Services

Whether realistic or stylized, an illustration can bring so much life to a subject, so much more so than just a photo. Concept and mood become malleable through color and style, while capturing a realism undeterred by surroundings. Surroundings, reflections, and shadows can be created to enhance the subject, creating a space uniquely its own. Photo-realistic illustration portrays the subject in a lifelike style that is removed from ambient distractions and camera distortion. Stylized illustration adds a mood, an attitude, while sporting a clean, simplified look.

The purpose of technical illustration is to inform or to guide. Exploded views of an assembly, a diagram or schematic, or a complicated object drawn in detail, are common subjects. Precision line art, if you will. The samples shown on this site were drawn from a variety of resource materials, including actual parts, multiple photographs at various viewpoints, and blueprints or CAD drawings. The better the resource material, the better the finished artwork.

The artwork in this section is available for licensing on products, fabric, and packaging. Changes, color reductions, or similar-but-different requirements are welcome as desired.

New art requests from design briefs or verbal discussion are welcome, and even encouraged. Having worked as a freelance illustrator for over 30 years, I will do my very best to complete your project to your utmost satisfaction, in the correct modes and formats for the type of production process required. And because there are so many possibilities, communication is key.

Gift art encompasses a large area that includes many different types of output on many different types of surfaces. Also referred to as Corporate Gifts or Promotional Premiums, these types of projects often involve taking an existing corporate logo or artwork and creating a layout for a specialty item. Often, vector art must be created from a printed sample, a photograph, or from an actual object.

The items themselves run the gamut from T-shirts and other apparel, to all sorts of unique and common everyday items such as mugs, tins, pens, plates, totes, key fobs, calculators, calendars, utility items, inventive gadgets, page clips, PostIt® notes, plaques and sales awards of all sorts, commemorative items, and logoed items, often sold for charitable events, or given out at trade shows, conventions, and dedications. The artworks shown here are but a few samples.

Also featured are designs licensed for use on merchandise such as apparel, home decor items, drinkware, totes, wrapped canvas, posters, and many more.

While some deem printed materials as outdated, print materials will always be needed. Human beings still need that visual piece they can hold in their hands. Although someday that may change, there is a distinct reason for this. With all our senses, human beings respond more readily to visual and tactile stimuli. A printed piece has a size and a shape. It has color and type, texture and weight, and when designed well, it serves a definite purpose. A printed piece organizes information, conveys a message, and urges the user to take action. It is both visual and tactile, and is still the most portable, and pleasant, real life method of storing information. Most of all, it can reach everyone.

Print media takes on many forms and sizes from the simple ad to the small brochure, or from the line card or sell sheet to the multipage product catalog. Forms, informational booklets and manuals are necessary for informational purposes. Of course, lengthier publications like manuals and catalogs can be digitized in PDF format and be made available online to reduce paper consumption, but it helps to have some guidance regarding when to use what.

A professionally designed and constructed layout will lend creditability to your organization. On the other hand, advertising materials produced in-house, on the office printer, send the wrong message. It screams “someone here thought this was good enough.” Subsequently, this leads to the inevitable question for customers… what else could be considered just “good enough”?

Let’s formulate a team that will craft your print solution flawlessly.

Retouching can take on many forms and in most cases is not a reflection on the photographer. Sometimes only some simple color correction is needed. Originally retouching photographic prints, that is rarely done these days. Most retouching needs involve digital photographs, but the occasional scanned image makes its way into the studio. In a perfect world, having complete control over the images we use would be preferable, but unfortunately, that is not always the case. Sometimes it is necessary to use existing images for one reason or another and repurposing these images takes skill. Scans almost always need some color correction and must be adjusted to compensate for dot gain or dot loss on press. Thankfully, scanning has been relegated to sketches, roughs, and documents. Digital photographs, depending on the source, sometimes need this as well. Because all of these images are viewed on screen, every precaution must be taken to ensure that images will reproduce properly at press time.

Retouching comes into play in other areas as well. Perhaps an item or two must be removed from a grouping, or an “on site” background must be simplified. Sometimes shadows must be removed or added, or the details on an item must be enhanced, or even changed to reflect changes made to a newer model. When items are combined from two or more photographs, the color of the items, while identical in the real world, are disparate in the photographs. This is often the case because the photographs may have been taken at different times. Even a very slight change in lighting can affect color. Here, professional digital methods are used to facilitate consistent color across all items.

Regardless of the image, simple usually says it best, and the image should look untouched no matter how much work has been done to it. While retouching can encompass setting up a photograph for an artistic effect, most of it would fall under the heading of corrective measures or even general clean up. However, every image is different and thus poses its own set of challenges.