Justin D. Russo

2011-11-18T09:55:00.001-06:00

I'm running a contest now through next friday on my Twitter and Facebook pages. Give me an #FF on Twitter or Like a certain image on Facebook for your chance to win a poster from my store.

My Brother, My Brother and Me

2011-07-22T10:10:00.000-05:00

I was recently commissioned by the Brothers McElroy to design a t-shirt for them. They liked the design so much, we decided to make a poster of it as well. Unfortunately, the poster is only available at live shows, but the t-shirt is available at the official MaxFunStore!

New Video Game Poster!

2011-07-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

I'm expanding my Society6 store, so I thought I'd put up something new for everyone. It's available as a gallery quality inkjet print, stretched canvas and, by popular demand, an iPhone case.

I'm going to keep making stuff as long you guys keep buying it. Thanks everyone for your support, and I hope you keep digging this stuff.

Slime Daddy

2011-06-15T15:03:00.000-05:00

I've been pretty busy believe it or not, just haven't posted in a while.

Thought I'd share my Ghostbusters inspired print for the Molded Heroes show at the Sixty Bones Gallery in Aurora, IL back in April. Titled "Slime Daddy" and inspired by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. I wanted to come up with a way to represent my two favorite toys (Ghostbuster and Hot Wheels) from when I was a kid, as well as my appreciation for the Roth style. The print itself is 20"x 20", and it's beautiful.

This was drawn by me (natch) and printed by the wonderful folks at Delicious Design League in Chicago, IL. I've worked with them a bunch, they are upstanding gentlemen.

You can see photos of the actual print and purchase your own copy at Sixty Bones

MBMBaM Tote Bag

2011-02-28T21:54:00.004-06:00

The Brothers McElroy have been keeping me pretty busy, and I couldn't be happier working with them. Since they joined up with Maximum Fun, they asked me to come up with a design for MBMBaM tote bag for donors to the MaxFun Drive. So I put together something for them that combines 3 of my favorite things in the world: Comedy, Inspiration and Space. This is actually an idea that I've had for ages and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to implement it in such a fun way.

Don't forget to donate to the MaxFun Drive to get your tote, or one of the other totes emblazoned with the various podcasts of Maximum Fun.

Speaking of MaxFun, if you purchase anything from my store between now at March 14, 25% of the profits will be donated to MaxFun! As an added bonus, there's free domestic shipping as well!

Hit the jump to see some other recent MBMBaM works.

Windy City Rollers

2011-02-17T00:08:00.004-06:00

My friend Liz, a.k.a. Joanie Utah, asked me to create a limited edition poster for last years Womens Flat Track Derby Association's National Championship. I jumped at the opportunity to work for some of the hardest working women I've ever seen.

Even better, this poster is available for purchase here.

Liz got me hooked to Roller Derby, and if you ever have a chance to check it out in person, please do.

Hit the jump to see an alternate poster I did that I thought was almost as rad as this one. Its still pretty cool, so I thought I'd share.

more...

pressxtojustin.com

2010-11-06T11:07:00.000-05:00

So I finally created a storefront to sell the remaining Video Game posters, as well as a platform for me to more easily sell things direct. You can check it out at pressxtojustin.com

National Television Debut?

2010-10-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

MBMBaM fan Gregory Posey appeared on the season finale of Tosh.0 the other night wearing a t-shirt featuring the logo I designed for the McElroys. I thought it was pretty rad to see some of my artwork on national television, even if it is Tosh.0.

photo courtesy Griffin McElroy

Kill Screen Magazine

2010-10-02T23:06:00.000-05:00

This piece was featured on the back cover of the newest issue of Kill Screen Magazine. I was absolutely thrilled to be given the chance to have something featured in such a rad magazine.
I'm hard at work doing some more work for them for the next issue as well, It's all going to be super cool and I can't wait to work with them more.

Bob Ball

2010-08-11T21:09:00.001-05:00

Professional Voice Artist Bob Ball approached me recently to design a logo that could be use on his website as well as future collateral like business cards. He is a big fan of old school microphones, and old school is what I'm all about. I wanted to evoke a mid-40's to mid-50's vibe while still keeping the logo entirely timeless. I loved the idea of being able to point to elements of the logo that represent different era's but not being able to place the whole in any one era.

Click here to see the other versions I did for Bob that add a little bit more personality.

