John W. Tomac Illustration & Other Stuff

Blog update

2011-03-08T07:40:00.000-05:00

I'm now blogging at johnwtomac.com/blog Please update your bookmarks. I look forward to seeing you at the new site.

Attention ETF Shoppers

2011-02-07T17:32:00.002-05:00

Here’s another quick-turnaround, spot illustration for Barron’s. This week the subject is Exchange Traded Funds. This particular story looks at one research firm’s evaluation system that may take away the guesswork out of choosing an ETF based on certain objectives.

Strong Like Bull

2011-01-31T07:45:00.046-05:00

I survived the move to Bay Ridge and I'm happy to have a handful of projects to keep me busy as I settle into the new studio. It definitely beats hauling furniture and boxes up and down flights of stairs. Here's the first of those projects to see the light of day, a spot illo for Barron's. It ran with a semi-annual feature on Zacks Investment Research's ranking of stock pickers. Right now, everyone looks like a hero thanks to the nearly two-year old bull market. The full story is here.

Movin' Out

2011-01-10T18:43:00.000-05:00

After three years in Park Slope, the wife and I are moving a few miles down Fourth Ave to Bay Ridge.

While we are getting settled, I will be unavailable for commissions with shorter deadlines until Wed., Jan. 19.

Until then, the best way to get in touch with me is via e-mail at john@johnwtomac.com. I can also be reached on my cell phone, (607) 280-7016.

Thanks for your understanding. I look forward to working with you soon.

The Road to the Super Bowl

2011-01-04T09:35:00.002-05:00

With the NFL Playoffs starting this weekend, this seems like a good time to share a recently completed project for the Dallas Observer

In early December, I was contacted by the alt weekly's extremely talented, art director Alexander Flores. He had an idea for a pin-up and art deco-inspired image for both a rack card and cover for a special guide being produced for "The Big Game" coming to town in February. He had just received on of my postcards and thought I'd be perfect for the job.

Alexander was kind enough to pass along a few images for inspiration, like this, this and this, as well as a thumbnail sketch, seen below.

I proceeded to a tighter version...

...which was tweaked a little more before heading on to the final.

This was a fun project to work on and at times it felt like Alex and I were thinking with the same brain. I hope to have the pleasure of working with him again.

Oh, and while we're on the topic of football, one more thing.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-22T09:27:00.000-05:00

Here's this year's Christmas card, created for the most demanding of clients, my wonderful wife.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

Moving Forward

2010-12-08T14:29:00.000-05:00

Perhaps the most intimidating words an art director can mutter are "do whatever you want".

Doing whatever you want is pretty much the opposite of what illustration is. Sure there are varying degrees of freedom on any assignment, but usually there is a story or product or service that plays a role in determining, at least to some degree, what the art is going to be.

So I was a little nervous when Darren DiLieto asked me to create some artwork for his site, Hire An Illustrator, and told me I had free reign to do whatever I felt like. Unlike personal work, this was actually going to be seen by people and used. There would be no burying it if it was a total disaster.

At the same time, its also really cool to have someone put their faith in you to create whatever you want, knowing that the results will be good. So the fear subsided and excitement took over.

I picked up my sketchbook and returned to some earlier, half developed ideas that I had on how the future sucked. How we lacked all the wonderful things promised by Popular Mechanics and assorted futurists in the 1950s. The sort of things I had come up with while working on this. The jet pack seemed to be one of those things that never materialized. How nice it would be to fly into Manhattan from Brooklyn without sitting in traffic or waiting for the train like the some 19th Century man. It's 2010 we should have jet packs by now. That thinking inspired the sketch that turned into the image above.

Of course as I finished this up, I saw this. Maybe there's hope for the future after all.

Summer School

2010-11-29T08:00:00.064-05:00

When you're working as an illustrator sometimes you are asked to create work pretty quickly. It's not unheard of to be get a call at noon and have to turn in work by 4 p.m. so it can be printed that evening morning.

Other times, the process moves along much slower.

Way back in the summer of ’09, I was contacted by Nicole Weinbrom from Fordham University. She was interested in seeing some additional samples of my work. I gathered some work together and fired it off. I didn't here from her and quickly forgot about our brief interaction. It was a strange summer. One in which I received many inquiries about my work, but only a fraction turned into actual commissions. The bottoming out economy might have had something to do with that.

Earlier this summer, while in Barcelona on my honeymoon, I was contacted by Nicole's boss Maggie Coyne. They were interested in having me create artwork to be used on the university's 2011 Summer Session course guide as well as some other promotional material. They gave me a great deal of freedom on this project. All they needed was something that said Summer, New York City and Education.

So after spending two weeks with my wife in Spain it was time to get reacquainted with my old friend, the drafting table. Here's what I came up with:

My first idea was to have a street scene with the NYC skyline in the background. The chracters in the background all would have been representative of various career paths related to the summer session's programs. This one had a little too much going on and lacked focus.

Next, I came up with this girl reading stretched out on the Brooklyn Bridge. This said summer and New York, but didn't really hint at any of Fordham's summer programs. There was something about the scale of the girl to the city though that I kind of liked.

This was a simpler idea that, unbeknownst to me, was too similar too art that had been used a few years earlier.

Who doesn't love a lazy river? This was an idea turning the East River into a lazy river. And really, who wouldn't want to float around reading in the East River or Hudson River on a 100º day? This idea was rejected, but the merging of the cityscape and objects from the classroom was well received.

Finally, I married up the two ideas that were working, the oversized figure and classroom objects mixed into the cityscape to create this sketch. This required some minor adjustments, like giving the girl a ponytail to make her look younger and making her sit Indian style, but as you can see became the final art.

And with that a job that started to take shape in June of 2009 was published in November 2010.

Rejected by The New Yorker

2010-11-19T09:29:00.001-05:00

The holidays are rapidly approaching. I thought the image above might make a nice early December cover.

I was wrong. Rejected, once again.

If there is another New York-centric publication that needs a Christmas image or someone looking for a custom Christmas card, let me know, it's available.

UPDATE: I've got prints for sale here as well as iPod and iPhone cases here. Working on finding a place to make greeting cards available.

Australian For Beer

2010-11-09T10:00:00.007-05:00

Back in the waning days of August, I was contacted by Ross Gales from Pollen Digital in Sydney, Australia. He was interestd in commissioning a series of illustrations for a redesign of Cascade Brewery's website. Cascade is the oldest brewer in Australia, so he was looking for artwork with a retro feel.

I created icons for the homepage that led to sections of the website highlighting Cascade's products, brewing process, brewery tour and homebrew options.

After completing those, I was asked to create art for a few banners that would promoted the company's iPhone app. Those can be seen below:

The new website, which debuted last week, can be seen here.

This was a fun project to work on, despite the late nights and early mornings necessitated by working with a client in a timezone 14 hours away. Now I need to find a place in Brooklyn that sells or serves any of Cascades beers so I can taste them. Unfortunately, I didn't get a free sample. I think that should be a requirement for alcohol- and/or food-related projects.

The Marathon

2010-11-08T21:22:00.001-05:00

That's me in the center, in Central Park with about a mile and a half to go, and out of gas.

Yesterday, I ran my second marathon.

The first was four years ago. At the time, I knew I'd run another. I didn't think it would take four years to do it. Things didn't turn out the way I planned.

In 2007, I was training to run New York and injured my foot a month before the race and couldn't run.

In 2008, history repeated itself. I was planning on running the Providence Marathon with my friend (and eventual winner) Blaine. I re-injured my foot three weeks before the race.

I took some time off after the second injury. When I started running again, I felt really out of shape. The more I tried to run the worse I felt. Only after I started having vision problems did I go to the doctor. It turned out the lack of energy and vision problems were related. As it turned out, I had leukemia. Running was out of the question for the immediate future.

In March, I woke up one morning, felt good wanted to run. I hadn't felt that way in almost two years. I kept running. After a few weeks, I decided I wanted to run the marathon again. I signed up with Team In Training, which given my condition seemed appropriate.

This time, I made it back to the starting line. 2 hours, 57 minutes and 34 seconds later I reached the finish. 705th out of 44,829 finishers. Not too bad.

None of this would have been possible without the support of terrific friends and family, as well as the kindness of some strangers. Together we raised over $6,500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Thank you!

For The Record, Kids Today Are Growing Up Too Fast

2010-09-15T09:25:00.001-04:00

Here's a recent, quick-turnaround job for my old friends at The Record.

The story looks at girls reaching puberty earlier than ever before, some as young as eight- or nine-years-of-age. No one is entirely sure what has caused this shift in development. There is believed to be a link between obesity. Others suspect it might be from the hormones injected into livestock that eventually enters the food chain.

There are short- and long-term problems associated with maturing physically too soon. These girls are at often the targets of bullying (She's different, let's all make fun of her!) and misplaced expectations from their peers and teachers (Why isn't she acting as mature as she looks?). They also have a higher risk of cancer later in life.

The full story can be read here.

A thank you goes out to AME/Graphics and Design Jerry Luciani and Deputy Graphics Editor R.L. Rebach for thinking of me for this project.

Running For A Cure

2010-08-16T22:50:00.002-04:00

This fall I will be participating in the New York City Marathon as a member of Team In Training. I'm hoping to run under 3 hours, a little over a year after being diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenus Leukemia.

All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. We need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure.

This Thursday, August 19, my wife and I will be hosting a happy-hour, fundraising event.

Please join us from 6-9 p.m. at Affair on Eighth, 35 West 8th Street (between Sixth Ave. and MacDougal St.) New York, NY. $40 gets you unlimited happy hour specials and helps make a difference in the fight against blood cancers.

Lion in the Sun

2010-08-05T09:15:00.053-04:00

A few months ago, I created a Brooklyn Bridge themed invitation for my wedding. I'm pleased to announce that image is now available for your invitations and stationary at Lion in the Sun.

Lion in the Sun is a full service paperie located in Park Slope, Brooklyn specializing in unique custom invitations for every occasion. They have a terrific selection on Brooklyn-centric and New York-themed designs. They have a wonderful staff that helps turn out some sophisticated and well-designed products.

Check them out if you find yourself in Brooklyn and/or are in need of invitations.

