Saved The Date and Our Chickens

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Cue Me and You by Penny and the Quarters. I got married this year to the prettiest gal this past March and thank goodness she was patient with me on our Save the Dates and invites.

As everyone knows, it is damn hard to design for yourself. Especially when you're trying to impress all of your extended relatives, (all of whom think you draw animals just for the hell of it). WELL... I drew some more animals for our Save the Date, so I didn't use that opportunity to show them otherwise. I drew our lovely chickens, and by the time we sent the Save the Dates out, we no longer had chickens.

Olivia and I used to have chickens and their names were: Helen (Black Neck), Aretha, Shania, Fox and Beatrix. For an extra dollar, these chickens came with the house we moved into. So not only did we become first-time home owners, but we became backyard poultry farmers (also for the first-time). Every morning we'd wake up to at least four eggs colored blue and beige, and sometimes almost white; we'd feed them "Happy Hen Treats" to keep them happy and every now and then they got their grub on in the yard.

During the floods last year, we tried and tried to keep their living conditions pristine and by day three we started worrying. By this point, there was just far too much water. We cleaned, limed, shoveled, cleaned, scraped, shoveled and limed and nothing could keep the chicken run dry. When a swarm of flies moved in with our ladies, we decided to call up Rustin and Teresa. They came the next day and took them to their lovely acre in McClellanville, where they moved in with the rest of their chickens and became full on free-range!

In honor of these gals and all of the eggs they gave us, we kept them on the Save the Date and our dear friend Jackie Robinson over at 42 Pressed taught me how to letterpress. I was pretty slow, so she took over after I printed ten... but DANG they came out great. (As you can see... Aretha jumped in front of her name when I exported the file... but whatever.) No one understood the card, so to this day I still draw animals just because...

JUNE 1, 2016

LINK: 42 PRESSED!

Check out that letterpressin' tooth:

Petri to Patient

For the past few months I've had the pleasure of working with Kevin Swan, the founder of A Life Story Foundation. Kevin was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in February of 2012 and started the organization months after “to raise awareness, funds, and create action to help eradicate the disease.” A mutual friend connected us and told me he wanted to illustrate why funding and a cure are so difficult to secure. I jumped at the opportunity with Brent Clouse in mind for animation. I had worked with Brent indirectly on a couple of projects while at Fuzzco, including the illustrations for this Zenefits video and several Mailchimp icons, and I knew he'd nail the animations again.

From Petri Dish to Patient launched May 2, just in time for ALS Awareness Month, I hope you all enjoy and spread the word. Below is the full animation and a couple illustrations, including a lab rat that didn't make the cut!

Roald The Lion

Every now and then I get to claim and recycle some of my old designs for personal projects. This little lion has been jumping around the files ever since he didn't make the cut for some Bruno Mars tees and last year Michelle, over at Finkelstein's Center, brought him to plush.

Michelle Jewell makes the best dang toys in town and all of my little cousins have at least one (if not two) of them hanging out in their rooms. I got to spend an hour watching her cut and sew while she worked on another lion for me. She is a sewing maestro and all of her creations take on such beautiful character. If you don't have one of her plush bunny friends sitting near you to chat and drink coffee with, I suggest you click this link and get yourself one! OR get one of those amazing sea creatures she just started making! (We have one and we've named him Theodore and he likes to drink coffee with me, because adults need friends too.)

MAY 16, 2016

LINK: HANDMADE GOODNESS

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Made in the South

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The soda boys recently won Best Drink in Garden & Gun’s 2015 Made in the South Awards, and I could not be more stoked to see their labels in the magazine. Not only were the labels produced in time, these guys cranked on building their bottling line and completely customized their warehouse to get these bottles shelf-stable.

“‘My partners and I all worked in restaurants, and we saw great wine, beer, cocktails, and food,’ [Mick Matricciano] says. ‘Soda used to be an interesting thing, but it has gone downhill.’ They set out to bring it back to its more wholesome Southern roots, working with area farms and developing a rainbow of fresh flavors such as honey basil, strawberry jalapeño, and raspberry mint. Growlers of the stuff quickly became favorites at local farmers’ markets, and after three years of trial and error, their creations are now available in shelf-stable bottled versions that taste like soda might have a century ago.” - Garden & Gun

Over the past few years, I've had the honor of working with some incredible clients through Fuzzco. Three of these clients have had their labels appear in the Made in the South Awards: Bittermilk (2013), Bulls Bay Saltworks (2014) and now Cannonborough Beverage Co (2015).

FEBRUARY 5, 2016

Link: Buy soda!

