An interesting discussion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.