Picking a Winner

2010-08-04T09:07:00.002-04:00

Here's a recent spot illo I worked on for Barron's. (Full disclosure: I work there as a graphic designer in the art department.) The art ran with a story ranking the best (and worst) stock brokers over the previous 6 months, 1-year, 3-years and 5-years. In other words, which firms have done the best job picking winners. Art director was Diane Sipprelle.

This was an initial sketch that focused more on a happy and unhappy bettor. Here the decision was made to focus on just the horses.

Two more options, they went with the latter.

The New Mrs. Tomac

2010-08-03T08:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since my last update and with good reason. I got married. Since the wedding and honeymoon, I've been fairly busy with new work, some of which I'll be showing off here in the near future.

Photo by the awesome Erica Lyn.

Buy Art, Support a Great Cause

2010-06-21T12:32:00.002-04:00

On September 22, 2009 I was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia.

Nine months later, I'm feeling a lot better. So much so that I'm planning running the New York City Marathon this fall to help raise money for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and their relentless pursuit of a cure for blood cancers.

To help meet my fundraising goals, I will be donating 100% of my profits from my imagekind shop to this worthy cause until November 7.

You get art for your wall, the world gets closer to a cure for leukemia and lymphoma. I can't think of a better combination.

Visit johnwtomac.imagekind.com buy art and know that a sizable portion of your purchase price will go to charity.

If you don't have enough room on your walls for art you can support my efforts at beatcancer.johnwtomac.com

And if you see something here or here that's not for sale, contact me and I'll make it available, as long as I have the rights to do so.

New to Chico? There's an app for that

2010-06-15T08:00:00.003-04:00

This week, the class of 2014 will begin showing up at California State University at Chico for freshman orientation. The Chico News & Review has put together a special edition for the occasion. It is filled with useful information for those new to the area.

I was contacted by art director Tina Flynn to illustrate the cover. For this project, she wanted to show a smartphone screen with Chico-centric apps. The challenge was figuring out how to fit a narrow device in a more square-shaped space.

I played around with a few variations.
Phone with glow around it.
Phone flying forward.
Phone on the ground. I envisioned a glow emenating from the screen lighting up the nameplate.

Ultimately, the decision was made to go with a device that had similar proportions to the page.

At this stage the editors were still a bit undecided on some of the apps, since the wider proportion gave them a chance to create a few more.

Eventually we figured out all 12 and the app icons were reused on the inside with a feature highlighting things to do in Chico.

U.S. Against the World

2010-06-09T07:00:00.017-04:00

This is another job for The Record, Northern New Jersey's daily newspaper.

Shortly after finishing up my last assignment for them, the gentlemen who run the art department there, Jerry Luciani and Bob Rebach asked if I would illustrate the cover of the paper's World Cup Preview.

The section was going to be a tabloid despite the papers normal broadsheet publishing format. That meant, I'd have a squarish sort of space to work with. and would need to work in the section nameplate in the top left corner and leave space for a headline The working headline I got was U.S. against the World.

Here are the initial sketches I put together:
Goalkeeper diving to stop a ball, which looks like a globe. U.S. stopping the world

Here's a player bending it around the world toward a goal suggesting the U.S. finally getting by some of the World's biggest teams

The thinking here was more a United Front ready to take on the world.

Kicking a ball from a new position in the soccer world, near the top. We're not a third-rate soccer country anymore

Jerry liked what was going on in that last sketch near the top, but thought that the player should be bigger and kicking the globe. Happy to oblige, I worked up this and was off to the finish.

For The Record, Not Everyone Loves Your Pets

2010-05-24T10:32:00.009-04:00

A couple of week's ago, I was contacted by my old friends at The Record to illustrate a feature for the front of their weekly Real Estate section.

The story looked at the challenges pet owners face when trying to sell their homes. In the current market, animal dander, minor pet damage or even signs a pet lives in the house can turn off prospective buyers. Similarly, realtors aren't always prepared to show houses with animals inside. That can lead to a situation where agents are shocked to find the owner's large dogs wandering the house or cats are accidentally let out of the house.

The layout called for a more horizontal image because half of the page was going to occupied by an advertisement. Here are some of the sketches:

This was based on the author and editor's suggestion. The idea was to incorporate as much imagery from the rough draft as possible: realtor letting the cat out, dog on furniture, turtles in bathroom, notes around the house warning about the animals...

Here's the image that was picked. I thought having the cat and dog on the couch would suggest animals that had the run of the house, which seemed to be the basis for the problems sellers and realtors were encountering.

Here's another idea; the dog is the feature of the house for sale that really jumps out at you.

Showing Some Skin

2010-05-03T08:05:00.003-04:00

I'm happy to announce that the iPhone and iPod Touch skin pictured above is now available through Society 6.

The skin is thin, easy-to-remove, vinyl decals for customizing your mobile phone. It is made from a patented 3M material that eliminates air bubbles for easy application.

Now I feel kind of bad for badmouthing iPods.

Working with a very demanding client

2010-04-29T08:05:00.013-04:00

No, this isn't a story about a client from hell.

It's a story about someone who knew what they wanted...and will soon be my wife.

At the end of 2008, I got engaged to a wonderful girl named Mary. As winter turned into spring, the euphoria of OMG! I'm getting married! shifted to OMG! We have a lot of planning to do!

In those initial discussion of what we needed to do, I said, "I can take care of the invitations" I figured I was qualified to do so, having done a little work in the field of illustration and graphic design.

Mary wanted me to start working on them right away. As soon as we had a date set I would start getting routinely questioned about when I was going to start working on the invitations. My response was always soon enough. The last thing I wanted to do was create something that was initially loved then fell out of favor over time. I know that I'm somewhat critical of my own work and start picking it apart when I go back and look at it months after the fact. I didn't want both of us to be picking apart the invitations when the time came to send them out. I also didn't want everyone to see them before they were sent out.
So, I engaged in what I'll call strategic procrastination.

Mary was also upfront about things she didn't want. She assured she didn't want to offend me but said that my work could be "cold" and "forceful" and "industrial-looking" and that she didn't want the invitations to have those qualities. She wanted something a little more romantic.

She also wanted the Brooklyn Bridge.

I proposed on the bridge and our reception venue is right in the shadow of the Roeblings' masterpiece, so the landmark had some significance in our relationship. I had no problem coming up with a Brooklyn Bridge image in the past, so I didn't object.

The other thing she wanted was yellow. Its her favorite color and she's having a yellow wedding. Yellow, can be a tricky color to work with, especially if you are planning on reversing type out of it. I'm sure those who remember the early days of the internet recall the awful white and yellow web pages.

With those things in mind, I put together a rough design that looked like this:

Mary was very pleased with this was heading, so we headed over to Lion In The Sun, a local stationary store specializing in invitations to discuss our printing options. It was here that Mary got to see firsthand how great letterpress invites could look. Thankfully, they weren't priced out of our budget. With the decision made to go with the letterpress, my all-yellow invite design wasn't going to cut it any more.

In the redesign process, I added a little more detail to the bridge to break up the large swath of solid color. We also made the decision to print in gold and blue. The gold was chosen because the yellow inks that were available probably wouldn't have reproduced all that well on the paper stock that we chose. We did, however, choose some yellow envelopes that looked very nice with the final printed piece. I also created a reply card that we would reverse letterpress in blue. (Blue is the secondary color in our palette.)

And here's the final product.

Needless to say the bride-to-be is very happy with the results.

And as luck would have it, so was the printer. I should have some news about the availability of this design after our wedding.

I should also mention if there is anyone out there looking for custom wedding invitations feel free to get in touch with me.

Salvation for Print

2010-04-01T08:59:00.007-04:00

Print to Pixels, originally for Folio:

The iPad is coming.

It brings with it the opportunity to rescue print, or at the very least the companies that currently publish newspapers, magazines and books.

The new platform offers a pretty cool opportunity for publishers to create a product that combines the interactivity of the web and the narrative nature of the printed page.

Presumably, the user would be able to download an application or an individual copy through iTunes and begin reading right away.

If that's the case media companies have an opportunity to make a ton of money.

Traditionally, production and distribution of printed materials have been one of the biggest expenditures. Some of those costs were recouped by subscriptions and individual copy sales.

However, in the age of the internet people started reading content for free online and stopped paying for news. Leaving distrbution costs to be paid by a smaller audience and declining ad rates that were tied to circulation.

The transition from print to pixels could save magazines and newspapers that were left for dead. They have an opportunity to shed their 20th century distribution network and again get people paying for news.

The challenge now becomes producing enough interesting content to keep readers engaged. The internet and TV aren't across the room anymore, they're on the same device.

The only way of doing that is hiring lots of good writers, editors, designers and artists

Just Another Training Tool?

2010-03-31T09:12:00.005-04:00

Apparently, my last post on running with headphones touched a nerve with some other runners. There are plenty of runners who listen to music while training and a few added their two cents.

Reuben Morley pointed out:

...The fact is, some people prefer running with music while others don’t. As long as your sensible there is no right or wrong choice. Music can act as motivation, inspiration or simply a distraction to get the job done (this does not mean we as runners are unaware of our surroundings)

For people like me who train a lot, music can break the repetiveness of running and make it more enjoyable.

As I said, in my opinion, there is no right or wrong choice when it comes to music. As long the runner is precautious and sensible, they should be fine. I love music and I love running. For more than 600 miles they’ve gone hand in hand perfectly. They won’t be getting split up any time soon. iRun to the beat.

I certainly don't want to begrudge anyone who is making an effort to get out and exercise. There are certainly worse things you could be doing than donning the headphones.

However, it still seems like a needlessly risky activity kind of like texting or talking on the phone while driving.

John Fenton shared his approach to make it a little more safe:

...I only wear my headphones when running on closed-access paved trails or on the treadmill. I don't wear them on roads or sidewalks. I don't wear them on real trails. And, on top of that, I don't wear them during most workouts.

...I also keep the volume at a reasonable level. Almost without fail, I can hear cyclists coming up behind me before they pass.

It's getting warm so there are going to be a lot more runners taking to the streets. If you're one of them, regardless of whether you have headphones or not, be safe.

