on the single word "Edge". So each of the F&J artists worked out their own illustration of the word..
I decided to turn "Edge" into an acronym, E.D.G.E: Effusively Dotted Golden Elephant. I didn't feel like being too literal with the word "edge", and thought this opened up some more fun words to play with. The string on his trunk is just a little joke about how elephants are supposed to have amazing memories, so they shouldn't need physical reminders like bows tied to fingers (or in this case, trunks).
The elephant, as well as the type, were drawn in ink and colored digitally. I'll try to post some of the other artists' solutions when I get the final book..
I found out recently that the Aquafina ads I worked on for BBDO a while back received a Kelly Award for best Insert/Outsert. I'll admit, I had never heard of the Kelly Awards before.. but it's still pretty cool. You can take a look at the award page here: http://www.kellyawardsgallery.org/index.html#/Gallery/Winners/Aquafina/ If you click on 'Judges Comments' you can hear them talk a little about why they picked it.
There's a good chance you didn't see the actual insert out in mags (but possibly the regular print ad..). It was actually pretty cool. The single Aquafina bottle on the front of the insert was printed on "seed paper" and then glued down onto the ads. The paper literally had seeds embedded in it, so you could actually pull it off and grow a plant and/or flowers out of it. Hence, their headline of "Water Brings Things to Life".
The bottles and all of the type were hand-drawn with pen and colored with watercolor. I guess I figured a water-based color solution was the most relevant, given the subject matter. Ok, now I'm thirsty... bye
These are the illustrations I did in December for the Key Arena in the Seattle Center. The concepts were conceived and approved before I even got involved, so I was basically executing existing ideas. They printed as large banners for a section of the arena that seems to be a KeyBank-branded sort of lounge area. Not sure if they actually serve any sort of refreshments there, but there are stools & tables as well as banking kiosks. If I make it to Seattle any time soon, I'll have to investigate it further. It would be interesting to see if you can actually mix some beer drinking with your banking.. seems pretty obvious that the two should go together!
They also used the campaign ads I made for mags and billboards around the perimeter of the lounge area. And they even used the wallpaper pattern I created for the TV spots on some portions of the walls, which is kind of cool. Check out some pics below that Key Bank sent to me:
I worked on this menu for Death & Co. last June with my wife, Kate. She did the page design while I created the spot illustrations and the cover crest. It was a super fun project.. working with Kate and our friend Dave Kaplan, the owner. Plus it has given us more of a reason to go in there more often. Not that we really need more of a reason, since the food and the drinks are impeccable. If you still haven't gone, GO!! jeez..
Since I was pretty busy at the time, I needed to recycle a couple of the illustrations that I made for D&C for their cocktail catering (see the post). The actual menu has changed a bit since this Summer menu, but the general design is the same. You can download the latest menu here.
p.s. those are rye sprigs in the cover crest. rye whiskey is yummy.
Here are my two most recent portraits for Men's Journal. The Chuck Yeager piece was in the last issue (January), which may still be on stands. Shaquille O'Neal is out next. Each of these portraits are appearing on the very last page of the mags, in the "Exit Interview". I especially liked Chuck's answer to the question Who's the toughest guy you know?: "In my profession, it'd be the guy who kills you."
So I'm feeling pretty inspired after a wonderful trip to Paris.. where I got to witness the most jaw-dropping display of beautiful architecture and artwork. Anyone who's been there knows what I'm talking about, but it was my first time and I'm still a bit awe-struck by it. I mean, I knew Paris would be beautiful, just from seeing all of the photos and movies over the years.. but I didn't think it would hit me the way that it did. Why don't we make things like that anymore (and by "that", I mean pretty much every single structure in Paris)? It seems like the art of masonry has been lost to utilitarian modernism. Don't get me wrong.. I love the general influence of modernism on architecture. But it also seems to have given license for every uninspired, drab, concrete, character-void structure out there (see: strip malls, apartment complexes). It seems the post-modernists were lamenting this as well, but I think they overstepped their rebellion a bit. OK, I don't know where I'm going with this, but just want to basically say that the architecture and sculpture of Paris is... Bad Ass!! And that I'm going to miss it.
If you go to Paris, you must go to the Musee d'Orsay to see the impressionists. I seemed to have forgotten how varied the work was from these guys, and was left with a new found respect. There was a special exhibition of Pastels that was mind-blowing in it's examples of mastery. These guys must have had just huge amounts of time on their hands. Oh, and if you go, it helps to bring along a crafty Parisian who can get you past the 1 hour+ line out front.
By the way, the illustration above is one I did a couple months ago for a group Friend & Johnson promo mailer, which was all about Paris!
