I made these for my Javascript homework, and I was really curious to see how my peers and professor would react to them and the project, but then I slept through my class :(

I'll Guru That dot com
A while back, my good personal friend and certified published authorist Carlos Del Rio asked me to write a couple of funny articles for his website. And while I thought this would be merely an opportunity to make a couple of easy jokes about social media and web 2.0 design styles, it was actually the first in a series of stunning revelations.

All those years I spent being a dick on the internet paid off! Somehow, magically, through the sheer power of elitism and grousing, I had learned genuine information about things. Those articles are tongue-in-cheek, sure, but they are predicated on actual sincere facts. Real stuff.

More empowering than the notion that I am, after all, an educated, thoughtful designer is the idea that I can use this air of authenticity to tell bigger fibs than even before! So. As of today. I am officially offering my services as a guru. On anything. Anything at all. For the price of one coach airline ticket, a night's stay at HoJo, and a gift cert for Sizzler, I will show up at your conference and I will say words that sound intelligent. I will present thought-provoking ideas. I will have a slide show, containing no images of monkeys or crudely drawn penises (unless they intimately pertain to the topic). I will get a haircut and be 100% believably perfessional. No one will suspect a thing.

For a small additionaly fee, I will provide my own fake identity.

Please email LaDonna my virtual secretary at inquiries at kingsquid.

the grates - burn bridges

I &hearts You & Bums




Initial sketches for my color theory final project. Whichever one I decide on, I'll be making into a limited run of silkscreen prints.

Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, yeah, most of the people in that bottom one are friends. I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to each and every one of you for making you look silly. Future revisions will look better, I swear!!

As per Anno's instruction, I have made a selection of very small birthday cards for our father, who I cannot link because he does not have a blog. Maybe next year we will get him a blog. This year, however, he will have to settle for a big mouthed, roly poly magician.

Modest screen prints will be available soon!

One of the many things that ultimately did not make it into the bundle of fun I sent to Weiden and Kennedy. This was the art for the first design of a new business card, and now I am going to turn it into an adventure game...starring me! I'm the adventure! Yaaaaay.

the mae shi - see u again (miley cyrus cover)

Made these for the Panic Office 4.0 thing, which was completely crazy. There were internet celebrities everywhere. These two flavors were intended to compliment the sushi-go-round that was set up in the office, and despite their strangness people did indeed crowd around and go nuts for them. I did not get any pictures of people enjoying (or not enjoying) the actual ice creams, though, so these guys will have to do.

Oh, and here's a handy desktop version.

Relish Design Redesign



Assignment for user interface design class, to really knock the ecommercyness of Relish Design up a notch.

Doritos Spec Ads
These are the ads I made for that Doritos Superbowl thing. It was a lot of work. Blood, sweat, tears and orange dust. I think the general consensus was that everyone who watched these ads was hypnotized by the alluring flavor or Doritos.

Capital letter set for an as yet unnamed font set. The frontrunner for a name is Machinist, but I am prepared to entertain or accept any crude double entendres you can think of, internet.

So for Typography II, we'll be making a font. We'll use magic to put it on computers and everything! Which, you know, emotionally, societally, is kind of a hassle, a huge responsibility. What kind of fonts does this world even need anymore. I think the only avenue still left to explore is fonts for scrapbookers to use, things with a candy cane or leaf or kitty on top of every letter. Most of my class seems to be going after some kind of silly scribbles, fonts with zazzy personalities. But I am taking this so seriously, you guys! I want to make something that could, at the very least, be used for a web 2.0 logo.

Please won't you review these samples, and write in with your comments? What kind of font do you want to see more of, dear reader?

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At just three blocks from my front door, I was hoping you were truly the king of donuts everyone was saying you were, Moody's. I instantly appreciated your secluded exclusivity. Your antiquarian machinery. Your iconic red barn. Even your graphic design. But your donuts are unimpressive. I am sorry.

Look, here's a freebie. Anyone in town wanna game some real artisanal donuts? Some real higher level shit? Gimme a curry donut with coconut milk glaze. Lemme get an anise donut with milk chocolate frosting. Thai chile chocolate with lemongrass ginger glaze. What do they eat in ethiopia? Fuckin...make a donut out of it! It's time for raised pastry to get international. And for all the brainwork I've done for you, all I ask is some kind of gold foil embossed card I can flash for free donuts for life. For me and my posse. Oh, and I always roll 20 deep.

the Haven
"Somewhere in this four horse town," Monty "Carlo" MacAllister is telling me, "there's a place where you can smoke a cigarette that's been deep fried in trans fats. Where raw, live game is hung on the walls and what you shoot down is what you'll eat. An experience so pure and bloody it's like fucking a virgin," and he begins to caw and the caws turns into coughs. Then Monty is quiet, he's reminiscing. He's wherever he is, in his head, ocean waves are crashing, tropical birds are turning into neon streaks along the horizon. Margaritas as long as your arm. It's paradise.