I'll be out there training for the New York City Marathon, and raising some money for the Leukemia so say hello if you see me.

iGnoring Yourself and the World Around You

2010-03-23T00:36:00.008-04:00

This past weekend I had the chance to watch a little bit of the NYC Half Marathon. I was blown away by the number of runners with iPods. I've run thousands of miles in my life and wouldn't need all the fingers on one hand to count the times I've run with headphones.

There are really only two reasons why I shun the portable music devices – they screw up your training and they're dangerous. (a view I share with my friend Blaine, who also happens to be a pretty good coach.)

There have been a studies linking listening to music and performance while running. The studies say pretty much the same thing – When you've got your iPod on, your pace will sync up with the tempo of your music. If the music picks up the pace, so will you. However, when the music slows down so do you.

Your body will tell you all sorts of things when you are running, you just have to listen. Heart rate, breathing, muscle response all give valuable clues as to how we are running, whether our pace is too fast or slow or if a discomfort is temporary or something more serious. When you have your headphones on you ignore these messages and run to match the beat of your music. That can lead to overtraining which causes injury or burnout.

Unfortunately, that's not the real danger to running with you iPod.

Runners with headphones tend to be oblivious to the world around them. While the dangers are probably limited to bumping into another runner or missing a turn on a closed road race course, most of us run in the roads between races.

You don't own the road. You're sharing it with drivers and cyclists. A runner involved in a collision with a car is going to lose every single time. Getting hit by a bicycle isn't much fun either, for the runner or the guy on his bike.

It is in the best interest of runners to be able to hear cars and bikes approaching. There is plenty of time to get out of the way when you hear a car coming. Of course, you have to hear it first. You're a lot less likely to hear someone coming if you're rocking out to your mp3 player.

Just last week I witnessed a runner with headphones head full speed into a busy intersection against the light and right in front of a car. Luckily the car stopped, but I'm convinced that had she not had her ears plugged she probably would have heard the cars coming, looked and stopped instead of being startled by a car coming to a screeching halt.

Because I'm probably starting to sound like an old crumudgeon, I'll cut my ranting and raving short. But for your training's sake and your safety's sake leave the headphones at home the next time you go for a run. Trust me it won't be that hard. You might even find the soundtrack provided by the city and mother nature quite enjoyable.

You'll also have an opportunity to learn the age-old lesson that running teaches us:
The challenge in front of me can be completed one step at a time.

You won't learn that lesson when you're zoning out, running with your iPod.

White House Seeks Artists' Comments to Improve Copyright Protection

2010-03-19T07:13:00.007-04:00

From the Illustrators Partnership

New Copyright Czar begins Joint Strategic Plan to Protect Intellectual Property.
Victoria Espinel is the first U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), also known as the Copyright Czar. Congress created IPEC by an Act of Congress. Ms. Espinel serves within the Executive Office of the President to coordinate with all the federal agencies that fight the infringement of intellectual property.

Ms. Espinel and her team are specifically tasked with formulating and implementing a Joint Strategic Plan to help protect the ingenuity and creativity of Americans by improving the U.S. Government's protection of the rights of intellectual property owners.

Your input is requested.
The White House is inviting your public input and participation to shape an effective intellectual property enforcement strategy. Please respond with your written submissions regarding the costs to you, your business and the U.S. economy resulting from infringement of your intellectual property rights, both direct and indirect.

This will be a 2-part process.
The first is to gather public recommendations by March 24. IPEC will then gather your input on the formulated plan.

Please be precise.
Include your name, city, state, and what type of artist you are. Explain why copyright is critical to you as a commercial artist, how infringement affects you, and what the U.S. government can do to better protect the rights of American artists. If your submission is about your economic loss due to infringement of your copyrights you must clearly identify the methodology used to calculate your losses or otherwise validate your infringement and enforcement costs.

Your submission will be publicly posted.
For this reason, please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information.

Confidential disclosures.
If you have confidential business information that would support your recommendation or that you believe would help the Government formulate an effective enforcement strategy, please let them know by contacting:
Thomas L. Stoll
Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator
(202) 395-1808

Deadline: Submissions must be received by Wednesday, March 24, 2010, at 5 p.m. EST.
All submissions should be sent electronically via intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov

More backrgound information is available here.

For news and information, and an archive of these messages visit the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog

Tweet Tweet

2010-03-09T23:02:00.004-05:00

All the cool kids are doing it and now so am I.

Follow me at twitter.com/johnwtomac

(that's less than 140 characters, right?)

UFOs in Brooklyn

2010-03-09T08:02:00.005-05:00

UFOs have been spotted over Brooklyn.

Are they aliens from another planet? If so, Why are they here?

Did they come for the bagels? The music scene? To visit their grandmothers?

Or were priced out of Manhattan?

Signs of Spring

2010-02-25T08:07:00.007-05:00

It may be snowing in New York City today, but warmer weather is clearly just around the corner, despite what the groundhog may have told you a few weeks ago.

Pitchers and Catchers have reported. Position players are in the best shape of their lives. Everyone has hope again. Spring training has begun.

Soon enough, there will be games and the snow will be just a memory. For now, I'll take the few signs, however small they may be right now, that there are better, warmer days ahead.

By the way, image above is for sale here. So is its companion.

Angela Moore at the Society of Publications Designers

2010-02-19T00:08:00.006-05:00

There is a great selection of work by Angela Moore up at SPD.org. Angela is the great cover designer at the Santa Fe Reporter.

In addition to a great group of covers that look like posters, there are several notes on her process as an art director/designer.

I had the pleasure of working with Angela on this cover a few months ago. She helped turn what could have been a stressful job into a pretty enjoyable project. I hope we get the chance to collaborate again in the near future.

You can check out more of Angela's work (including some pretty amazing paintings and drawings) here.

Illustration Friday: Wilderness

2010-01-18T12:19:00.003-05:00

Here's something from the archives that falls into this week's Illustration Friday theme–Wilderness.

More Gloom and Doom?

2010-01-07T08:33:00.006-05:00

Here's my first illo to see the printed page in 2010. It's another job for Dan Trombetto at Folio:. This is in the current issue and is with a story on the less-than-sunny outlook for regional publications. We may be in a new year, but at least for the time being we're still dealing with more of the same from 2009. Let's hope it turns around soon.

Dan was looking for clouds rolling in over a cityscape. Here are the sketches:

Reaching the Finish Line

2009-12-29T21:42:00.014-05:00

The year is drawing to a close and that can mean only one thing — year end lists. This is an illustration I did for Folio: looking at the magazine industry's big winners for 2009.

Early on in the process AD Dan Trombetto suggested a victorious publisher bursting off the cover of a magazine. Something like this:

Or, perhaps, this:

For good measure, I threw in this alternative:

When this job started we were working from a pretty limited synopsis. Right after my sketches showed up, so did the final version of the story. The big winners of ’09 were the folks who figured out how to make money outside of the traditional printed product. Perhaps we should have known given the dismal state of the publishing industry. There wasn't a single traditional magazine among the list, so it was back to the drawing board.

A lot the big winner made money on the internet. So I offered this variation on some earlier ideas:

As well as a more generic approach:

And finally this:

I thought it made sense, since the big winners actually reached the end of the year, whereas many publications didn't. Dan and his editors agreed. I think they got the right one.

If you're interested in the story read it in its entirety here.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-14T07:07:00.007-05:00

Christmas trees always look smaller outside. I'm not entirely sure why. Last year, Mary and I ended up with a tree that was probably on the slightly too large size. Something that didn't become apparent until it came inside. That experience inspired this year's Christmas card. Of course, since there are trees for sale on seemingly every corner, we didn't have to try to get ours home on the subway.

Art for Sale

2009-12-03T19:31:00.007-05:00

The Society of Illustrators is holding a holiday art sale to benefit the Permanent Collection Acquisition Fund. The Permanent Collection of the Society of Illustrators is the home for hundreds of works of art by many of the greatest names in American painting and illustration. This celebrated collection is ever expanding, thanks to purchases and donations from our membership, art patrons and estates. These works are catalogued with selections from the Collection on display throughout the building.

There is a terrific selection of work available. Perhaps best of all, you can take the work right off the wall of the lower gallery and home in the same visit. I picked up this great piece by Dave Stolte earlier today.

If you're at the Society of Illustrators you should also check out the Members Open Show, which on display through December. All the work in that show, including my entry, is on sale to benefit the Art Therapy Program at The Family Center.

If you can't make it to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I'm selling some of my work here.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T00:21:00.003-05:00

Happy Turkey Day!

The Art of Making a Difference

2009-11-19T19:02:00.012-05:00

I'll be participating in this year's Members Open at the Society of Illustrators. Proceeds from the sale of art in the show will benefit the Family Center Art Therapy Family Support Program.

The Family Center works to create a more secure present and future for children whose parents have a life-threatening illness by providing comprehensive legal and social services, education and research. They will be launching the Art Therapy Family Support program this fall. Children and families will be able to utilize this wonderful expressive art form as a catalyst for healing and self-discovery.

The show opens Dec. 1, but some of the included work can be previewed here.

Here's my entry.

Thank you

2009-10-24T11:21:00.008-04:00

Thank you:

John and Patricia Tomac, Heidi Spalholz, Elena Rossi, Chris Lanza, Kevin Koch, Alice and Bob Negron, James Toulouse, Mary Fezza, Ben Miller, Blaine and Erin Moore, Theispot.com Team, Andrew Hartman, Curtis Howard, Chad and Trisha Byler, Martha Murray, Matt Nettleton, Daniel Sciannameo, Joanna Siu, Jeff Abbott, Kathleen Anderson, Gregory Trupp, David and Grace Cicero, Rosemary & Catty McDermott, David Carleton, Chris Tomac, Moira Murray, Meghan Sperrazza, Kathy and Richard Pancoast, Angela Pensiero, Patt Early, Kathie Williams, Patricia Nichols, Alex Fine, Mario Colasuonno, Nils Anderson, Colleen Anderson, Al Passarella, Christopher Kudla, Anne Ju, Matthew Hartman, Laura Costello, Randa Jabbour, Jessica Vastola, Colin Grover, Kevin Turko, Dana Sanetti, Ryan Pancoast, Declan, Dermot, Kate, Rob and Anne Marie Connolly and Helene Conway

You helped raise over $3,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

The link in the upper right corner of this page will remain because you can continue to donate until Dec. 31. All contributions are tax deductible.

