Sure, Awards Look Nice on a Shelf

Yesterday, I attended the Apex Awards luncheon at Pine Ridge. The Awards are put on by the Lake Communicators, an organization I've been proud to be part of for over five years now. Every year, they recognize the best advertising and communication work in Ohio.

I won two awards yesterday, the Silver and the Gold in the Illustration category. I won the Silver for the CleveLand ilustration I did for Scene Magazine and I won the Gold for the Grand Theft Auto Tremont cover, which I also did for Scene (and I'm told resulted in their best circulation numbers ever). It's always great to do good work, and it's fantastic to be recognized for it.

I also met Brad Colbow, talented designer and illustrator. What was odd about our meeting is that we both follow each other on Twitter, and that's how we knew each other. I know Twitter is part of online social networking, it was just cool to see it transferred to in-person social networking.

Grand Theft Auto: Tremont

Here's why I love working for Scene Magazine.

With Scene, I get to do some really fun stuff. I get to mess around in styles that I wouldn't normally, and they're very supportive of such experiments. As a result, I think some of the best stuff I've done has been done for them. This one is just a little different, as it was very art-directed to start. My AD e-mailed and said "We want to do Grand Theft Auto Tremont." (Tremont is a Cleveland neighborhood, for those of you living in the great unexplored non-Northeast Ohio part of the world.)

I had to break it down and figure out how to do the GTA style. It's fun to do different styles, and learning how to break something down like that gives you another tool in your graphics toolbox, and that's always good. I like the angry eyes at the bottom, and the picture of the yuppies at the lower left. Especially the way that Lolita is treated as a background. I'm sure I'll be using that approach again.

It's out on newsstands now. Check it out!

CleveLand!

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise, but the Mystery Game Board piece was done for Scene Magazine, in the issue that comes out today.

They're running a feature on Cleveland's screwed up politics, and wanted a CandyLand type game board with several Cleveland incidents on it. So, everything from the sink hole to the Ameritrust Building, to the County Commissioners, to National City Bank's troubles are illustrated.

Scene Magazine supplied me with a PDF of the finished version, which you can see by clickin' and embiggenin'.

I'm thrilled with the way this one came out. I think it's a great piece.