#skinnyd

[theskinnyd]

You guys want to preview the new prints I'll be dropping this fall? Stay tuned, I'll be putting new ones out all day. #surprise #seewhatsinstore #newprints #printober #screenprint #screenprint #screenprinting #craftseason #craftsale #skinnyd (at Columbia, Missouri)

[theskinnyd]

It's #Thursday! We're halfway to the #weekend everyone; congrats, we made it this far. Here's a #quotester to help you on the way. #typography #quoteporn #quote #inspiration #inspirationalquotes #beach#design #time #love #skinnyd #everyday #life (at Columbia, Missouri)

[theskinnyd]

Here's to 2016

Bet you guys thought I forgot about this thing, didn't you? Well, your right. But this year some BIG things are going to happen. I celebrate 10 years of working as a designer, and I choose to celebrate it by finally getting SkinnyD Creative Studios off the ground in a very real and substantial way. More on that later. In about a month Lisa, Caleb, and I will welcome a new addition to the family. A little girl. Violet. With the addition of a new little girl comes the added need to make things happen; not just for myself but for the family. So with her in mind I've decided to end my year-long freelance hiatus and kick the studio back into drive. Those that know me best know that I didn't actually take a year off from freelancing (that would have killed me), but I did certainly but it in the backseat. I needed to focus on my family and myself more. 2015 was a great year. My son is coming into his own as a spectacular little person and this year got to start screen printing with me in the studio. He's spectacular at it and I'm really looking forward to what he can accomplish as he grows. I got to be a teacher again, teaching screen printing to college kids at the local university a night a week. We're making strides at the sign shop. Not where I want us to be, but certainly closer. Anyway, it's late as I write this and I'm starting to ramble. The point is, this is the year. This is the year it all becomes official. This is the year I start the five year plan for the studio. With any luck and everything working out, by the time little Violet starts in kindergarten I'll be out of the sign shop and running my own business, like I've wanted since college. The tl;dr of the five year plan is below. YEAR ONE Shift focus on freelance and printmaking back from being a hobby into being a second job. Focus on finding and maintaining new long term customers to supplement the ones I currently have, as well as building both the SkinnyD and Hit/Die brands online and off. Design and launch at least one new tee design a month and no less than two art prints a month. Research and take part in no less than 10 vendor art fairs over the course of the year. Meet or exceed a sales goal of $500 every month combined design and print sales. At the end of the year, incorporate into either an LLC or Independent Proprietorship. YEAR TWO Building on the word of mouth advertising from year one, focus this year in building and maintaining an online presence for both the SkinnyD and Hit/Die brands. Make better use of the Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts for both brands in increased communication with client and fan base, as well as an avenue for tracking down new leads for work. Continue to grow design and print business. Look to bring two shirt a month into production while retiring older shirts that no longer meet sales quotas. Design and print 4 art print series a month. Shoot for a vendor fair every month or a total of 12 by the year end. Look to meet a sales goal of $1000 a month. Obtain newer printing equipment to make the production process easier. Focus first on a proper exposure unit (if one is not procured during year one), followed by a flash unit and flat file. YEAR THREE The year of the art fairs. Look to vend in at least 15 by year end, preferably closer to 20. Start looking into bigger fairs and festivals. Take advantage of existing fan and client base to get advanced word of shows in and around the state that I might not be aware of. Look to ring Hit/Die brand into the Con scene. Bring on s partner to help handle sales and marketing. Continue to grow online presence, streamline shipping procedure. Using market research, determine what shirts are most popular and create heat press prints for each to us down on production time; ideally an order ships no more than two days after being placed. Monthly sales goal for the year to be at least $1500. Begin laying ground work for transition out of the sign shop. YEAR FOUR Stay the course. Look for bigger and better vendor fairs. Shift focus from many small fairs to a few larger ones. Keep the smaller ones that make sense, of course, but look to do more several day affairs. Monthly sales goal of at least $3000. Continue to reinvest money into production, upgrading computers and print equipment. Multi-head press, better wash-out booth, conveyor drier, etc. at the end of the year either leave the sign shop or transition to a part time role. YEAR FIVE By now I should be on my own (with the exception of whoever is helping me with marketing, etc). Transition fully out the sign shop and make this my sole source of income. Begin by working from home and steadily increasing sales and profits. Begin setting aside funds for an eventual storefront. ------ While that is certainly longer than I meant it to be that is by no means an exhaustive list. Nor is it set in stone. Things change, I am certainly aware of that. And I'm nothing if not flexible. But this is a pretty good rough of what I want to happen and I hope that it keeps me driving that way. 2016 is off to a good start. My first order to be closed this year MORE than beats my sales goal (hell, my take home profit from it almost doubles my monthly goal), so that's awesome. The design work will come, that I know, and in the mean time and I can push the shirt printing to keep me floating along. It's going to be s long road, but I will hoe it and do so sigh pride. Thanks for following along, and keep en eye on this blog to see what I'm up to this year and what I'm learning in 2016.

