Overall we’ve been proud of the work we did for the Emerald City Comicon, it’s creative, within an industry we’re passionate about and the work helped make the 2010 show be the highest attended in the history of the event. Seeing the poster in the background of a Weeds episode is just icing on the cake.

Below are some additional samples of work Bullseye Creative designed and produced for the Emerald City Comicon:

Emerald City Comicon Logo

Emerald City Comicon Pass

Inall the work Bullseye Creative executed for this event included brand development, campaign creative, poster design, event program design, signage, Internet banner ads, print ads, bus ads, as well as TV and radio creative. Currently Bullseye is getting busy on the 2011 Emerald City Comicon design work, we’ve got a few new ideas up our selves…stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. For the Love of Drawing, Part 2
2. For the Love of Drawing
3. We Rock

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Sometimes designers get lost with all the information they need to display and never achieve an intuitive design that is visually compelling. This philosophy is true for much in the world, making designs user friendly and not just maps. But I’m trying to make a point, so here goes.

I recently traveled to London and used their underground transit system, at first like anything new, it took a few minutes for me to understand all the routes and how the system functioned. But once I got the hang of it, the map was ingenious in its simplicity. In actuality the routes are not as simple as shown, but are laid out in equal increments of one another, at straight or 45 degree angles and have bright primary colors for visibility. The new B.A.R.T. map is very similar to the Underground map but is simpler by nature with less information to display. London is a crazy network of streets and tunnels similar to New York. They too updated their map recently, the map from 1972 seems to be the best so far (Apparently this design style was common in the past) and they abandoned the simpler look only a few years later. I’m sure the locals were not happy with the change…I wouldn’t have been.

The designers of the world create the visual tone of a city (or a country) much like a skyline can define it, so can its signage. I appreciate it when they make a point to welcome a newcomer, not confuse the shhh out of them! I’ve had a few instances driving around the greater Seattle area, getting use to some of the freeway exits and where they were in relation to the signs. Other than that its been a smooth transition and I really enjoy my new home, Los Angeles was crazy city in comparison, as I’m sure you’ll all agree… even if you’ve never been.

While writing this blog I stumbled across this map of all the major freeways and cities in united states. The artist uses the London Underground diagram as his inspiration. Jimmy Jam also mentioned that all odd numbered freeways (like I-5) run North/South and all even freeways (like I-90) run West/East , I knew this subconsciously I swear.

So to sum up, I love change… for the better. I love good designs and great ideas. Especially when they come together as one. I used a Mini-Disc player for years. Until a portable hard drive you could listen to became an option, but thats another story.

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#10. Frank Miller and Jim Lee: Batman and Robin

Frank Miller has always been a writer that I have enjoyed reading (and his artwork is just as dark and dramatic). The work he has been turning out with Jim Lee on the Batman and Robin title is some of his best.  Miller has visited this character many times in the past, and each time he has brought something special to the book. However, with the help of Lee, this title is some of the gruffest, roughest work I’ve seen featuring the Dark Knight.  The duo often lets many months lapse between titles (I suppose that’s the byproduct of Miller’s new career in film), but it’s always worth the wait.

#9: Damon Lindelof and Leinil Francis Yu: Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk

Speaking of “worth the wait,” the Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk book took years to deliver just a few short issues. But I (for one) didn’t mind.  The teaming of Lindelof (writer and co-creator of ABC’s Lost) and Yu (who seems to be just about everywhere right now) was simply perfect. Their take on the Hulk was funny, pointed and memorable.  And Wolvie has never been such a bad-ass.  The visual of The Hulk ripping Wolverine in two, then throwing half of him miles into the mountain was only topped by The Hulk eventually eating his adamantium-laced opponent.  Tasty!

#8: The Web Heads: The Amazing Spider-Man

The #8 Top Team-Up is comprised of the large group of  Web Heads at Marvel (Gale, Guggenheim, Kelly, Slott, Van Lente, Waid, and Wells).  Ever since Marvel drastically altered the direction of Spider-Man (with the One More Day / Brand New Day arc) they have been releasing the Amazing title three times a month (which is awesome for the fans, although a little challenging for the pocketbook). The rotating teams of artists and writers (each work on one to four issues at a time) have all been stellar. Paul Azaceta’s stylized artwork is great (almost like Sean Phillips), and he even made Electro scary/cool again.  Joe Kelly’s writing is extremely funny.  Mark Waid has crafted a creepy Vulture character that actually gave me nightmares.  And Mike McKone’s Black Cat reminded me what it was like to be a teenage boy. Thankfully, all of the writer/artist teams have been carefully overseen by the ever-watchful eyes of the Web Heads committee.  I also enjoy the witty, no-holds barred Letters Column from editor, Stephen Wacker (and occasionally, Assistant Editor, Tom Brennan).

