Dead Time: Day 220

It’s been 220 days since the Big Layoff of September 2023, and though lack of a consistent gig can be frustrating, it does not mean that you simply ride the pine and wait for something to happen. Some bench sitting is mandatory though after hernia surgery ( that happened) but once my bod was able to sit upright again at a desk, little projects started coming into fruition. I popped out some gig posters for a dear friend for 2 of his bands, did some illustration for another friend, and then did some gig posters for my own band. A lot has happened in Dead Time and I’m grateful for it. It keeps the creative juices flowing and lets ideas ferment and then Boom! an idea is alive and breathing before your eyes. Better yet, an idea has morphed into something totally different and better than the original idea you envisioned. Keep on Chooglin’!

Gig poster I created in the style of old 1960’s era concert tickets. This was for Chris Niccoli’s stellar lounge act, The Velveteen Lotharios.

Book'em Dano! The Castaways book is complete!

What started out as a not-so-serious side project of musical tomfoolery, turned into 8 years of one of the craziest musical journeys none of us in the project could have predicted. My day job as a Graphic Designer turned into a night gig too as I tasked myself to be the band’s in-house designer for all things art related. I originally set out to do a book of all the gig posters I produced for the band in separate volumes, but life happens when you’re planning, and before i knew it eight years had gone by, and now what was one volume had morphed into eight… or one big tell-all. Big tell-all it was to be! I re-tooled it to not only tell the stories of how each of my designs came to light, but I also tell the crazy tales of what went down at each gig we performed at. Being in Seattle’s Loudest Ukulele Rock Band brings with it a slew of crazy tales and strange looks from people who struggled to grasp the mountainous sounds emanating from four ukulele’s and one cajon. The book was self published through Blurb.com

BACK TO SCHOOL

Starting next week I’ll be adding to my design toolbox some new skills that will land me into the UI design neighborhood finally. As I’m in a current job hunt, a lot of new listings are looking for UI design experience and being that I’ve spent the past four years deeply entrenched in Adobe Photoshop, I feel now is the time to get a little uncomfortable and dive into a new skill set. I’m already testing the waters with the Sketch, and InVision wire frame and mockup software programs, as to avoid looking like a completely horrified mannequin drooling on my keyboard!

Luckily the folks at the School of Visual Concepts are accommodating and know what they are doing and have always been a great resource to go to when adding new skills and brushing up on old ones. Let’s Roll!