New Poster

poster

For Mike O’Brien, a great guitarist and songwriter from Montreal.

It’s TIKI time!

Designing alcohol labels is a dream job of mine so when I heard that the Canoe Brew Pub was having an art competition to launch their new Southern Cross South Pacific IPA I jumped on board. Given the name, this was a great excuse to go Tiki, but not too Tiki if you know what I mean. I mainly took my inspiration from tiki textures, colours and shapes, combined with some appropriate sketchbook images and fun type design.

Watch the Teak…

One of the perks of living in Victoria is that it’s really easy to fill your home with mid-century modern furniture (used of course). If you’re not familiar with the style, think Don Draper’s new condo… The stuff’s everywhere out here. Beautiful design, great quality and cheap. Unlike most furniture on the market today, if properly cared for it lasts for many many years. If properly cared for…

I designed these handy little signs for a friend who has lots of teak and lots of cocktail parties. Anyone who owns anything made out of this wood will know what I’m talking about. Having to throw coasters at your dinner guests to save them putting a—gasp—hot plate or drippy glass down directly on your precious wood gets tedious. I don’t know how Don does it. Cheers from the Victoria Teak Preservation Society.

DIY business cards…

It’s always fun when I get to stamp up a new batch of business cards. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of one stamp, some ink and a box of little envelopes over the past couple years. It’s kind of surprising I’m not sick of them… maybe that’s a good sign. These are for Pecha Kucha Night Victoria, where I’ll be presenting my work tonight!

A card for baby Elpi

It’s tradition in the Netherlands to send a card to friends and family announcing when a baby is born. I was commissioned to do this one for my cousin Marten and is wife Puck, to announce the arrival of their daughter Elpi.

It was a fun little project, especially receiving my card in the mail all the way from Rotterdam. Felicitaties!

Backhomes t-shirts

My band The Backhomes will be playing a small show for friends in Montreal today. In honour of the event we designed some tshirts that were screen printed at the Olio Artists Cooperative in Victoria (where I’m excited to become a member this year).
Note the two different kinds of screens used in this project…

The lettering is directly inspired by Old Kraftsman, a series of vintage instruments made by Kay Guitars, including my beautiful guitar (on the left below) and lapsteel where the Old Kraftsman logo is kind of visible…

If you’d like a tshirt send me an email.

BOOM or BUST: A handmade dice game!

As hinted about in a previous post, I’m excited to present BOOM or BUST!

So there’s this great dice game my friends and I have been playing for years. It never really had a name, and the rules were always changing, which made it hard to teach to new players. I thought it would be a fun project to illustrate/design an “official” version that includes everything you need to play in one cute handmade package…

Inspired by the times, BOOM or BUST lets you win (and lose) without all the tedious economic inequality and taxing social upheaval!

Just in time for the holidays, this handmade diversion is available on my Etsy shop while supplies last, as are four brand new PRINTS of some of my fave recent illustrations/drawings. Limited edition, professionally printed on archival fine art paper, signed & numbered, and made to fit most standard sized frames with ease. They look fabulous – check em out!

holiday shwag

In the off-hours I’ve been working feverishly on a bunch of new things to sell for the holidays, including prints, cards, and—something completely new for me—a game! Below is a little hint. I can’t wait to show you the full package, hopefully in the next week or so.

play

Okay, so when I’m working on a longer project I often need to take a day or two’s break (if I can) to switch stuff up and play. Here’s something I did today. I’ve been giving myself these fictional tight-deadline “don’t think too much” jobs where I go back and find an old image I never used or something and just play with it. I drew these ladies last winter. Seeing them all together made me think of a hot chick band, and then I thought wouldn’t it be fun to do an illustrated book of women in rock bands? Talk about dream project. Anyway, I’m starting with the cover! (click to enlarge)

Logo

I don’t design logos very often, but it’s always fun when it’s for a good cause, and fits my style. In Montreal, each borough has a Community Development Corporation responsible for everything from accessibility to food security to housing. I was contacted by CDC Rosemont to design a logo for a social forum they’re organizing, where community members are invited to visualize and plan for all aspects of their neighbourhood. The theme is “Décider Rosemont Ensemble” (Deciding Rosemont Together). I ♥ Montreal.

Animal prints

Over the winter I created a series of apparel designs featuring inky animals. The snowy owl design was selected by Moniker (Montreal), who screen printed a series limited edition t-shirts for their annual Machine Wash Cold – Tumble Dry line, available here (m) and here (f).

And if you’re a shoe fetishist, UK-based Sole Creator is custom printing them on Ethletic hightops (an ethical shoe manufacturer), available here.