Here’s a new illustration I’m really excited about for blog post I put together with the help of Michelle Kondrich on Illustration Age called 14 Art & Design Podcasts Hosted by Women.

Conceptual self-portrait called “Aging with Style”. I had fun experimenting with ways to portray the creeping white hair that shows age in my beard and temples.

Here’s a cover and some spot illustrations for a cannabis-themed issue of The Stranger (Seattle alt-weekly). They wanted a coloring page for the cover depicting ways to survive winter with weed. This was a really fun one that was heavily inspired by my earlier adult activity book project.

Thanks for looking!

I got the call a couple weeks ago to complete a quick turnaround illustration for Billboard magazine for an article about how celebrities can “protect their bling”, a sort of professional advice article in response to Kim Kardashian’s recent robbery. It’s always fun to illustrate something currently relevant, and the imagery for this one worked itself out in a pretty straightforward way.

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Here’s something a bit different from my usual fare.

It’s a logo design for my latest blog Death to the Internet. Since the main two websites I run (Illustration Age and Illustration Friday) are so illustration-focused I’ve been developing a concept devoted to a much wider range of topics such as music, film, tv, design, and a lot more.

The process of developing the logo design was more about letting go than agonizing over clever concepts like I usually do. But in the end I found a solution that I like: a silhouette of a skull with the ‘://’ found in all website addresses substituted for the usual eye and nose hole shapes.

I think it works in a refreshing way and it was a nice change of process for me. Thanks for looking!

About a month or so ago I was thrilled to find out that my series of illustrations for Intelligence Squared US was being honored alongside amazing work by many talented artists in this year’s Communication Arts Illustration Annual.

Fast forward to last week when I was surprised to see that they gave it a double page spread. Thanks Communication Arts!

I’m really excited to share this latest illustration for an Intelligence Squared US debate on whether or not the Iran nuclear deal is good for America. You can’t ask for a better visual overlap than crossed fingers and the atomic symbol. (Credit to fellow illustrator Pete Ryan for the term ‘visual overlap’)

Thanks for looking!

I’ve had a very busy couple of months in terms of artistic ventures, between illustration commissions, working on some customizations on my boat, and marching in the local Apple Blossom Parade as part of the BEEP BOOP BEEP Robot Brigade! So here’s a quick look at some highlights, starting with the illustration above for Johns Hopkins Health Review about the power of Vitamin D to prevent falls in the elderly.

It was really important to me to avoid using any kind of mundane imagery to represent Vitamin D, such as a pill bottle, so the AD and I settled on this solution of using the sun’s rays as walking sticks.

Here’s one for The Boston Globe about the hazards of election season. A bear trap is one of those metaphors that I’ve proposed for many projects before, and it finally made the cut.

And here’s a quick turnaround piece for an Intelligence Squared debate on marriage equality. Pretty straightforward concept for this one.

Last but not least, I had the most amazing experience this past weekend at our local Apple Blossom Parade. A group of friends joined us in forming the BEEP BOOP BEEP Robot Brigade to dress up like robots and march. Not only was it a fun and inspiring experience, but we won a 3rd Place trophy in the Novelty category! We’re already working on our robot costume designs for next year. If this kind of thing is up your alley, you can find out more about our group here.

Thanks for looking!

It has been a busy few months, on many levels, and so I thought I’d take a break and share a collection of some of my favorite recent illustrations for a variety of clients. That fun rocket man above was created for a Harvard Business Review article about government assistance for startups. The image they commissioned was a static one, but this one screamed to be animated in some way, and I had a lot of fun making it move.

And now for some more. Thanks for looking!

Amazon is the Reader’s Friend – Intelligence Squared US

Abolish the Death Penalty – Intelligence Squared US

Bet on America – Intelligence Squared US

Faithful Marriages Make for Better Employees – Harvard Business Review

How 2% Inflation Became Global Economic Gospel – The New York Times

Speed of Wifi for Mobile Devices – Milwaukee Magazine

Fuck You Medal – Uncommissioned

Exciting news!