Interview with Mise

About a year ago, minus a day, (that is insane), I wrote up a small interview for Mise paired with Olivia's photos. Not about design or illustration, but about the foodie world in Charleston. Although my culinary feats are hidden behind the kitchen counter of our house, we eat well in this city, so I jumped at the opportunity to throw down the Wacom pen and play food writer.

Excerpt:

Q: What does Charleston have that makes it a place chefs feel at home?

Like most major cities around the States, Charleston has been embracing and encouraging localism whole-heartedly. This isn’t anything new anymore, and I doubt the term really comes to mind as a grassroots effort because Charleston is so tied to its producers. We take pride in our producers and the peninsula is surrounded by a wide variety of them, which makes access to organic and fresh food incredibly easy (even for the home cook). From clammers, to salt harvesters, and gristmills to incubator farms, Charleston chefs take advantage of all there is to offer in the Lowcountry before considering importing goods.

Q: What is it like to be swept up in a culinary zeitgeist?

It is incredibly inspiring, and often times overwhelming because there is only so much time in a day and my stomach can only hold so much food. Getting to know chefs around Charleston opens doors to field trips and foraging forays that I can safely say I wouldn’t be doing as much of in another city. You’re less than 20 minutes away in any direction from a farm, a fishing dock, or a trail...

Q: Most meaningful/memorable experience of late?

Our friends in McClellanville (Bulls Bay Saltworks) introduced us to a neighbor of theirs that owns clamming beds out along the intracoastal. We met them at six in the morning to skim across the waters. I’d watched them clam before, but this time we were harvesting oysters for a roast and I was amazed how easy they were to pluck from the pluff mud. I accidentally broke a shell and could see the oyster begging to be eaten then and there. It was by far the freshest and most delicious oyster I had ever eaten. Romanticizing the situation probably made it taste so good too…

Q: Big-name favorites, and dive-y favorites?

Olivia and I love us some Chez Nous and Minero right now. Fanny and Patrick of Bin 152 opened up Chez Nous with Jill Mathias and Juan Cassalett perfecting plates left and right. It’s an intimate French restaurant off Coming Street with an ever-changing menu and a beautiful wine list. They feature four different dishes each day and two desserts. Minero, Sean Brock’s new baby, has some pretty great fish tacos a frozen drink called El Satanico that we dream of. Dive-wise, our neighbor Matt Lee told us to check out Fish Net Seafood, one rainy day, off the shoulder of 17 heading South. We didn’t know what to expect when we pulled up, but couldn’t have been happier with our $1.50 fried (WHOLE) crabs and our sides of hushpuppies and sweet tea in the car. 

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Link

PHOTO: Olivia Rae James of some good ol' Chez Nous eatin'

Brand Span New

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Client projects are one (wonderful) thing, but designing a site to showcase all of those projects is a disgusting world. The struggle is real. Personally, nothing is harder than designing for yourself; trying to figure out what to show, how to show it and when to call it! And yet, who'd have thought it?

After many moons of putting this site together and not testing out Any cross browser compatibility: I have a site! Thanks to the wonderful web gurus over at Squarespace, I was able to piece this together with the bare minimum knowledge of CSS and world-wide-web-code that I know. An even Bigger thanks to my wonderful, lovely, talented and photographing gal, Olivia who is taking on weddings and photography gigs left and right. (ad) She not only squeezed in my little photos, but she put up with a ton of opinions and pacing around the room while I thought things out. She rode along with me to many, many! client spaces to photograph them in action and edited everything with unbelievable speed and poise. Thank you!

And ANOTHER thanks to Nat Gunter. Mon frère spent his Saturday morning without cartoons, while he read over copy, revised descriptions, and proofed the site!

Now for some news. After four wonderful years with Fuzzco and teaching them how to live life to the fullest, I've gone out on my own. When I started working for them back in 2011 we were a sloppy bunch of six. I was a naive little illustrator from Florida, unaware that sometimes designing means mopping the floors, weeding yards, and feeding bees. They've since tripled in size, gone transcontinental, they design their own fonts and make candles! They've challenged me, encouraged me, they've filled my portfolio with some of my favorite projects, and to them I am incredibly thankful!

Without further ado, take a scroll with me friends, and then tell your friends and your parents, and your aunts and uncles!

JANUARY 31, 2016

PHOTOS: Upcoming Project, Bittermilk, and Rustin harvesting Bulls Bay salt

Whale and Friends

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I've had the pleasure of designing for some great companies, but it was a real treat when I was asked to design some tees for Patagonia. Everything they stand for in environmental awareness and conservation aligns perfectly with what I want to work and stand for. The first tee came out this spring and is called Whale and Friends, just for kids! :)

APRIL 7, 2012