Le Book

Have I really only updated this blog a few times in the past year? That's pathetic. I really need to address that...I'm guessing it's because I get so caught up and involved in my work, that when I finish a project, usually that involves a mental break, so the last thing I normally want to do is blog about it.

I have some work that I'm advertising in Le Book (New York/Illustration edition), I actually didn't know a lot about it prior to this year (I've been known to have those "I just fell off the turnip truck" moments from time to time) but I just got it in the mail and WOW! What a beautiful compilation of eye candy to be inspired by!

It's a great big series of visual reference books, the London edition is designed by Vivienne Westwood this year, I'm in the New York edition that features art by the late Stephen Sprouse.

Do you love color?

...because I sure do.

I'm working on a color palette for a client in a fashion-related job and just wanted to mention a website that for me is like being in a candy store: www.pantone.com.

For illustrators with a background in one of the design fields, this is certainly nothing new, but maybe others from different backgrounds might also find it useful and interesting anyway, whether the colors you pick in your illustrations are subconscious and intuitive, or conscious and calculated.

I always find reading about color trends and forecasts (yes, there is such a thing) to be really interesting. These forecasts of colors to watch are very carefully selected by the Pantone color institute -- it is like a science, and people's gravitation towards certain colors apparently have a strong socioeconomic force behind it. Times of war, unrest, ecological awareness -- whether it's patriotic colors or earthtones -- whatever is on people's minds is reflected in color. And yet even though artists don't always make the most deliberate decisions with their colors in their work, you see the general populace subconsciously gravitating towards the designated color trends anyway.

If you can ever attend a Pantone color seminar with Leatrice Eiseman, I highly recommend it.