BBR Illustrated Type

We're designing some "Thank You" cards here at BBR Creative to show our appreciate to clients and vendors. Here's some hand-illustrated type that I had the opportunity to work up. It was a blast drawing this all out and making it pop in Photoshop. I'm a huge fan of illustrating my own type. It adds a lot of personality to text!

Beaux Arts Ball Posters

Here are two posters that I designed and illustrated (at BBR Creative) for the Beaux Arts Ball costumed fund-raising event put on by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Specifically, the College of the Arts.

The theme, as the posters state, is "Re-New, Re-Vision, Re-Cycle," and promotes making costumes out of found objects and recycled materials. I figured it would be fun to do a mirrored pair of posters, featuring decked-out recycled costume party people. I like how they have a proud air to them while being covered in repurposed materials.

The posters are actually being silk-screened and sold at the event to raise money for the College of the Arts. Woo-hoo!

Name that Toon

One of my coworkers is in a chorus called "Sweet Adelines", who put on a performance every now and then. This year they are having a Broadway show-tunes theme, and I was asked to illustrate a cover for their program. A small, fun piece with a lot of creative freedom. This is the kind of freelance stuff that an illustrator just lovessssss.

Actually I'm sure freelance illustrators love all work. Since I usually just do things like this for fun, it's nice to actually get paid to draw silly things!

eNews is Good News

I was asked to whip up an illustration for one of BBR's HTML emails. The subject is about helping others realize how to effectively communicate eNews through html emails and blogs and stuff like that. I think. I actually wasn't given the article to read. I was just told to "do an illustration about eNews."

So, here you go! An envelope/keyboard. Yayyyy digital mail providing eNews, amirite?!?!

It's always fun to do illustration at work. :D

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!

Goes Down Smooth

Funnnnnn. I just did an illustration for an RFP that we just sent out today. I love when I get to do illustrations at work! We were looking for a clean, tropical look, as opposed to the flagrant/gaudy tropicalness that a bunch of places gravitate towards. This isn't a "typical" Burt style, but I'd like to think I'm a pretty malleable illustrator. We really like how it came out, so hopefully the potential client will, as well. :D

Sidenote: I wore a very, very tropical strip of fabric as a headband while working on this RFP. It had many, many parrots on it.

Brand ReVamping

Here's my new Side Stitch design comic. For those of you who aren't familiar, BBR Creative encourages its employees to take turns doing a blog on the BBR website. When my turn comes around, I draw a design-related comic and post it. And now, about the comic:

Had the Vampire Empire survived their initial brand meeting, they would have realized that it’s best for an agency to get to know a client before diving head first into the image-revamping process. This would have ensured that the designers knew that vampires and sunlight don’t really mix well. And if the logo didn’t immediately vaporize the Vampire Empire’s council, it would have eventually driven a stake into the club’s image.

Maybe the “online agency” was afraid of vampires. Or clowns. Or vampire clowns. Maybe they were werewolves! Or, maybe they were just trying to make a quick dollar. Don’t only do a job quickly — do it right. Though, I’d imagine trying to make the denizens of the night “more appealing” would be a daunting task. Perhaps some things are best left alone?

Notes about this comic:
I omitted a pun out of spacial necessity, but I thought I’d include it in this section: “No members means no revenue! We’ll have to get day jobs!”

I always have fun with the silly logos I do for these comics. The “existing” Vampire Empire logo was a “V” & “E” shaped to resemble vampire teeth. And the “revamped” logo features a rejoicing figure whose cape is forming a sun. Well, maybe he’s writhing.

I had a few Vampire Empire tagline options on the table. Here are some that were frontrunners:
“Eternity, for life.”
“Eternity now.”
“A brighter nightlife.”
“Live long and party.”

OH, and if anyone knows a decent comic lettering font, please let me know. I hand-drew all the lettering in Photoshop and it was quite a task.

-burt

Abstract Portrait?

Earlier this week BBR had a couple of job shadowers sit in with the Creative Department. John, a seventh grader, and Stephaine (I think that's how she said her name is spelled), a sixth grader. I guess. Kids all kind of look a generic "young" to me. Anyway, we showed them the design/illustration ropes and had them working on personal logos. Eventually their minds wandered and they teamed up on an illustration.

They informed me that it would be "loosely based on Mr. Burt," and would incorporate elements from objects around the Creative Department. So, I was told it has my hair (??), our monkey mascot's face, my Yoda plush's ear, a deer's hooves, and some owl parts.

I'm going to go ahead and consider this fan art. This is me, as portrayed by junior high students. I think. Use the Force!

The Mighty King Kyrn!

Here's my second entry under my Side Stitch comic series, which explores the fun and adventurous world of design. Every BBR employee has a turn at writing a blog from the office, but I figured it'd be fun to do a comic for mine. Thusly, Side Stitch was born.

This episode displays the dangerous of poor typography. "Kerning" is a typographic term that means "adjusting the space between letters in a word." So, to "kern" something means to correctly space the letters in a word. Once someone points out how a word is SUPPOSED to look, you'll start to notice imperfections in signs and advertisements all around your town. Not EVERYONE cares about typography, believe it or not.

And those people feel the wrath of 7-ton gorilla fists.

Follow Your Appetite!

It's always fun when I get to illustrate things for work. This tasty treat was for BBR's Media & Vendor Breakfast, where we treat business associates to a nice breakfast to thank them for all their hard work. And so I was told to design a self-mailing piece for the occassion, and could do whatever I wanted.

So, naturally, I drew a pied-piper-ish chef leading an assortment of bipedal breakfast items. The bacon flute was a spontaneous, yet deliciously perfect, last-minute addition.

I experimented with a different illustration style to match the concept. I didn't think that contour lines and such would inspire the whimsical fun that the flat color shapes provide. I originally drew everything in black ink, scanned everything, and then colorized the different pieces in Photoshop. It was quite fun. But now I'm hungry.