Jeff Sipe Design

designersof: 2011 Christmas Card. Design & Illustration by...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:47:16 -0600

designersof:

2011 Christmas Card. Design & Illustration by Jeff Sipe.

Photo

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:47:44 -0500

Photo

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:47:42 -0500

Photo

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:47:38 -0500

This is a small section of a much larger piece that I’m...

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:00:06 -0500

This is a small section of a much larger piece that I’m working on. My original idea was to actually have a small run of 18” x 24” posters printed, but that will depend on how the whole thing ends up coming together. I am pretty happy with this section, though… So I figured I might as well post it.

There is also a close-up to show the detail in the textures. This is the most texture I’ve put into a design in quite some time.

The black text is a font called Hobo Nickel, crafted by my dear friend Landon Sheely.

Subtle Fyrecode Logo Revisions. ©2011 Fyrecode, LLC

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:49:36 -0500

Subtle Fyrecode Logo Revisions.

The first app that I have been working on with my friend Charlie...

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:16:56 -0500

The first app that I have been working on with my friend Charlie has launched! Charlie is a very talented programmer, and we have teamed up to create several apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch.

I have been placed in charge of more or less everything visual for Fyrecode (Charlie’s company), including this app, as well as future apps that are also in the works. This has truly been one of the most fun projects that I’ve ever been a part of, and I can’t wait to continue working with Charlie.

You can check out this app by searching for “PassIt” in the iTunes App Store, or by clicking here.

This is the t-shirt design I did for this year’s...

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 15:04:00 -0500

This is the t-shirt design I did for this year’s ‘Stache Bash. My friend Jack hosts a bar crawl for his birthday every year, and the proceeds from the sale of the shirts goes to the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life. There will be an estimated 80-100 of these ordered.

We had been brainstorming ideas for a few weeks when we decided to sit down and hammer it out. We were having trouble coming up with an idea that would be fun, cool, different than previous years, and most of all, original.

After an hour or so of thinking, the idea struck and we were on our way. Overall, I’m very pleased with the final result. I think we were able to nail exactly what we set out to do, and there has already been a lot of positive feedback from the event’s participants.

For more info: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109745129106999

This is a logo I did for a Madison, WI-based Post Punk band...

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 09:55:04 -0600

This is a logo I did for a Madison, WI-based Post Punk band called Sinking Suns. Their guitarist Scott is a good friend of mine from college, so this project was a lot of fun to work on.

They were looking to have frequency waves that morphed into a rattle snake, with circles going around it that would have a somewhat trippy effect, and confuse the eye. I added the rays around the perimeter of the circles to fill in some of the empty space, as well as tie their name into the design.

Scott had a pretty good idea of what they were looking for, so I got to spend most of my time on this project playing with different things to make it happen, without spending time conceptualizing the design itself. I think it turned out really cool, and the band digs it, too.

Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/sinkingsuns

My Top 10 of 2010

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 15:38:00 -0600

With so many year-end lists popping up all over the internet, I decided to get in on the fun. This is my list of my favorite records released in 2010. I had to resist the temptation to include records that were “new to me” in 2010, and chose instead to only include records that were released this year. (I’ve included Mumford & Sons, because Sigh No More didn’t get its US release until February of this year, and it’s good enough to blur the lines a bit.)

It was very hard to limit the list to only 10 records… But I did my best. I also chose to only include records that I own in their entirety. I didn’t think it would make sense to include records from which I only bought a track or 2 (even if I was/am obsessed with those songs, i.e. The Avett Brothers, The Black Keys, and other records I haven’t gotten around to purchasing yet).

(In Alphabetical Order)

The Devil Wears Prada - Zombie EP

Elitist - Caves

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

La Dispute & Touche Amore - Searching For A Pulse/The Worth Of The World [Split]

letlive. - Fake History

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More

My Epic - Yet

Oceana - Cleanhead EP

Parkway Drive - Deep Blue

Underoath - Ø (Disambiguation)

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been...

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:56:00 -0600

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been pretty busy with a few different things lately, but sadly don’t have much to show you just yet. Hopefully I’ll have a few projects finished up around - or soon after - Christmas that I can share… But for now, BEARY CHRISTMAS!