I realize that's it's been quite a while since my last update. Thankfully, it's due to a huge amount of work in November and December, and not just complete laziness. In November, I worked on a project for Nike & Footlocker making artwork to be animated for 4 TV commercials. The work was added to live footage that had already been shot, with the animation going on in the background, but unfortunately the job was killed right before starting on the 4th spot. It's a long story which I will cover later when I post some of the work.. but it was still a great project to work on. For now, here's a teaser image: On top of this project, I've been creating much more work for Key Bank to go along with the current campaign I created over the summer. I've been doing collateral work for in-bank posters, brochures.. even for the backs of ATM displays, as well as getting tons of requests from individual banks for direct mail pieces. One of the coolest applications of this collateral work will be as large-format banners inside the Key Arena in Seattle. All of this Key stuff has worked out to be around 24 illustrations in 2 months, many of which I will post soon.. but here's a couple to start with: Also, in the past 2 months, I've created an ad campaign for IBM, made another 2 Men's Journal portraits, 2 more Spirit Magazine portraits, a piece for Dwell Magazine, a couple portraits for Walden University, and started work for some Patagonia t-shirts. More on all of these later...
Last month, I created these illustrations for a new clothing brand called "Tuner Kids". It's an offshoot of the "PRPS" jeans brand, and is aimed at the very niche "tuning" culture of car modification. If you've ever seen The Fast and the Furious and Jackass, it's sort of like that.. just mix the two together. The "tuner kid" is basically one of those kids who likes to beef up their cars (almost exclusively imports - Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi) with additional or replacement parts for extra speed, or sometimes simply for aesthetics. You may have seen them in local parking lots comparing their cars, their girls, and/or the fluency of their slang. Or racing by you wrecklessly with rather loud mufflers (is that an oxymoron?).
I was asked to convey plenty of rawness, attitude, obnoxiousness, dirt.. flies. As well as a little humor here and there. This subject matter is certainly not my norm, which is why I had a lot of fun drawing these. They'll be printed on t-shirts as part of the launch of the brand, with more designs to come in a few months. I'll post a link to the final shirts when they're up for sale.
Here are my portraits from the last 3 issues of Spirit Magazine - Dean Kamen, Cathie Black, and Yvon Chouinard. I actually pitched them the idea of using Yvon Chouinard, the founder and owner of Patagonia, since he's an incredibly inspirational business man. (I also happen to be good friends with his kids.. Fletcher and Claire.) Patagonia is one of the most environmentally-conscious companies around, and they basically started the trend of using organic or recycled materials in their products - like using recycled plastic bottles to make fleece. Oh, and Yvon pretty much invented ice climbing and modern climbing tools. Here's a cool interview of him (though it is a bit old): http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/22/little-chouinard/
I do have a disclaimer to make on Yvon's portrait, however. I'm given the list of words for each portrait from the copywriters, and in this case I protested a bit about the word "Advertising".. but still had to keep it in. It's sort of misleading out of the context of the magazine, with the accompanying interview, because Patagonia actually tries to avoid advertising whenever possible: "We hardly advertise. In the late 1980's, we grew as much as 50 percent a year, and it nearly destroyed us. Now we grow by word of mouth, or between 3 to 10 percent a year."
This one is in the current November issue of Men's Journal. I'm back to doing monthly portraits now, after a 2-month hiatus. I've already done portraits of Jon Voight and Chuck Yeager for the Dec. & Jan. issues, which I will post after they hit stands.
I finished this piece today for the "Cover Band" show at Gallery 1988, which opens October 7th. It's a group show with about 60 artists, each of whom got to pick their 10 favorite album covers from the Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 500 Albums of All Time. From those ten options, the gallery sent out one original cover to each artists for use as a canvas... basically making it into a sort of collaboration. I luckily got one of my top 3 -- the self-titled Led Zeppelin album with the burning Hindenburgh -- and wanted to try to keep as much of the original art as possible. Thankfully there was a lot of white space!
My attempt was to take this iconic, tragic image, and give it a different feel. More like a cute "whoops" rather than a horrific "oh the humanity". If it's just a little girl's balloon catching fire it's not quite so dramatic, is it? Well, maybe she'd be more freaked out if she knew there were people in there. Also, I wanted to do something that had nothing to do with the actual songs or the band, since I felt that would be... well, almost an insult to the original cover. It's such a perfect cover for that album, I would never presume to make a better or more poignant version.
Here's the 3rd TV spot for Key Bank, entitled "Concerned Dad", with a guy talking about the need to pay for college for his kids. You can check out a sample of the final artwork I supplied below, and larger, sharper version of the video here: http://www.d-kitchen.com/project.php?p=127(click on "Concerned Dad")
Here's the 2nd TV spot for Key Bank, entitled "Medals". They interviewed Diana Munz, one of the US medalists in the Sydney Olympics, to talk about her medals and how she used Key Bank to help keep them secure. Overall I'm pretty happy with the animation on this one, considering they had to do a good amount of tweening to get the swimming and mermaid parts to work right.
I included a handful of stills from the final artwork I provided to Digital Kitchen. They mostly kept close to my original illustrations, but a couple of their translations didn't work quite as well (in my opinion). They turned the blowfish and the clam into 3D-rendered objects, that end up losing a lot of the charm and stylization of the more flat illustrative versions I provided. But this is an opinion that's admittedly non-objective. Aside from this, I think they did an amazing job!
