Interview with Mad Men Prop Master

While on the subject of interviews, I have been shown this amazing article about the prop master for Mad Men over at The Collectors Weekly. He talks about what exactly falls under the scope of a prop (anything you can pick up) and the different methods he uses to procure these cinematic gems. The best part for graphic designers is how he speaks on recreating old ads. The trick is, it might be easy to find an old ad from the '60s, but it generally doesn't look new -- it's got about fifty years of age on it. Since Mad Men takes place during this time, Scott has to replicate the designs himself, print them out, and fold up a, for example, Sara Lee cheesecake box or an old cover for Advertising Age. This article is really fun and pretty exhaustive especially if you're a fan of the show. Plus it's got January Jones, and that's reason enough to watch it.

Where the Wild Things Are

Here is an interview with the storyboard artist Federico D’Alessandro who worked on Where the Wild Things Are. This is from the blog yello! from Smashbox Magazine. Cool read.

Psychological Distractions

This is what I do during my Psychology class instead of paying attention.

2 Sketches

I made this blue one today during the break, it's a sketch of a framed picture in the GSU library. Mario and Jason were there studying, so I sat down and tried to fill up the page as fast as I could. Colored it with a pen and blue marker on one side of a sheet of vellum, then flipped it to add the shadows with a black marker. I learned this awesome trick from an open [sketch]book.



This is Sunday night before dinner, it's a picture of our bedroom while watching The Sopranos.

Awesome Titles

This is for a new show called Bored to Death (on HBO, I believe) starring Jason Schwartzman and Zach Galifianakis. The intro is badass, it makes very creative use of type as imagery. Found this on The Art of the Title Sequence. The show is good, too, I saw the pilot.

The Jane

Corporate Identity

These are the logos that have led me up to the ones I'm showing in class, which I will post after getting some feedback. Some are just typefaces that I considered.

Sketches and Such

Mike has inspired me to be a more diligent sketcher. Redoubling my efforts with observational drawings and then pulling them into Photoshop to hopefully give them the finishing touch that a lot of my past sketches lack.