More WPA-inspired art for a still-under-wraps interactive project I’ve been hired for. I’ll have more at the end of October, but for now, here’s something to wet your whistle.

I find that I’m always in need of greeting cards; I seem to be one of the few people on the planet that still uses the mail for thank yous, hellos, and just just general queries, and some nice compact illustrations that fit on 1/4 of an 8.5 x 11 page are always in need. I’m jealous of some artists who seem to get finished looking sketches done every day – what a treat! I seem to either be running at 5 mph or 90 mph, either loose, loopy sketches that only I can figure out, or really detailed work that I obsess over. So my constant need of card images seems to justify that middle ground that I’m trying to develop; these are a result of that effort. Polished, but not too polished. Thought-out, but not too thought-out. Somewhere in the middle, the truth lies, grasshopper.

I’m super jazzed to announce that I just got word that I’ll be co-hosting a panel at South by Southwest this year, with Tim Lillis, from Make Magazine. Indirect Collaboration: Collective Creativity on the Web will be a panel discussing the potential of creative people and their audience coming together to create work that is maybe stronger, or at least more interesting, than either creator-directed or audience-directed work alone. I owe everyone a lot of thanks for your votes and support! See you in Austin!

“This discussion will examine the role of crowd-sourced input on the creative process. We will examine art, comics, design, photography and commerce, and the role that the audience plays in directing their creation. We will make a distinction between passive decision-making (i.e. Threadless) and participatory conception (i.e. 700 Hobos Project.) ”

Plus, if we get to go, I’ll try and host a separate Robots and Monsters meetup, which will be rad. It should be fun! Thanks for your vote!

See the full size poster here.

Above is my most recent illustration, for the German software company Emnis. I’d like think it’s part of a bigger trend.

Before I pontificate, I’d like to thank in particular Tobias Zimmer, who was as great a client to work for as I’ve ever had: it takes a strong confidence and a belief that people operate best when allowed to be free to excerise their expertise as they see fit, and he did both, giving me minimal notes and trusting my choices in the end. I think the piece turned out really well, and both Tobias and all of Emnis seems very happy with it, and which makes me happy, too.

In an unexpected turn, Tobias also told me that the work and a small blurb will be in the German magazine Page, which is great, and he asked me about the idea of “album art for software.” Since my work for Blue Flavor at the beginning of the year, this is the work that has gotten a lot of unexpected attention. I have to give some credit to Blue Flavor for giving me the venue initially, and for their completely hands-off approach, which let me take it in my direction. So I’d be deficit if I took total credit without Blue Flavor’s opportunity.

But I think the idea is a great one: it finally starts recognizing and putting on parallel the creations from programmers as well as musicians. Video games were actually the earliest iteration of such a trend – it’s only natural to assume that the software of more prosaic applications would start to get into the act, as well. In fact, the more abstract the idea or task that the software is engaged in, the more a simple and effective branding process is needed, so that a visual shorthand can rapidly put both users and consumers on the same page: this is best resolved by engaging art that not only speaks to the software, but creates a visual excitement in the viewer. Most smart, successful companies recognize this, and invest heavily in their visual output. In the end, humans love to spoken to in visual terms – from hieroglyphics to illuminated manuscripts, stained glass to instruction manuals, comic books to album art, they want and need something pretty to look at and give them a shorthand.

The other great aspect is that, with the advent of small, short-run, focussed printing, and larger bandwidth that allows for more involved and artistic websites, the strength of the small, underground artist or illustrator has never been stronger. While you will find many large illustrators who will bemoan the current state of stock illustration and falling usage fees, the reality is that the playing field has now been leveled, in the favor of smaller artists. This means that while huge fees are less common than they once were, young, interesting and edgy artists who once were sidelined now have an increasing number of venues in which to get their works seen. If every software company gave each of their products a great graphic edge by hiring a unique artist, the world would be better looking and more visually dynamic place.

Anyhoo, the long and the short of it is that I think every software sompany, or upstart website or whatever, should start tot hink about the idea of “album art”: far beyond just some simple BS color branding or some boring swoops and blocks of text, having the stones to allow an artist to provide you with super-compelling visuals without much input is a net-benefit in the end I’m convinced. It ups the companies “cool cache” (so important in this age of Yelping blogposts alternatively raising and trashing anyone’s reputation within moment), and makes the company seems forward thinking and concerned with a customer-viewer approach, rather than a top-down, old economy approach.

So, you companies: go hire weird artists! They’ll thank for it, you’ll be operating in the tradition of the Medicis, and in the end, you’ll get some great looking stuff.

Go! Go now! I’ll wait.

Well, it’s been a hell of a few weeks.

In short order, my grandmother died, I got hitched, and Barack Obama got election the next POTUS. I’m feeling pretty emotionally exhausted right now, but all things considered, I came out way ahead. I just want to use this small forum tho thank everyone who helped out on our big day: Tim, Glaser, Jen & Todd, Dad & Donna, Marcy, Melanie, Derek and Ben, thanks to everyone for helping us pull it off. Tomorrow: back to design and illustration blogging. Right now, mad props, yall.

Thanks, again.

Call Me Ahab
Originally uploaded by JoeAlterio

I’m not thrilled about the line work, but I think for a slapdash color job, the quick color work is a pretty good approximation of that those heavy, yellowed clouds that make their appearance in most baroque oil paintings of the day.

Whoa!

Just noticed that French nuclear energy company Areva features a new web ad that clearly has either ripped off or hired H5, the French motion graphics company that produced, most memorably, the original Royksopp video for “Remind Me”, before it was all sullied up with cave men. Gotta love that site design, eh?

Their other videos are pretty rad, too, check ‘em out. Extra points is you can find the Volkswagon video that rips off their own, earlier, Goldfrapp video. Meta!