No photos inside please

Last month’s LA ACM Siggraph meeting was held at Disney Animation in Burbank. They were gracious enough to provide food, beverages, and their theater for a viewing of the SIGGRAPH 2011 Computer Animation Festival. Though not an animator, I’ve always enjoyed the medium and the whole package – the festival, the place, the proximity to home – was a real treat.

The festival itself was quite an inspiration. Though some of the reels were geared towards industry professionals and focused on the tools and effects of the trade,  there was some very creative storytelling going on as well.

The three films that I enjoyed most were ‘Paths of Hate,’ ‘Flamingo Pride,’ and the Best in Show Award Winner ‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.’ ‘Flamingo Pride,’ about a straight Flamingo at a gay Flamingo fest, was the Best Student Work winner and had everybody cracking up. It’s a lot of fun but I can’t find it on YouTube to post.

‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore’ was produced by Moonbot Studios (from Louisiana) and was truly a notchabove the rest. Moonbot has more info about their process and the interactive apps they build on their website.

My favorite film, however, was a stylized aerial dogfight film that poses a moral question, called “Paths of Hate” by Damien Nenow. The look of this is amazing. It looks like a graphic novel in three dimensions. Seriously, the towering clouds are the most painterly 3D models I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, this video has been made available by Platige Image on Vimeo.

Damian Nenow’s SIGGRAPH presentation at Autodesk booth from Platige Image on Vimeo.

Last month’s L.A. ACM Siggraph meeting was at the JPL which gave me a moment to walk around the newly renovated museum. Among the other wonderful displays there was this scale model of the Galileo space craft. The museum is periodically open to the public and worth a visit if your into cool things like space, multimedia displays of space, models of spacecraft, etc.

The presentation was nothing short of amazing. NASA’s Mars Rover drivers discussed the advantage that stereoscopy affords them when piloting the rover, from a desk on Earth, across the alien landscape. Using 3D they are able to avoid piloting the vehicle down a crevasse that would otherwise look like a shadow. We were shown examples and the benefits really were amazing. Have glasses and want to try it out? Here are some shots >

It was truly amazing to hear the Rover pilots discuss their jobs. They drive across Mars all day! They work on Martian time. (more…)

This beauty was the first computer I ever got to ‘play’ with. It was nothing like an Atari console and nothing like the World Book Encyclopedia. It wasn’t as fun as either at the time but it was special. There was a whole room dedicated to them after all. Boys made 2D animations on them. I designed a space capsule that would fall through a few screens before a parachute would open. Primitive stuff. We saved our work on cassette tapes and would have to demagnetize them when they were full.

Radio Shack TRS-80

Here’s a link to the old catalog if you are interested in reading more.

Some years back my daily tasks included illustrating the ideas of others, both good and bad. It was fun and surprisingly satisfying to render the icons and cliches of our cultural vernacular. Locking in to a style and using it as a measuring stick is different from a true design problem but it can be a blast. After ‘The Book of Tiki‘ was published there seemed to be an instant demand for recreations of the kitschy South Seas stuff.

The buyers were all clamoring for something that said ‘vintage American fun’ and I was tasked with doing the drawings. Some of the illustrations below are spot illustrations for products and some are design drawings for sculptors and the production teams. Not everything made it to the mall by June but some of it did and before long I was able to buy it in the discount bin.

The woman I drew for the logo was used as the central icon for all of the plates and glasses. Since most of this was being produced oversees, there was a good liklihood that certain things might come out wrong unless the process was spelled out in great detail.

A page from the Style Guide showing the spot colors

I created a production style guide and instruction booklet to ease the pain. The products samples came back pretty close to our expecations so it looks like it helped. Now if only the word “Pleasure” hadn’t been selected. Here are some pics of the shot glasses in the packaging. Shots are always better with four people so that’s how they were sold. You shouldn’t do shots alone.

One of the paradoxical things about Tiki Parties is that for all of their primitive, back-to-nature vibe they are actually the dandy of the yard party. You can’t just have Jimbo throw a bunch of Mai Tai’s and coconuts in his red fishing cooler. The drinks require exotic fruit and demand a dedicated workspace. This rendering is a stage one concept-

Around that same time, Sea World San Diego was doing a little re-theming on their ‘Mango Joe’s’ restaurant. Guess what they wanted? Tiki sculptures, carved out of foam and rhino coated for protection from the human factors.

If you’re interested in the American Tiki phenomena you should read the book. Also, check out Trader Vic’s in L.A., the Tiki Room at Disneyland,  or somewhere closer to you.

The objective of this project was to design a sports open for a boxing show to be aired on ESPN. “Fighting Rings” would be aired weekly on ESPN and required a 30-second open. The marketing objective was to shake up the brand and redesign the product to attract a youthful audience to a time slot dominated by 50-year-old males. The task as creative director was to design four frames to pitch the concept to ESPN executives with the last frame incorporating a typographic treatment for “Fighting Rings” and the ESPN logo. In addition to the four frames, a written concept that conveyed the marketing strategy was to be submitted.

Concept for a Show Open

Creative Strategy

Fighting Rings will feature a graphic style that is at once classic and time tested, the visceral splatters and worn textures, and fresh in it’s presentation, edgy typefaces and layered imagery. The overall effect will be familiar to both traditional fight fans who the historic aspect of the sport and younger fans who are used to punched up graphics and sound effects common in video games and the new fighting sports. The sanitized, respectable, “olympic” style of titling and effects will be abandoned.

The gym, the training and preparation for the fights, the pain, sweat and blood– these are the inspirational points for the show open. A white ground will be used to contrast the visceral texture of the title frame and an added element of dimension, and impact, will be found in the cracking glass overlay.