Changethethought

Here’s a little preview of a poster I illustrated featuring a rather local-centric icon for this year’s Artcrank Exhibition starting tomorrow here in Denver. The title of the poster is “Ride or D.I.A. tryin'”. It features one of our beloved local works of public art that just might be a symbol of the apocalypse. The poster is a 4 color screen print in an edition of 100. Forty of the posters will be available at Artcrank tomorrow and I will put the remaining 60 up for sale sometime next month for everyone who can’t make it out to the show. I’ll post details here when it’s up for sale online.

There is some amazing talent in this year’s show and some of the posters I’ve seen are fantastic. I honestly think it’s going to be one of the best Artcrank shows ever so if you can, please try to make it out.

The show starts at the Taxi building in Denver tomorrow at noon. You can get details and directions here. I hope to see you there. I’ll have my son in tow and it will be the first art show he’s attended that’s exhibiting some work created by his old man.

*On a side note: I apologize for the lack of posts lately. Since departing my partnership at Friends of Mine and relaunching my studio again single-handedly I have literally been busier than I ever have in my entire career which I didn’t think was possible. It’s been hard to keep up lately. Tons of new projects for Vail, Vladimir Jones, a local architecture firm, Armada Skis and several other clients have kept me totally tied up. I have 3 new posters all in the studio ready to ship so expect news on that soon. Thanks for your patience and please don’t hesitate to contact me with news to be featured on the blog, questions or projects. I get a little lonely here in the studio by myself sometimes too so if you wanna drop in just let me know and lets hang out. Tear me away from work please.

written by Christopher | tags: Art, Artcrank Denver, Biking, Colorado, Cycling

Must Warn Others is a new local Colorado production, direction and design shop that popped up on my radar while I was out of town and our website was down and dragged through the mud (long story to come soon). I have to be honest about almost being afraid to post their work since they are some pretty heavy competition for a shop like ours but the more the merrier here in Colorado. The market needs it bad around here and a studio of this caliber is just what the doctor ordered. So I have to ask and may as well do it in this post, do you guys want to work together on something because we think you kick ass.

written by Christopher | tags: Advertising, Colorado, Direction, motion design

Drew Levin is a local Boulder, Colorado based photographer with an absolutely astounding eye for capturing intensely personal and stunningly beautiful moments that any average viewer would miss. He snapped some amazing photos earlier last month of the Four Mile Canyon fire. It’s sadly ironic that such beautiful images stemmed from such a tragic event. It’s always a pleasure however to stumble upon another gifted local.

written by Christopher | tags: Boulder, Colorado, Drew Levin, Photography

Local Denver/Boulder illustrator Josh Holland has updated with a new site and new work. Josh is a very talented illustrator who has worked with both big clients and big agencies. He’s also an amazingly nice person which always makes things go smoother. Keep an eye out for him as he has just gone freelance leaving his last full time position. I have no doubts he is going to get busy fast.

written by Christopher | tags: Art, Colorado, Denver, Illustration, Josh Holland

I stumbled across the Flickrfolio of Colorado artist Lucong today and was once again totally blown away by his work but also delighted in being treated to some extra-large examples of his beautiful paintings. He is a true talent and I need to make it to one of his shows. His work is absolutely stunning.

written by Christopher | tags: Art, Colorado, Lucong, Painting, Portraiture

I have read about this program and expressed my interest in helping and/or contributing as it is here close to home. I was hoping to teach a class this fall for CU’s advertising program, but was unable to commit since I am taking a long vacation in Europe. Fall is also usually when things ramp up for me both at my job as an Art Director at Cactus and with my work for Changethethought. I am hoping maybe I can teach in the spring of this upcoming year.

