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I was looking for an excuse to try Photoshop’s photomerge function and was pretty impressed with the job it did. Not flawless by any means, but it found and blended the content as well as I ever could by hand. My only complaint was that it was a 360 panorama, but I wasn’t able to tell it where I wanted the center point to be. This is probably a better tool to use for compositing 2-3 photos together within a smaller viewing angle.

This was just a silly t-shirt design I whipped up for my brother who lives with his roommates with 2 guinea pigs and an occasional rat in Chicago, IL.

I just got back from a trip to Chicago last week, so I thought I’d do a quick recap of what all I did, mostly as a log of the trip for myself. It was my first time to Chicago and I had a great time seeing some of what the city has to offer. I didn’t shoot a ton of photos, but got a few I thought I’d share here.

These are two of the fellas who I went to visit and who showed me around while I was there! Lots of crazy fun, so thanks, guys! I started out the trip by arriving at Midway airport (smart move) in the evening. We went right over the the Green Mill for some great gypsy jazz by Alfonso Ponticelli and Swing Gitan. I guess it was Al Capone’s hang for a while, so the vibe inside was straight out of the 30s.

The next day we ate lunch at Cosy Noodles and Rice which was amazing! Then we headed over to see the Chicago Lyric Opera perform Carmen. Tragic stuff, but beautifully done and the set design was incredible! Sadly, I didn’t get a photo, but it was like watching a moving painting.

From there, I headed over to the Chicago Art Institute since it was free admission that day! Anyone who’s been there knows what an amazing place it is and I could go on all day, so I’ll just say, if you can only make it to one place in Chicago, go there!

After that, I went and saw the Chicago Symphony perform Petrushka (1911 version). There’s a reason it’s known as one of the best orchestras in the world and they completely nailed it.

The next day was spent downtown being a little more touristy. We started off at the Field Museum where we spent a lot of time at the Jade collection, Tibet and Pacific Island exhibits, and of course, the dinosaurs! Then we walked up Michigan Ave. and checked out Millennium Park complete with the crazy mirrored “bean” which really is an amazing thing to see in person. Right across the street was the Chicago Cultural Museum where we saw Finding Vivian Maier: Chicago Street Photographer, an exhibition of New York and Chicago street photos taken by a self-taught nanny, Vivian Maier, over the course of her life. It’s an amazing story and the photos are the real deal. I thought they were some of the best street photos I’ve ever seen!

We then walked up further and checked out some of the amazing architecture of downtown Chicago, ending up at the Hancock Tower. With NO line and a quick elevator trip up, we were able to see 360 degrees of Chicago from 94 floors up! Very impressive.

We watched the KU game that night at a bar with a $10 all-you-can-drink special. Enough said about that . . .

The next day we were gearing up for a big taco party that night, so we only had time for one destination, but it was one of my favorites of the trip. We drove out to Garfield Park Conservatory which is an enormous greenhouse that has several different rooms that mirror various climates from tropical to desert. The conservatory is run by the city and has free admission. It was a real feast for the senses with lots of warm, moist air, lots of oxygen and as many colors as you can imagine! I couldn’t help but shoot some photos there:

The morning that I left, we had an incredible brunch at The Chicago Diner, which is an all vegetarian/vegan place that had about the best brunch I’ve ever had. Even if you’re a carnivore, I highly recommend it. We also stopped by the Robot City Workshop, which is an all toy robot store! You can even build your own there and they have a great collection of vintage robots from the 1980s, too.

I can now add Chicago to my list of great cities that I’ve visited. It’s a very cool place with easy mass transit, big city attractions with a more laid-back, Midwestern feel to it. I definitely hope to head back soon!

One of my best pals and programmer extraordinaire Greg Aker asked me to come up with some monster illustrations for the header of his web site. It was a lot of fun because it’s not the kind of thing I get to do often. We had talked a while back about doing a “seasonal” header to help keep his design fresh year-round and so I’ve been slowly cranking through them for him to use! So far, I’ve got Winter, Spring and Summer.

If you have an interest in web development, CodeIgniter and CMS systems like Django and ExpressionEngine, you need to check out Greg’s site. He’s a total master!

I also did a couple of crazy monster Twitter birds for him to use and he even did a mouseover animation on them!

When we first started out on this, we used it as an excuse to try out the now-defunct Google Wave tool for collaboration. It worked OK, but was ultimately more trouble than it was worth, mainly because it involved sending an email to let each other know there was new content up. That totally defeated the purpose, I think, so no real surprise that it didn’t work out. Below are a few of the initial sketches that we tossed around on that wave:

Site layout ideas.

Refined layouts.

Crazy ol’ Twitter birds!

