KevsBlog

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time this month researching potential clients. My primary resource has been the “2012 Artist’s and Graphic Designer’s Market”, a reference series I have been using for many years. I hadn’t used the book since 2009 and I was hoping things had changed regarding the necessity of making initial contact via mail. However, that has not been the case.

In this age of electronic media I am a bit surprised that there is still a widespread desire for printed samples. I’m rather old school myself, preferring printed books & magazines over eBooks & websites, so I guess it shouldn’t make me wonder that other creative professionals prefer the look and feel of paper as well. I suppose there’s also the issue of email spam, and the potential for an unsolicited message to be filtered out, ignored, or simply lost in the daily deluge of email most of us get.

When it comes down to it, my real hope was that I wanted a cheap, quick way to contact prospects. But it looks like I will still be stuffing envelopes and hiking out to the mailbox. On the upside, I’ve got boxes of tearsheets to get rid of.

Today I spent the afternoon trying to create what seemed like a simple addition to my website: adding a small form for visitors to submit their email address to be added to my newsletter mailing list. Little did I realize how much work this would entail…

The idea was to include a form on selected pages to submit an email address to a database. So first off I had to create a database. That required about an hour re-learning how MySQL works and how to use it on my ISP. Next came creating the form. I have a book on using PHP and MySQL but all of the examples were more complex than what I wanted, as were any samples I tried to find on the internet. The next couple of hours were spent trying to adapt the given examples to my need. Not too arduous, but when I went to test the basic code I got parsing errors. An hour was spent combing the code to find what turned out to be one double-quote that should have been a single-quote and a reversed “}”. Oh, I really had forgotten what a pain-in-the-neck coding can be, otherwise I may have thought twice about this and just drew some pictures instead.

I have yet to test the actual functionality or adapting the code further to be a self-contained form include rather than an entire stand-alone page. Probably will save that for another day as my head is spinning.

I decided to spend some time today working on a little pet project to create a font face based on the title lettering from the original MAD comics of the 1950’s. These were used primaily in the comics by Wally Wood and Jack Davis.

This is proving to be an interesting challenge since all of the lettering was apparently done by hand and is turning out to be rather inconsistent. For example, in my first 3 scanned samples there are 3 different styles of “S”s. Also, the lettering varies a great deal in width as each title was stretched or squished to fill the same space, so a title with 10 characters would be the same width and height as a title with 15 or even 20 letters. There’s also an issue of rotation with some letters leaning to the left and some leaning to the right depending on which letters they overlap in any given word.

My plan of attack at this point is to trace letters from my scanned samples and pick and choose the letterforms I find most pleasing to the eye or that work most consistently with most of the samples. Since I’ve never created an actual font set before I will then need to find some software to use. I’m assuming letters created in Adobe Illustrator will be compatible with most of these programs, but we’ll see. Of course, if you have any helpful comments or information please pass it along. I suppose, too, that if you know of a font that has already been created based on the 1950’s MAD comics it would be good to know I don’t need to pursue the project any further.

Today I’m settling down to work on a magazine ad to promote myself in a local media magazine. After a 4-year degree in Graphic Design, working for years as an advertising designer at newspapers, yellow pages & internet companies, and many more years designing ads for freelance clients, I STILL have the most difficult time designing ads for myself.

I think there are few things in life more difficult for an artist than self-promotion. I’m always bogged down my nagging questions like: How do I get a potential client’s attention? How do I get the right client’s attention? What do I say about myself and my work? Am I pigeon-holing myself? Is this piece I’m choosing for my ad really representative of my work? Is this really a good use of my money? Does this ad design suck?

In the end I always feel that I’ve come up short with my design but the deadline is here and that’s just the way it’s going to have to be.

It’s a new year and a new attempt to try using this “new” media (pretty much new to me as I’m such a slow adopter of new technology.)

Today is my first day back at it. Not doing anything creative, just getting my books in order, straightening up the studio, and trying to figure out how I’m going to make a living - nothing major. I’ve had the great fortune of having a regular client for the past 4 years but as is always the case in freelancing, the contract is winding down and I’m faced with finding additional clients. The prospect is both exciting and frightening.

Exciting as I look forward to doing more diverse work, frightening as I have no idea where that work is going to come from or when. Once again I need to put more work into self-promotion, not the least of which is FINALLY updating my website. I can barely remember the last time I posted new images. The big challenge will be taking advantage of the all-pervasive electronic media and focusing on what will work best for my business. Hoo-boy.

I’m very much the old dog trying to learn new tricks, but I suppose that’s what being a creative professional is all about.

Last year I did the illustrations for this Christian childrens’ book that has just been published.  For more information and to purchase go to ChristianBook.com: http://www.christianbook.com/searching-gods-love-pat-holt/9781414114712/pd/114711?item_code=WW&netp_id=687155&event=ESRCN&view=covers

This was a question I recently received via email:

Q:   Can you tell me what process is good to use to get some fine color like yours in my work?

A: Basically, this is what I do:

All linework is inked on Vellum Bristol board.

The artwork is scanned as a black and white bitmap at 600 dpi.

In Photoshop I work in RGB and color the image with anti-aliasing turned off. Up close the artwork will have very clearly defined pixelation along the black lines but that will be unnoticable when printed or reduced for web use.

I generally work in a single layer as much as possible but sometimes do a shading layer or add layers for special effects.

Most blending is done with the brush tool using a round setting. I don’t go much for odd-shaped brushes.

I do test prints to see if my colors are coming out the way I want. Red, green and blue seem to have the most variation from screen to print and almost always look much darker when printed.
That’s it. A lot of it is just trial and error and figuring out what works best for you.