Enjoy…

1. First and foremost, my favorite European, Robert Lindstrom, co-founder of North Kingdom (FWA ‘10 Wallpaper pictured above). You can also see his personal work at Design Chapel. Solid geometry meets organic illustration in perfect elegance…

2. On the other end of the visual spectrum is David Noe at Noe Design. His famous “action figure” website from a few years back in Communication Arts put him on my radar and I always enjoy checking in on his work every now and then to see what’s influencing the Mid-westerner. Of course, you’ll also see a design/illustration balance in his work. His archived, flash based site is shown.






3. And finally, here’s one I bet you haven’t heard of… Christian Sparrow. I actually had the chance to work with Sparrow for a couple months earlier this year. Again, he’s a real artist who’s translated his work to the digital world very well. Everything he does just has a optimistic feel embedded into the pixels. He’s easy going and fun to work with. And, after a couple years of doing tech based sites, is one of the reasons I started sketching again.

This was my gangster moment. The chance to force a near-stranger to drink from another stranger’s possibly germ ridden soda. Ah, the power. But alas, it really was his… we think. And so, he drank.

This is the perfect game for the uptight, germaphopes out there. Would you drink from a near-stranger’s soda can? Would you take the risk that it’s yours or some randoms? What a great deal for a completely suburban blown-out-of-proportion dilemma type spot. It was just a fun little thought and joke for a bit… maybe it’ll show up in a spot somewhere…

Enter a buddy, Matt Hendrick and his team at TurnSocial.com. With a few clicks on their site and a little copy and paste with easy-to-do code, you can bring all of the popular social sites to a nice, slide up window on your own domain.

Now a user can see the real time Twitter buzz about your organization or even Yelp reviews without ever leaving your digital real-estate. Of course, if you’re willing to provide that level of transparency, make sure you’re willing to engage your customers and clients socially as well to improve your product or service.

Look for it soon on my own site as soon as they incorporate some visual customization or a Wordpress pluggin that can be styled with a little CSS.

The first site was Charlene Li’s Altimeter Group (.net). I acted as the visual design lead for Charlene, a social media thought leader, co-author of Groundswell and former Forrester analyst.

This was an exciting opportunity to work with a recognized industry name and I gained a ton of respect for her strategic, big-picture mind. She demonstrated the “I get it,” personality by responding to abstract ideas and presentations with questions and ideas for the next step rather than the practical application that would eventually occur. An open mind early in the project life cycle made this a very enjoyable experience.

Next, I was the creative lead on the Sirona Biofuels brand development. I worked on everything from the original SOW and briefs to the hands on design.

This client was a particular feel-good project since they not only provide an environmentally friendly product but a large portion of their stock is purchased at fair market price from farmers in Haiti. In turn they help to build orphanages and town centers in those regions.

Last, I worked as a hands on designer and video editor on the Horn Groups website. This gave me a chance to work with the design rebel, himself, Arthur Asmonov. We completed green screen shoots in New York and San Francisco with After Effects and Final Cut software used to compile it all together in a ridiculous amount of time.