Annie's Got a Gun

This past weekend was a production of Annie Get Your Gun by the Jewish Women's Repertory Company. I was originally brought in to design the poster for the show, and though they later decided to go in a different direction and use another designer, they paid me for my work and we parted on good terms, as it should be. I liked my poster and thought it would be a shame if no one else saw it. We went through multiple ideas and rounds of revisions on this one. Here's my favorite of the bunch.

Christmas in the Theater

Here are some new theater cards I made. I like the house on the Timeless Christmas one.

How Much Can You Bench?

It's a common tradition in some Jewish circles to give out a bencher, or Grace After Meals prayer book, as a souvenir at weddings and bar mitzvahs. My friend Rachel is getting married today and instead of going with one of the standard benchers out there, she asked me to designed a custom bencher for her wedding. Rachel loves to sing, and one of the things she wanted to include was a whole section of songs in the back. It was hard work typesetting the Hebrew and getting all the text in, but we made our deadline and it came out great. Check it out here. Click on the arrows on the right and left to flip the pages.

Children's Theater

Two more cards for kids’ shows.

Urban Sweetness

A friend of mine runs her own wedding cake and pastry company called Urban Sweets Bakery and wanted to spruce up the look of her blog, which you can find here. She had been using a standard blog template and wanted something more personal that reflected her brand and her tastes. Here's the result:

Seriously, how awesome are those cakes!

Cheesesteak Latkes

My friend Ben is directing a show that our friend Matt wrote. It's hilarious, so check it out this weekend. Show info here. Guess who made the poster.

Lotsa Cards

So many shows going on now. Here are some postcards.

I'm on Broadway!

Well, not quite. Over the summer I designed the title and key art for a show in the New York Musical Theater Festival, which starts next week. It's a musical about vampires called The Cure. If you're in the area, why not check it out.

Happy New Year!

Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. It is a time for reflection when we assess the previous year and make our aspirations for the coming one. Our family has a tradition that at the ritual-filled dinner the first night of Rosh Hashanah, we go around the table and say one nice thing that happened this year. My year has been an interesting one. What has meant the most to me are the new things I've seen, and that I've managed to be entirely self-supporting as a freelance designer. Hell, I'm impressed I pulled it off. Here's to bigger and better things.

This is the Rosh Hashanah card I sent out to friends and family. The yellow spells out "Shana Tova" or "Good Year" in Hebrew, the traditional greeting this time of year.

Cards Cards Cards

For some upcoming shows. Pinocchio’s Playhouse is their children’s program, and I’m now doing cards for that as well.

In the Movies

Micah made this short film a while back and wanted a poster to go with it. The design is a pretty typical "big head" poster, but the great thing about it is that the stars are little kids, turning the idiom on its head, if you will.

Comic-Con!

This weekend was one of the events I look forward to all year — Comic-Con in San Diego. Anyone who knows me knows I love comic books. Comic-Con has changed a lot since I started coming a few years ago. Increasing popularity of blockbuster franchise properties has brought hordes of attendees who come more for Twilight/Lost/Whatever than for comics. It's cool that it exposes more people to comics, but it's really annoying that they clog up the convention center and sell out the show (150,000+ people over four days) months in advance. My favorite part of Comic-Con is meeting the writers and artists who created the books I love and having them sign my comics. This year was a real treat. Seen below is the legendary Gene Colan holding my newly signed copy of Iron Man #1! The man is 82 years old, and he's been drawing comics since the 1940s. He was actually really surprised I knew who he was! I also met a bunch of other awesome folks, got some sketches, and can't wait for next year. Maybe I'll even have some money by then.

Straggler Card

The odd lone card. Thank the Lord for the Public Domain.

Cardy Cards

I’m really happy with the Vagina Monologues card. I’m so clever sometimes. Friends was a bit tricky because it’s based on the show, but we legally can’t have representations of the characters. I thought this was close enough to make the connection clear without direct infringement.

My New Favorite Cards

I’m so proud of myself for making these cards. Such talent! Special thanks to Guy Gascoigne-Piggford for allowing me to use his photo as reference for the ruff. Check out his amazing costume work here (select Costuming from the drop-down).

Update: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead was canceled. Another masterpiece for naught! Maybe I’ll find an opportunity to reuse that one eventually.

I'm in a Show!

I had heard about a benefit show being put on by an organization called Stoked Mentoring, which according to their website "is a non profit action sports organization for at risk youth with the mission of developing Successful Teens with Opportunity, Knowledge, Experience, and Determination through the use of action sports, mentoring and coaching." Sounds pretty cool. So for the first time in a long time, I busted out the paints and got to it. The show is this weekend in Downtown. Stop by!

New Theater Gig

A friend is an actor for a theater company in Hollywood and through him I got a small gig designing postcards for their shows. Here’s the first batch. These have a pretty quick turn-around and aren’t quite as refined as I would like. They put on a whole bunch of shows at a time, which means there’ll be lots of these. I like the title treatment for Bit of Broadway, which was a pain to put together, though the rest of the card never quite gelled for me. I also like my Machinal illustration. Too bad the show was canceled!

Misery Loves Company

One of the projects I worked on with Micah while in Israel was this video for Aish. They wanted these very rudimentary animations in the background to go along with what the narrator was saying. I drew the frames by hand and Micah animated it all together.

Army of None

In my quest to find a job and pad my wallet, I've been applying to listings on sites like Monster and CareerBuiler. I saw a posting on CareerBuilder for a design position with the US Army in the LA area, and hit apply. I figured it must be some kind of desk job managing marketing or designing ads or something. Some time goes by and I get a call from one Sgt. Guererro who wants to ask me some questions: how much do I weigh, have I been convicted of a felony, did I go to college. Yes, I did go to college, I responded. Where? University of Pennsylvania. Is that a two-year or four-year school? Four-year. Four-year? Yes. Where is that? In Philadelphia. I thought you said you were from LA? I am, I just went to school there. You went to Pennsylvania for school? Yes. It's really a four year school? Yes, I have a BA. You have a BA? Yes.

He was so incredulous that he was talking to someone who had actually graduated from a four year school, hadn't been convicted of a felony, and was in shape, and it became more and more apparent in his voice with each new question. It also became clear that there was no design job to be had; he was recruiting for the army. He enthusiastically told me to come by his recruitment center. I gave a vague noncommittal response. What does that say about the state of our armed forces when finding someone who has above-disdainful intelligence and hasn't gotten into trouble before and isn't morbidly obese is a real find? I worry for the country.

Update: CareerBuilder has been entirely useless since then. Because I applied for an army job, suddenly my best matches were jobs like "truck driver in Valencia." I opted out of all emails from them. And I got a few more calls from Sgt. Guerrero to find a time for me to stop by. After a number of apologies for being to busy to visit, I got a call from a higher up firmly asking if I ever planned to stop by or if I could stop wasting their time. I admitted fault, and appreciative of his directness, opted to never hear from them again. Sometime later, the Culver City office closed down, taking all my unrealized military potential with it.