Have I No Shame?

I spent a little while showing a friend of mine some designs over the old iChat tonight. I showed him one in particular that I re-designed from a previous mockup that another client of mine had turned down. I thought he'd find it interesting, so I showed him the previous mockup and then for good measure I showed him the mockup previous to that one. This was the 3rd version of a design that I loved, but that my clients didn't.

I started looking through my client folder and started singling out the designs that I've done up for more than one client. In particular, there's 3 designs out for approval right now that I previously mocked up for at least 2 clients each. I love these designs, dang it all. They're my babies. My clients just don't see their beauty. I'm so lucky as a designer to work in a field that allows me to whore out my creations like this.

You'd think that I'd get the message that maybe these designs just aren't good. Nope. That's incorrect thinking. I'll thank you to get away from me with that negativity.

Somebody's going to like my shirt design that has a plate of bacon and eggs and a glass of orange juice with a smile on its face. You'll see.

Ultimate Gadget Fix

So I just got done utilizing the greatest gadget fix of all time. Herein I shall chronicle the story of a miraculous recovery. You shall be amazed.

My 40 gig 3rd gen iPod has been officially dead for 6 months. About one month prior to the death, there was a terrible period of agony and pain. My iPod began to get the always terrifying support images, and would be completely unresponsive for days at a time. After about 4 weeks, the player was useless. When I would try to turn the device on, I could feel the drive inside trying to start up, and awkwardly sputtering back to sleep. I took it to an Apple store to have the Geniuses tell me that they were sorry, but my iPod was dead. I was outside of warranty, so there was nothing that I could do. I took it back home and tried to trick it back into life through a series of plugging it in and unplugging it from my computer without mounting or unmounting it, but nothing worked. I threw it in the closet and decided to move on with my now completely depressing and iPod-less life.



Then today, while looking for some batteries, I found my old dead iPod in the bottom of a basket. For giggles, I decided to hook it up to the power adapter to see what happened. Not surprisingly, it sputtered a little bit, and then the support image came up again. I reset it, and it ran through a cycle of "Off, Apple Logo, Support Logo, Off, Apple Logo, Support Logo, etc." Every time it tried to start up, I could hear and feel it trying extremely hard to start the disk, and then failing.

I remembered an article I read on Digg a few months ago that mentioned a fix for dead iPods that involved inserting a folded piece of paper near the battery on the inside of a broken unit. I don't have the tools to open an iPod, so I got a little caveman on it... I squeezed my iPod. Not very hard, mind you. I'm a civilized person who loves gadgets. I would never intentionally cause a piece of electronics physical harm. Nothing really happened when I squeezed the unit, so I got a little out of hand. I squeezed it harder. A lot harder. I used both hands and forced both thumbs into the middle of the back with quite a lot of force. I had my ear to the other side of the drive while attempting to squeeze my iPod back into life so that I could listen to the drive try to start up. Finally, one of my really hard moments of pressure seemed to make the drive spin slightly longer.

This is where I got stupid. I figured, "Well, this iPod is currently dead. If I damage it more, it will only still be dead." I took the iPod, laid it face-down on the floor, and I placed my right heel on the back of the unit. Then I lifted my left foot off the ground, and I actually stood on my iPod.

Now this shouldn't have had any effect other than the destruction of my beloved piece of gadgetry. Somehow, though, my iPod did not react the way I expected it to. I plugged it into the wall, got an Apple logo, and then got a completely black screen. Wondering what that meant, I plugged it into my computer where it SUCCESSFULLY MOUNTED!!! Something had happened to my settings to make the contrast all the way black, so a simple restore of the iPod returned it to completely functional bliss. I had revived my iPod by using the full of my body weight to STAND on it.

Now I obviously don't recommend that anyone else attempt this tomfoolery. I do, however, invite you to marvel at the genius of my brute tactics. They were amazing today. And tonight I sleep well, knowing that life is better.

Boogie Nights

I just updated TiredChildren.com with 4 new t-shirt designs. They were commissioned to be used on an upcoming ABC tv series. Look for them on tv soon, and for now go check them out on TiredChildren.com. Here's one of the shirts:

The Front Has A Back

Some fun with transparency and drop shadows in Illustrator today. Here's a rough version of the back of the We Shot The Moon EP.

Pantone Black 6 C

I've got another design up on Threadless. Take a few minutes and go vote for it.

A Weekend of Shirts

This weekend featured me, my computer, and several t-shirt designs. I'm really happy with the quality and quantity of the work I've been doing lately. Here's a sneak peek at one of the mockups that features some fun that I had with crayons and some water color paper:

Cardiff By The Sea pt. 2

Cardiff By The Sea

Well it looks like I finally figured out that throwing stuff away immediately after creating it isn't exactly a good practice. Generally, if I'm working on a piece of art and I decide that I don't like it, I trash it. That's come back to bite me in the butt a few times when I've realized that I should have kept whatever it was.

I've been quickly trying to get some mock-ups together for a band called We Shot The Moon. I was originally told that a possible idea for the title was "Cardiff By The Sea," and I started making some stuff based on that. I was later told that the final title had been decided on, and it was "The Polar Bear & Cougar." I came really close to closing the window I was working in without saving, since the design seemed to not work now. I changed my mind, however, and saved it.

Then last night, at 2am, I decided to open that file again to take a look at it. I made 3 simple changes to it, and now it looks like it's been approved as the cover. Thank goodness I saved it. I'm happy with me today.