Illustration Friday: Fast

2009-10-24T10:45:00.004-04:00

The fastest way to The 1964 World's Fair is on the 7 train. Of course, This is from my own imagination, Robert Moses would have preferred you drive.

The 7 train is still one of the fastest way to reach Flushing Meadows Park assuming you catch an express train.

This poster is for sale here

Dude, Where's My Flying Car?

2009-10-13T17:56:00.006-04:00

Here's one for this week's Illustration Friday theme — flying.

It's almost 2010. We should have flying cars now. Instead, we're still driving around on the ground like a bunch of animals. We are not living in the future promised to us by Popular Mechanics or Back to the Future, Part II. Given the current state of the auto industry, we probably aren't going to get them anytime soon.

Another thing we should have now is a cure for cancer. Help me raise money to find one. I'll be participating in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Walk fund raiser later this week. if you'd like to make a donation click here.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society funds lifesaving research that has contributed to major advances in the treatment of blood cancers and treatments for other types of cancer, such as chemotherapy and stem cell transplants. These treatments have helped patients, like me, live better, longer lives. New targeted therapies that kill cancer cells without harming normal tissue are providing drugs and procedures that are improving quality of life.

On October 15 I will be participating in the Light the Night Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with the Society of Illustrators team to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you would like to make a donation please click here.

Lucky Me

2009-10-08T15:59:00.008-04:00

I have Leukemia.

I am extremely lucky.

I have a tremendous group of family and friends who have done everything imaginable to help me since I was hospitalized a few weeks ago and who continue to do so now that I'm at home recuperating.

I have a great team of doctors at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medical College who caught this thing in the early, chronic phase.

I'm fortunate to have fantastic health insurance, thanks to my job working as a graphic designer for Dow Jones & Co. Hopefully, Congress will do something soon so that this won't constitute luck.

I'm also sure that this is nothing more than a bump in the road, thanks to a wonderful drug called Imatinib, but better known as Gleevec thanks to the good people at Novartis.

Gleevec is not the traditional cancer treatment. Instead of bombarding the body with radiation or chemicals, this drug is a targeted therapy. Gleevec works on the cellular level to stop the abnormal build-up of white blood cells. Left untreated this condition causes white blood cells to crowd out others in the blood causing all sorts of problems. Because it just targets the overproduction of white blood cells I don't have to worry about too many of the traditional cancer treatment side effects like nausea, fatigue or hair loss. That means I'll look like my normal self in June when I get married.

So far, the treatment seems to be working. When I was hospitalized on September 22 my white blood cell count was 390,000. As of yesterday, it was down to 24,000. Normal is between 3,000 and 10,000. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting close. When my white blood cell counts normalize I'll be a third of the way to remission.

In May, 2001 it took the FDA just two-and-a-half weeks to approve its use. In the same month Time Magazine hailed it as a "magic bullet" in the war on cancer. What would have been a death sentence 20 years ago is now a manageable condition, akin to high blood pressure or high cholesterol. If you'd like to help fund research for other, future leukemia treatments click here.

The image above was produced during the Great Depression as part of the WPA's Federal Art Project. I'm not planning on slowing down anytime soon. Hopefully I'll be cranking out images for years to come. I'm not even 30 yet. I figure I have a good 50 years to keep on drawing. If I'm lucky my work will be providing inspiration to another generation of artists, like the one above.

On October 15 I will be participating in the Light the Night Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with the Society of Illustrators team to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you would like to make a donation please click here.

Three Straight Septembers Ruined by Philadelphia

2009-10-02T16:09:00.009-04:00

A cellular mutation named for the city of brotherly love

I'm a huge New York Mets fan. Since 2006, I've been a Sunday ticket plan holder. In my opinion there are few better ways than to spend a summer afternoon than in the upper deck of Shea Stadium, sitting in the sun, cold beer in hand, watching baseball.

In 2007, the Mets were coasting along, never really playing great, but eventually taking a seven game lead over the Phillies with 17 to play. Over the next 2 weeks that lead would evaporate. It culminated on a Sunday afternoon. Before I reached my seat Tom Glavine had surrendered 4 runs. He'd give up a few more before being pulled with 2 outs in the first inning. The Mets lost that game and were overtaken in the standings by the Phillies on the final day of the season.

In 2008, the Mets started off the season playing some lackluster baseball. A mid season managerial change seemed to light a fire and for a while they looked like one of the best teams in the league. Then in August Billy Wagner blew out his elbow and threw the bullpen into disarray. Going into the final weeks of the season with a 3.5 game lead seemed anything but safe. Turns out it was not. Again, the Phillies overtook the Mets and on the final day of the season the Mets again playing for their postseason lives came up short. The Phillies went on to win the World Series that fall. That was hard to watch. The Mets had taken the regular season series between the two teams and had Wagner not got hurt probably wouldn't have caught them again. Adding insult to injury Shane Victorino and Co. seemed to take every opportunity they had to mock the Mets on their way to a championship.

This year, the Mets suffered a bizarre rash of injuries and were really out of contention by mid-July. I thought to myself at least Philadelphia won't be ruining my September this year. I was wrong.

In mid-September I started seeing spots in my right eye. At first I didn't think anything of it, but after being annoyed by the condition for a few days I called up my eye doctor and described my symptoms. Immediately, he referred me to a retinal specialist, fearing that I might have a detached retina. A detached retina is a pretty serious condition, especially to someone who makes their living in the visual arts. Needless to say I was a bit concerned.

The retinal specialist ran a battery of tests and determined that my retinas were fine. That was a relief. However, it was just the beginning of this ordeal. The doctor discovered bleeding in both of my eyes. In the right eye, it was pooling in my field of vision, causing the spots. As for what was causing the bleeding, he wasn't sure and recommended that I go see an internist.

After leaving the retinal specialist, I spent the weekend celebrating my future brother in-laws wedding. Luckily, among the wedding guests, including the bride, were several nurses all of them were happy to refer me to a great doctor practicing internal medicine.

I made it to the doctor a few days later hoping to figure out what exactly was going on with my eyes. After a physical and and a series of blood draws, I left with an appointment for a week when all of the blood test would be back. I wouldn't make it back for that appointment.

The evening of the doctors appointment, my fiance, Mary and I had Mets tickets. Her alma mater's choir was singing the national anthem, so a group of us had standing plans to attend the game. I felt okay despite spending the majority of my day at the doctors office and was actually looking forward to going. In the fourth inning Mary's phone started ringing off the hook, all private numbers. Finally, she picked up the phone. On the other end was my doctor's office.

"Are you with John Tomac?" the voice on the other end asked.

She said yes and handed the phone over to me. On the other end was a doctor from my doctor's office. "We have your blood tests and their are some irregularities. You need to get to the emergency room right away. I don't want to alarm you, but we think you might have leukemia."

Mary and I left the game, hopped in a cab and headed to New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, where a team of doctors was waiting. The first doctor I saw was an oncologist who explained they were going to draw blood to make sure they hadn't mixed up the samples. I was pretty sure this was going to be the case, but soon learned there was no mistake.

The next two doctors that I saw were from the ICU. They were a bit surprised to see me in such good spirits and not feeling ill. Apparently, my white blood cell levels were 40-times higher than normal. I should have felt awful and been at risk for sorts of infection. Luckily, I felt fine and hadn't gotten sick. I spent a few more hours in the ER under observation before finally being admitted to a room on the Leukemia floor.

The next morning, I was visited by a team of oncologist who explained that they believed that I had Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. They ran a battery of tests including a bone marrow biopsy which confirmed their suspicions. The doctors went on to explain that my case of CML, like most, was caused by a mutation where a pair of chromosomes switch places. This condition is called the Philadelphia Chromosome.

A third straight September ruined by Philadelphia.

On October 15 I will be participating in the Light the Night Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge with the Society of Illustrators team to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you would like to make a donation please click here.

Help Wipe Out Blood Cancers

2009-10-01T09:51:00.004-04:00

Last week, rather unexpectedly, I was hospitalized and diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia.

On October 15 I will be joining the Society of Illustrators team at the 2009 Light the Night Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. If you would like to make a donation to help fund Leukemia and Lymphoma research please click here. We are just shy of the halfway point of our goal. Please help push us over the edge.

In the near future I'll begin sharing a little more info on my diagnosis and treatment.

Illustration Friday-Welcome

2009-09-14T12:19:00.003-04:00

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is Welcome.

Liberty Enlightening the World has been welcoming people to New York's harbor and the United States as a landmark (and originally as a lighthouse) since 1886.

Since July 4 visitors are welcome to visit the crown.

If you like this image you are welcome to buy it here.

SILA Illustration West—Call for Entries

2009-09-10T08:35:00.002-04:00

The Society of Illustrators-Los Angeles also has a Call for Entries out for Illustration West 48.

Society of Illustrators—Call for Entries

2009-09-10T08:11:00.003-04:00

The Call for Entries is out for this year's Society of Illustrators show.

Entry details are here.

The Tyranny of the Alphabet

2009-08-11T15:38:00.005-04:00

Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure of being called for jury duty in Kings County.

The day got off to a bit of a rough start. Somewhere between Grand Army Plaza and Borough Hall I lost my summons. I can only assume that it fell out of my pocket and ended up as litter in the tracks or stuck to someone's wet shoes on the subway. Upon my arrival to the courthouse I had to make a detour to the county clerk's office get a new summons. The woman behind the counter offered me the chance to come again another day, but I figured that since I was already there I'd deal with the unpleasant civic duty to get it out of the way.

With my freshly printed summons in hand, I headed to the jury room. There were already about 300 hundered other unhappy people waiting when I got there. Some read the paper, some brought laptops, a few were watching a Fox News with the sound off on the large flatscreen TV's throughout the room. I sat doodling in my jurors handbook and in a sketchbook I brought along.

Shortly after I arrived, a diminutive man in a loud suit entered the room, took a seat behind the desk at the front of the room and began explaining what was going to happen that day. At one point he mentioned that if you didn't have a basic grasp on the English language you would be dismissed after meeting with a translator. At this point about two-dozen individuals ran to the front of the room. All of them were told to sit down because clearly they understood English well enough to serve on a jury. the rest of the room broke out into laughter.