This is a project I started working on a couple weeks ago just for fun. I had it mostly finished for quite a while, but finally found the time to put on some finishing touches today. I used Illustrator to initially draw out some of the elements, because I find it much easier to work with when manipulating shapes and paths… But everything seen in this final version was created in Photoshop using brushes, the lasso tool, and the eraser.

I actually ended up learning quite a bit during this project in terms of my own workflow and how I do things. Bonus!

Tumblr won’t allow me to post the full-res version, but feel free to let me know if you’d like a larger version to dress up your desktop for the holidays, and we’ll figure something out. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that good stuff! :D

This is a logo I quickly put together for my friend...

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:33:36 -0500

This is a logo I quickly put together for my friend Jason’s photography business. I wanted to keep it super simple and modern, and avoid using a lot of detail that would get lost as it is used at smaller sizes for watermarks, etc. If you’re not terribly familiar with photography/cameras, that’s an enlarged shutter acting as the “o.”

11/2

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:23:59 -0500

I can’t, in good conscience, vote for any one side or candidate today. So I’m not going to. This 2 Party system is completely broken. For every 1 good thing there is to say about each side, there are 10 bad things to say. We’re not given a choice between the 2 people that are most qualified, or educated, or even the ones with the best ideas. We’re told to pick between the 2 most extreme, loud, ignorant fools their respective parties can muster. Oh, and the richest, too.

Every vote I’ve ever cast has been a major disappointment. I don’t feel like wasting my time playing the game anymore.

People will say, “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.” Nonsense. If I don’t vote, I can’t be held responsible for the outcome of participating in a broken process in which the majority of its participants admittedly show up to simply pick “the lesser of 2 evils.” People are excited to participate in this? You realize that the “lesser of 2 evils” is still “evil”, right? “Go vote.. It’s important… Every vote counts!” Why on earth would I want to vote for something evil?

I’m not hiding my head in the sand. I’m willfully refusing to participate. Maybe if enough people refuse to participate, this game will someday come to an end. As it stands right now, things will just continue to get more and more extreme every election year. Why is is so hard to understand that NOTHING is getting done? Republicans had their shot, and it wasn’t exactly paradise. Democrats had their shot, and didn’t accomplish anything, either. It can’t be that hard to understand that no one side has it all right. All the nonsensical fighting, rallying, name-calling, and sensationalism are counter-productive, to say the least. But that’s politics…

I won’t vote again until there is someone or something worth voting for. If a candidate makes it onto the ballot with a decent shot of winning, and I actually agree with what they’re saying… I’ll probably vote.; I’m not going to go vote for the “lesser of 2 evils” just to say I voted.

And maybe some people aren’t voting for the “lesser of 2 evils”; maybe they actually believe 100% in what their candidate is saying. If that’s the case, it’s probably a third party candidate that has zero chance of winning (let’s not kid ourselves), or that person actually agrees 100% with what either a Republican or Democrat candidate has to say… Which is an entirely new breed of confusing/terrifying.

At present, voting is a waste of time that somehow makes people feel like they’ve accomplished something. Something they do so they can pat themselves on the back and feel like they’re part of something good. Something that will change the world. Au contraire. Agreeing to pick the “lesser of 2 evils” just means that this back-and-forth, media-fueled, result-deficient process will just keep going back and forth for decades, and nothing will ever change.

Tomorrow will be the same as yesterday, minus a few political ads.

I’ve had this song lyric stuck in my head for 2 or 3 days...

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:03:25 -0500

I’ve had this song lyric stuck in my head for 2 or 3 days now. I had some free time last night, so I decided to try something I haven’t had much experience with in the past: Displacement Maps. The reflection in the water was done by using a Displacement Map that I created, and everything else is hand-painted in Photoshop using brushes, the pen tool, and the lasso tool.

The lyric, for those interested, is from a song called Pour by the band My Epic.

I made this for @LandonSheely to try out his new stitching...

