Wired: Jargon Watch

This was a project I did a couple of months ago for Wired Magazine. Unfortunately the piece ended up being pulled before it could be published, but I thought I would give it a home here so that it wouldn't languish on my hard drive.

The assignment was to illustrate a recently coined phrase for the monthly feature "Jargon Watch."

This was the list of phrases I had to choose from:

Longdaysin: A newly discovered molecule that can change the circadian rhythm of animals and is being tested as a jetlag remedy

WWF: A new file type that is unprintable (designed to reduce paper use in offices.)

Culturomics: The study of cultural trends based on quantifiable analysis of books. (As opposed to literary interpretation.)

Pocket airports: Small airports designed for residential neighborhoods.

I was so inspired by the selection (and so excited to be working for Wired) that I ended up doing a sketch for each term.

Longdaysin:  A fish trying to cope with his newly adjusted circadian rhythm. ( Essentially, a fish with insomnia. Other possibilities for depicting this would be to show the fish sitting up watching TV late at night.)

WWF: person working on their laptop in the canopy of a rainforest.

Culturomics: a book being studied by scientists in a lab.

Pocket Airports (a): A suburban cul-de-sac with planes instead of cars. 

Pocket Airports (b): A riff on the classic suburban image of a man washing his car, replacing the car with a plane.

Pocket Airports (c): A suburban home with a plane parked out front and a sky full of plane traffic. I would also include a little family next to the plane waving to the camera, like a vintage family photo.

The art director liked the illustration for Pocket Airports and I did another round of sketches developing the idea further.

Here was final rendering.

Diablo Magazine: "Camp Diablo"

For their June issue, Diablo Magazine commissioned a series of instructional illustrations to accompany an article on summer activities. The illustrations were rendered in the style of a user's manual, but were based on casual outdoor activities such as grilling, disk golf, rock skipping and star gazing. You can see the entire article here.


Here are a few of my favorite images from the group.

Atlanta Magazine

This piece was commissioned for Atlanta Magazine for a story about a computerized wardrobe organizer that helps users archive and arrange their clothes. Once I got started, I was surprised how much fun there was to be had with this simple premise.


The sketches....

1. Set Phaser to Accessorize

2. Person Sized Paper Doll

3. Magic Mirror

4. Closet Explorer

5. Mix and Match

6. The final illustration

InsideCounsel Magazine

One of the many pleasures of freelance illustration is the chance it gives me to read up on subjects that might never cross my radar. In May I was commissioned by InsideCounsel Magazine to do an illustration for their Litigation section. My job was to give a visual shot in the arm to a story about shareholder initiated litigation during corporate mergers.

When I am working with subject matter that I don't have personal experience with, it is important to try to find a dramatic center that I can relate to. I wasn't going to get very far drawing upon my knowledge of corporate law, so I started to look for characters and conflict. The material boiled down to a struggle between a large entity and a group of smaller entities that are taking unfair advantage of the larger entity's weakness. (It's unusual to have a story that asks the reader to feel sympathy for the "big guy.") With this premise in hand, I was ready to hit the sketches.

And here they were:

 1. Hijacked by Lilliputians

2. Stealing from a Giant 

 3. When the Giants Aren't Looking

4. The Giant Pile of Money

And the final...

Thanks to Elizabeth Novak for the great assignment!