The next point he made was that everyone's service was going to be needed until 5:00 p.m., no exceptions. Even if you were called to potentially serve on a jury and were rejected, you needed to stick around in case you were needed for another case.

All of these instructions were repeated again in Spanish, Chinese and Russian, then the waiting began.

Periodically potential jurors were called away to interview rooms down the hall. At first, just about everyone was paying attention, then after about an hour almost no one was. Each time a new name was called a few panicked people began asking those sitting near them if their name was called. This dragged on for hours, but somehow managed to feel significantly longer. The monotony was broken up briefly by lunch, then proceeded to drag on for what felt like forever and a day.

Around 3:30 something almost miraculous happened. The diminutive gentleman in the loud shirt returned and informed us that he lied. We were all going to be dismissed early. A loud round of applause burst out. However, before anyone could run for the door, we were informed that each of us needed to leave with a piece of paper that said we had served our time. We were also informed that this magic piece of paper was going to get us out of jury duty until 2017. However, there was a small catch, if we left without the paper we were going to be marked absent for the day and called again in the near future.

At that point, the real torture began.

How do you dismiss 300 people? With alphabetical order of course!

At this point I realized that wasn't going home anytime soon. The Tomac's are blessed with many wonderful characteristics. We're intelligent, attractive, hard-working and and we smell good, too. Unfortunately, we are burdened with a name that falls near the end of the alphabet.

So I sat through what felt like the reading of the Brooklyn white pages. I learned that there are a surprising number of Johnsons and Smiths in New York's most populous borough. I also was in awe of the number of different surnames that start with the letter Q.

Checking the time on my cell phone it was 4:30, about an hour into the dismissal process, when at long last they reached the letter T. At this point I thought I was going to be leaving any minute. I was wrong. I waited through the Ta's and the Te's. Th and Ti came and went. A few strange combos like Tc were thrown in for good measure. At long last the To's were reached. Unfortunately, all sorts of To last names were called before they reached Tomac.

Finally, I could leave! At this point I was among the last dozen or so left in the jury room. Checking the time again, it was 5:00 on the nose.

So much for leaving early.

If anything positive came out of my hour-and-a-half wait it was the rough drawing that became the image above.

My lovely fiancé thinks I'm a little crazy for getting worked up over this, but her last name starts with a C...at least for the next few months.

Interviewing for a job in print 5 years from now

2009-08-03T14:27:00.005-04:00

Here is a recent image for FOLIO.

The story, which can be read here, is about jobs people will be applying for in publishing industry over the next 5 years. It's an interesting to see where publishers see their industry heading at a time when most are predicting its demise.

Dan Trombetto was the AD on this illustration.

Graphic Depictions of Harry Potter

2009-07-30T08:44:00.003-04:00

With Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince taking in a boatload of cash at the box office, I figured now would be an opportune time to throw up an old Harry Potter image I did for The Record, I believe around the time the last book in the series was released.

My fiance loves this image, but to be fair she's also a huge Harry Potter fan. Much to her dismay I've been unable to get into the series with the same enthusiasm.

Something is rotten in this tribute to Denmark

2009-07-28T08:29:00.006-04:00

Here's a rather interesting copyright infringemnt story as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Greenville, Michigan, a town with a rather large Danish population, erected a replica of the famous Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. Now, the town is now being sued for copyright infringement by the Artist's Rights Society. The group claims that the towns statue violates the copyright of sculptor Edvard Eriksen.

There's always football season

2009-07-20T13:13:00.006-04:00

NFL Training Camp starts in a few days. With the Mets season spinning out of control, the Jets beginning practices at SUNY Cortland should provide some much needed optimism. Unfortunately, having followed the Jets, I realize that any hope will ultimately be crushed and ruin more than a few Sunday afternoons in the most excruciating ways possible.

I can't wait.

The image above is a nod to the wonderful Antonio Petrucelli.

Rejected by The New Yorker II

2009-07-13T09:29:00.005-04:00

With the U.S. Open just a few weeks away, I thought The New Yorker might be interested in using the image above. I thought the nod to the great A.M Cassandre and the inclusion of one of the remnants of the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park (which is also the home of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center) might be enough to get on the coveted cover.

I was wrong. Rejected by The New Yorker once again.

I'm still fond of this image. If you like it too, prints are available here.

Posters for Sale

2009-06-27T15:38:00.003-04:00

I am now selling posters of my work. Click here to take a look.

More images to come in the not too distant future!

The return of Orphan Works

2009-06-20T13:22:00.002-04:00

In Orphan Works Land, no news has been good news, but that's about to change.

US Copyright Register Marybeth Peters told Intellectual Property Watch that orphan works legislation is expected to be introduced within the next 10 days. It is her understanding there may still be some issues in the House version to be resolved, and there are some stakeholders - such as illustrators and other artists - "who are probably going to lobby pretty hard against it."

Peters said this issue is important to her, and the fact it came so close to passing last year is almost bittersweet. "What I hope it isn't ... is it's one magic moment you get" to finally get it passed, then it doesn't happen, she said.

We don't mean to disparage the Register's comments. She's had a long and distinguished career at the Copyright Office. But her statement deserves a reality check. Illustrators are not opposed to an orphan works bill. We're opposed to this bill.

We're opposed because its scope far exceeds the needs of responsible orphan works legislation.

Moreover, illustrators and artists are not the only stakeholders who oppose it. At last count, more than 83 creators organizations are on record against it, representing artists, photographers, writers, songwriters, musicians and countless small businesses.

Last year, we proposed amendments to the Orphan Works Act that would have made it a true orphan works bill. The amendments were drafted by the attorney who was chief legal counsel to the House Judiciary Committee in drafting the 1976 Copyright Act. The amendments were co-sponsored by the Artists Rights Society and the Advertising Photographers of America. They can be found here: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/07/hr-5889-amendments.html

On July 11, 2008, we submitted those amendments to both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. In our preamble we wrote this:

As rights holders, we can summarize our hopes for the Orphan Works Act simply: to see that it becomes a true orphan works bill, with no unnecessary spillover effect to damage the everyday commercial activities of working artists. We'd be happy to work with Congress to accomplish this. No legislation regarding the use of private property should be considered without the active participation of those whose property is at stake.

Last year more than 180,000 letters were sent to lawmakers from our Capwiz site. These letters did not come from obstructionists. They came from citizens whose property is at stake. They may lack the resources of big Internet companies and the access of high powered lobbyists, but last year they spoke. They asked only one thing: that Congress respect their personal property rights and amend this bill to make it nothing more than what its sponsors say they want it to be - a bill that would affect only true orphaned work.

We urge this Congress to listen.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog.

Over 83 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

Doing plenty of evil

2009-06-15T20:21:00.004-04:00

Google's unofficial motto is "Don't be evil."

The thinking is that doing the right thing breeds trust and respect for the brand and company among customers that in the long run outweighs doing the underhanded or unethical for a short term gain.

It's a nice philosophy.

It would be nice if Google actually practiced what they preached.

In the first three months of 2009, Google reported a profit of $1.42 billion. That's a lot of money. And it was made during the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

You would think that a company that was still making fistloads of cash would be willing to pay illustrators. You'd be wrong.

Over the past few months Google has been asking many illustrators to contribute artwork so people can personalize the appearance of the soon-to-be released browser, Chrome. They have the audacity not to pay. Understandably some rather prominent illustrators have said no.

Google says the they do not pay for these projects, but instead offer terrific exposure and a unique opportunity to promote the use of illustration.

This isn't promotion. Its exploitation. Its evil.

A company as big as Google should pay for the use of illustrations like so many other businesses, both large and small, do every single day. They certainly can afford to pay who work for them.

The work that illustrators do adds value to all types of projects and products. They deserve to be compensated for the value they add.

By they way, Google doesn't give away its services or products for free.

Why should Google expect the independent contractors working for them to give away their work?

Hooray for Tamalewood

2009-06-11T08:27:00.010-04:00

One of the more interesting things about being an illustrator is that you never know when your going to get the call to do a job.

Last Friday afternoon I received a message from Angela Moore at the Santa Fe Reporter. She wanted to know if I was available to illustrate a cover on a a feature about the film industry in New Mexico, or as they call it, Tamalewood.

It was a cover, so without thinking too much about it I said yes.

The story touched on how the state had passed a loan program for the film industry and how the biggest beneficiaries of it weren't local filmmakers, but the big Hollywood studios. As a result, the state hasn't generated any real permanent or good paying jobs related to the movie industry and instead has become a labor colony for the studios. The whole story is here, if you would like to read it

Of course there was a catch. She needed the final art on Monday. Luckily, I have a very understanding fiance when it comes to things like this.

So I spent a good part of my Friday evening generating ideas and sketches and fired them off. I chose to play with the idea that New Mexico was doing a lot heavy lifting by subsidizing the big Hollywood studios

Sketch 1. Like Sisyphus pushing a rock up the hill.

Sketch 2. Hollywood as a burden on the backs of New Mexico.

Sketch 3. The star-struck day laborer.

Saturday morning I received a couple of emails from Angela. She seemed happy with the ideas I sent, but was leaning toward sketch number two, but needed to run them by the editors first.

About an hour an a half later I received another message saying the editor liked number 3 because the state being star struck was part of the problem. She had one request though, make the reel bigger and look more like a burden.

So with that request in mind, I proceeded to final and fired off the finished project first thing Monday morning. Happily, Angela thought the work looked fabulous so there was no need to make any changes.

There is a great deal of satisfaction in turning around something quickly like this, enough to make working for the weekend enjoyable.

Barron Storey at SI

2009-06-04T23:49:00.003-04:00

Life after Black: The Visual Journals of Barron Storey will be at the Society of Illustrators from Wed June 10 through the end of July. There will be an opening reception Friday June 12 at 6:30. The show should provide an interesting look at one illustrator's process. Check it out if you are in the area.

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"

2009-05-27T18:47:00.009-04:00

Here's a great video that illustrates the sometimes absurd nature of client requests and getting paid. Most clients or potential clients are not like this, but there are more than a few looking to get something for nothing. Without fail, these types of clients are the most difficult to work with, requesting endless revisions, deciding to change the concept after sketches have been approved and grabbing reproduction rights that were never negotiated, among other transgressions.

