
Finally, it’s here! Every Birthday Street comic Matt Sutter, Kevin Cornell and I made all in one place. 400+ comics, 768 pages. It’s big AND big on laughs. Buy it now! (age verification because of grown-up humor).
Finally, it’s here! Every Birthday Street comic Matt Sutter, Kevin Cornell and I made all in one place. 400+ comics, 768 pages. It’s big AND big on laughs. Buy it now! (age verification because of grown-up humor).
Check out Action Guy doing action stuff in the upcoming Birthday Street anthology. Until then here’s a taste of thrilling action exploding to life!
Professionally, I work with my wife, Eleanor. I was inspired to write a blog entry for our site about plagiarism having recently discovered an instance of such. It’s not the first time that someone has claimed our work as their own but it still stings. Before I started writing the article I reached out to one of my college design professors, Karen Kresge, to look for some perspective and help me collect my thoughts. She wrote back with a very thoughtful and lengthy response. I’m truly grateful and humbled that she could. I post it here so that I can reference it externally, in its entirety, for my own full article. Here is what she had to say on the topic of plagiarism:
I think that there are many reasons for plagiarism. And surprisingly, most of them do not stem from malicious intentions.
In any case, it is wrong. As an educator, I feel like it is my responsibility to teach my students how to design responsibly. Research your client, your project, your audience. Create original concepts and build and develop them through sketches and thumbnails. Hire illustrators or photographers or create your own artwork from scratch (again developing and polishing your work in stages). It is this process that will always ensure original and unique solutions to design problems.
I must also teach my students the difference between inspiration and plagiarism. They can look at Dana Tanamachi’s work and be inspired to try chalk lettering, but they’ll put their own twist on it, working on a different surface, in a different style, or scale. I like to look at the process that a designer uses to imagine concepts and use that process to look at my own design problems from a fresh angle.
Plagiarism is not a new problem, and it certainly will continue to be an issue, especially with the easy access we have to so many examples of design. Sometimes it seems impossible to come up with a new idea, it seems EVERYTHING has been done before. Then it is best to step away from Pinterest and go take a walk… listen to music… look at a building, a painting, a sunset… talk to your friends… be inspired by things that are not design at all. Above all, we must remember that a designer’s primary role is to communicate. With that clear purpose, plagiarism just can’t occur.
And what to do when we are plagiarized? That’s tricky. If it the offense is clear and will cause you or your client hardship, then I think you should contact a lawyer. Often a cease and desist will do the trick. I have been told that plagiarism is actually a form of flattery, and that I should feel honored. Maybe this is true, but that is a bit like saying, “I love your bracelet, you look beautiful in it, so I am going to take it and it will be mine so I can look beautiful in it too… aren’t you flattered that I like your bracelet?” I think it feels like I have been burglarized whether it is my bracelet that is stolen or my design. If I don’t feel like the offense is worth contacting a lawyer, I might call out the thief myself and hope that they didn’t really know that they were doing something wrong. Maybe I can educate them… maybe not. A thief is a thief and I suppose their career can’t be in a very good place, and can’t possibly be moving in a positive direction if they can’t come up with original ideas. In the end, we can always pity the plagiarist and move our own work towards loftier goals.
That’s right, it’s never too early to plan your Halloween party!
Actually, I’ve finished some card concepts for a client this week. Working with a company that produces greeting cards means that there’s a generous lead time until that holiday comes around. It can feel a little weird working so far out of seasonal alignment. Here are a couple of fun illustrations that ultimately didn’t get used for this round of cards. Most don’t have any type treatment in place but I think you get the gist of it.
If you’re on the ol’ Instagram, “regram” this image and tag @eleanorgrosch with #giroeleanor and your t-shirt size for a chance to win our Giro d’Italia prize pack (consists of our new Giro art print series and our Aprés Velo t-shirt design). We’ll pick a winner on May 31st on the last day of the race. Tag your neighbors and friends!
Sometimes I like to think that I’m a bit of a metalhead. Then Eleanor makes fun of me for it and I realize how square I really am.
Lately, I’d been feeling the itch to try to do something a little bit different. Most all of my “professional art career” I’ve always been playing the role of working within someone else’s style. So I’ve been trying to make it a point to set aside time to do some personal work. Some self indulgent explorations if you will. So in a fit of feeling a little bit like a metalhead something kinda clicked.
To make a long story short, a friend of mine has thought that Mother Medusa was the most badass name for anything that ever was. It turns out to be the name of a hot rod in a modern day B movie that he had watched. I have yet to watch the film, but to me the name felt like something out of a neo-classical painting. For some reason I found myself thinking about it and a couple of visuals popped into my mind. After some image searching I found the proper paintings that I had been thinking of. Two very similar pieces by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Queen of Angels and Virgin with the Lily. Since both of these paintings are very religious I looked to the work of Becky Cloonan and Jeanne D’Angelo to help me “darken” it up a bit. I thought I was done with it and then Eleanor told me to put some flames on it. Now I’m just left struggling with how Medusa got pregnant in the first place.