I’ve just received word that a series of illustrations I’ve created over the past year for Intelligence Squared US has been accepted into this year’s Society of Illustrators Annual in the Institutional category.

I’m really proud of the work I’ve been doing in collaboration with Clea Connor Chang and Dana Wolfe for IQ2US and it’s an honor to have the following images recognized in this way. It’s my third time having work selected for the annual, so I thank the Society and the category’s judges for the acknowledgement.

I’ve been really fortunately busy lately and it has been a while since I’ve shared new work, so here’s a collection of some recent editorial pieces. The first one above was created for Barron’s in collaboration with Art Director (and fellow illustrator) John Tomac, who I’ve been wanting to work with for a long time. In a nutshell, this was for a story about a mutual fund that was deemed “un-rateable” because the fund manager wouldn’t reveal any information about it. I was thrilled to have this concept approved of a dog wearing protective armor at a dog show, thereby making it “un-judgeable”.

Here’s one for Billboard magazine that falls a bit outside of what I normally do, but was for a story about Disney losing a lot of their recording artists to other record labels, most notably the voice of Elsa from the movie Frozen.

And finally, here’s a character and a concept of a haunted house that I’m simply in love with. This was created for Trulia’s annual list of haunted houses in the United States. Thanks to AD Larry Williams (who I had the chance to work with once or twice before a couple of years ago for Variety magazine.

Thanks for looking!

Common Core Education Standards

I recently completed a new series of illustrations for the upcoming season of Intelligence Squared US debates. It’s always a pleasure to work on such stimulating topics and see the images appear onstage as well as in programs and other promotional materials. Thanks again to Art Director Clea Chang for the assignment.

GMO Food

Search and Seizure of Phone Records

GMO Crops

I was honored to be among the list of talented illustrators invited to participate in the latest issue of Daniel Zender’s HYDROCHLORIC zine. It was really fun to work in greyscale for a change, and to come up with a clever concept for the theme of Summer Vacation. On a related note, you can read a recent interview about HYDROCHLORIC with Daniel on Illustration Age here.

Here’s a new illustration I’ve had a lot of fun working on bit by bit in between commissions. I really enjoyed geeking out on the little details, especially those sweet shoes. Now I want a pair for myself.

The Latest in an ongoing commission for Intelligence Squared US, for a debate about the constitutionality of unlimited spending as a form of political speech.

Last week I got the call from Art Director Cheyne Gately for a quick turnaround on this illustration for Variety. The article is about filmmakers learning to be better at budgeting their movies. I fired off a handful of ideas quicker than I have in a long time and we moved forward with this idea. I love working with the folks at Variety and hope to again soon.

Summer is approaching fast, and so I was inspired to create this personal piece that I’ll be sending out as promo postcards over the next week. I chose the theme of Summer Reading because I’ve always wanted to do one of those for a client and decided to just go ahead and make one for myself.

In addition, I am also offering this image in the form of prints, t-shirts, tote bags, coffee cups, pillows, iPhone cases, shower curtains and other products in my Society6 shop.

It’s always a thrill to receive a contributor copy in the mail featuring an illustration I’ve created. It really gives a sense of closure, of things coming full circle. And as an added bonus, you get to see the other artists that you’re sharing the issue with. And when it’s a double-page spread it’s that much more satisfying.

I was excited to find out that I’m in good company in this latest issue of Sierra magazine, sharing the pages with illustrators like Koren Shadmi, Lily Padula, Tim Bower, Sam Kalda, Peter Arkle, and Little Friends of Printmaking.

This part of the job never gets old.

I submit cover ideas to the New Yorker from time to time, and I thought I’d share this one because I still like it. It’s a very rough mockup of a proposed Easter cover featuring the city of New York as colorful Easter eggs. In this case the basket is actually a piece of stock art that I grabbed for the sake of efficiency, which I often do for my digital “sketches”, but I would have made my own from scratch had this idea been chosen.

Happy Easter everyone!