Tip of the hat to Heidi Schmidt and David Airey

Rejection and Acceptance

2009-05-05T07:52:00.008-04:00

I moved to Brooklyn just before the beginning of last spring. Shortly after moving I began exploring my new home by venturing out on a run with the purpose of getting lost and trying to find my way back home. I have done this everytime I've moved. Its the best way to learn your way around, at least in my humbel opinion.

On one of the first runs, I traveled down Flatbush Ave. from Grand Army Plaza. About a mile down the road, I turned left onto Washington Ave. and quickly found myself crossing Sullivan Place.

I thought, "Hey, Ebbets Field used to be around here." So I turned and jogged away from Washington Ave.

Sure enough, a block away was McKeever Place. The intersection of Sullivan and McKeever was the site of Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Arguably, the place is more famous in death than it was in life. Since its destruction, the tiny stadium has been written about, sung about and served as the inspiration for another ballpark in Queens.

Today, there is little indication that a ballpark ever stood on the spot. Instead a public housing complex dominates the landscape.

That day, I wasn't the only person looking for the site of the old ballpark. There were a few other people looking for some sign that there used to be a ballpark here.

As I turned and continued on my run I conceived the image above in my minds eye. Upon returning home I quickly scribbled a very crude version in one of my sketchbooks. In my free time a short time later I put together the finished version.

Fast forward to Spring 2009. I thought this would make a lovely New Yorker Cover, a tribute to ballparks in the city that had been torn down, but not forgotten. It was timely, since the city was tearing down another beloved baseball stadium and another building that hosted its fair share of baseball games. I could just picture it on the newsstands, so I sent it off as an unsolicited submission.

Of course, the editors at The New Yorker didn't think it was quite as great as I did. I received a polite letter thanking me for my submission, but that the editors could not use it at this time.

Rejected!

Of course, almost immediately that nagging self doubt begins creeping in. Maybe this image isn't quite as great as I thought. Ordering all those postcards with this on it may have been a mistake. Oh crap.

Luckily, before I plunged to deeply into despair I received notice that this piece of art would be included in the 2009 Communication Arts Illustration Annual. I had entered this before I sent it off to the New Yorker and then promptly forgot about doing so.

Acceptance!

Maybe this image isn't that bad after all.

I guess if there is lesson here, aside from inspiration striking anywhere, its that my work isn't a good as I think it is, sometimes, but not nearly as awful as I'm afraid it is either.

By the way, if you're an art diretor, art buyer or someone who commissions illustration, I have a few postcards left. Send me an e-mail or leave me a message in the comment section and I'll be happy to add you on my mailing list.

Giving your extra two cents

2009-05-04T09:07:00.007-04:00

Here's a friendly reminder that the price of a first class stamp increases two cents next Monday, May 11. The price of mailing everything else goes up, too. With the United States Postal Service losing a ton of money, there is also the chance that postage prices could increase again later this year. Buy your forever stamps now.

An interesting discussion

2009-04-29T23:08:00.005-04:00

Gary Taxali has started a rather interesting conversation about the state of illustation industry at his blog on Drawger. If eroding illustration fees, increasing rights grabs by big and small businesses and the ethics of the illustration field are the sort of thing that interest you, then head on over.

Another cover

2009-03-31T07:21:00.005-04:00

Piggybacking on my previous post, here is another cover I worked on for the most recent edition of the American Banker Fin Tech 100.

Originally, the cover looked like this. However, after Lehman Brothers collapsed and the economy went into a tailspin it was decided to go with a less festive color palette on this particular cover.

Illustration Friday-Legendary

2009-03-16T12:38:00.005-04:00

The image above is of Atlas. According to legend, he was banished by Zeus to the western edge of the earth to hold the heavens above the ground for all eternity. I created this illustration a couple of years ago for the cover of the FIN TECH 100, a joint publication produced by American Banker and Financial Insights that ranks technology providers to Financial Institutions. Debbie Fogel was the AD on this project. Below are a couple of initial, rough sketches. As you can see, they like the background in one sketch and the figure in another, so we married the two. The dimensions of the final also ended up being more squarish which is reflected in the final.

Magazine Spots

2009-03-09T18:03:00.009-04:00

Over the past year and a half or so, I've worked with art director Dan Trombetto (who is great to work with, btw) on a handful of spots for a recurring section in FOLIO, the trade magazine covering the magazine industry.

Here are a few recent illustrations I've done for him.

This one was for a look at the good side and bad side of banks taking control of near-bankrupt publications.

From Growing your company in the age of e-media

For Understanding Link Journalism

Much has been made about the demise of print and its business model, so I was surprised to learn that magazines generate a fairly significant of revenue from hosting and sponsoring events.

From better managing workflow between print and online editions.

And this one is for realizing a profit from social networking.

Amazing Posters

2009-03-08T12:56:00.003-04:00

Illustrator Bob Staake has put together a rather impressive collection of posters from the 1930s-1960s. There's work by Paolo Garretto, Jean Carlu, A.M. Cassandre, Joseph Binder and many more great artists. Take a look at it here.

May you live in interesting times

2009-03-02T22:27:00.003-05:00

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed below 7,000 for the first time since 1997. The government is pumping a ton of cash into AIG and just took a 40% stake in Citigroup. Meanwhile, Bank of America is lamenting its decision to take TARP funds. Job losses are expected to exceed 600,000 for the month of February to push the unemployment rate to 8%. A lot of people are making comparisons to the Great Depression.

Back then, during FDR's first term, businesses hung signs with an iconic blue eagle to let people know they supported the provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act and National Recovery Administration. Maybe soon we'll have banks and financial institutions hanging placards declaring that they have taken bailout funds and support government efforts to stabilize the financial sector.

I won't hold my breath for that to happen.

I doubt we'll see anyone declaring their support for gov't programs like this anytime soon

Roy Blount on The Kindle

2009-02-25T09:00:00.004-05:00

In today's New York Times there is an op-ed piece by author Roy Blount, Jr. on the e-book reader, The Kindle 2. In its latest incarnation the device has a feature that reads the text aloud. The problem, in his estimation, no one has paid for the audio rights of the books available on The Kindle. That may not seem like a big deal, but the market for audio books is huge compared to that for e-books. As you might imagine, the fees associated with audio rights are much greater than those with electronic rights.

Mr. Blount goes on to make a very important point:
"...people who want to keep on doing creative things for a living must be duly vigilant about any new means of transmitting their work."

You can read the piece in its entirety here.

Speaking of e-books. About two-and-a-half years ago I created the image below for The (Bergen) Record. Apparently, e-readers were supposed to be the next big thing. In 2009 they seem to be about as common as the Segway. Maybe the $300+ price tag is a bit much for what seems to be a glorified pdf reader.

The First Sign of Spring

2009-02-18T08:57:00.005-05:00

Baseball is back.

Every team has a chance at a championship season.

Every player is in the greatest shape of his career.

There is no better sign that winter is melting away into spring than hearing that pitchers and catchers and position players have reported to Florida (or Arizona) and that exhibition games are just around the corner.

Baseball and Springtime are almost here.

Going...Going...Gone.

2009-02-10T19:26:00.008-05:00

Shea Stadium, a great place to watch a game...and planes take off

By the end of the week Shea Stadium will be gone.

Wrecking crews have been dismantling the former home of the New York Mets since October. Thanks to the team's second straight collapse, there were no playoff games to delay the deconstruction.

Most cities use implosions to bring down their retired stadia. However, since implosions are illegal within the boundaries of The City of New York, Shea has been taken apart piece by piece. This process has given fans a chance to watch a familiar place slowly disappear like the many summer days spent inside.

I'll miss Shea, despite its oddly-angled, undersized seats that at times were too far from the action. Other Mets fans definitely will. Oddly enough, pilots flying in and out of La Guardia Airport will too. Beyond that group of people, it's tough to imagine anyone else shedding a tear over the demise of this facility like Larry Jones, Jr.

It probably won't take long to adjust to the improved sight lines, unobstructed corridors and bathrooms that aren't ankle deep in mystery wetness at the new place next door.

Of course the new place already has its share of problems and it hasn't opened yet. Let's hope that's not an omen for the 2009 season.

What do you love/loathe about your job...Assuming you still have one?

2009-02-03T22:51:00.006-05:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of working with Mary Beth Cadwell of Storage Magazine on the image above. This piece ran with a salary survey for storage professionals. (That's data storage, not to be confused with storage unit rental) The art itself was incorporated as part of a sidebar/alternative story form listing the most common complaints and praises these men and women have about their jobs. The icons orbiting the figure in the center were picked to represent some of the pros and cons of working in the storage field. These included things like hours, budgets, bonuses, out-dated technology, co-workers, supervisor feedback, problem solving, workload, creativity and opportunity for advancement. Of course, a few of these fell in to both the pro and con category.

In case you were wondering, the job market for storage pros seems to be a bit better than the rest of the population.

And here is the art in sketch form:

This one was rejected.

Approved!

Hitting The Slope This Winter

2009-01-08T21:51:00.003-05:00

Here's an image inspired by a little snow fall outside my window.

Society of Illustrators 51-Sequntial Show

2009-01-05T16:06:00.003-05:00

The Society of Illustrator's Sequential Show opens Wednesday. This juried show features the best sequential work produced during 2008. There will likely be a bunch of great art on display. Check it out if you get the chance.

New Year, Same Old Jets

2009-01-01T21:54:00.008-05:00

I'm a Jets fan.

I believe that's a genetic trait inherited from my father (thanks, Dad). About a month ago, I was pretty sure they were headed for the playoffs. There was serious talk that the Jets were the best team in the AFC. The back pages of the local tabloids had visions of a Subway Super Bowl (even though both teams play in Jersey. perhaps PATH Bowl or Turnpike Bowl would have been more appropriate.)

However, In typical fashion, they came up short in 4 of their last 5 games. Looking at it objectively, they should have lost all 5. In the first few days following the collapse, the team has fired their coach, heard that an out-of-work, Super Bowl-winning coach wasn't interested in the vacant position and had a couple of players complain about the quarterback's less than stellar play and attitude. Like a lot of my fellow fans, I hope Mr. Favre isn't back for the 2009 season.

It looks like this is going to be an interesting offseason. Anyways, all the tumult inspired a doodle which I cleaned up and turned into the image above. I guess I find drawing to be a bit more therapeutic than this.