I also created a handful of patterns for him to use in anyway that he pleases, here they are displayed on mock business cards:

Linked by Naughty Dog

2010-07-17T10:58:00.002-05:00

On their Twitter and Facebook. With that comes some more choice comments:

" how in the hell do I get these posters? They are RADICAL! Yeah so much so I just used "radical" in all caps"

"These are such vague posters, why not? I don't get them, and I hope it's not an artistic direction for the next Uncharted game. Looks too art-deco film noir for me."

and my new favorite:

"This is the stupidest poster i have ever seen. I could make it my self in like 10 minutes. If I want an UNcharted @ poster I expect it to be about the game (skull and crossbones?)"

Moon Poster Now Available For Purchase

2010-07-15T17:03:00.001-05:00

You can purchase my Moon inspired poster, now titled "Earth is Everything" at Society 6.

"Sketches"

2010-07-09T14:55:00.001-05:00

I just wanted to post some little digital sketches I've worked on recently. These are more or less exercises, and not really made for one intended purpose.

This is one is inspired by the movie Moon from 2009. It was one of the most brilliant movies I've ever seen, I absolutely adore it.

This is a slightly updated style I'm working on for my series of video game posters. I don't know that this will ever be included in the set (or printed) but I thought it was pretty rad. It's based off of John Marston from Red Dead Redemption.

I draw a lot of inspiration from images of space. So when a new one is released, I go nuts. This is pretty much just me messing around in photoshop, working on techniques and having fun.

Thats it! I hope to post more of these in the future, and don't forget: Donate $55 to AbleGamers Foundation and you get a sweet poster signed by me!

AbleGamers Foundation

2010-06-25T10:11:00.000-05:00

I created this poster for the AbleGamers Foundation. AbleGamers is a group dedicated to promoting accessibility in gaming. It's a wonderful cause and I was glad to help them out.

The poster is available for pre-order right now, 100% of the proceeds go to them. You can preorder or just donate to the cause here.

Doug Loves Movies

2010-06-10T15:59:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite podcasts, Doug Loves Movies, recently had a logo design contest. I didn't really think I would win, but I through together this idea anyways and submitted it. It didn't go anywhere, but Doug Benson did DM me and told he liked it. So...win?

CRAFTY GAMER

2010-06-07T14:17:00.001-05:00

GameInformer.com's Crafty Gamer blog interviewed me, its a fun piece, but as usual, the best part is the comments:

"Those posters are amazing, i wish companies would trademark their games with pictures like this instead of the un-original teaser"

"Awesome work. A little too GD for my tastes, but I prefer sloppier aesthetics."

"These are really cool looking, and quite interesting."

"Theyr cool. But I dont think theyr super easy to get. If you hung them up in a mall.... I think a hell of a lot of people would be wtf'ing in front of them."

"I would love to see a God of War poster. [ed. note: Wouldn't we all? he he he] I would definately buy one of those"

"too bland for my taste. Simple is good, but this is just a little bit too far."

"The Mario one is my favorite. It really pops. And simply "Here we go...", so powerful, like a huge explosion is about to come bursting through the poster. Just makes me want to go jump kick a dump truck!"

"Just another example of how games have impacted entire facets of culture and inspiration. Games are art, and art is now gaming."

Lost Bingo

2010-05-07T15:19:00.001-05:00

Firstly, I'd like to thank Max Pictures' Blather Blog for inspiration, I borrowed some of the stuff he made to make these, albeit customized to fit my needs.

At the beginning of this season of Lost some friends and I decided to create a bingo game. We thought of thing that we thought would happen over the course of the last season, some of them funny and others that were our best attempts at Doc Jensen level theorizing.

Side note: These cards are from our second series. Our friend Matt got Bingo about 6 episodes in. So we remade them to better fit the direction the series was headed. Also, the original run only featured Crying Jack in the center square, because honestly, Jack was definately going to cry so we counted it as a free space.

Follow the jump to see 2 more card and links to download and make your own Lost Bingo cards.

We had a list of 30-40 things we thought would happen. I loaded those into an excel spreadsheet that I randomized to create each unique card.

Click here to download a series of 16 premade Bingo Cards.

Click here to download blank Bingo Card, featuring Locke, Jack, Hurley & Claire.

Click here if you have access to Adobe InDesign CS4 or better, this includes the original .indd file as well as links and fonts.