#7: Mark Millar and Steve McNiven: Wolverine, Old Man Logan

Having previously teamed up for Marvel’s Civil War, and later on the Nemesis title, Millar and McNiven make one Hell of a creative team.  Mark Millar is a great writer, although many of his stories seem similar to me.  Steve McNiven is one of my favorite current artists (and a really nice guy too — I met him at the Emerald City ComiCon a couple of years ago), however sometimes his art can miss the mark.  However, with the Old Man Logan storyline, these two superstars nailed it from the very first page to the last.  Wolverine will never be the same (case in point: after this run, I canceled Wolverine from my pull-list).

#6: Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev: Spider-Woman

Bendis and Maleev have been teaming up for some time.  And, while my favorite work from this paid has to be the long run they turned in for Daredevil, I love the books they are currently delivering for Spider-Woman.  BMB’s writing is easy to read (he write  thought-bubble-dialog as well as Stan Lee did), and Maleev’s artwork is mesmerizing.  His photo reference for Jessica Drew (Jolyn Carpenter) must be a strong, sexy woman since his illustrations of the character are dependably depicted in that way.  This is one of those few books where I find myself reading it twice — once to enjoy the story, and a second time to savor the artwork.

#5: Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris: Ex Machina

I’ve been following this book from the beginning and I am constantly impressed with Vaughn’s writing and Harris’ illustration work.  The story is entertaining & engaging (at times violent & shocking) while fresh & exciting.  At last year’s EmeraldCityComiCon, I inadvertently told Tony Harris that he had been fired from the title when I informed him how disappointed I was he wasn’t working with Vaughn anymore (I thought that they were making a change in artist when he took a break and a guest artist stepped in).  I think I scared the Hell out of him for a moment, until I realized my mistake and corrected myself.  I guess I was just returning the favor by giving him a jolt, just like he and Vaughn give me each month.  (As a side note: Vaughn and Harris are almost ALWAYS on time with their title, I don’t think they’ve ever missed a month).

#4: Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting: The Marvels Project

Ed Brubaker is one of my favorite writers right now (see #1 below).  He is so much fun to read, and I love the work he and Steve Epting are doing together on The Marvels Project book.  They are re-telling the early stories of  key Avengers characters, and placing them deep in the pulp-inspired history that created comic books in the first place.  By weaving real-world historical figures and events into the story, they are making the supernatural seem real.  And the covers from my friend, Steve McNiven don’t hurt either.

#3: Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.: Kick-Ass

Mark Millar appears for a second time on the list, this time by teaming up with the unparalleled John Romita Jr.  They have combined their talents to bring us one of the coolest, craziest books on the shelves today.  Every month or so, I stop by The Comic Stop in Lynnwood to pick up the contents of my subscription box.  Without fail, the Kick-Ass title is always the first book I read.  Now that the story has been turned into a major Hollywood movie (as most great books do), I hope more people will discover the original material.  Kick-Ass is … well, pretty kick ass!

#2: Justin Grey and Jimmy Palmiotti: Jonah Hex

This team of co-writers made the list (toward the top, no less) because of their consistent ability to entertain in 22 short pages.  Grey and Palmiotti have such a natural style with their character dialog, and they can create a creative and compelling story that wraps up between covers (very few times have they carried a story for more than one issue — often times, they tell more than one tale in a single issue … and it’s always engrossing).  The stable of artists they work with are wildly different from each other, and a perfect fit for each story (I especially love the realism of Billy Tucci’s recent work).

#1: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips: Criminal, The Sinners

Sitting high  on the top of my Top Ten Team-Ups list are Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.  Having teamed up many times in the past, the duo gets better with each title they take on.  From Criminal, to Sleeper, to Incognito, and back to Criminal again, the creative crew is the best comic book team since Lee & Kirby (in my humble opinion — but that’s what this post is all about). Phillips’ artwork superbly frames up the noir tales that Brubaker creates.  His art is rough, and dark — just like the characters.  I am jealous of Sean’s ability to convey so much emotion with his mastery of negative space (and his painted works are always cool too).  A special mention must be made for the compelling colors of Val Staples.  Brubaker also shares his love for the medium by providing reviews of classic movies, books, or pulps (often through a guest essayist).   Brubaker and Phillips are so good, they really make you care about the bad guys in their winning work.

