No Second Chances?

They say there are no second chances, but recently I found that statement to be not entirely true. I’ve designed and executed art for many covers of TIME magazine. I was never entirely pleased with the cover I did for TIME’s “Cocaine Wars” story. I had originally wanted to focus the design around a skull image, and to have the letters in “Cocaine Wars” have snowcaps on them like the letters you’d see on ice machines. But the powers-that-be at time had me eliminate the skull (too menacing) and in it’s place illustrate a small mound of “cocaine”. The result as you can see was a still a fairly good cover but with a focal point that was kind of anti-climactic.

Fast forward to present day: Rick Klotz of FreshJive—an LA streetwear manufacturer, who also runs his flagship store Reserve in the heart of the Fairfax district—contacted me to see if they could license some of my older designs for silkscreened T-Shirts. He immediately gravitated to some of my TIME covers—including “Cocaine Wars” among others among others. Since I would have to reconfigure the art for silkscreen anyway I immediately saw this as an opportunity to make good on that design that I never felt right about. Freshjive will be distributing that T-Shirt design among others of mine in two different color schemes for their Summer ’09 line.

For All You ‘KISS’ Fans Out There…

Years ago I did the cover for Kiss’ album “Rock and Roll Over”. When I did it, I styled it after another piece I had done—a cover for the Japanese graphics magazine IDEA. Over the years this piece has gotten more notoriety (founded or unfounded) than almost any other piece of art I’ve done. I’ve done many interviews about my experience doing this cover. This short interview was done for Rockpages Web Magazine, out of Greece, which is part of their year-long special on this rock group. Another more recent interview was done for “Tokyo Five” and can be seen HERE.

What I Do (#3 of 3)

Trying to cite a few sample pieces that are representative of what I do is not that easy. Although there are many common threads running through my work, much of it has ranged all across the board. Many people say they can always recognize it by “my style”, but it’s not as easy as picking out the work of many illustrators who have a style that’s clearly definable. If I had to pick out several pieces that are representative of what I do, I might select the logo I designed for the NY Knicks, one of my covers for Time Magazine, the cover I did for the Squirrel Nut Zippers CD “Bedlam Ballroom” and the treatment I created for the New York Times of the Tribeca Film Festival. These pieces are all quite different in nature, yet tied together by what I believe to be my personal graphic vision.