Shawn and I got the assignment which concept themes for 4 carnivals that Target sponsors at their Target House at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Elements for the events included these posters, t-shirts and signage at the events.
We knew right away that we wanted Jesse LeDoux to work on it...but the problem was we were asked to use a licensed property that Target was workign with. Just before the 11th hour we realized that we weren't going to get the stuff we needed from that property...so we pitched our original ideas with Jesse as our illustrator.
The ideas were sold in easily but we ran into problem number 2...Jesse was busy and in Japan.
But we knew his weakness...he always wanted to design an amusement park which is why our first illustration is a water ride.
Once that first carnival was in the bag we started on the other. We had phone calls at weird times because of the time difference. Heard great stories of Jesse's new finds in Japanese vending machines and saw a picture of him holding a bottle of vodka with a cobra in it.
We also had awesome brainstorm that were really colloborative with Jesse, Shawn and me all throwing out the weirdest things we could think to add to the posters to make them fun.
That's why you'll see a fish fishing, a pig in a blanket sleepin under a bed, a bouncer with a paddle ball, and an elephant dressed as himself for a Halloween party.
Truly a great project to work on and we couldn't have pulled it off with any other illustrator. Check out Jesse's site here. If you need and illustrator for an upcoming project I highly recommend him.
Every week I do a small infographic of what my son's life looks like by the numbers. But I decided to make it bigger for the first month.
you can see more about the blog by clicking the baby project tab in the nav, or by clicking here.
When I first moved to Chicago I would see this dude fly through downtown traffic on a skateboard being propelled by crutches. Then occasionally I'd see him on the street gliding, almost like he was floating or skating on ice, with the help of his crutches.
He blew me away. Unfortunatley I never met him because he was faster than me or too far away.
Then later I saw Cirque du Soleil's Varekai...there were performers floating and moving like the guy I saw years earlier...I was still mesmorized.
A year after that I saw a making of Varekai...I learned that the guy I saw was the one who taught the Cirque perfomers how to move. That guy who floated and moved like no one I had ever seen before is named Bill Shannon.
He has a degenerative condition in his legs that make it hard for him to walk, so he's learned to adapt and get around on his modified crutches and skateboard. But even more impressive is that he used his love of dance to create a whole new style of movement.
Check out some of his videos below and check his site out too.
A short documentary
And while I searched him on youtube I found that Visa used him in a spot. Here is the making of.
The previous post included work from the 2008 diversity campaign worked on while at Target.
Here are some of the photos I took while on set for the still shots.
After a successful 2007 Dream in Color campaign Target decided to keep with the theme. However we wanted to evolve the concept a bit.
We brought Black Design in to help with the campaign and we continued to work with Kwaku Alston as the campaign photographer.
The multi-channel campaign included Broadcast, web, print, educational promotions and more.
We got to work with some amazing people including John Legend, Iman, Debbie Allen, Holly Robinson-Peete and more.
Behind the scenes shots live here.
In honor of Shaun winning gold in the Olympics and having an amazing victory lap I thought I'd upload a portrait I shot on the top of the Roosevelt Hotel at the 2007 Summer X Games.
I'll post more shots from the shoot sometime during Summer X this year.
A little video from USA Today in which Jake talks about his company, the Olympics uniform, the recession and the progression of new equipment.
The video is short but the accompanying article goes a bit more in depth.
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