Related posts:

1. For the Love of Drawing

Bullseye Creative designed a new web site for MRJ Constructors that featured full screen background images of large commercial construction projects. Without reading a word of the text, the web site imagery defines the capabilities. The content management system needed to be developed with special features such as photo resizing and cropping to effectively handle the portfolio photo galleries. Organization of projects and project types was also an important feature of the content management system and future web site growth. In over a year now, MRJ Constructors has been able to make all the required web site updates through the content management system.

MRJ Constructors' Homepage

MRJ Constructors' Project Portfolio

MRJ Constructors' Photo Gallery

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Since there was considerable interest in last week’s pre-Comicon sketchbook post, I figured y’all might get a charge out of seeing a sample of the latest additions to our collections. Peter gained a couple of nice Dr. Doom Sketches and I added a few to my Hellboy book! Hope you like..

Doom, Drawn by Ron Chan, 2010 (note how Chan literally TORE UP the page with his key -- Friggin' awesome.)

Hellboy, Drawn by Dean Trippe, 2010

Hellboy, Drawn by Tone Rodriguez, 2010

Hellboy, Drawn by Ron Chan, 2010 (I love the cigar and Ron's light brown color wash to complete the drawing!)

Related posts:

1. For the Love of Drawing
2. Bullseye Creative and Showtime’s Weeds

Our favorite party to date, and one that our clients talk about most, is our “Bullseye Turns It Up To 11″ party.  Planning began many months before the big night. We held many brainstorming sessions with the creative crew discussing exactly how we’d like to wow our clients, friends, family and ourselves this time around. We chose our party’s theme for three important reasons. First, because our Bullseye family was 11 years old. Secondly, Bullseye is Seattle’s loudest Rock n Roll firm – so we needed to represent that in the creative. Lastly, we are lovers of pop culture.  For the uninitiated, the phrase “turning it up to 11″ or “this one goes to 11″ is a popular line from famous mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap”.  Wikipedia describes “Up to eleven” or “these go to eleven” as phrases from pop culture which have come to mean anything being exploited to its utmost abilities (which is what we do).  Similarly, the expression “turning it up to eleven” may refer to the act of taking something to an extreme. (Like marketing, and great creative!) This made a Spinal Tap themed party the obvious choice.

Watch this video snippet and you’ll see what we mean.

In true rock fashion, we sent out signed and numbered screen-printed concert posters as invitations, with a follow up online RSVP. We prepped our office, turning it into a rock club and painted rockstar quotes and a 13-foot winged and flaming Bullseye logo on our walls.  We hired The Great Nabob as bartenders and brainstormed specialty rock drinks as well as contracted Gallucci’s Catering to design, cook and serve our rock menu.  One of our favorite rock-star quotes, “For Those About to Rock, We Salute You” (AC/DC) stands as a testament to how we see our clients – as those about to rock. Our clients had a great time that night – they got an opportunity to see a different creative side of Bullseye, and we got to show them how much we appreciate them. Bottom line is, we rocked it.

We created an online post-party site. Check it out. Stay tuned for news of the next over-the-top event!

Seattle's Loudest Rock-N-Roll Creative Agency

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Bullseye Creative developed a mini version of the overall game to be used as a demo. Elements of the game have been changed to make a quick demo possible, visit http://buildabandgame.bullseyeclient.net for a sample of the game interaction.

Screenshot From the Build a Band Game

Interactive online games continue to grow, Facebook has effectively leveraged this phenomenon. In Aug of 2009 Facebook had over 11 million daily users of Farmville (Source mashable.com). Last week Myspace announced they think (hope) gaming can save its platform.

Online interactive games can have objectives that range from advertising (advergaming info),  pay-to-play models or even education. One thing’s for sure, consumers spend a lot of time interacting with online games, that could be time spent interacting with your company’s brand.

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1. Bullseye Creative and Showtime’s Weeds

I Just wanted to drop a quick post on you — in light of the Emerald City Comicon coming to Seattle March 13 and 14. A number of years back, when Peter and I started going to this particular show, we got an idea from our friend-in-comics, Jim Demonakos, to create a book of illustrations from industry artists coming to the show. As many people know, the artists will gladly sketch something for you, if asked (a small fee might be necessary). Sometimes they’ll even do it for FREE!

Inspired by our friend, Peter and I purchased big black sketch books and began our illustration projects. The really great idea is to select a particular character you like, then ask each artist you meet to provide their individual take on that hero, creature, team, villain, whatever. Everyone has their own style — sometimes we’ve been surprised by what we have gotten back… It really can be a thrill. I feel lucky to have a rather large collection (six years and still building) of some of comic-dom’s finest. Our books are priceless at this point.