Thanks again to Max Pictures, Maggie, Mary, Tom, Matt and John!

My Brother, My Brother and Me

2010-04-14T10:29:00.002-05:00

The most excellent Justin McElroy of Joystiq.com kindly ask me to create a logo and some artwork for the amazing new podcast he is doing with his brothers Travis and Griffin. He requested something in the style of what you might see on PBS in the 80's. So this is what I came up with.

I used Illustrator to make the work mark, the font is Akzizdenz Grotesk, a classic. I then used Photoshop to add some textures and beautiful background is courtesy of the Hubble telescope.

Check out the jump for some alternate artwork I did for them as well.

Kickstarter Interview

2010-04-13T12:39:00.000-05:00

I was interviewed on Kickstarter Blog about my project, which as of this moment, just breached $10,000 dollars. I talk a bit about the process behind creating a couple of the posters.

My life has been a whirlwind of awesome since last Thursday. Thanks in no small part to the people at Kickstarter. I owe them a ton.

Help me get my posters printed!

2010-04-07T11:27:00.000-05:00

I've set-up a Kickstarter project to get the three most popular posters printed! Donate! Help me make this a reality! You win!

UPDATE: Poll!

2010-03-23T13:56:00.003-05:00

If you're interested in getting a print of one of the Video Game Posters, then please take the poll on the right hand side of this blog and let me know which one you would be interested in. Thanks!

Update 1: You can vote for multiple designs now!

Update 2: I'm looking to charge between $25 and $50 for each poster, but the more people I can get interested, the cheaper I can make them. Thanks!

I'm "internet" famous

2010-03-18T22:54:00.001-05:00

My Video Game Posters got some press today on the GameSetWatch video game blog. It makes me feel totally rad.

Video Game Posters UPDATED

2010-02-17T13:21:00.003-06:00

I envisioned these as I fell asleep last night. So I woke up this morning with them fully created in my head and I put them together to make them real using Illustrator and Photoshop. Each poster features a minimalist representation of a character from a video game (you can probably guess which ones...if you're cool) as well as quote from the game.

UPDATE: 02-18-10
I included a couple more posters after the jump.

Perhaps, Another Moon Art

2010-01-25T13:50:00.000-06:00

Yes. I like the Moon. Yes I like to photoshop. So I am on a kick combining my two likes. Also, the type was created in illustrator using custom brushes and other crazy things that I enjoy having fun with.

Two Arts Related To the Moon

2009-12-30T14:45:00.002-06:00

I can't say what directly inspired me to do these, other than idea I had been floating around in my head. Also, I will take any opportunity to use Moon related imagery.

Christmas Card

2009-12-16T10:06:00.002-06:00

Maggie and I decided to go a little nuts with our christmas card this year. The result:

See the back and inside and read about the process after the jump.

The cover is actually comprised of 3 separate photographs. Maggie took the picture of me, I took the picture of Maggie and we both distracted our kitty Archie long enough for him to stay and get the shot. Maggie expertly spliced them all together then handed them over to me to mess around with.

The font for the title treatment is Akzidenz Grotesk, inspired by the the cover of Meet The Beatles. We went with Columbia records because we both dig us some Bob Dylan and we thought it added a significant retro quality.

In addition to the design elements, theres a lot of photoshop processing done on this photo. I made the highlights more red and green and less blue, while make the darks extra blue and less red and green to give a faded look. I then over layed some paper texture to make it look a little dirty and used.

For the back, I created the design in Illustrator. The font for the track listing and credits is Modern No. 20 by Ed Benguiat, which isn't a period font, but I thought I'd Mad Men it up and use an anachronistic font that looks cool and fits.

The track titles I came up on my own, Maggie let me have free reign and though I could have gone pretty blue with these, I held back as not to offend grandma. Ken Nelson, listed as producer, was a producer for Capitol's country music in the late fifties and early sixties. Roy Orbison was added because I thought it was funny, and Bob Dylan appears because Maggie is a nerd for Bob Dylan.

The same photoshop processing was involved on this back piece, albeit moved around slightly as to not replicate the pattern exactly.

The inside was pretty easy. I just combined alot of elements I had already done, with the new vinyl texture (that was actually really simple to throw together in photoshop. Add Noise to a white canvas, spin blur, then adjust the contrast, BOOM: Vinyl.)