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:52:05 -0500

I made this for @LandonSheely to try out his new stitching Photoshop tutorial. Pretty cool stuff from a pretty cool fellow.

Check out the tutorial at http://landonsheely.tumblr.com.

I bet @LandonSheely is jealous.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 14:06:00 -0500

I bet @LandonSheely is jealous.

This song never gets old. The whole EP is brilliant, and...

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:16:00 -0500

This song never gets old. The whole EP is brilliant, and I’ve never really been a fan of this band at all. I really hope they stick with this sound long enough to record a full-length. 4 songs just isn’t enough.

The Artist That You Want To Be

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 03:07:00 -0500

Do epiphanies have to occur in an instant, or is it something that can gradually happen over a period of time? If a gradual understanding can’t be called an epiphany, then what would you call it? Can we give it a singular name? Whatever it is, I’ve felt like I’ve been in the middle of one of “those” for a little while now.

I’ve come to a point in my journey as a creative person, where I’ve realized that I haven’t been the artist that I set out to be in the beginning. At least not fully. Not yet…

Before I go any further, please understand that I don’t claim to be an expert on any of this. These are my own personal opinions, and I’m speaking in generalities, admittedly. I don’t expect anyone to actually read all of this… There are just some things that I need to remind myself of.

Graphic Design is a tough field. Through all of the education I’ve had, the seminars I’ve attended, the articles I’ve read, the other designers I’ve talked to and so on… No one ever really made it a point to communicate this to me. If they did, I wasn’t paying attention. I was probably doodling in the margins of my notebook.

I don’t necessarily mean that the process for Graphic Design is any more difficult than that of any other field. I’m not saying it’s difficult to learn how to brain storm ideas, to sketch out roughs and thumbnails, or to choose colors and fonts that effectively communicate what it is that you’re trying to say. Design principles are not especially difficult to grasp. All of the different software can present challenges at times, but that’s not what I’m talking about either.

What I mean when I say “Graphic Design is a tough field” goes a bit deeper than that.

I would presume that a vast majority of people in the Graphic Design industry are generally the types of people that excelled in art class in elementary school. People that grew up drawing their favorite character from a cartoon or comic book, or sketching the logo of their favorite sports team. Right-brained people who got much more out of looking a photo of a landscape than they did by reading a description of it. Visual learners.

Most designers probably chose the field that they did because they have always loved art on some level, but maybe also had an interest in business, marketing, advertising, branding, etc. Graphic Design isn’t about expressing yourself all the time… It’s about expressing what someone else is thinking; creating what someone else wants. And they’re signing the check, so they’re in control.

Therein lies the problem, I think:

The Artist in you will always be at odds with the nature of Graphic Design.

We’ve all done projects that we’re not proud of. We’ve all been paid to do work that we don’t like. We’ve all spent hours on a piece that we know will never be in our portfolio… And we’ve all had to make changes to a piece that we originally loved until it became something we didn’t even care about anymore.

That’s the nature of the business, I guess. It’s not Fine Art. No one really cares about what a Graphic Designer has to say, so long as he or she has the technical ability to create something that conveys the message that the client is after. It’s not about self-expression, it’s about understanding principles of design and knowing how to use software. Oftentimes… It’s about pushing buttons, clicking a mouse, and collecting a check.

And that’s fine. That’s part of what Graphic Design is. That’s what pays the bills.

But that can’t be the end of it. If I finished this post right here, it would potentially be the most depressing blog entry that a creative person could ever read. But this is also where it gets tricky.

At some point, you have to take the necessary steps towards becoming the artist that you’ve always wanted to be… Even if the artwork is for someone else. How do you do that? I don’t think I fully know yet… But I’d be glad to have you read along as I think out loud.

I think one of the most important things that I’ve come to realize over the last few weeks and months is that:

You don’t need to be a Designer every time you sit down at your computer, workspace, studio, etc… Sometimes you just need to be an Artist.

