Side Stitch - Designers at Heart

As you can probably tell, I put a lot of heart into this episode of Side Stitch. If you aren't familiar with the comic, it's something I make for when it's my turn to blog at the office (I work at BBR Creative, a design/ad agency in Lafayette, LA). I always try to instill some humor and cleverness in along with the design references, but this time I thought I'd try to make it pretty heartfelt.

As I mentioned on the BBR Blog, here we follow a young design pair from initial campus crush to the Request for Proposal (RFP), seeing all the adorableness and designer in-jokes in between.

I started concepting the story after I thought of the RFP/marriage kicker. I tried to think of a bunch of design-related situations in which to put the couple. The challenge wasn’t to try and squeeze in as much design references as possible (that was the easy part), but to illustrate two people falling in love in a very finite number of panels. So we see them working together to ace their design final, the initial inquiry to a first date, bonding over the industry’s beloved design annuals, starting their own design studio, painting a house, adopting their own pet and, finally, proposing marriage.

Hope you enjoyed it, and please pass this along to your design friends. They might get a kick out of it! :D

BBR Creative, The Teenage Years

BBR Creative, the design/ad agency that I work for, is turning 13 years old this week. Actually, today. But this Friday we're taking half the day off to relax by the pool. So I was told to come up with a fun graphic to insert into an HTML mailer to let everyone know we'll be out of the office that afternoon. Did this illustration in a couple of hours. I love getting to illustrate at work!

Oh, BBR stands for Blondes, Brunettes & Redheads.

Now you know!

Affaire De Coeur

My friend Meghann has a passion for fashion design. She just graduated; her senior project was to design a line of clothing for a fashion show that was held on campus. The line wascalled "Affaire De Coeur." She came away with some major accolades, including Best of Show, and some pretty sweet photos (Good job, again!). She has big aspirations, so I volunteered to do an illustration of one of her dresses for her portfolio.

The illustration above was based on one of the photos of the model wearing the dress during the fashion show. Done in watercolor and ink. I was aiming for a Tim Burton-ish style, which is one of Meghann's favorite directors/artists.

Meg, let me know if I got any of that info wrong, lulz.

I'm a Mr. T Pot

Last week at Sketchgroup, we were talking about the new The A-Team movie that is about to explode into theaters. Then we talked about that hilarious cooking appliance informercial that Mr. T did a while back. He's just SO enthusiastic about that product!

Well, right then and there I decided that I needed to do a T illustration. And, in my typical fashion, I had to incorporate some sort of pun or twist. Cue the literal town fool, subject to T's pity. But I didn't stop there! The fool is slightly turning the tables in that he is doing the "I'm a little tea pot" dancing thingie. It's not really an insult, but I don't think Mr. T appreciates its. Look at the pity! The disdain!

If you're super picky about details, you may be asking yourself "OK BURT, now wouldn't the rings on his RIGHT hand say 'PITY,' while the LEFT hand rings spell 'FOOL?'" No. Because if he were to indulge in fisticuffs, he'd need BOTH hands to have rings that spell "PITY," because he'd be applying pity with both hands TO the fool. Hitting a fool with the word FOOL is just redundant.

In closing, Mr. T has always been, and will always be awesome.

Zach & Zach

Last week (or so), my friend Zach (Broussard) posted a note on Facebook about how he needed an artist to whip up some art for a new podcast and comedy tour featuring himself and his friend Zach (Sims). I responded that I'd like to help. But, knowing me, it turned into a full-blown illustration, including hand-drawn type and all. Haha, the things I get myself into!

I also resized/reworked this image to fit the square iTunes album artwork size. And did a borderless version and a grayscale version to cover all printing bases.

From what I gather, it'll be a fun, "character-driven" podcast with our two Zachs and featuring special guests. Maybe they'll tour the USA, saving Community Centers as they go. It's comedy, folks.

LAUGH.