WPA poster design

One of my big design inspirations is the poster work of the Works Progress Administration (WPA); a “New Deal” agency formed by the US government in the 1930s to help end depression era unemployment.

The Library of Congress has a great searchable archive of close to 1000 WPA posters (500 of them are about not getting syphilis: good to know!).

WPA Opera Poster

Most of the posters feature bold abstracted designs and type typical of the modernisim that is associated with the Art Deco era. Despite the often semi-professional status of the artists who made them, they have come to have their own identifiable style. The posters are a lesson in simplicity, whilst maintaining personality.

You can see their direct influence in my own poster for The Oz Big Band and cover artwork for Transformers: All Hail Megatron.

You may also be interested in my article on vintage concert poster design.

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Hasbro's new Transformers Autobot Drift Toy

A couple of years ago a good mate of mine, Transformers writer Shane McCarthy came up with a new Autobot character for a minor role in IDW’s All Hail Megatron comic book series. He was called Autobot Drift and was in part a homage to the japanese origins of transforming toys. Shane worked with the series artist, Guido Guidi on coming up with Drift’s look (see his initial designs here) My small contribution as the resident petrol-head was to suggest that the drift car he transform into be a Nissan Silvia S15.

As is the norm with this type of work, the editors at IDW Publishing and Hasbro, the owners of the Transformers franchise needed to approve the inclusion before publication. From what I can tell, the marketing types got a bit excited. Okay, they got a lot excited. So excited that they decided “We’re going to make this into a toy!”

So two years later, I find myself driving around to various toy stores all around Perth trying to find Autobot Drift (apparently there are Transformers collectors at Ozformers who keep track of this stuff – handy!). I managed to find one in Toyworld Claremont. Being Claremont I’m sure they added an extra 50% to the price, because, it’s Claremont.

It was pretty surreal to see a 3D realisation of Shane & Guido’s character there on the shelves in real life. I get the same kind of surreal buzz seeing my own design work in print.

The actual Drift toy is remarkably close to Guido’s comic book design. The Hasbro designers have done a remarkable job for what must have been a complex engineering task. I was also really impressed by the pose-ability of the character and you can style some pretty neat poses when Drift brandishes his two-handed sword. Yes, Drift has three swords. It’s doesn’t get much more awesome, unless of course they were lightsabres. Or maybe flaming lightsabres… but I digress.

My one criticism probably says more about me than the toy, but transforming these toys seems so much more difficult than I remember.

When I was a kid you just folded them in half.

Oh, and Drift has a new comic mini-series coming out.

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There were 20+ applications to sort through and I was surprised at how many made it so easy for me to eliminate them from the running. So to help prevent aspiring graphic designers out there from making these same mistakes, I thought I’d present my top 5 job application tips! All of these were based on actual employment applications I reviewed! Amazing!

1. Check your spelling.

Especially paragraphs where you write about how much experience you have at proofing things for print. I kid you not!

2. Don’t set your resume in Arial.

Good designers should be aware of the message their typeface choices send. Arial is clean, modern and legible typeface, yes, but it’s also a weak default option. Choosing Arial just shows me how design-ignorant you are. Out of all the other great options there are out there, you chose a default font in MS Word, and a much derided one at that.  (Exception: web based or email applications: your choices are limited here.)

3. Leave out the wanky stuff.

“I’m a forward-thinking success-motivated individual who seeks out dynamic interpersonal… blah blah blah…” NEXT.

4. Show me your work.

At least give me a link to some of your work online or include some portfolio pieces within a PDF. Your resume might read really well, but that doesn’t convince me you have a good eye for design. Oh, and if you do have a website portfolio showing your work, make sure the site isn’t completely broken.

5. Consider the content of your portfolio.

Don’t fill up your portfolio with weaker projects. It looks better to show 5 strong examples than 35 questionable ones. Where possible, explain your role in each project. Did you design that logo, or just put it on a red background and make it into a banner? Did you design and code your website from scratch, or apply your logo to a template? Thought processes and design rationales are excellent, just keep them concise.

And… maybe it’s best that you leave out that uni project you did for illegal amphetamine product packaging. I’m sure it was really cool for your classmates, but now I can’t help but think you’re a druggie who’s going to steal our laptops to pay for your meth.

