My friends at Big Communications were recently featured on Alabama Public Television's show Alabama Inc. It's an in-depth look at rebranding the Birmingham Museum of Art, and I think APT did a great job capturing what goes into a creative project like this. Nice work, Big!
Brown Bag Project
When my older daughter was a senior in high school, I decorated one of her lunch bags with Brown University graphics because we were about to visit the campus in Rhode Island, and she was excited about the prospects of life after high school. From that day on, I started decorating (and photographing) lunch bags for both my daughters on every day they took a lunch to school. They were simple Sharpie drawings, mostly original, some not so original, but always bright, cheery drawings. I'm going on two and half years doing this, and as best I can count, I've drawn on 345 lunch bags. For Christmas last year, my younger daughter ranked her top ten favorite bags and put them in a scrapbook for me. Here they are—David Letterman style—in descending order.
#10 First day of spring.
#9 This was the day of cheerleading tryouts.
Tied for 8th. Monograms are everywhere in the south.
Tied for 8th.
#7 We live on Mobile Bay. Sailboats can be seen year-round.
#6 Simple flower because A) I was stumped for something to draw or B) we were running late.
#5 Apologies to Vineyard Vines for the shameless rip-off.
#4 Kate's class was painting a Habitat house that day.
#3 Est. 1999. Because everyone needs a hipster logo.
#2 Inspired by Highlight's™ hidden pictures club.
#1 Insprired by the brilliance of Pixar's Up.
Brush With Fame
When I traveled the country art directing photography for Culverhouse College of Commerce's print campaign, I met some very accomplished individuals who had graduated from the University of Alabama's business school. Shaun Alexander tops the list as the most memorable, as it was my first trip to Seattle, and I was invited to sit in Shaun's skybox to watch an exhibition game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Dallas Cowboys. Shaun had been named NFL MVP the season prior, so it was quite an honor to meet him and and his family.