Hellboy, drawn by Steve Lieber, 2004

As you will see from some of the below selections, I chose Hellboy (Mike Mignola’s great character) and to my delight, I was able to score a quick sketch from the creator — Mignola himself! Peter selected a favorite villain of his — Doctor Doom! Take a look through the sketches below, and maybe you’ll be inspired to try building your own book.

Hellboy, drawn by Randy Emberlin, 2004

Hellboy, drawn by Alex Maleev, 2005

Hellboy, drawn by Shane White, 2006

I gave Shane White a scan of his drawing, and he uploaded his own colored version!

Helboy, drawn by Andy Kuhn

Hellboy, drawn by SHIEK WANG

Hellboy, drawn by Adam Kubert, 2005

Hellboy, drawn by Steve McNiven, 2005

The man himself, MIKE MIGNOLA, snuck in a sketch at ECCC 2009!

And from Peter’s Dr. Doom book:

Doom, drawn by Steve Lieber, 2004

Doom, drawn by Randy Emberlin, 2004

Doom, drawn by Alex Maleev, 2005

Doom, drawn by Steve McNiven, 2005

Doom, drawn by Shane White, 2006

Doom, drawn by Stan Sakai, 2009

Doom illustration

Doom, drawn by Tone Rodriguez, 2009

Related posts:

1. For the Love of Drawing, Part 2
2. Top Ten Team-Ups in Comics Today

This is a totally harmless little Adobe Illustrator exercise. I recently got an e-mail from a former intern, asking for some advice on a celtic knot graphic he was trying to re-create. I told him I was happy to oblige. Maybe you can get something out of this, as well. If you are an average user of Illustrator, I think this is up your alley. Keep it loose and have fun.

Looking at the original, examine the shape and notice the basic symmetry of the knot. You will see how certain characteristics repeat and how the four sections are similar to each other. This is important because it lets us know that we can work on one part of this shape, then alter it slightly to create the entire pattern. Before you start, turn on the “Snap to Point” feature under VIEW. This is useful because it will help you quickly line up shapes on top of others when you start doing surgery on your graphic. To set up this exercise, create a new Illustrator file with two layers. Import the KNOT jpeg into the lower layer, click on “Dim Image” and type in 30% — then lock the layer. We will create our knot on the layer above using the “dimmed” image below as our guide.

STEP ONE. To begin – Select one of the design’s four quarter-shapes, and use the pen tool to rough in a center line. Use a thin point line in a loud color (like PINK), so you can easily see your path and how it relates to the shapes behind it. Drag your points at the rise of each “hump” and then use a corner point when you need to change direction. This will allow you to adjust the shape where the curves lie.

STEP TWO. Once the line looks good to your eye, add thickness till the line weight matches the shape below it. Get close, but feel free to make this your own design. (In this example, we will actually be looking to improve on the original by cleaning things up and bringing more symmetry to the final image.) I started with a 1-pt. line, then thickened it to a 34-pt. line.

STEP THREE. Next, Outline the stroke under OBJECT > PATH.

STEP FOUR. Change the new vector shape to an outline (delete fill) and start doing surgery on the graphic where the shape is meant to dissect.  I created a rectangle that I could line up on the shape and use over and over to rotate into position and then –-

STEP FIVE. With the “Pathfinder Tool” –- delete sections from the knot shape.

STEP SIX. Next, copy and flip completed image, and rotate into the next position. Use an imaginary “center” point in the middle of the four shapes to rotate and flip around. Tweak the new image’s placement as needed. Now you are halfway there!

STEP SEVEN. Select the two shapes, and copy/flip/rotate them into a mirror position. While selected, move them into a position that roughly follows the original design. Again, you can flip and rotate around that invisible “center” point.

STEP EIGHT.  Add in the extra images (two sets of concentric circles appear to be sitting on top of the KNOT) –- Skip this step if you’d rather. They don’t seem to be all that important. I kept them in, because it is useful to show that you can quickly create a circle on top of a circle on top of a circle, then select your 3-circle graphic and – holding the option/apple/shift keys – drag and copy it into the same position across from itself.

STEP NINE.  Finally, fill the shapes with the blue color and set the knot on a black box (background). At this point, I was able to see a few flaws to my eye, so I used the hollow arrow (“Direct Selection” tool) to grab individual edges of the graphic and slightly shift them into a more correct position.

Bada Bing. Total time: 10 minutes. You have just completed your own celtic knot (or Tusken Raider) — you decide! Wasn’t that fun? Feel free to make your own adjustments to the steps I outlined here, and write me to let me know how this worked for you. Happy (vector) drawing!

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