FYI, you can toss the blend on a path by selecting the blend and the path and then Object -> Blend -> Replace spine.

Robot Puzzle from P’kolino

My Little Blue Robot by Lawrence, KS-based author and illustrator Stephen T. Johnson. There are cutouts that can be put together to form a 3-D robot!

The three robot prints above (letterpressed print, silver print, and wood print) came from my pal Tad Carpenter who is an amazing illustrator and designer in Kansas City.

Robot pencil sharpener from Kikkerland.

These images are knit robots that were given to us as a gift. They’re really soft and fun to have lying around! The little knitbot can be purchased here.

Robot bib from Little Bluestem, another Lawrence, KS based company.

These robot bags are from Coelacanth and are very sturdy and hold all kinds of baby items (and they’re waterproof!)

This is a custom-made quilt that was given to us from a very loving grandmother. I drew the illustrations and then she embroidered them onto the front side.

The robot wall decals are from Room Mates and are lightly adhesive so you can peel them back off and reposition them as needed (which I did and they came off easily!). The robot stickers come in different pieces so you can mix and match them.

From a couple of shots at last year’s county fair…

It’s been a very busy past few weeks with lots of work including a new CD for these ladies and a big brochure for these guys. A few posters, two ongoing identity projects and a couple of fun websites and it’s been a busy time around the studio. No complaints here, though! I should have some images to share here soon.

I’m keeping my inspiration stream alive and kicking over on the Designojek Tumblr site. I’m still feeling out whether or not it’s the best way to go, but it’s fun for now.

I also just nabbed an invite to Dribbble, so you can check out some of the shots I toss up there now and again. It seems like a pretty neat way for designers to share and comment on work.

A little tempera paint and some black paper was all it took for my Psycho themed entry into the office Halloween decoration contest. I even hung a bare light bulb behind it for a better shine-through effect. I might have to start it swinging when the judging starts! Thanks to Mr. Hitchcock for the arts and crafts inspiration!

Colorado Columbine

A view of the Space Needle from out on Puget Sound

A few photos from Pike Place Market.

I took a handful of photos on a recent trip to Washington, DC so I thought I’d post a few. DC is a really fascinating place and I think it would benefit anyone to go and visit at least once. The museums are really amazing (and free!) and there’s nothing quite like standing in front of the actual Declaration of Independence. It will give you chills.

I didn’t expect the monuments to be as powerful as they were. It’s a well spent afternoon to stand in the same spot as Martin Luther King did in 1963. Just standing in front of the White House was quite the experience, too, when you start thinking of all the people who have lived there.

Other highlights of the trip were the Holocaust Museum, Museum of Modern Art, the Allen Ginsberg photography exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, the National Archives, Ford’s Theater, the Museum of Natural History, and lots and lots of great food!

I also did a little post-trip reflection over at our work blog about finding storytelling inspiration in museum design.

I recently took a trip to Holland, MI to do some art direction for a short video documentary. I stayed in a cool hotel while I was there, so I thought I’d share a couple of shots I took. The hotel is City Flats and it’s the first hotel in the Midwest to achieve LEED Gold Certification. It’s an eco-minded hotel with really nice interior design including bold colors, clean lines and high ceilings.


Here’s the hallway by the elevator.

A view of the bed which was REALLY comfortable!

I loved the sliding door that covered the bathroom and closet.

It was nice to see some non-typical hotel artwork on the walls!

View of the bathroom…

… and walk-in shower.

I had a great stay there and the environment was really classy!

The city of Holland is a couple of hours outside of Chicago and about 35 minutes from Grand Rapids, MI. Lake Michigan is about a 5 minute drive to the west. The population is about 35,000 people and it was recently named the 2nd happiest city in the U.S.!

Every year, they have the Tulip Time festival which is the largest tulip festival in the U.S.

There are tulips EVERYWHERE and it’s really beautiful.

Update: I’ve done a second post with more fun robot items for kids!

I thought this would be a fun way to learn ABCs!

We also have some great robot artwork from friends of ours. The Howdy Robot print on the wall is a piece by Tad Carpenter. The color match was purely a coincidence, but it’s a perfect fit! The orange robot was hand-knit and has been a guest in the house for a couple of years now. We’ve appropriately named it “KnitRobot”.

It’s been a pretty quiet week around here and I’ve definitely enjoyed the relaxation time. Other than seeing the Jayhwaks play, I’ve been busy taking care of things around the house and finishing up some projects that desperately needed to be finished. More photos of the project below coming soon!

I hope everyone had a great end to 2008. I have a feeling that 2009 is going to be a great year! Stay tuned in the next few days for an exciting new studio visit and Happy New Year!