[carlitoosv69]

[theskinnyd]

SkinnyD Challenge 4

So the screens were a disaster. I don't even want to show you guys. It was a nightmare. I sent Speedball an email about it with pics and everything to try to get some answers. Nothing back yet.

But anyway...on to the next challenge! Seeing as how it's Valentine's Day, I thought a VDay card would be appropriate, so that's what I worked on all weekend!

The first thing to do was to decide how I was going to create the card. I do a lot of digital work, but when the wife and I started dating I was still working completely analog. I decided this project was an appropriate avenue to revisit this kind of work.

I decided on watercolor. It was a medium I used to do a fair amount of work on, but as the years went on I fell away from. Time to change that.

I started with some sketches and decided on a landscape style card. I transferred the sketch to the paper for the card and got to work.

After that was all set out and looked OK to me it was time to start coloring. I decided on a simple palette: black, red, and white. First thing to do was to lay down the reds.

I left some white around where the text was going to go. My wife is a big fan of the style used for the kind-of-indy/kind-of-scenester movies like Juno and really likes how their posters look. So I took my design cues from them.

I started in on the blacks for the text and it became apparent quite early on that my ability to write with a brush had deteriorated over the years. I soldiered on, however, and am happy to say that when the card was received this morning things went quite well!

Oh and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the kind of brush I used. It was a Koi WaterBrush that I purchased pretty much just for this, but will be using the HELL out of in the future.

Seriously, this thing is awesome. Get one. The control is great, the ability to adjust the amount of water on the bristles without affecting the amount of paint is spectacular. I literally can't say enough good things about this brush. Seriously, get one.

[theskinnyd]

SkinnyD Challenge 3

OK, so I know I said two posts today, but as I was making this I came up with options and I need your guys help. So, I'm going to show you guys the choices for the business cards and you'll help me pick, then Friday you get to see the screen printing process and the design of a Valentine's Day gift.

So I've been kicking around the idea of screen printing my own business cards for a while now. I've engraved a few using the laser engraver I have access to at the sign shop and really like how they come out, but I think I would like it more to screen them.

I kicked around a few ideas and decided that since this is the first time I'm screen printing something like this, the simpler it is the better. So I'm going with one color, in this case black, and white. I'll be heading to the store to look at some choice papers tomorrow to print it on. It'll be nice to get my hands on the stock before I get the prints, that way I really know what I'm getting in to.

A lot of the inspiration for these designs come from Abduzeedo's post on black business cards. If you get a chance, check it out and become inspired.

The first set is a very simple black with white text and lines to break things up a bit.

  I like it, but I'm afraid it feels a bit dated. So I played around some more and came up with this.

This one sticks with the black and white theme, but breaks the space up by the rule of thirds. It also contains my Jumpscan QR Code, which is a nifty little deal for setting up a kind of digital business card for yourself. I suggest you all check it out.

So there you have both designs. Look them over, let me know what you think and which one you guys like best, then check back Friday to see the printing process!

[theskinnyd]

SkinnyD Challenge 1.2

So...snow day Tuesday. The entire city Columbia is closed. Ridiculous.

This picture was taken at 2PM.

This left me with a lot of time to work, so I finished the poster. Since we're skipping ahead a day I'll just show you the results, and announce that I feel confident in moving my schedule from one piece a week to one piece every MWF. Check out the images below, and check out the new rules after!

First up is the clean, pure vector version of the poster. You can see that I mostly stuck with the plan, including the black and white two-tone pattern associated with the ska genre, and the black and white silhouettes. I chose to go with four characters and based them mostly off the guys from Streetlight Manifesto and the Mighty Might Bosstones.

Here is the same poster with a little texture added.

Leave your comments below, if you want, and be sure to head over the my Behance page and like it there!

Next up: the exciting world of page layouts! Something my portfolio is sadly lacking in is layouts for print interiors, like magazines. I intend to rectify that by Friday. Watch out!

[theskinnyd]

It begins...

Hello, readers, and welcome to The SkinnyD Challenge! This is a blog I will be keeping to keep myself working and creating. The idea behind things is simple. I will be creating a new piece every week and will chronicle the process on here. Updating every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will show you the process from ideation to creation.

I can do this on my own, sure, but I feel like if I put it out there for the world to see you guys will keep me honest and on task. We will be starting bright and early tomorrow morning, so check back to see what I'm up to!