Please donate to the Society of Illustrators Food Drive

2008-12-22T22:01:00.003-05:00

The Society of Illustrators is sponsoring a food drive now through Jan. 16. Contributions will go to the Soup Kitchen and Food Pantry at St. Peter's Church on Lexington Avenue and East 54th St. St. Peter's is also a haven for the Momentum Project, which is dedicated to feeding disenfranchised city residents who are living with HIV/AIDS.

All donations should be:
•Non-perishable
•Unopened and in their original packaging
•Within the expiration date on the packaging

All donations can be dropped off at The Society of Illustrators 128 East 63rd St., between Lexington and Park avenues. Look for the red door.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-08T22:17:00.004-05:00

I've updated my homepage with a new seasonal image, I hope you like it. A few new images have also been sprinkled into the portfolio section. Take a look, if you feel so inclined.

Illustration Friday-Balloon

2008-12-01T15:24:00.003-05:00

This is an illustration I did for ChannelPro Magazine a few months ago, it ran with a story on employee retention. The story focused on how to identify the employees worth holding on to and how to keep them. David Waugh, the art director on this job, had the idea of balloons representing employees floating away. When I finished up this job for him he commented, "This is exactly what I had envisioned". I guess great minds think alike.

So long, Astroland

2008-09-08T11:51:00.010-04:00

Coney Island's Astroland Park closed for good yesterday. Below are a few photos from a trip there earlier this summer.

Scenes from the boardwalk at dusk.

Astroland, from the boardwalk to the subway station.

The Midway after the rain.

Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park will remain open next year.

Like the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel is owned by the City of New York.

The view from the Wonder Wheel, just as it started raining.

Nathan's now displays calories on it's menu. Most items had around 1,000.

My meeting with Sen. Chuck Schumer

2008-06-13T18:30:00.005-04:00

This afternoon while returning home I ran into Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). He was standing on the corner of my block and had just finished filming an interview with Channel 4. Immediately after he took time to greet the crowd of about a dozen that had assembled to watch.

Just before he departed I had a chance to ask him about the pending Orphan Works Act before Congress. The senior senator from New York told me he was unfamiliar with the legislation. I told him Sens. Leahy and Hatch had introduced it, that it was about freeing up copyrights for public institutions to use. I also mentioned that the way the bill was worded it represented a threat to my livelihood as well as the many other artist working in Brooklyn and New York. He asked if I was against the bill. I said yes. He then began to tell me to contact his office, but then said, "I can remember that. Orphan Work. Leahy and Hatch. You're against it." He thn stepped into a black Town Car and was off.

I'll still going to follow up with his office. If you would like to tell Sen. Schumer or any of the other members of the Unite States Senate to oppose the Orphan Works Act click here.

Visual Artists Go to Washington; Independent Record Labels Oppose Orphan Works Act

2008-06-10T23:47:00.002-04:00

Last week over two dozen visual artists, representing illustrators, photographers, fine artists and the arts licensing trades went to Capital Hill to explain to legislators how the Orphan Works Act will harm creators and the hundreds of thousands of art-related small businesses that serve and are dependent on them. At the same time, independent music labels have joined the opposition to orphan works legislation as it currently exists.

The Illustrators’ Partnership has stressed that Orphan Works legislation should be limited to true orphaned work and not act as an unwarranted compulsory license imposed on commercial markets. IPA, the Advertising Photographers of America and the Artists Rights Society have joined to offer amendments to that effect.

Excerpted from the Washington Internet Daily/Monday June 09, 2008:

The visual-arts community hit the Hill last week to protest what it portrays as a hijacking of the orphan-works issue as it was presented in a 2005 Copyright Office report...

The Copyright Office ran a bait-and-switch from its 2005 notice of intent, which focused on facilitating libraries', museums' and other nonprofits' efforts to digitize collections to improve access to them, [Illustrators’ Partnership co-founder Brad] Holland said. Artists want the issue narrowed back to that focus, scrapping commercial use, he said...Copyright Office roundtables on orphan works never addressed alternates to registries, an "untested, untried, unaccountable market system" favoring Google, Getty, Corbis and other commercial aggregators, Holland said. [Cynthia] Turner [also of the Partnership] said artists would incur high costs registering works, and they hesitate to hand over high-res, commercial versions to Google or others.

In the same article, Washington Internet Daily also reports that the leading group of independent music labels has broken with the corporate music trade associations. The American Association of Independent Music has published a position paper opposing the current orphan works bills. The article quotes a music industry executive: "I can tell you that nobody in the music business" sought the bill.

... the executive said the bill is "de facto... establishing a new compulsory license" by putting unregistered artists at a legal disadvantage in court. The law can't explicitly require registration or it will violate the Berne Convention, TRIPS and other treaties the U.S. has signed, the executive said. Book publishers and music executives in the U.K. think the U.S. will be in trouble, the executive said, citing a recent visit: "I can tell you there are European commissioners that are looking at this right now."

-Excerpts from “Orphan-Works Bills Scorned by Visual Arts, Indie Labels” by Greg Piper, Washington Internet Daily June 09, 2008

Also see Visual artists and indie record labels voice concern over orphan works bills

Why the average Joe should care about the Orphan Works Act (Courtesy of IPA)

2008-06-04T08:27:00.000-04:00

Should the general public care about the Orphan Works Act?

Yes, because the effects of this bill will expose any citizen's visual images to infringement, including infringement for commercial purposes or distasteful uses.

Most people don't understand current copyright law. But under current law, they don't have to - the law itself protects them from not understanding it. Anything you create is considered your private property.

But under this amendment, all citizens would be required to understand that they must now take active steps - not to actually protect their work (because registries won't protect it) – but merely to preserve their right to sue an infringer in federal court (in case they ever find out they've been infringed in the first place).

Otherwise, ignorance of copyright law will be be no excuse against an infringer who has done a "reasonably diligent search" for a photo he found on a blog, photo sharing site, Facebook page, or other source.

Proposal for Copyright Warning and Public Awareness Campaign

If this bill is passed, copyright will no longer be considered the exclusive right of the creator. Therefore, Congress should direct the Copyright Office to commence an awareness campaign to be conducted in all media, explaining to all copyright holders the new terms of copyright protection. Public warnings should state at least the following:

“Due to a change in US copyright law, citizens should now be aware that any creative expression they put into tangible form – from professional artwork to family photos - will be subject to infringement, including infringement for commercial uses, by anyone in the United States who is unable to locate them by what the infringer determines – and a court agrees - to be a reasonably diligent search.

“To preserve your right to sue infringers in federal court, you are advised to take active steps to assert authorship of every work you create.

“These steps will include inserting meta-data in each work, marking each work with a copyright symbol and contact information and registering each work in commercial databases where infringers can search for your work.

“Ignorance of copyright law will be be no excuse against an infringer who has done a “reasonably diligent search” according to guidelines established by Congress.”

This should be the minimum warning information and it should be issued to the public on an on-going basis to alert successive generations of the legal obligations they will have to observe as the price of creating art of any kind. We also ask Congress to direct the Copyright Office to establish and maintain local law clinics where creators and other citizens can seek clarification about their obligations under Orphan Works law.

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work

Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act

Illustration Friday-Baby

2008-06-04T08:11:00.000-04:00

This is an illustration I did about a year ago for HR Magazine. It sort of ties in with this week's theme at Illustration Friday The image was one in a series that accompanied 3 articles on Employee Benefits. This one ran with a story on employee medical coverage and how it was becoming more difficult to find Obstetricians because fewer and fewer were being covered by insurance companies. Consequently, many just closed up shop.

Mari Adams was the art director on this project.

Below are some of the sketches.

An Orphan Works Update From The Illustrator's Partnership

2008-06-03T19:11:00.000-04:00

Backers of the House version of the Orphan Works bill are now asking artists and photographers to oppose the Senate bill unless it’s amended to contain at least the “minimum provisions” that appear in the House version.

Although they don’t say so, opposing the Senate bill in this manner is a vote FOR the House bill.

We’ve been asked to explain why:
The Senate bill is similar to the bill we opposed in 2006. The House bill (H.R. 5889) is the result of a year and a half of closed door negotiations between Congress and representatives and lobbyists for special interest groups. These groups have agreed to either endorse the House bill or remain neutral to insure its passage.

The House bill endorses the concept of coerced “voluntary” registration with commercial databases and seeks to make these databases infringer-friendly.

• It would require infringers to file a simple “notice of use” before they infringe.

• It calls for an archive of the notices to be maintained by the Copyright Office or an approved third party.

Why do backers of the House bill want these databases to be infringer-friendly?
Because to thrive, commercial databases (registries) will have to do a robust business in rights-clearing and orphan certification. That means encouraging infringers to infringe.

How will these registries work? No details have been given, but experience with image banks suggests the following:

For unregistered work: infringers will use the registries to identify pictures that aren’t registered. Infringers will probably pay the registry a search fee, then use or market the “orphans” like royalty-free art.

For registered work: the registries will act as a kind of stock house: Users will go to them for one-stop shopping to clear rights to your pictures. The registry will probably charge you a commission when they do.

In other words, urging Congress to pass the House bill makes very little sense to us unless your business or organization expects to become a commercial registry. We believe the only way to oppose these bills is to oppose them both.

If you agree, now’s the time to write Congress or write again.

Tell Your Senators and Representative to Oppose the Orphan Works Act

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work!

Use mass transit if you're heading to the World's Fair this summer

2008-06-01T15:48:00.001-04:00

A new image is up on my homepage. It is partially inspired by my recently acquired subway map and the many trips to Flushing Meadows I've made on the 7 train.

World's Fair Subway Map

2008-05-19T23:08:00.000-04:00

I found this treasure at Park Slope's Fifth Avenue Street Fair over the weekend. It is map of the New York City Subway system published in 1964. See it in all its glory here

While not as iconic as Massimo Vignelli's 1972 map (and 2008 reproduction), it still is pretty interesting to look at. If for no other reason than to see the changes to New York over the last 44 years.

Orphan Works Bill-Contact Your Elected Officials

2008-05-02T18:47:00.000-04:00

The Illustrators Partnership has set up a CapWiz website to take action against the recently introduced Orphan Works Bill. The site has a handful of letters that can be edited and sent to your elected officials by email. You can also print them out and fax and/or mail them to your representatives.

