Letterpress Promo Stickers

So my last project in my intro letterpress class was to make whatever I wanted. I decided to make sticker sheets after looking at my vintage labels book for inspiration. My sketches have been mostly just icon/logo/comics based while I was in class and my professor Bryan was very helpful with critique and suggestions.
Here are the plates from the wonderfully local photoengravers and diemakers at Owosso Graphic Arts:

 To be honest, the offset crazy prints were much more interesting to me. mis-registered things can be really neat. I plan to make more of these sticker sheets in the future and hopefully I can do more designs with more funny awkward themes.
 This weekend, I'm going to the Logan Center at the University of Chicago for the Comics: Philosophy & Practice Conference. Three days of amazing things and I'm definitely going to be scripting/sketching things for future comics/books. Hopefully I'll get to meet some of my idols at this event and even more so, meet fellow cartoonists/artists/illustrators/writers/publishers/etc- all the creative people who make up the industry from what it was to what it is to what it will become.

 I'll be updating more often since the summer has started, so bear with me and the slow updates since I've been working around the Student Exhibition at CCS (Illustration is on the 10th floor and it's open to the public until May 25th). Also a lot of life happened.

If my 3G works in Chicago, I'll be making tweets about my trip and more info about this blog, my art, and the people I meet. Please follow @wudanni if you want.

Always, Forever & Other Lies

I spent forever trying to figure out a title for my book, and came up with this. Still fixing some things to design a cover layout for the book, but these posts keep me motivated to finish this project! :D

More to come!

Thank You/Hugh letterpress project

My "Thank Hugh" cards are done! :)

HUGH is a housewares shop inspired by mid-century design and classic bachelor pad living that brings some old fashioned sophistication to contemporary spaces, a reference to Detroit's heyday and style (the architecture in the D alone is worth a trip!).

Since the success of its pop-up store inception in 2009 and 2010, HUGH has won the Hatch Detroit Competition ($50k 1st place prize!) to become a permanent retail venture right in my Midtown neighborhood, located at the new in-construction Auburn building down in the Cass Corridor area. Currently, HUGH plans to open in the fall after construction completes in August.

For the 3rd project in Letterpress, the goal was to produce something that would require multiple, consistent editions for someone/some place (like a real client job, falling under designing stationary, letterheads, business cards, labels, etc). As a student that now considers Detroit a second home, I wanted to promote HUGH because it represents one of the many positive additions to the development of the city and community.

The editions are done and trimmed, but I want to take this assignment even further in the future. In the process, I learned a lot about proofing. and proofing. and more proofing.

Here are some thumbnails and process shots of my printing. :)

Self-portraits are weird.

For my first real digital painting in Tradigital, we had to do a self portrait that reflected an aspect of us (public or private). As a fan of parody and genre-based work, mine is about Star Trek cosplay and digital work spaces (I wish I had a cintiq).

TIME Magazine cover

For Tradigital , we were given a mock TIME cover job that had to cover the SOPA/PIPA controversy and legislation.

I wanted to explore a deeper symbolism in this piece using ancient mythology, but don't know if this reads as well as it could have (Cerberus's 3 heads have tags labeled the RIAA, MPAA, and GOV*). On the technical side, doing more inking and then applying digital color is a relatively new process for me, but I like the effects of it, and would probably make more edits to this with applied textures.

*alright, the "GOV" one seems too generic, but I'm considering other options.

Letterpress! :D

I'm super excited to say that I've been working in letterpress and I really like the look of linocuts- something to consider in future projects and designs.

My first broadside was based on the theme of space, and I chose to focus on the personal space of relationships. The linocut image is a true love knot, which is acts in the same way as a chinese fingertrap, composed of 2 overhand knots that tighten when pulled in opposite directions, inseparable yet flexible.

The 2nd project was for "impossible" ephemera, so I created posters for a "Pirate Craft Fair" event (not that I discriminate against pirates who are into crafts and knitting, but it is highly unlikely to happen). The knit bootie shape was made with xerox transfers.

Spot Illustration from my book

I'm currently working on a semester long book, and it's been a long process figuring out how to do pages in it...

here's a teaser spread from my book about relationships:

Looking at it, I think I'll go back and make some edits again.