We then got these printed through WHCC.com. Who had them printed and sent to us faster than I could even imagine.

Thanks! I hope everyone who got one enjoyed the card as much as Maggie and I enjoyed making them. Happy Holidays!

Special thanks to Robyn and Bill who let me borrow the guitar!

Sasquatch!

2009-12-14T14:07:00.002-06:00

I made this fella for my friend Bill's birthday. It's my first ever attempt at sculpture. I've always wanted to try it out, ever since I first started reading Toyfare magazine and they had the little tutorials on how to customize action figures.

I sculpted it with Super Sculpey, then used wire for the teeth and claws. I painted it with basic acrylics, then used a Liquitex glaze. Other fun fact! I've read about it for year, but never had an excuse to do a paint wipe. I mixed a bit of black and brown paint with water then slathered it all over the Sasquatch, using a paper towel I wiped away the excess leaving the paint/water behind in the little notches and crevices. It worked pretty well for my first time.

Bill named him Bobby, and he is now at his home among his menagerie of faux-pets. And special thanks to my beautiful wife for the awesome pictures, more after the jump.

Rock The Inauguration Part 2

2009-12-03T16:38:00.001-06:00

I posted the logo I used in this a while ago. I wanted to show you a companion piece to see the logo in use. This concept didn't make it to production, but I liked it alot. I tried to create something that engaged our audience to not only look at the ad, but participate in the event.

Five on Five

2009-11-18T16:40:00.000-06:00

I was asked to design new ads for the RedEye's famous "Five on Five" where 5 people are asked 5 questions about sports. I took this as an opportunity to go for a nice vintage Boxing poster look. They immediately loved it.
The initial design and layout was done in InDesign, then I exported that to a PDF and mucked it up in Photoshop.
Its pretty straight forward, I'd always wanted to do something in this look and I think I did a pretty good job.

Chip Tunes

2009-11-17T14:23:00.001-06:00

I made this poster for my friend Kiel's class on Chip Tunes. My inspiration was both the 80's title aesthetic (Tron-esque) but with a modern flair, and circuit boards. Which oddly enough, tie directly to the subject matter of the class. His class turned out really well, and these were handed out afterwards as a take home.

These were originally intended to be printed on a nice heavy cardstock using a massive HP plotter. The plotter I had access to is a little old and it just wasn't turning out how I wanted to. So I ended up purchasing the only 11 x 17 cardstock I could find in downtown Chicago and Staples. It definately wasn't fine art quality, it was really rough and slightly yellowish. Worse yet, the only printer I had access to was a just a standard Xerox office color laser printer/copier. After a couple test prints, I was pleasently surprised by the quality. The rough paper, combined with the not-so-great printer gave it this tactile quality that I think would have been lost had it been printed any other way. It felt classic, once again, like the subject matter.

Initially there were going to be two colors, but due to the printing process, the grey version didn't reproduce well, so we just went with the Commodore 64 inspired blue. Below are the two other versions I created.

American Hardcore

2009-09-23T16:18:00.002-05:00

I made this poster for the first in a series of classes at Harper College called "Tower Records Goes To College" my good friend Scott organized classes taught by a bunch of us former Tower Records employees. One of my best friends, Tom Joniak, was going to do a class about American Hardcore music. Unfortunately, his class didn't meet the registration minimum and was cancelled, but the rest of the classes are still on track. Since this idea was pretty last minute, I haven't had the time to do them for all of the other classes yet. I won't be able to for the Fall courses, but with more lead time I'll do my damndest to get a poster made for each class in the spring.

I did this entirely in illustrator. I dig it alot. It was pretty heavil inspired by the posters Olly Moss did for A Life Well Wasted. I absolutely love Olly's work and I hope it doesn't feel like I'm ripping him off, because that wasn't what I intended. I just dig his style alot and its a look I've always wanted to try my hand at.

I'm for sure going to do two more of these, one for my class (about Star Wars) and one for my friend Kiel's class about Chiptunes.

More information about the classes can be found here.

Quick and Dirty

2009-09-09T15:24:00.003-05:00

I created this really quick, based on an idea I had floating in my head for a little bit. I was directly inspired by some work I was doing at the tribune involving diagonal lines, and the letter treatment was developed from basically messing around in illustrator for a long, long time, and is similar to another treament I did for something at work (i'll show you eventually). This is just a quick and dirty concept, no real direction, just something I thought was fun.

