Drinking Coffee Liberally - Sundays in Mt. Airy! Come Out Some Time!

Back in March, a group I periodically attended called Drinking Liberally decided to do something different: Instead of meeting at a bar at night, why not meet on a Sunday afternoon over coffee? The result was a larger group, lively discussions, and a lot of fun!

But it was at that time that we discussed a new poster. We were "sponsored" by the national group, and they didn't have anything for coffee drinkers. While talking, I took out my sketch book, worked out a quick idea, and everyone agreed it would be great for me to do it.

Well, time passed, and the idea simply sat around, periodically being mentioned and me groaning about time or something or other. But since I was being so productive and creative, I decided now was the time to take a chance and work on the poster and see if the national picked it up.

The version I did relied on the imagery already used by the organization and the original idea was to do a radial as I've done in a lot of my work. I passed on that idea because it just couldn't work with the font, space, and limited color I wanted to use.

This version plays off Art Deco and the same ideas and concepts used for New Deal programs under FDR.

If you live in Philadelphia, namely the Mt. Airy area, please come out to Drinking Coffee Liberally! The group meets up Every Sunday at 12:30PM to 2:30PM at Infusion Cafe at 7133 Germantown Avenue. Tell 'em Larry Sent 'Ya!

Now You're Playing With POWER!

I did this piece for an upcoming art show called "8-Bit and Beyond", which is being held by The Autumn Society of Philadelphia, a group of illustrators from Philly and the surrounding areas. It was really humbling to get to do something for it, and I was really psyched to get it done! My friend posed for this and, well, it was a ton of fun! Mixing illustration with pop-art techniques and elements of 80's graphic design... good times!

Special thanks to everyone who supported me in this, and I can't believe what I went through to get it done! From taking risks by just doing the sketching and seeing what happened, inking it a lot more loosely than I normally do instead of being incredibly rigid, the adventures of going to Center City to get a reduced copy only to realize I left the original on the copier and being forced to get it back, to coloring it.... Just so much fun!

Also, feel free to check out the piece and buy a print from DeviantArt.com!

What Happened To Branding?

Today was the rare type of day when I have a sort of vision, a clairvoyant look into the world. In return, I get to either create something awesome, go through an anxiety attack, or both. Today, I had both.

Posted on my new blog, Larry West Productions: The Blog, this is a snippet of my article on branding.

Sometimes I feel older than I should.

This isn't a figure of speech your about to read, nor am I over-simplifying what happened. I woke up this morning, eyes aching from the attempts to open them after basically rubbing away the protective layer on them last night and then having it grow back this morning. After I got both eyes open, watching TV, I realized something: There is no branding anymore.

I was watching "Morning Joe" on MSNBC when that hit me. I was watching the logo in the background as it was displayed on a screen and that made me think about what it meant, which, really, was nothing. It's a sloppy logo. Joe Scarbrough is a straight-laced Republican and the logo is a liberal-minded, coffee-shop logo. It doesn't work. It's not a brand. The show was slapped together after the Don Imus thing and they never made the logo work for the show. Joe just doesn't look good against the logo, against this "brand", and he always looks awkward.

Then I started to think about my logo and branding.

There's a lot more to this, including Spongebob Squarepants, Apple, and Virigns! Enjoy!

Framing Revolution: The Future of Design?

I'm currently sitting at my desk looking at another piece I'm doing for work and I'm pounding my head over what to do. It has come to my attention that the year is now 2008, and the decade is, sadly, coming to an end. In this light, a new revolution in the world of art and graphic design is in order and I have decided to do something I rarely have been able to do in the past; start it.

Admittedly, for being a "non-conformist" and such, I have rarely not followed the trends in modern graphic design. The fact that the trends have leaned towards a more punk-influenced style in the past 2-3 years makes my job easier since I've been in that mindset my whole career, especially now. So now that the market has basically been flooded with this style, the want and demand will soon go down. A lot. For me, this is equivalent to a very possible extinction. Thus, the need to evolve and adapt has already grown in myself and, in turn, what I create and produce.

I do not know what tomorrow will bring for the art world. I can not guage trends, and I can not simply say that the revolution will be a simple one. My thoughts? This present form has been caused by the ravages of war tearing at the mindset of the population. Not only that, but the nostalgia of the 80's and it's style, high-gloss-meets-punk-and-pop, has returned full force. This started, as you may have guessed, 3 years ago and has grown largely since.

So what is the next evolutionary step?

Again, I don't have the answer. If I did, I doubt I would share them just yet. The trend seems to be odd to tell and hard to follow. I want to say a high-gloss approach will be it, but we're still in it. The "empty-white-room" is still a good trend that many follow... we've already hit abstraction and deconstruction, what's left?