This process will take you less than 5 minutes.

Orphan Works Panel-Save the Date

2008-05-01T07:16:00.000-04:00

Please don't let your artist friends starve

2008-04-26T17:46:00.000-04:00

Drastic changes to U.S. Copyright Law were introduced last week under the guise of freeing up orphan works. Orphan Works are images whose creators can not be found. The bill (HR-5889 and S-2913) would allow the use of copyrighted works provided they performed a diligent search for the creator. Supporters argue that at long last they'll be able to digitally restore their grandparents wedding photos or that the public library can display photos of town from 100 years ago without worrying about being sued by the copyright holder should they come forward.

What these supporters fail to realize is that many of these scenarios are protected under the "Fair Use" provisions of current copyright law. So to remedy a percieved problem they have proposed a law that would threaten the livelihood of every freelance artist working today.

Under the provisons of this bill creatives would have to register work with yet to be created private registries in order to prevent their work from becoming orphaned. Now while that doesn't sound terrible on the surface it is worth noting that photographers and illustrators produce a significantly greater amount of work than any writer or recording artist. The time alone required to register every drawing, sketch, painting and photograph would be prohibitive. Also, because these registries would be run by private companies, not the government, it is going to cost an artist money to register each image. Even if this fee is nominal, say in the range of $10, the cost of registering work could easily exceed $10,000 in one year. Furthermore, if there were multiple competing registries artist would be compelled to register their work with more than one, possibly all, of these companies. The cost of protecting the copyrights could easily exceed the annual income of many artists.

When introducing the Senate version of the bill, Sen. Leahy of Vermont claimed that this bill would not drastically alter current copyright law, that this would not be a rights giveaway. He claimed that only those performing a thorough search would be able to use Orphan Works. But what exactly constitutes a thorough search? Would a search of 2 or 3 registries be sufficient? An artist who registered their work with a competing registry would now have orphaned his work, despite his best efforts to follow the law and protect his work. How would the search work? Would it be a keyword search? Would it be similar to a Google Image Search? Anyone who has every used a search engine knows that overloading it with keyword makes it otherwise useless. And what would is to stop unscrupulous users of orphan works for diligently searching for the creators of works in places they know will lead them to dead ends? What would stop someone intent on stealing images from spamming or calling in the middle of the night to make sure calls to the artist went unanswered? In my experience, as an illustrator of little consequence, I have received many inquiries about creating work for free. If this bill were passed I would be forced not only to respond to each of these ridiculous requests, but keep track of them as well. Without clearly defining what a thorough search is artists everywhere will be at the mercy of publishers intent on exploiting work created by others.

Another feature of this bill that represents a radical departure from current copyright law is what happens when someone uses copyrighted material without permission. If this legislation passes those who illegally use a copyrighted work would have to pay the copyright holder only a reasonable license fee. Under the current law copyright infringers are responsible for not only paying a license fee, but are also liable for statutory damages and the copyright holders legal fees. Many artists are able to hire lawyers on contingency in copyright lawsuits because they will eventually be able to recover legal fees once the infringement is proven. This bill would render the fight for rights far more expensive than any potential award. Of course, this assumes that artists would devote the time and financial resources to fight for the rights of their work in a court of law. Most presumably, would not.

While the idea of freeing up work for use by public and educational institutions sounds noble, it is only a cover for allowing large corporations to profit from registries and steal copyrighted work with little consequence. The goals that supporters mention could easily be accomplished with legislation addressing and clarifying the Fair Use of provisions of the current law rather than crafting a law that represents radical departure from current copyright law.

If this bill becomes law, copyrights will be meaningless.

Now while this may not seem like a big deal to most people, copyrights are an essential part of any artists business. It is the copyright that prevents others from exploiting our work and profiting while we starve. If people are free to take the work of artists then in time there will be very few artists working in this country. Why would anyone be encouraged to draw, paint, sculpt, photograph or write if there were no chance to make a decent living with these incredibly rare skills?

In 2006 a similar measure was defeated. Let's hope history repeats itself. Please contact your elected officials in Washington and tell them to vote against this Orphan Works Act.

Far more information on this subject is available here and here.

(The image above is © John W. Tomac, 2008. All Rights Reserved. It is not an orphaned work of art.)

Putting a smile on your customer's faces

2008-01-29T09:56:00.000-05:00

Over the past few months I've had the opportunity to work with art director David Waugh on a pair of assignments for ChannelPro Magazine. ChannelPro is a trade publication for Information Technology professionals servicing small and mid size businesses. Coincidentally, some of my friends from my days at RIT are now IT professionals.

Information Technology can be a pretty dry subject. Working with Dave is great because he tends to favor getting away from the literal and pushing the conceptual side of art. The image above was created for a feature on custome service. The spread can be seen on page 16 of this online edition of the magazine.

Below is another ChannelPro assignment. This was for a story on how the devices that keep us connected often make it more difficult to get things done. The spread can be seen online, on page 14.

A shameless plug for a friend's business venture

2008-01-25T10:14:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-24T11:21:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-24T10:17:00.000-05:00

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

The back alleys of the Internet

2008-01-08T18:09:00.000-05:00

The Record's travel editor, Jill Schensul, recieved an e-mail with the subject line "We'll pay you to travel anywhere". Rather than delete it like any other ordinary piece of spam, she decided to read it and attempt to get paid to travel anywhere. She didn't get paid, nor did she get to travel anywhere. However, she did end up receiving a lot more spam and recieved a few suspicious charges on her credit card. This story ran Dec. 23. Originally the story was supposed to run on the front page. It ended up getting kicked inside, but this illustration, originally slated to run with it, stayed out front as a giant, quarter page teaser to the text.
The end result isn't terrible, but yet nowhere near as cool as Linzie Hunter's series of spam subject line paintings.

The Zoo (for Illustration Friday)

2007-11-25T13:50:00.000-05:00

This image is part of a series of illustrations that ran in the The Bergen Record's travel section a while ago. I'm throwing it up now because it ties in with this week's theme over at Illustration Friday.

This illustration (as well as the others in the series) was loosely based on Works Progress Administration Posters.

An Island Holiday

2007-11-18T15:22:00.000-05:00

This Illustration ran on the front page of this morning's edition of The (Bergen) Record. It accompanied a news story on the easiest ways in and out of Manhattan for all of the holiday festivities beginning with Thursday's parade and continuing through the festivities in Times Square Dec. 31. Also running was a column on the pitfalls of driving and parking in New York City. One would think people who live on the Jersey side of the Hudson River would be well versed in navigating the streets of Manhattan, especially the large portion of people who commute there during the week for work. Who knows, maybe they need a reminder of how to do these things when there is an influx of tourists and shoppers around the holiday season.

I think this was a great opportunity to use illustration. What was the alternative? A file photo of the tree in Rockefeller Center? I think a fresh image trumps a year-old photo most of the time.

NO ! SPEC

2007-11-17T14:20:00.000-05:00

NO!SPEC is a web site dedicated to exposing and encouraging creatives to avoid the unethical practice of speculative work.

In no other field are professionals asked to invest time and effort only to be rewarded with the possibility of being paid later. You can't go into a restaurant and pay only if you enjoy your meal. You can't hold a contest for accountants to prepare your taxes and pay ony person who does the "best" job. You won't find a surgeon who will operate on you because you can provide them with "great exposure." Creative individuals shouldn't be offered work this way either.

Any artist, illustrator or designer who values their work should be opposed to speculative work, design "contests", the low paying jobs that offer "great exposure" and. Giving your work away for free or for below market value not only devalues your work, but the work of everyone else in the field. The time spent on spec work, entering logo design "contests" or working for "exposure" would be beter spent on self-promotion, networking or honing your skills.

Whne it comes to doing work without getting paid, follow Nancy Reagan's advice and just say no.

Hot Stove Baseball

2007-11-11T13:12:00.001-05:00

The waiting 'til next year kicks into high gear Tuesday. Nov. 13 is the first day teams can discuss money with free agents. Hopefully, the Mets will begin putting together a team that will help fans (like myself) forget that they blew a 7-game lead with 17 to play.

They need to improve their starting rotation and bullpen, both of which were awful the last month of the season. While Johan Santana would be nice, I doubt that the Mets have the prospects to trade to get him.

There are holes at Second Base and Catcher. I wouldn't mind seeing Luis Castillo and Paul LoDuca return. While Castillo is a good bet to return, LoDuca isn't. How are they going to replace the fire he brings to the team? Of course, he is a 34 year old catcher. Getting younger is a good idea, meaning they shouldn't pursue Jorge Posada, who is older than LoDuca, even though he is coming off a career year.

And of course, there seems to be all sorts of rumors regarding A-Rod. I really don't think they need him, unless you can unload Carlos Delgado and slide the throwing error-prone gold glover David Wright to First Base. I doun't think that is going to happen.

That's the great thing about baseball. Even afetr a disastrous end to last season I'm now beginning to look forward to next year. Beginning to build up hope. Hope that will reach its zenith around April and ebb and flow until the early fall when it will inevitably be crushed again.

The Everglades

2007-10-30T17:13:00.000-04:00

By day, I am employed as a Staff Artist by The Bergen Record , a newspaper based in Hackensack, N.J. Between illustration assignments the work isn't terribly exciting; lots of charts, graphs and locator maps with the occasional news or business page design assignment. But when the bosses decide to go with an illustration its usually an opportunity to shine, but very rarely do those opportunities include a full section front and a center spread.

Unfortunately, we don't quite have the ability to print double trucks

I worked with Elaine Isaacson, one of our super-talented page designers. She had the idea of illustrating this wire feature on the hidden treasures in The Everglades when the photos accompanied it were less than stellar. At least they made for half decent reference. That is a snowy egret, zebra-wing butterfly and Florida panther pictured above. (Although, neither the bird or the cat are nearly as cool looking as Nancy Stahl's work for the USPS.)

This is a sketch for the cover that was rejected. Elaine wanted to really focus on the gator's head. I think she was right, as in print the gators eyes appeared above the fold and looked kind of scary. There is something about the angle and shape of this that I like. Perhaps when I find some time I'll go back and finish it.