Remember that this is all about convincing me that you’re effective at visual communication. The best thing you can do is imagine yourself in the place of the interviewer and consider all the messages your job application sends.

Okay, now go out there and land that design job!

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Free comics are the best comics

On of the perks of designing cover art for comic book publishers like IDW is receiving complimentary copies of the comics you worked on.

With IDW I usually get two copies of the regular comic, and as in the case of Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers, where they print a limited run of variant covers based on my artwork, two copies of the variant covers.

The variant covers (pictured) for this series are my regular cover design minus the titles and other cover markings, printed on better paper with a matt varnish finish. The matt varnish feels really slick, although it reduces the blackness of the dark areas in the design, so tends to work better for designs that are lighter or more saturated. I design my covers with the titles in place as I believe that they are a fundamental part of the finished cover design, so sometimes this can leave a bit of an unbalanced space at the top when the titles are removed. But overall I think the variants are pretty neat to have. The rareness of them is an extra bonus!

I haven’t read LSotW all the way through yet (although I did read the script many months ago) but I’m looking forward to it. From all accounts this series has been really popular, particularly with the die-hard Transformers fans. I like this approach from IDW. They seem to be mixing accessible storylines that make it relatively easy for new readers to jump on board, with mini-series and single issue stories tailored for the hardcore fans.

I have some more IDW cover work coming up, but as with these things, nothing I can talk about just yet, sorry!

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This is a little outside what I’d normally post on here, but I wanted to share this hoola-hoop burlesque act my friend Clara Cupcakes performed recently with Sugar Blue Burlesque. The tune is Fred Astaire’s Top Hat, White Tie and Tails.

Yes, I really am friends with someone who goes by the name Clara Cupcakes.

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We got to dress up all vintage and act up around the back streets of Perth. Which is not really too far out of the ordinary.

Dabelyn is particularly adept at pushing post-production processing to get some really neat colour effects.

Check out her new portfolio site here: Dabelyn Photography

Oh, and she’s looking for new victims clients, if you’re in Perth and looking for some fun portraits!

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Watching a bunch of timelapse videos on Vimeo has got me all inspired to update my DSLR camera gear and get out there and do something like this.

I’m thinking of getting a Canon EOS 550D. It has many great features my current 400D doesn’t have, including full HD (1920 x 1080p) video recording, without the cost of the highly fancied 5D mkII. I think I can live without the larger sensor of the 5D.

Absolutely mesmerizing!

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I recently had my (3Xth) birthday and held a dress up party to celebrate. My friends are a creative bunch, so I pitched it as a “dress as something starting with the letter T” Party.

The problem with holding a fancy-dress party is that as the host, you have to put in a big effort (yes, it’s in the hosting-a-party rules). So after briefly considering going as The Terminator, or a taxman, or a tennis player, the obvious choice became a Transformer.

And of course, if you’re going as a Transformer, there’s none more well-known or admired than Autobot leader and all-round nice bot Optimus Prime.

We started by raiding the cardboard bins outside a local shopping centre. They were located in a secure area so I sneaked in to find the bits I needed only to be surprised by a security guard. Fortunately she was only happy to help, and invited us to take as much as we wanted!

From there we sourced some cheap cricket gloves, some Milo tins, some card, glue, and acrylic paint from a craft store, flower pot stands, flashlights  and ice cube trays from a $2 shop, some velcro and elastic, and last but importantly, I borrowed a friend’s cricket helmet.

So with the help of my gal and a helpful friend, we spent a day painting, cutting and taping. I drew up the windows in Adobe Illustrator, and printed them out along with the the Autobot logos previously supplied to me by IDW Publishing.

It was a lot of work, but I was pretty pleased with the finished costume. I must say though, I didn’t think far enough ahead to realise that when you’re wearing it, you can’t drink or eat unassisted: kinda important at a party!

And before you ask, no, it doesn’t transform… unless you count transforming from a costume back into a pile of boxes.

Yes, this makes me a geek.

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The series is written by Heroes actress Brea Grant and her brother Zane and drawn by Kyle Strahm. So far the reviews have been pretty positive.

This was my first non-Transformers cover for IDW, and it was slightly daunting to be following Ben Templesmith and Eisner winner Nate Powell on cover duties. The brief was to to do it as a mock 1920s movie poster and I had a lot of fun researching styles, layouts and techniques of the era.

Look for it in your local comic book store!

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