Not every single project needs to be something that will generate income. For a number of years, I lived as if I believed the exact opposite was true. I would go to work and spend all day creating projects that meant little to nothing to me, and very rarely ever just sat down and created artwork for myself. For the longest time, nothing that I did was creative. Not like it used to be, anyway. I’ve found myself creating artwork for myself again lately. It’s been great. I’ve learned so much more (and felt so much more fulfilled) in those creative moments than I did in months of “design” work. I often have to silence the voice inside my head that’s saying “Get to work.” Sometimes… Work can wait.

The real beauty of this kind of artwork is that it will very likely lead to more design work in the future, and it will be the kind of work that I want to do. If I’m creating pieces that I love, and putting them online and in my portfolio, it could very well attract the attention of someone looking for something similar. And instead of someone dictating exactly how they want the piece to look… I might actually get a client that just tells me to go nuts… To do my own thing. To be an artist!

Things are looking up now.

The other epiphany I’ve had recently is a simple one, but took me a long time to figure out:

You don’t HAVE to accept every job that you’re presented with.

You can say “No, thanks” from time to time. If you know that you’re not comfortable with something, pass on it. If you’re certain that the proposed piece is not something that you’re going to love (or even LIKE, for that matter), there is no shame in declining to work on it. This is isn’t rocket science, but you’d think it was with the way I’ve handled business in the past. There was at least a year (probably longer than that) in my career as a designer that I can’t recall passing on one single project that I was asked to do. And believe me… They weren’t all great projects. If you find yourself cringing every time you get an email from a certain client, or dreading working on or making changes to a certain project… It’s probably not something that you should be working on. Those projects are the ones that draw that thick, black line between Artist and Designer; the projects that form a clear distinction between creativity, and just going through the motions.

I’m a realist, though. I know not every project I do is going to be my new favorite, and that there will be some bad ones… But being slightly selective will at least HELP us to feel more fulfilled by the work we’re doing.

Just remember: If we’re working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week on projects that don’t do much to nurture our creative side… That’s nearly a quarter of your adult life that you’ll most likely feel frustrated by (and unsatisfied with) the career you’ve chosen (even though we thought we’d picked a creative career field).

Which leads to my last point for this entry:

There is potential for creativity with every project.

Even when you’re working on something that you don’t know anything about, or with a client that’s making decisions that go directly against your better judgment… You can always find at least one area in which to stretch your legs creatively. Try new things with typography. Work with color schemes that you’ve never used before. Experiment with asymmetry and balance. Hone your skills in a style of design or illustration that you don’t usually get to work with. Do your best with every project to find the redeeming value. Remember, this isn’t Fine Art. It isn’t all about you. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t find little areas here and there to express yourself in creative ways.

A person’s passion for what they do shines through in the quality of their work 100% of the time. Maybe not 100%… But you know what I’m saying. People know when you’re faking it. So try to find something to be passionate about on every project; you just might start landing more jobs that really allow you to be the artist that you want to be.

This is another digital painting project that I did a little...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:51:28 -0500

This is another digital painting project that I did a little over a month ago. It’s quite possibly the project that got me started on my recent digital painting kick that I’ve been on for several weeks.

I guess I felt like my portfolio was looking a little too “clean.” Almost everything displayed on my Tumblr page had been created in Illustrator. A lot of the designs I’d been doing over the last couple years had been those clean, crisp vector illustrations.

Not to say that there’s anything wrong with that. I still love that style. I just wanted to show a bit more diversity, and at the same time rediscover my love for Photoshop.

100% digital painting in Photoshop. No textures, templates, or tutorials used.

I’ve been getting more and more into digital painting in...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:08:00 -0500

I’ve been getting more and more into digital painting in Photoshop lately. I’ve started some more photo-realistic projects in the last few weeks, but I got the idea for this particular piece sometime last week or the week before. It was just an idea that I had that I wanted to see if I could make work, and have some fun learning new techniques at the same time.

I started out hating it; not liking the direction it was going at all. It started to feel like I was never going to like it, and that I was just wasting time.

But after re-drawing the clouds, re-coloring the clouds, re-arranging the clouds, adding more textures to the background, adding a few extra splashes of color, and a much more dynamic use of contrast… I’ve actually grown pretty fond of it.

100% digital painting in Photoshop. No textures, templates, or tutorials used.