Nevertheless, this looks like it could be a really good program and there are some really intelligent people involved in making it happen. I was asked to help spread the word since this is a great contribution to our advertising and design community here in Denver/Boulder. Here is what I received as a description in my inbox:

“Opening in Boulder, Colorado this August is Boulder Digital Works (bdw.colorado.edu), which is a digital program that will teach the integration of technology, business, and creative fields. This is a unique program that is the first of its kind in America. BDW has and is working with: Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), Hyper Island, Modernista, IDEO, Goodby, AKQA, Google, Microsoft, EA, Facebook, Amazon, Hulu, R/GA, Twitter including FL2, The Foundry Group, Spiremedia, Effective UI-whom will recruit from BDW. At BDW business people will experiment with the technology side, creatives will embrace the business end and technologists will pitch ideas.”

written by Christopher | tags: Advertising, Boulder Digital Works, Colorado, Design

Justin Renteria is a local Denver illustrator with some really great work in his book. His website displays his work a little too small but you can visit his blog to see larger images. The above piece actually arrived in my mail as a self-promotional work and I was really impressed by the guts displayed in the subject matter. It’s a bold thing to mass mail and it didn’t go unnoticed.

written by Christopher | tags: Art, Colorado, Drawing, Illustration, Justin Renteria

DoubleButter is a Denver, CO-based furniture design and manufacturing company founded by David Larabee and Dexter Thornton. They have just launched an entirely new website featuring an online shop that ships within 10 days of purchase. The stock consists of modernist, hard-wearing and high-quality chairs, tables and case goods in a range of colors and materials. The site is also now featuring photographs of every piece in the line (in every color and material combination) and a set of publication-ready, high-resolution images for download. There are some really unusual materials to choose from as well. It is absolutely fantastic to see some really high caliber furniture design coming out of Denver. It is wonderful to have Doublebutter on our scene. I started a new category today just for the occasion.

written by Christopher | tags: Colorado, Denver, DoubleButter, Furniture Design

My friend and local Denver web designer/developer Joe Mease has relaunched his website. Joe is one of Denver’s best kept secrets and has developed sites for some of the best agencies in the city. He also happens to be a incredibly nice guy and you just absolutely cannot miss if you are looking for a consistently amazing Flash developer.

written by Christopher | tags: Colorado, Denver, Flash, Joe Mease, Web Design

I don’t know why someone around Denver or Boulder didn’t tell me about illustrator Oscar Woodruff earlier. I discovered his work on the sideblog of Joyengine this afternoon and was really impressed by the amount of detail in his work. The caterpillar in the drawing above is just spectacular. I was a huge monster fan as a kid and I just love this drawing.

Woodruff is based out of Boulder and received his education in Los Angeles, CA at Otis College of Art & Design, and in Lakewood, CO at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. If you work at a local agency in Denver and are in the market for an interesting illustration style, look him up. After browsing through his website, I think you could call him a sure thing.

written by Christopher | tags: Art, Colorado, Illustration, Oscar Woodruff

I need to get a little more local Colorado love out there on the blog lately but I have had trouble lately keeping up on my emails, my fulltime gig as an Art Director and the 8 million things I have going outside of work. With that said, Table 2 Press has been emailing me for a while now to write something up about them. They are a Boulder, Colorado-based screen printing house with some real skill. The Roots poster above is tantamount to that fact.

Here is a direct copy of their ‘about’ write-up from their website:
“Table2Press was formed in 2004 by four friends / designers who wanted to screenprint and design posters. We love providing a visual extension to the live music experience and are available to work on a variety of projects. If you ask nicely, chances are we can help you out, however, none of us wear black all the time or are familiar with 18th century epiphanal novels. We try as hard as we can to not include the following in our posters: birds, trees*, robots, skulls*, token naked ladies, or elephants.”

You get a sense of their personality right away from their sense of humor and their earnest attempt to avoid the cliché screenprinted rock poster subject matter. If you have a music gig in Boulder, Denver or anywhere else for that matter, you could do a lot worse for a screen printer.

Hit up their website and have a look at some of the rest of their work.

written by Christopher | tags: Boulder, Colorado, Rock Posters, screenprinting, Table 2 Press