April showers may bring May flowers

Parrot Tulip wreath, Q. Cassetti, 2012 Adobe Illustrator.Making my lists. Checking them twice. Getting them whittled down, down, down. am feeling like we are getting a little traction—moving this forward versus feeling victimized by the lack of focus on much of this work. Am wrapping things up today/tomorrow with new work coming through the door. The snarls are being shaken out.

Pro Bono-ville has a few quick websites to put up on Squarespace (Farmers Market). Am hitting stride for this week. I am liking InDesign this week…and enjoying how smooth working with text is. And the crossover between InDesign and Illustrator is totally beautiful.

As you can see. more illustration findings….parrot tulips galore. I am going to dig on the web for some alternative images to draw…more parrot tulips, more bulbs (frittillaria, muscari, daffodils, narrcissus). I am getting a few canvases ready for Picture Salon to output and stretch. Two monkeys that like to drink, and 3 floral patterned biggies (36” square)—all to be hung at the Stonecat Cafe. They are also interested in a series of paper prints framed for the restaurant (a former fruit stand). More for this evening as things are going to start a bit later with Rob having a meeting and Alex out winning tennis tourneys. This work is quite a surprise for me as it is very appealing, very applicable and very pretty. I did not set out to do this but to better understand Dutch Flower pictures, their compositions and the general feel. This process of making pictures always is a surprise and shock. Its a new body of work every 2-3 months. From fruit now to flowers.

Last Tuesday of Eleven Month

Tangerine Heart for Sketchbook 3, Q. Cassetti, 2010, sharpiesIt was wildness yesterday. It was Monday, the day after Thanksgiving. So, plenty to catch up with, and plenty coming at us fast. We are wrapping up the pancake/muffin mixes today along with stuff for the Museum, for Cornell and for the Big Client. Got a fast one from the Big Client this morning— a redo of a presskit that 2 agencies have touched aready and is missing the “wow”. I pried and pushed to find out what the “wow” means…and so confounded, I am working on a cracked acrobat file with layers upon layers of vector patterns merged with the text/copy. A mess just to pry the content out of the file. Ouch. Lots of flat planes of bright color…I hope that gets us to wow. I have very little wow in my mojo…I work very hard not to have wow.

Had a great and inspiring conversation with a like minded art director with an agency in NYC that is pursuing my doing some illustration for a Dairy Cooperative in NYS. He gets my work and worked with some of the Fraktur images, the vector stuff and some of my black and white work…parsing it to “Realistic”, “Folk” and “Symbolic” drivers to the work. Plus, he married the work with some cool fonts that I have been inspired by (and bought the one, and two more yesterday—see BadTyp to the left). I totally had forgotten about FontShop. Neville Brody (wonderful Neville Brody) is one of the principals there…and thus the work is fun and inspired (along with fonts from Matthew Carter). We talked prices. We talked deadlines (all doable)…and hopefully something will happen. Could be a good project and a good relationship as I really love this creative. Great brain…and we have common sensibilities.

Am working on a bunch of black and white Matryoshka doll illustrations (Wikipedia). They are just like chips…cannot get enough of them as they are decorative and fun. Not much meaning there…but I think they could be festive.

Gotta go and move the needle.

Here and now.

Lots of work hitting the desk. Redos of a client’s international work with very immediate turn-around (my stomach is still churning) along with long discussions of design and imagery that could affect so many future instances that its important we are talking and better understand what is important. And its fast and furious.

The two books for Cornell’s Vet School I am powering through—looking for images, lots of retouching and editing. I did a few layouts for one and need to make the second one more real. I am working a lot in Century Schoolbook (need to reconsider the drawing I am using) and really loving the way it looks. Marries well with the wood inspired type (Knockout, Acropolis for instance). We will be printing on uncoated paper for both pubs using (like the year before) UV inks which do not fade but give you much brighter and bolder ink coverage on the sheet.

Running parallel with this work, Farmer Ground Flour is coming alive. I posted a page via Squarespace which is really working between my pal and me…editing, designing, refining all in tandem. Once again, Squarespace pulls through easily. It has given me something to tinker with in the slivers of time (not a lot into this) to get a site up and posted as Farmer Ground and Cayuga Pure Organics will be in an article in The New York Times Magazine (10/17). We need to have some presence before it hits.

Additionally, there are some terrific new products using Farmer Ground which are being shown next week that we need to get labels resolved for comps that they need. As we keep talking, the need for a rack card, or output is surfacing. This logo is in the works but I really want to rework it this weekend as it needs to be tweaked. The uber cool thing (speaking as a vector geek) was that the wheat are brushes that created these strokes that were then rotated off a central spine. Still looks friendly and handmade but just a bit clunky to this designer. The messaging and image of the flour will flow into the messaging and image for the Bakery we are working on and is derivative of the messaging and the image of the grain and grain farmer. So it feels like there is a lot to think about, but as we begin to parse this information, it suggests or overlaps other aspect of this grain related community which is really cool. I am enjoying trying to put these pieces together.

I have been really going, so having that peaceful moment to think about pictures hasn’t happened in a few weeks. I would really like to get back to it. For now, a double order of granola and a tray of cookies need to happen on top of what is going to be presented for dinner.