A shameless plug for a friend's business venture

This is a logo I created for my good friend Blaine Moore, who runs a blog called Run to Win, that covers the world of running and track and field in addition to offering advice to runners of all ability levels. For the past few months Blaine has been working on a more comprehensive marathon training guide which is now available at marathoning.org. It is definitely worth a read if you are a runner preparing for your first marathon or looking to improve upon your previous best.

I know first hand that Blaine is quite knowledgeable on the subject he is writing about. We were teammates on the Rochester Institute of Technology's cross country and track teams. Shortly before graduating, Blaine started running marathons. Now his goal is to run one in every state in the union. To accomplish that goal, he's running at least two or three a year and has been for the past few years. In 2006, I joined him as he crossed New York off his list. It was my first marathon and his 9th. Needless to say he beat me that day by about three minutes. (His 2 hours and 51 minutes to my 2 hours and 54 minutes.)



Here we are around mile 8 of the New York City Marathon. Blaine is on the left, I'm waving at the camera.

Seeing Spots

Over the past few months I've done some work for FOLIO, a trade magazine about magazine publishing. I've worked with, Art Director, Dan Trombetto, who is a very easy person to work with. All of the assignments have been spots for a recurring section at the front of the magazine called Login.

The most recently published was for an article on website architecture.



Originally Dan and his editors pitched a Rubik's cube image with different labels on the individual squares.





When it was decided that these might not reproduce well at a 5"x 5" size I suggested using a Soma cube in its place. Since it retained the puzzle solving concept, but also incorporated building something. Below are some initial sketches.







Below is another spot that ran with a story on publishers predicting trends for 2008. They wanted something that said fortune teller without looking "too tacky" I ended up producing this image based on a palm reading chart.



These sketches were rejected



This assignment was for social networking websites. The only requirements were show a crowd and computer. I created this.


And here are some of the rejects.

Fun facts about the George Washington Bridge

Most mornings I awake to Maurice DuBois and Kate Sullivan on the Channel 2 morning news. As they cut to commercial, viewers are treated to live shots of New York City's landmarks in the pre-dawn light. One that usually catches my eye is the George Washington Bridge, which inspired this image.



And now for the fun facts:

Spanning the Hudson River, The George Washington Bridge connects Fort Lee, N.J. and Washington Heights in Manhattan. It opened to traffic in October 1931. At the time it was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The original design called for the towers to be encased in granite. However, the Great Depression put the brakes on those plans. In 1962 the lower deck was added at a cost far greater than the construction of the rest of the bridge.

On holiday the bridge is home to the world's largest free-flying American flag

Entering New Jersey is free, but if you want to leave be prepared to shell out $6. In March those departing the Garden State for the City of New York will be forced to shell out a few dollars more