What does this make you feel?

2009-08-24T15:38:00.002-05:00

I've had this idea for close to 2 years. This is me seeing if my idea works. I think it does.

Breaking News

2009-07-22T17:08:00.002-05:00

This ended up not being used, but i thought the concept was there. The idea was that it would work well across multiple platforms. I created an entire style guide to maintain the brand but this is gist of it.

Scaredy Ghost

2009-07-15T07:37:00.003-05:00

Apparently this has become a ghost-centric blog. I guess I just really like drawing ghosts, and I would like to actually post some more legitimate works. I don't just draw ghosts, I do have a for reals job. Anyways, I thought this idea was adorable, and I think I was right.

Golden Oldies

2009-07-10T13:17:00.002-05:00

I was digging around the interwebs and came across KhangKhong.com, a website that one of my teacher in college ran. They held art jams, someone would suggest a topic, gather reference material, and package it up. Then anyone could download the zip file and create an image based on the theme. The theme for this particular jam was Spock. So i made a pair of images that I thought would look neat on a t-shirt, albeit a girls t-shirt. I made these half in photoshop and illustrator, a long long time ago. I'm gonna guess 2003, but could be sooner.

Future Ghost

2009-06-29T16:51:00.004-05:00

Commander Dutch "Howie" Dorough of The 87th Future Ghost Brigade is a veteran of the Ghost-Bot Conflict, not to be confused with The Robot-Ghost Wars of the early 23rd Century.

I made this

2009-06-26T14:52:00.003-05:00

Not sure why. If you know, tell me. Thanks.

Rock The Inauguration

2009-06-01T14:47:00.003-05:00

Haha! I told you i'd post some real design work! I did this for an event in Chicago to celebrate Barack Obama's inauguration in January. It was feature on posters, banners, flyers, print, web and television advertisements. I drew inspiration from Obama's immaculate creative direction from his campaign using the Gotham typeface as well has the established PMS colors. I wanted there to be definate "Obama" visual cues without aping his style entirely.

Let The Right Ghost In

2009-05-21T14:12:00.004-05:00

Okay, i said I wouldn't do many more, but i had to. This was suggested by my wife. I added arms to these ones, I just thought it gave them more character.

Ghost Doom

2009-05-20T16:57:00.005-05:00

I don't want this to become a an all ghost blog, but when I get ideas. I have to do them. Otherwise i will forget. I will probably start posting some for reals design work soon. Also, i started a new technique with this one, so i'm adding a higher res version of it than i normally would because you wouldn't notice the newness on the smaller file. Enjoy!

Ghost-Chewie

2009-05-18T12:17:00.002-05:00

Another day, another idea for a ghost. I had intended this to look much different and a bit more detailed, but it didn't work out that way i intended and i went for a much more simple approach, which i rather like.

Ambigrams

2009-05-06T17:19:00.004-05:00

I've always wanted to draw an ambigram. I was never confident enough in my drawing skills to try it out but I am extremely confident in my arranging of blocks into geometric patterns. So I came up with this one, if you can't read it, it's my name:

After that, I figured I'd try and be a little less narcissistic and maybe do one for my wife, this time with a little color and rounded edges:

SPIDER-GHOST

2009-05-06T17:07:00.002-05:00

After I created The Ghost of Sparta, I thought of other people I could turn into ghosts and I wanted to see if I could do spider-man. So i did. This is spider-ghost.

Ghost of Sparta

2009-05-05T16:31:00.002-05:00

I rocked through God of War for the PS2 and I'm currently working my way through God of War 2 in preparation for God of War 3 this fall. As a result, I've had Kratos on the mind as of late so I made this image for him. Because I'm a nerd.

Space is the place

2009-04-09T11:42:00.003-05:00

I'm a pretty big fan of space, so I made these space posters for fun.

Recent Work

2009-02-10T15:35:00.003-06:00

This is some recent stuff that i've been messing around with, all done in illustrator. These are all for fun, becuase I like sloths, robots, and reading.

