Live from the electronic drawing board.

We are on to the next chapter and it still keeps coming. Got a call from a new client yesterday who needs ads for internet advertising on a very obtuse, "nerdy" product--and wanted to have a little zing! They need copy, cute headline (although cute may not be the word to fit the "nerdy" personna) and layouts for a meagre sum of money, but I took it as a new client walking in the door is a new client walking in the door. I forgot what it is to nurse these new clients into being older clients who we cherish and value for their work, friendship and the road time we have put in together.

It has been wild. All the farmers are needing things from my friend Melissa who is starting a new, big idea CSA to the local sheeps milk yogurt company who likes the label I did for them, but now wants it a bit rougher to make it more "artisan".  Another producer is on the front end of figuring out what he wants to do. The beer I rebranded is coming along....but more than the single hit they had started with but an entire program change, packaging and nomenclature approach. Slow. The wine I started on is coming to fruition with the client holding my hand on color and layout which, now as a content provider, feels very odd being told what colors to make things. I mean, I think I am the expert here....this is not buying carpet squares....But I will behave, be quiet and submit the bill (soon, I hope). A big local food manufacturer called me  (flattered) and I worked flat out last week on a project to find out that they were not communicating well and they wanted illustration (though during our meeting so the 28 hrs I spent on intense design work for a labelling system was for naught. I am wondering if I can charge them for the development fee (I should) despite their change in plans.  Time is money and their changing their minds is expensive. The meter was thrown. Bills need to be paid.

A depiction of  (example of Lubki illustration/art style)

Солнце, Луна, времена года и двенадцать месяцев в виде знаков Зодиака. Лубок. Конец XVII -начало XVIII в.

I am working on the new Rongo. Quel fun. The Rongo, as you remember from way back, is a local watering hole known historically as The Rongovian Embassy to the United States. It's an old bar founded in political thinking and local "can do" with a mythological ethos, all sorts of fun talk about what is Rongovia--and an older following who want their bar back again. So, in the spirit of Ulysses, a group of motivated people have formed a group to fund and bring back the Rongo. I am gifting the branding and print work to retain essentially, the rich visual traditions and assets that the Rongo has, and revisit it / refresh it to reflect the new group and their hopes for this institution. It has been fun putting pen to the lion, the sun face etc. There is a fantasy map of this place which I plan to redraw in a very lobok / lubki manner (you remember Lubok! You don't?? fabulous, naive folk art from Russia-- take a look, you will get it).

The Carta marina (Latin "map of the sea" or "sea map"),[1] drawn by Olaus Magnus in 1527-39, is the earliest map of the Nordic countries that gives details and placenames. Only two earlier maps ofScandinavia are known, those of Jacob Ziegler(Strasbourg, 1532) and Claudius Clavus (15th century).

Detail, Carta Marina.

I also am taking inspiration from the celebrated map, Carta Marina (or the Map of the Sea) which features crazy wonderful sea monsters, great typography and a scale of some sort that turns corners (see upper left corner of the map). I love the palette, the randomness of the typography, the way the water is described and the funny mountains.  It represents a much happier world (imagine this map with nuclear silos, airforce bases, downed ships, UFO sightings, and McDonalds?) than this one now...and it appears that the world to this fellow, might not have been absolutely flat...but that is my two cents. Lets just say with the map of Rongovia, the Rongovian Crests and Rongovian history to create, there is plenty to do.

Gotta go. There are legends and fables to create.