do you got any really big art?

A recent art piece I've been working on.

Whoa-whoa-whoa, listen to the music...

Logo design and album cover for good friend Dan Leary and his band, Quitters Go To Meetings. The band has a definite anti-corporate attitude, so it seemed fitting to use the TM to finish the band acronym. Yes, that's a genuine 12"x12" vinyl album cover; original thought was to produce a vinyl record. But economic factors may enter into whether that's still a possibility. The cover texture is a scan of a magnet I found in a MacDonald's parking lot; again, seemed terribly apropos.

Go to the Quitters' website and place your order for TalkBackDrums. Tell 'em RayBob sent you.

BND Sighting, part deux

This was brought to my attention by my wonderful clients at the University of Iowa Press. Seems that one of the covers we did together ended up on the NY Times book blog as a favorite cover of 2009. Shweet! Check it out here.

BND Sighting…

I spied with my little eye the cover I designed for Fiction on a Stick (Milkweed Editions), popping up in the December 09 issue of Minnesota Monthly, on newsstands now. I'd like to think the cover art had something to do with the book being a recommended holiday gift, but I'm sure the wonderful short stories by Minnesota authors had at least as much to do with it. Joe Bob sez checkitout.

My favorite instance of a cover I designed showing up in a national pub is when splatter fanmag Fangoria reviewed a book I had worked on. Nothing says "street design cred" like seeing your work on the same page as a photo of a zombie with an axe in its eye. Oh, Mother... the blood. The BLOOOD!

PC posters

These posters for Print Craft, a Twin Cities printer, are several years old, but they marked the first time I had incorporated my personal work into commercial applications. A couple of these posters appeared in Graphis Poster, as well as the 10x10 Show in Austin, Texas.

New covers…

Above are several recent BND book covers... the top one was created for Penn State University Press. It's a fun solution for depicting the conflict between the environment and the economy. The bottom two are University of Minnesota Press books.

A Motor City Year

Just finished designing a book for the wonderful Maya Rhodes at Wayne State University Press. It's an ambitious project by renowned and astounding photographer John Sobczak, who spent a year shooting the people and places of Motown, one shot per day. I wanted to play off the calendar idea, using squares and numbers to create some interesting design-y stuff around those fabulous fotos. Plus, I got to have some fun typographically with the months on each opening chapter spread. An edifying project and a treat to work with someone the stature of Mr. Sobczak.

Beatlemania 2009

Okay, so like everyone else, I'm caught up in Beatlemania for the new millennium, as our digital age creates its version of screaming teens in flips and French twists by remastering the entire canon, as well as releasing the Fab Four on Rock Band. We're all metaphorically clutching our tear-stained cheeks as we again listen to to the falsetto "ooo's" and "yeah yeah yeah's" in pristine new digital stero and mono versions (or will be, in my case, as I eagerly await my stereo box set from Amazon), painstakingly fussed over for four years by Abbey Road studios' master engineers. One could base a marriage on the correct answer to the question, "What's your favorite Beatles album?" Mine is probably "Abbey Road," although "Revolver" and the White Album compete for the top spot depending...

Coincidentally, I had been working on a series of very stylized portraits of famous 4's, which has taken the form of musicians so far. Above is the first in the series, of the moptops from Liverpool. I've also done one of the Stones; four 70s glam rockers; and 4 Supreme Court justices (although that will have to be redone, as I included Souter before news of his retirement). I'll post others here from time to time.

Print Craft Trucks

These are photos of Print Craft's delivery trucks, featuring artwork that I did a couple of years ago. I've always really liked these images; they're taken from an archive of personal work that I've been creating for several years. I also designed the Print Craft logo you see on the trucks. This work was featured in the 2007 Minnesota AIGA Design Show. So there.

Anything on a stick

Well, since it's Minnesota State Fair time, thought I'd show this recent BND cover. It's for a book of short stories by Minnesota authors, with the truly awesome title "Fiction on a Stick." Of course, this alludes to the State Fair practice of serving basically any type of edible substance on a pointy wooden stick; that's good eatin'! The idea for the cover came from the graphics of those food booths, with their 50s type and imagery, weathered by time and the vagaries of Minnesota late summer weather.

It's alright, Ma; I'm only designing

Here's a cover I did for the University of Minnesota Press. First published in 1971, the book is about author Toby Thompson's trip to Hibbing, Minnesota, to find the "real Dylan." Thompson even strikes up a romance with Dylan's old girlfriend, the inspiration for "Girl from the North Country." The original 1971 cover was done by none other than Milton Glaser. So many Dylan books have a photo on the cover, that I wanted to follow Uncle Miltie's example and do an illustrative treatment. I really like this illustration, and I also liked the Bob Dylan logo I created in the lower left: a play off the old Columbia Records logo, cut in half to form a B and a D. I think Mr. Thompson liked the cover, but I'm not sure anyone else did.

RIP Will Powers

I just heard the stunning news of Will Powers untimely passing. Will was the book design/typography guru at the Minnesota Historical Society Press. He was very active in the book design community, as well as the greater design/ad community at large. Will had a passion for good design, and the keen eye of a typographer who was brought up in the age of hot metal type and segued easily into the computer age, retaining the integrity of his work. Will was a friendly, giving, compassionate guy with a great sense of humor, who knew a lot of people in the design world. I'm sure they will all miss him as much as I. He was truly one of the greats.

I Heart CA

A hearty shout-out to the fine folks at Communication Arts for choosing the above BND cover for inclusion in the upcoming CA Design Annual. The Annual comes out in November, so Joe Bob says check it out. The cover is for a book published by Milkweed Editions, and features darkly satiric short stories by local author J.C. Hallman. It's gotten great reviews, so make it a point to add it to your Fall reading list.

Days of Future Passed

I have a huge respect for the great designers of the past; they paved the way for those of us making a living in this zany industry. Much of that work still feels fresh and vital today. So I decided to do a poster series honoring some of my design heroes. The first one is dedicated to the work of Charles and Ray Eames.

If you're happy and you know it, raise your hand…

I love the graphic quality of the human hand. On an old M*A*S*H episode in the 70s, Hawkeye ruminated on the wonder of the hand, from a physiological point of view. Great designers have used the hand as a design element time and again; the Modernists of the 40s and 50s (like Will Burtin and Lester Beall) in particular made great use of the hand form. Today, designers like Sharon Werner, Felix Sockwell, and the Wink boys have used the stylized hand to great effect.

The two images above are fairly recent BND pieces: the Vote poster was submitted to the AIGA for the 2008 election season, and was one of 12 selected (out of 300) for publication and national distribution. The book cover was done for Penn State University Press, for a book of essays on Brown v. the Board of Education.

Is this thing on?

Okay, it looks like this whole Intertubes thing is going to catch on, so I thought I'd join the kids in a little Weblogging, or "blogging" as we like to call it. Pretty soon, I'll have to start Tweeting. ZOMG!

Anyway, hope to post new work and general thoughts on design and other stuff. Check back for updates on a semi-irregular basis.