Ch-Ch Changes

2008-12-17T15:10:00.002-06:00

So i haven't posted in a really long time with good reason. I got married. Went on a Honeymoon. Moved to Chicago, and got a new job all with in about 4 week and my life has only recently begun to slow down slightly. I'm still trying to figure out if i can post the work i've done for my new job without getting in trouble, because the last place wouldn't let me post anything at all lest I get sued or whatever. So this is something I did for fun, and I hope to update more often in the future.

If its not obvious, its an 8-bit christmas stocking I did in Illustrator.

Little Big Challenge 003

2008-09-16T15:26:00.004-05:00

For those of you not familiar with Little Big Planet, i'd suggest reading up on it. I haven't been this excited for a video game since Super Nintendo. They've been rocking the marketing for this thing so far and they've even done a couple contests. I passed on the first two, but i couldn't pass up the third. It's a design your own SackBoy contest. This was done entirely in illustrator, with some prep work in photoshop and some google image searching for textures. This is my entry, i think the inspiration for it is fairly obvious.

More Baby DVD Covers

2008-08-27T15:58:00.002-05:00

These are some newer baby DVD photograph covers. I love the colors on these ones.

Growing Green

2008-08-08T15:41:00.002-05:00

This is a branding concept I'm working on. This was done in Illustrator, with a slightly modified version of the Ghosttown font from dafont.com.

I like it, and I talked to our printer and they already do soy-based inks and they have access to recycled paper. I haven't found out about organic cotton shirts yet, but the concept behind this is pretty obvious, how to increase your sales while remaining eco-friendly.

Robot

2008-07-28T16:34:00.001-05:00

I felt like drawing a robot. So I did. This was done most in illustrator and photoshop, with a few scanned elements.

Rock The Fourth Invite

2008-06-13T12:10:00.003-05:00

This is an invite to a fourth of july party. If it isn't obvious, this is take on the infamous look of various punk flyers I've seen strewn about the city as well as some classics that I found at Shavedneck.com. I got the Guitar Hero logo from the infinite resource that is Brandsoftheworld.com and the fonts are all from Dafont.com. This was constructed in illustrator and printed. After the inital printing I rubbed it on the ground, crumpled it, scratched it and made it generally messy. I then cranked up the darkness on the photocopier to bring out some of the textures. It worked like a charm. I had a really good time doing this one.

A couple drawrings

2008-05-06T10:08:00.002-05:00

These are just some drawings I did for fun mostly. Enjoy. They were both done in illustrator. I did use a reference for Godzilla, but the robot is freehand.

Converse Ad

2008-04-03T11:34:00.004-05:00

This is a concept ad for the Converse shoe company. They make the infamous Chuck Taylors. This is sort of my version of these ads. Because I thought these ads were a little too vague and overtly masculine, while I thought there was room for a little more class in their image. So I'm attempting to appeal not only to the cool kids crowd, but also those who view the Chuck Taylors brand as being somewhat nostalgic. The photo was edited together via Photoshop Cs3 (natch) and then everything was compiled in InDesign CS3. I also borrowed some texture from a ratty old folder I have on my desk for the background, though I did alter it heavily.

Political

2008-04-03T11:21:00.003-05:00

I did this for Gary Nowak (obviously) who is running for State Representative in Illinois. I have some friends working on his campaign, and they requested my services, which I gladly provided, pro bono of course. This is going to appear on t-shirts and stickers and maybe some other stuff as well. This was all done in Illustrator CS3, using a slightly skewed version of Futura.

Kashi Concept Ads

2008-03-06T15:07:00.005-06:00

These are concept magazine advertisement created for the Kashi brand of food products. They offer natural alternatives to some of your favorite unhealthy, chemically "enhanced" foods. These were created in InDesign CS3. I lifted the Kashi Logo from brandsoftheworld.com, and the photographs are from istockphoto.com. I scanned in a paper grocery bag for the texture at the bottom of the page. Let me know what you think. They're kind of big files.

Children's Photographs DVD Covers

2008-02-26T08:45:00.003-06:00

Like the Wedding Photographs DVD cover I created earlier, this is a DVD cover for Maggie DeRolf's Childrens Photography. As illustrated in these two examples, they both follow the same basic template, with minor alterations depending on either the gender of the child or personal preference of the subject.
The above project presented a unique challenge. How do I fit photographs of twins into my basic template? Obviously it had to be altered slightly to include photographs of both children on the back of the packaging and due to the wonderful photography of Maggie DeRolf, it wasn't very hard to figure out the front cover.
These covers follow the same basic theme established with her Wedding Photographs DVD cover, but are a little more playful. Polka dots aren't used nearly enough in todays design.

2008-02-01T12:47:00.000-06:00

I updated my official book/portfolio. I'll be updating my website as well to reflect the change, hopefully soon.

Antarctica

2007-12-20T13:51:00.000-06:00

This is the cover to this years Christmas card that my fiance and I are sending out. Its a mix cd featuring songs to listen to while you're exploring Antarctica. I hand drew the illustration using Illustrator CS3, loosely based on an image culled from a Google Image Search. The font is Roman Antique from dafont.com. I've always wanted to draw a frozen landscape like one you might see in Northern Canada or Antarctica and I finally did it, I think it did a pretty good job. If you click on the image you can see it really big, because i think it looks better when you see it big.

This is the back of the CD packaging. Its fairly simple, but elegant and effective.

This is the artwork that appeared on the CD itself. I hand drew this map of Antarctica in Illustrator

Tattoo

2007-11-26T11:54:00.000-06:00

This was done in Illustrator CS3. The logo was redrawn based of of a reference image and the two M's are based on a heavily distorted and reconfigured Arial Black font. The colors are near matches, I chose to go a bit brighter than the typical Cubs colors.

This was designed for my brother for a tattoo I paid for for his collge graduation. Our Mother passed away a little over two years ago and this tattoo was not only a tribute to her, but a tribute to her love for the Cubs, which was passed on to not only my brother, but me as well.

Congrats Ben.

Pierre

2007-10-25T16:35:00.000-05:00

This is another illustration for the first issue of 10,000 Tons of Black Ink. Done entirely by hand in Illustrator CS3. I got the reference image from a Google Image Search. 10,000 Tons of Black Ink is being compiled right now, and should be released by mid-December.

Mix CD Cover

2007-10-03T18:05:00.001-05:00

This is another Mix CD cover. I did it all in Photoshop, the layout and even digitally coloring the photo. The aim for this was to give it a "classic" feel, so I attempted to model this cover off of the cover for the Beach Boys "Pet Sounds". It still didn't feel right, so I implemented a technique that usually works out for me, I scanned slightly tattered piece of cardboard and applied it as a texture to give the image a bit of a warmer feeling, driving home the "classic" feel, like it was printed on cardboard like old vinyl album covers. Then I layered and nudged the text element to make them look like they were printed on an offset printer and misaligned slightly. If you must ask, yes this was for my Fiance as well.

Extra kudos should go to me for making the bracelet she's wearing as well, which is a long story I don't want to get into.

Mix CD Packaging

2007-10-02T13:10:00.000-05:00

This is packaging for a Mix CD that I made for my fiance for her birthday, titled "Every River I've Travelled...Has Led Me To The Wabash", it features all traveling songs. This was printed on standard issue cardstock on a color laser printer, then constructed by hand into a gatefold style package. I'll break down each section of the artwork and perhaps at a later date post a completed packaging photo:

Outside Cover:

This image is from a long and arduous Google Image Search. I don't remember the exact search terms but not much editing was done to this other than the scrawled handwriting which I did by hand with a marker on a seperate sheet of paper, then scanned and applied various effects to via Photoshop. The crease for the gatefold would go right down the center of this image. The dimensions were 5.25" by 5.25" when folded.

Inside Gatefold:

I scanned the cover of a leatherbound book to get the texture, then changed the color to a the red that you see. The track listing was scrawled on sheets of legal paper, torn, then scanned and positioned via Photoshop.

Inner Sleeve:

This is another Googled searched image, other than the blueish color and the scrawled text, not much editing was done to this image. This sleeve held the CD and was 5" by 5" when folded, and was slid into the first pocket of the gatefold.

Map:

This was probably the most complex and involved the most amount of work of any part of this packaging. The image was found via Google Image Search, I then printed out the naked image on standard color laser paper. Each location indicated on the map was a place I had travelled to with out my Fiance, they were marked using torn pieces of brightly colored paper. Not only were they marked but they listed, in miles, how far I was away from my Fiance. I attached the markers with some plain scotch tape then added a few hand written notes. I then scanned the whole thing in two parts, and reconstructed them via Photoshop. The final printed size was 10" by 15", it was folded down and slid into the second pocket of the gatefold.

