Hott Sheets Art Exhibition
When: Friday, June 25, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Where: Wonder Fair: Art Gallery, Shoppe and Studio, Lawrence

I’ve been thinking about starting a series of flat, graphic African masks since I really love working with the shapes, colors and emotion. This piece is an initial exploration of this concept, painted in acrylics.

This piece is based on the nursery rhyme:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

There are some very colorful explanations of what this nursery rhyme means, so I thought I’d work that into the piece as well! I also wanted to work on some drawn type, so this seemed like a great place to experiment with that.

However, I’ve done a little mental restructuring and I think I’m on the right path! I’m going to be using this blog to showcase important design work, studio updates and design-related writing that deals directly with the Designojek end of things. This will definitely remain the primary blog, but I don’t want to distract people with external links if they don’t want them.

In addition to this, I’ve set up a Tumblr site when I can do a little curating and post links to interesting things that I find online, quotes that I think are relevant, and some less important personal photos and design bits that I think you, dear readers, might enjoy! I’m looking at customizing my theme a little, so pardon the dust.

So, the relevant links are:

• Designojek Tumblr: http://designojek.tumblr.com/ and its RSS Feed
• This blog’s RSS feed.
• If you’re interested, you can check out my Delicious Bookmarks or follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

So, what do you think? Too much, too little or just right? Most importantly, I hope to inform people about the work that I do and some of what I think is important happening in the global and local design community. Plus, I love hearing from people and having fun with my work! Thanks for your support!

I just finished up a children’s CD with percussionist Cory Hills titled The Lost Bicycle. The album consists of several fun, original works for percussion and storytelling including The Lost Bicycle, Tikki Tikki Tembo, and The Turnip. For the project, I did all the artwork, layout and photography. For more information on the CD or to order yourself a copy, contact Cory at his website.

I recently did a poster for the University of Georgia that centered around a musical piece called The Here and Now by Christopher Theofanidis. The work is based on selected poems by the Persian poet Rumi and uses the powerful and mysterious qualities of band and choir. They wanted it to have a decidedly Middle Eastern/Turkish feel to it and so I thought it would be the perfect chance to try doing some hand-drawn calligraphy.

I should make it clear that I drew all of the type in Adobe Illustrator and didn’t actually get out the calligraphy pens (mostly due to a tight deadline), but it was a lot of fun to do and I hope to do more things like it in the future. My apologies to the purists out there!

Here’s a quick pencil sketch that I used as a starting point for the illustration.

And here’s the final type!

You can hear some audio clips of the piece on Amazon. It’s pretty powerful classical music written for band and choir.

Update: Here’s an interesting article about Arabic calligraphy and digital fonts.

This is a poster I did for the 2010 KU Jazz Festival, taking place on March 5-6. This year’s festival will feature Kenny Garrett (one of my favorite alto players) and his quartet. Here are a couple of older videos (like this little tune called Giant Steps) that I think explains it all. If you’re a music fan, definitely head down for both nights of the festival!

This poster is just one of many reasons for the slow blogging schedule these days. Sorry about that. Lots of work, but little time to show it!

This is a poster that I designed and illustrated for the University of Georgia Band Department. Several pieces on the concert are sea themed, so that definitely informed the design process.

First off, there is now a Facebook page for Designojek and I’d love to see everyone on there. Feel free to drop me a note or post something interesting for everyone to see. Of course, you can do that in the comments on here as well.

Also, I’ve started up a Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/Designojek. Lots of daily quirkiness, so feel free to follow along.

This is a poster for the upcoming Lawrence Chamber Orchestra Young Artists Concert on Sunday, April 26th and 2:00 p.m. The concert will feature the very talented flutist JoAnn Doll performing the C.P.E. Bach Concerto in D Minor for Flute and Orchestra.

I was really excited to work on the artwork for the newest CD release from oboist Margaret Marco entitled Hidden Gems: Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque. It’s a recording that fills a very specific niche in the recorded oboe repertoire, but it’s a great album and if you like baroque music, it’s a wonderful addition to any music collection.

From the liner notes:

It is possible that the works on this CD have not been performed for 400 years. This is the first professional recording of these charming, evocatively colorful and, until now, cloistered sonatas. Not published in modern editions, the original prints of these works reside in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris where hundreds of such works from the Baroque period remain inaccessible to most oboists.

You can listen to samples and pick up a copy of the album on iTunes or CDBaby.

We’re in full Spring mode here in Kansas with thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes rolling in last night! No damage, fortunately, but I hope it’s not a sign of more to come. I spent most of last week in Connecticut which is a beautiful state and you can drive it top to bottom in a couple of hours. That’s a strange concept for those of us out in the Midwest!

With the arrival of Spring comes a new crop of concerts at KU and this is a poster I did for the upcoming KU Wind Ensemble performance on Monday, March 30th. It’s a great ensemble, so check it out if you love live music.

This is the poster I did for the University Dance Company’s upcoming concerts on April 16th and 17th at 7:30 p.m. at the Lied Center of Kansas. If you haven’t seen them before, it’s definitely worth your while to make it over to see them.

They will be performing The Fugue by renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp.

From the press release:

The Fugue, originally choreographed in 1970, represents the start of a new direction in the Tharpian canon. Since its creation, this trio has become a Tharp classic, in which the rigorously plotted choreography draws audiences inside its intriguing workings. Set to the percussive beat of the dancer’s own feet on a miked floor, The Fugue‘s primary phrase of movement is a 20-count theme that one, two and/or three of its dancers variously execute by way of reversals, inversions, and resequencings, all shaded by individually graded “attacks and coordinations.”

Since I’m not a dancer, I wasn’t familiar with her work and in doing some research, I came across this video of her talking about motivation and creativity that I found pretty interesting.

Sorry for the brief hiatus from posting. It’s been an extremely busy month with work and there was also a baby born along the way, so I haven’t had much time to post!

That being said, I wanted to showcase a poster I just finished for the 2009 University of Kansas Jazz Festival. This year will feature trombonist John Fedchock as well as the KU Jazz Ensemble I playing the Rolling Stones Big Band Project with saxophonist Tim Ries and pianist Matt Harris. The dates are March 6-7, so mark your calendars!

I’ve just recently started working for the KU Jazz department and they have a fun holiday-themed concert coming up on Thursday, Dec. 11 at 7:30 p.m. There are several guest artists and many of the student groups will be featured, so this will be a great way to start off your holiday season and support jazz at KU!

Here’s my poster for the event: