Stolen: Hellbetty Jewelry Inventory

For those of you in the PDX area. Sad news to report, one of my clients, Miz Tarrah over at Hellbetty Jewelry, has essentially had her entire business stolen. She makes upcycled domino jewelry and other trinkets and sells them online and at craft fairs and such, or at least she did. Her business was based out of her home and someone got into her house and took all of her inventory (see the flyer for details on what was taken). These are all handmade items and they took a lot of time and energy to create, so there's really no way she can get up and running again without recovering her inventory. She's already had to cancel the rest of her summer festival gigs. If you know anything or see anything please let her know.

Flyer Layout: Pinup Fashion Show

I recently ran across this Peter Driben pinup girl and when I realized she was in the public domain, I had to do something with her. So here is a flyer for a non-existing pinup fashion show. Neither of the businesses exist, nor does the address or the featured pinup models who are mentioned. I made it all up. In other words, this is just Adobe Illustrator CC practice, but I had fun designing it, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

WIP: Mid-Century Thank You Note Design

Still getting used to the new computer and the new version of Illustrator, but it is coming along. Kicking around the idea of some Mid-Century themed thank you notes. This is still a little rough and unbalanced, but I think you can see where it's headed.

Tumblr Blog Logos

I mentioned a CorelDraw experiment a while back, and I have to admit it failed miserably. I didn’t realize how much I had been depending on the keyboard short cuts in Illustrator without even thinking about it. Most of the Corel shortcuts are either different or gone completely, I don’t know if you’ve ever accidentally put on someone else’s pants before, but it was kind of like that: weird, awkward and a bit disorienting. So to make a long story short I’ve moved on to the Adobe CC Suite—just Illustrator and Photoshop for now—and the above are some Tumblr blog logos I’ve done to help me get back into it. There are quite a few changes with the new version of Illustrator, too, but at least I know the overall package, so I imagine I’ll be going with the full subscription soon.

Googie Pool House on the Oregon Coast

Lately I've been taking care of a lot of personal domestic stuff, as well as learning a new operating system (since the demise of Windows XP earlier this month) but since Windows 8 doesn't support most of the old programs I've been using and a lot of the equipment, too, I've also been figuring out work-arounds and learning  new versions of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, so not much art or design has been getting finished, but there should be some coming in a few weeks or so. In the meantime, here are some reference shots of  a charming little piece of mid-century architecture that looks like it came straight from an episode of The Jetsons, but can actually be found on the Oregon coast in Lincoln City. It’s the pool house at the Surftides Resort, which was originally an apartment complex back in the 50's, although that was long before my time. When I was a kid we stayed here during a number of family vacations, and I’ve got many fond memories of it. They used to have the coolest restaurant built into a cliff over looking the beach. It was called Over the Waves and featured a semi-circular building with a specatular view of the coastline from Cascade Head down to at least Siletz Bay. There have a been quite a few changes since then, but it is still a pretty nifty place to stay—it’s kind of away from all the hub-bub of downtown Lincoln City (yes, that really is a thing), but still close to restaurants, shops and such.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers!
Robert

Beach Sketch: Me & Sugar-Doodle

Here's a sketch (pencil, walnut ink, India ink, pen and white gouache) of me and Sugar-Doodle marveling at the ocean at the beach last week. We were staying in Nelscot, but the tide was so far in that we couldn't walk on the beach in front of our motel, so we had to drive down to the Dee River Wayside. It was worth the drive though.

Stepping onto the International Stage

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to announce that Wiles Side Graphics has now officially stepped onto the international stage I just licensed this old classic Devil Eightball image (from 2006) to a pool league in Australia for their uniforms.  Woo-Hoo!!!