Standard Design

RADIO STUFF

2009-06-15T09:21:00.001-04:00

THE RADIO THINGS - New radio segment available on the ol' radio page. This month's offering is about the bitter raging fury deep in my soul. No, really. I'M TOTALLY JUST KIDDING. No, really.

STANDARD MUSIC

2009-05-29T10:07:00.000-04:00

ONE NEW SONG, ONE OLD SONG - A brand-spanking new poorly-recorded song that sounds exceptional when compared to the old poorly-recorded song. Check out the solo music page to listen.

BROKEN LINES

2009-05-27T22:37:00.000-04:00

BROKEN LINES - Broken Lines Issue #4 is now available! "The Orange One" weighs in at a whopping 52 pages, and several of them are actually pretty good. WOW! Please purchase one. Also, don't forget to check out the needlessly complex Flash thingamajig on the BL website (recently updated), which explains (or possibly obscures) the plot. And here's a fine review of Broken Lines #4 by Marc Mason over at Comics Waiting Room.

I AM IN A DESIGN BOOK

2009-05-21T11:11:00.005-04:00

I AM IN A DESIGN BOOK - Hey, I've got some work included in a nice-looking German design collection, Gestalten's Naïve: Modernism and Folklore in Contemporary Graphic Design. I just got my contributor copy, and it is a pretty pretty book chock full of talented folks. I've got one piece included, the cover of The No-Shadow Kick's 2005 EP Spatializing Sound in the Time Domain. The book's not available for sale in the U.S. yet, but you can get a look at it at the Gestalten site.

CARDBOARD PICTURE STANDS

2009-05-03T16:14:00.000-04:00

CARDBOARD PICTURE STANDS - Check out a pseudo-how-to page on making cheapo handy tabletop cardboard stands for framed artwork. Not the most wildly interesting thing you'll read today, but... you know. That's not my problem.

STANDARD MEDIA

2009-04-24T14:02:00.000-04:00

STANDARD MEDIA - Over the last few years, good ol' standard-design.com has become increasingly... well, retarded. Or at the very least, it has become less professional, what with the increase of comic projects, audio work, and all the mother-tooting cussing. So in an attempt to not alienate any potential normal, human freelance clients, I have decided to cleave my portfolio in half: A selection of my CD designs, posters, and illustration will remain here on standard-design (see 'portfolio' link in above menu), while the rest of my corporate-and-otherwise work will now take up residence over at the new sister site, www.standard-media.com.

I THINK THESE THINGS ARE REALLY NICE

2009-04-22T19:23:00.000-04:00

I THINK THESE THINGS ARE REALLY NICE - I have a seldom-updated collection of things I think look nice. It is a random list of things, included not for their greatness, but for their pretty-okayness. Anyway, I updated it. Please look at the page that I like to call: I Think These Things Are Really Nice.

LATEST WORK

2009-04-14T17:01:00.000-04:00

LATEST WORK - I've got some swell new work up for Turn It Up CDs. Check out the new radio spot and some super-fun fake CD covers I made for TIU's new gift certificates. Click right here on this link. Many more radio ads are posted over on Turn It Up's site. ALSO: Check out the animation/title work I did for an upcoming documentary about one of the finest television shows ever made, Arrested Development. Head on over to the portfolio to take a looksie.

NEKO

2009-01-16T17:43:00.000-05:00

NEKO - Neko Case has a new album coming out (side note: I am totally loving the album cover). She's doing a cool thing where she's donating money to Best Friends Animal Society every time someone blogs about the first single, People Got a Lotta Nerve. So here I am, doing exactly what she wants. I'm playing right into her pale white hands. It's a nice lil' promotional/marketing/philanthropic idea, I think. More info here.

VMAG

2009-01-08T11:35:00.000-05:00

VMAG - Back in the day (1999-2000), I did some graphic work for western Massachusetts/Northampton's very own VMAG. Less optimistic than The Optimist & funnier than the Valley Advocate, the ol' girl burned brightly and briefly. Here's some junk I made for VMAG, with uninteresting comments included for FREE. And just cos they were sitting in the same folder on my hard drive, here are a couple of covers I did for Boston's LOLLIPOP magazine back in the nineties. Oooh, bonus.

WHISKEY! TANGO! KISS MY ASS!

2008-12-30T10:11:00.000-05:00

W!T!F! R.I.P. - As the second year of the critically unacclaimed comic Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! comes to a close, I have decided to end the strip. Thank you very much for reading, and thanks to The Valley Advocate for publishing it. Knowing my feckless capitalist ways, perhaps someday I will collect all the strips into a book. I will self-publish it and sell maybe five or six copies. To those five or six Future Purchasers, I extend an extra-special thanks.

HELLO AGAIN

2008-12-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

HELLO AGAIN - I am very pleased and excited to announce that the Hello, Darkness My Old Friend coffee-lovin' art print, which sold out in March, is back in print in a second edition of 180. I encourage you to buy one, because I like your money. Order now and I'll chuck in a free Hello, Darkness sticker. Available for sale on the BUY STUFF page, ETSY, and the Gigposters.com classifieds. If you'd like to see a few printing process photos from Andy MacDougall, click here.

A COUPLE O' DIGITAL PRINTS

2008-12-09T16:32:00.000-05:00

A COUPLE O' DIGITAL PRINTS - I've added two editorial illustrations I've done for The Valley Advocate to the Standard Design Buy Stuff page: Kurt Vonnegut (RIP) and Barack Obama (OMG). haw haw. Digital prints on matte paper. Ten bucks each.

FACE! BOOK

2008-12-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

FACE! BOOK - Hey, ~~suckers~~ superfans! If you're not part of the self-promotional ~~clusterfuck~~ juggernaut that is the Standard Design Facebook Group, then you just missed out on an exclusive, free MP3 mix I posted for the members. So I highly recommend joining, thus enabling you to partake in future thingamajigs.

SOLID STATE DISKS

2008-12-08T18:08:00.000-05:00

SOLID STATE DISKS - Super-Dork Alert: Here is a somewhat tech-ish recounting of me installing some solid state disks (SSD). It's not worth reading unless you actually care. I am just linking to it so Google can find it. Ohh, I think I just double-dorked.

NORTHAMPTON STUFF

2008-12-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

NORTHAMPTON STUFF - The day after The Hot Chocolate Run shut down downtown for a little while, Main Street got shut down again for the installation of the long-awaited Northampton Bike Trail bridge alongside the often-hit-by-18-wheelers train bridge. (Here's a weird quality cellphone picture taken standing in the middle of the closed street.) If you're interested, you can take a look at a slightly outdated map (PDF) outlining bike path routes.

SEMI-RECENT WORK

2008-12-04T15:08:00.000-05:00

SEMI-RECENT WORK - I dusted off the ol' Powershot S50 to get some pics of stuff that's been piling up on the vast, endless landscape of my drafting table. Over on the Safe Passage page there's a new poster design (illustrated by cartoonist Hilary Price). There's also a dandy new holiday card I made for 'em. (I hope you Northampton locals are heading to the Mayor Higgins' Hot Chocolate Run this Saturday, cos it's Safe Passage's biggest fundraiser of the year.) Over on the CD & album layout page I finally took a few snaps of the Starline Rhythm Boys latest LP, Green Mountain Style, which came out a couple o' months ago. It's a good no-frills 1950s layout. And lastly, here's an informative little movie about jails illustrated by the amazingly talented Frank Chimero for GOOD Magazine. I did all of the After Effects animation work on it. I've never animated someone else's art before. It was weird.

BEST OF NOOOOOOOOO

2008-12-03T15:21:00.000-05:00

BEST OF NOOOOOOOOO - As December decends upon us (clever intentional misspelling what the whaaaaat?), we find ourselves under siege, our eyeballs and earholes attacked by a media frenzy of end-of-year "best of" lists. These things annoy me. Yet I am compelled to share with you one of my consumer impulses - just this one little thing: The Roots Rising Down. It is so rare that I am even paying attention to new releases, never mind actually buying them and listening to them and really fucking loving them. Get Busy, Rising Down, 75 Bars, Criminal, Rising Up (oh my god the cowbell breakdowns...COME ON)... all Really Fucking Awesome Songs. Awesome cover art, too. Buy this album. Other 2008 worthy-mentions from my limited sampling: The Sword's Gods of the Earth and Cat Power's Jukebox.

PANHANDLE WITH CARE

2008-11-24T17:05:00.000-05:00

PANHANDLE WITH CARE - I've got a 2-page spread in the Thanksgiving issue of The Valley Advocate concerning the new Northampton panhandling ordinance. People, check out the magic. (The table of contents incorrectly credits Mark Roessler with writing it, but he just sort of gave me editorial direction on it.) And, hey, how about that incredibly clever title for this blog post, eh? EH? EH?? Do you get it? It is a pun. It is a "play on words". It is taking a commonly known phrase and putting a clever and unexpected "spin" on it. It is pretty clever. Who says I can't write. Who.

REUSCHZILLA

2008-11-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

REUSCHZILLA - Good ol' Mister Reusch put me in a cool Godzilla painting for a charity art show. Well, at least the 5th grade version of me. Before my growth spurt in 7th grade, I was apparently only 20 pixels tall.

BARACK WHO?

2008-11-14T11:56:00.000-05:00

PERHAPS YOU WERE NOT AWARE that a man named Barack Obama recently became President-Elect of the United States. Here is an editorial illustration I did for this week's Valley Advocate that is related to this very timely topic. I like it!

MASSA-FUCKIN'-CHUSETTS!

2008-11-11T12:59:00.000-05:00

MASSA-FUCKIN'-CHUSETTS! - Just in time for the holler-days, a new Standard Design art print. It is totally awesome, and proving to be surprisingly popular with out-of-staters. Please consider purchasing one.

COFFEE!

2008-11-10T15:33:00.000-05:00

COFFEE! - The "Hello Darkness, My Old Friend" coffee sticker is now available! This wonderful vinyl cultural artifact is to appease those consumers unable to consume the art print which preceded it.

FIREFOX SCRIPTS

2008-11-08T15:29:00.000-05:00

FIREFOX SCRIPTS - Here are two cool Firefox thingies that I am currently likin': DropZones is a FF add-on that frees you from right-clicking on crap, and Folders4Gmail (a Greasemonkey userscript) allows you to group Gmail labels into subfolders, while maintaining your sexy.

NAKED PEOPLE

2008-11-06T17:34:00.000-05:00

NAKED PEOPLE - In an attempt to not let my brain atrophy, I'm trying to get to a life drawing class once a week (for you Northamptonites, I'm talkin' bout the Center for the Arts class on Wednesdays). Anyhoo, put an eyeball on my seldom-updated sketchbook page and lemme know what you think. My preferred medium is Papermate ballpoint.