Monty MacAllister is some kind of a local legend, a real war story, the only certified ghost to haunt anywhere with a cheap tap.

Most nights he's here, at the Pilgrim. Probably because of the old leather, the weathered oak, the rugby games on the television. He still comes around in his pith helment and jodhpurs, got one real wild eye and one he claims was took by a tiger. Most nights he drinks bourbon, or gin, recounts adventures to no one in particular, leaves a little sadder than he came in.

"Tell me about this place, Monty," I'm asking. "You ever been there?"

"Course!"

"C'mon. What's it like."

He pulls his entire mustache up and away from his face, like parting a curtain, and this is how I know he wants to make a statement so clear it is unmistakable. "It's a gentlemen's club. Honestly. Earnestly. Not of the whorehouse variety. It's nothing but walls of brown liqors and maps. Hemingway drank there. Kerouac. Lincoln. Mozart. Christ. There was always fresh jazz wax on the Victrola. And at some point, every evening, a game would occur, wherein every patron in the bar would tell a story, embellished just enough to be a better boast than the last man's. Terribly complicated scoring rubric, takes a lifetime to understand of course. There's points awarded for difficulty, for continuity, for plausibility, for politeness. There'd be several rounds, and eventually each man would get blind drunk and filthy with exaggeration. Then Hobarth, the bartender and proprietor, rings this brass bell and declares a winner, who gets one slight sip of of a thousand year aged brandy. Then there's greco roman wrestling until blackout or morning."

I'm stunned. Speechless. "So where is this place?"

"Oh, here and there. It slips through the fog, never settles long enough to gather moss." MacAllister winks at me with his wild eye, sucks another shot of bourbon through his mustache.

A guy for Alana's new FITE thing.

Citizen Champagne's Whiskey Ice Cream

You try and get a liquor license for your illegal, underground, travelling culinary circus. Go on. There's a lot of hoops to jump through! So when you belly up to the modest bar along the side of our cart, you will have to settle for approximations. A PBR cupcake. A slice of vodka-pomegranate-balsamic strawberry pie. A brown sugar and whiskey sundae.

At Citizen's we serve it up, in a high ball glass, literally crowned with a fresh mint crackle, julep style. You'll have to provide the white suit, of course. Two scoops of this mellow, oakey, creamy treat contains about a shot of whiskey. And, of course, we can always make you a float (minus the mint) with some cane sugar cola.
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7 Things About Me
1. I never learned how to blink.

2. Every office job I've ever had I've been fired from on the first day for using the break room microwave to make methamphetamines.

3. I didn't actually read anything my bookclub assigned. Instead I would listen to their serious discussion for about fifteen minutes before I started talking about my favorite scenes from Weekend at Bernie's 2 as if they were in the book.

4. My old man used to coach little league. I was on his team when I was eight and again when I was nine, mostly I played right field, and was always kind of jealous of Timmy Boxer who got to play first base. Once, during a game, I faked a heat stroke because I was bored. They gave me an ice cream sandwich and I think we won.

5. After middle school graduation I remember thinking it would be smart to just find myself, backpack around Europe for a few years. I saw the Louvre, wrote a book of short poems on the nature of a leather bound notebook, learned how to hand roll a cigarette, and got a handjob in a tunnel overlooking one of the canals. Then, realizing how much I missed my blankey and pizza parties with my friends I headed home. 

6. My first girlfriend made me a mix tape of songs she said made her feel like we could be together--not in a socially relational sense, but some metaphysical, eternal flame kind of thing. I listened to it once and then wrote her a dissertation on the actual subtexts founds in the songs, ridiculing her taste in music, and chastising her for not realizing that we were in fuckin kindergarten, how could she not know what this was. Years later I read in the newspaper that she joined the cult of some famous rapper.

7. For a while after my last breakup I was just getting drunk every night, doing a bunch of really sloppy knitting and or karate, then passing out around morning. I remember the particular thing that made me realize I had to straighten up and get my shit together was when, after like two consecutive weeks of walking to the 7-11 to buy a 40 and a box of nachos, the guy at the counter just gives me the most disappointed look. And for the first time that night, I noticed his name tag: Jesus. So I was like, okay, I get it. Now instead of drinking I just watch episodes of Full House dubbed in German that I accidentally downloaded instead of pornography.

anni rossi - machine

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