Cassette Tape

2007-09-17T21:11:00.001-05:00

This was created entirely from scratch in Adobe Illustrator CS3. I got the Dolby Surround logo from brandsoftheworld.com.
This wasn't done for any particular project, more or less for fun, but to also brush-up on technical illustration. The dimensions aren't exact, but nearly every proportion is, including the angles in the sprockets. This was actually built from the inside out, I put together the sprockets and spools then drew in the tape path. I then layered in the remaining elements. The text and information is on a separate layer so that I can edit it easily, should I use this image for anything else.

Indian on a Horse

2007-09-14T10:24:00.000-05:00

This was handrawn in Adobe Illustrator CS3, based off of an image culled from a Google Image Search. This was done mostly for fun, but may end up in the Literary Writers Network journal.

Port Awesome "Squid & Crossbones"

2007-08-29T12:06:00.000-05:00

Entirely hand-drawn in Illustrator CS3, based off of sketches done on some scratch paper, then scanned.

This is some preliminary artwork done for a blog project that is in the works. The design will eventually be used to promote the blog and be featured on anything from t-shirts to sticker.

African Man

2007-08-22T10:27:00.001-05:00

Hand-drawn in Illustrator CS3 based on a few images culled from a Google image search. Will be featured in Literary Writers Network's journal: 10,000 Tons of Black Ink.

Maggie DeRolf

2007-08-22T10:01:00.001-05:00

Top: Logo and business card for Maggie Derolf, Wedding and Children's Photography. Created in Illustrator, Victorian element from a clip art book, modified slightly with color added to it to be used as her logo.

Bottom: DVD Cover for Maggie DeRolf, to give clients hi-quality JPG's. Photos edited in Photoshop, design elements created in Illustrator based off of a Victorian clip art book, final construction in InDesign. This was printed on ViaStone brand Premium Photo Paper, Double-Sided, Matte. The other side was a Victorian pattern. The cover was then slipped into a clear Amaray-style DVD case.

Erin & Phil's Wedding Invitation

2007-08-21T21:37:00.000-05:00

Designed primarily in InDesign CS2 with a little prep work in Illustrator CS3. The victorian design elements are from a royalty free clip art package, each are edited slightly for color and composition. The monogram is a free font, Wedding. The text is Trajan Pro. You're probably wondering why its all crooked, I know, I'll post an example of how it's folded later. Until then, if it helps, it basically becomes its own envelope.

I don't think that this requires an explanation.

2007-08-21T21:17:00.001-05:00

Done primarily with hand drawing in Illustrator CS3 based on images culled from a couple Google Image searches.

Justin D. Russo

My Brother, My Brother and Me

New Video Game Poster!

Slime Daddy

MBMBaM Tote Bag

Windy City Rollers

pressxtojustin.com

National Television Debut?

Kill Screen Magazine

Bob Ball

Linked by Naughty Dog

Moon Poster Now Available For Purchase

"Sketches"

AbleGamers Foundation

Doug Loves Movies

CRAFTY GAMER

Lost Bingo

My Brother, My Brother and Me

Kickstarter Interview

Help me get my posters printed!

UPDATE: Poll!

More Press for Video Game Posters

I'm "internet" famous

MORE VIDEO GAME POSTERS

Video Game Posters UPDATED

Perhaps, Another Moon Art

Two Arts Related To the Moon

Christmas Card

Sasquatch!

Rock The Inauguration Part 2

Five on Five

Chip Tunes

American Hardcore

Quick and Dirty

What does this make you feel?

Breaking News

Scaredy Ghost

Golden Oldies

Future Ghost

I made this

Rock The Inauguration

Let The Right Ghost In

Ghost Doom

Ghost-Chewie

Ambigrams

SPIDER-GHOST

Ghost of Sparta

Space is the place

Recent Work

Ch-Ch Changes

Little Big Challenge 003

More Baby DVD Covers

Growing Green

Robot

Rock The Fourth Invite

A couple drawrings

Converse Ad

Political

Kashi Concept Ads

Children's Photographs DVD Covers

Antarctica

Tattoo

Pierre

Mix CD Cover

Mix CD Packaging

Cassette Tape

Indian on a Horse

Port Awesome "Squid & Crossbones"

African Man

Maggie DeRolf

Erin & Phil's Wedding Invitation

I don't think that this requires an explanation.