Thomas Burns in PLANSPONSOR

Thomas gets a Twofer this month... first as the Student Spotlight lightee, and now as the student whose work was published in Plansponsor Magazine.

As some of you recall, last year's ILLU Arts Forum featured John Hendrix, Chris Buzelli and SooJin Buzelli. SooJin is the Creative Director at Asset International, which publishes PLANSPONSOR, PLANADVISOR, and PLANSPONSOR EUROPE. Before SooJin took the creative helm at AI, the magazines were as dry as week old toast, driven by clipart and stock photography like all other financial publications. But SooJin had a vision of a publication with imagery driven by creative thinking and beautiful illustration, and has transformed the magazines into showcases of the best in contemporary illustration. It's something of a coup to have one's work featured in the magazines now. While SooJin was here on her visit to SCAD, she hinted that she is always looking for bright new talent, and that we were welcome to submit work for consideration in future issues.

Last summer, Prof. Rick Lovell's Illustration for Publication and Getting Published classes created illustrations to fit three different areas of the magazines that introduce articles each month with a consistent, running theme. These three areas address the ideas of "Tools of the Trade", "Bells and Whistles" and "Hot off the Presses". So the class created works that are loose interpretations of these three ideas.

Illustration MFA candidate Thomas Burns' piece for "Bells and Whistles" is appearing in the January 2012 issue. Looks awesome... congrats, Thomas!

Student Spotlight: Thomas Burns

A recurring blog entry highlighting outstanding current students and their work.

1. Where are you from (hometown, country, etc.)

Lawrenceville, GA

 
2. Where have you been to school (and if grad student what kind of degree did you receive)?

Undergraduate: University of Florida BFA - Graphic Design 1992

Graduate: Michigan State University MBA - Supply Chain Management 1997

Graduate: Michigan State University MA - Advertising 1998

Graduate: Savannah College of Art and Design pursuing MFA – Illustration

3. What attracted you to Illustration? 

The steady pay, low overtime and great medical benefits. Oh, and the 401k plan.

4. Who are your biggest influences?

Some of my earlier influences in the 1980s and 90s were Jon J Muth , Kent Williams, François Schuiten, Bernie Wrightson. When I found my way back to design and illustration I started to notice people like Ragnar, Jon Lund, Paul Rogers, Adam Gustavson, Josh Agle. A lot of these more recent influences have big design backgrounds and tend to be more graphic and digital in nature.

5. If you weren’t studying illustration at SCAD, what would you likely be doing?

Working for the phone company filling out purchase orders for fiber optic cable and data switches.  More than likely my cubicle would be located near the janitors closet with no access to windows. Or sunlight. True story.

6. What do you like to do in your spare time? 

I like to spend a lot of time with my wife and five year old daughter.
I also enjoy cage fighting.

7. What is something that most people don’t know about you?

I don’t have any cavities. Really.

8. What would your dream job/client be and why?

My dream job is to have my own studio and work on posters and a continuing series of children’s books.

9. What’s your typical process for creating your artwork (technique, media, etc)?

I typically do a lot of traditional thumbnails and comps with pencil or ink or Prismas, then complete an illustration digitally with Illustrator or Photoshop. I’m trying to get a lot more textures and organic elements into the digital work so it doesn’t look so.. digital.

10. Sum up your personal philosophy in 25 words or less.
The value of simplicity – of driving the important details of your life and not letting the unimportant ones drive you. Or eat desert first. I can’t really decide.

Thanks, Thomas!

2011 "Illustration West 50"winners

Congratulations to all the winners of the Society of Illustrators Illustration Competition:

Asa Ayers, Kari Brooks, Thomas Burns, DoSung Hwang, Yina Hyder, Solongo Monkhooroi, Caleb Morris, Bekir Orhan and Denise Plauche

Savannah Stopover Poster Competition

SAVANNAH STOPOVER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2012

CALL FOR FESTIVAL POSTERS

Be a part of Savannah’s best new festival! 

The Savannah Stopover Music Festival, founded in 2011, focuses on the best

up-and-coming indie bands in the world, most of whom are traveling en route 

to the prestigious SXSW Music Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas.

The festival poster should appeal to bands, festival attendees, and the general public and should 

incorporate the guidelines listed above. The winning poster(s) will officially represent the 

Savannah Stopover Music Festival and will be showcased in the weeks leading up the event as well as at the opening night Art Party and concert on March 7th, 2012.

The winning designer(s) will be awarded two VIP passes to the Festival, valued at over $250.00.

SPECS:

Size Requirements: Posters must be 12 x 18 inches

Medium: Artist’s choice 

Format: Artists must submit both a jpeg file and a physical poster mounted on foam core.

Deliver to Savannah Stopover Offices: 35 Barnard Street, Suite 200, Savannah, GA 31401

Deadline: Thursday, January 12th, 2012

To request more information, and to receive application instructions, contact: posters@savannahstopover.com

 

http://savannahstopover.com/2012-savannah-stopover-music-festival-poster-competition

Design Requirements: 

1) You must leave a minimum of 1.25 inch square space for a QR code and a minimum of 1.25 inch square for the Savannah Stopover Logo. These will be provided only to poster winners after judging.

2) You must include the Festival Dates which are March 7-10th, 2012, and the festival website URL which is 

savannahstopover.com

3) The full festival name MUST have prominent treatment: Savannah Stopover Music Festival

** Failure to comply with these requirements will disqualify your poster. All winning posters become the property of Savannah Stopover Music Festival. Winning artists will receive 50% of profits from any sales of their poster.

**The festival lineup of bands will not be announced until mid-January and is not a consideration for the general Festival Posters.

Cory Thomas in the AJC

Congrats to Cory Thomas, whose piece about teachers who cheat appeared in the Editorial section of today's AJC.

Kari Brooks AJC illustration

One of the assignments in this summer's ILLU410: Getting Published and ILLU764: Illustration for Publications class was to do  three illustrations for the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Editorial pages. We visited the AJC headquarters in Dunwoody where Will Alford and the rest of the editorial staff spoke with the students about what the paper looks for in editorial illustration in terms of tone, style, etc. They gave the students a list of topics that are often addressed in the editorial section, and were careful to make the point that, while generic, or "stock" images often fit broad, national concerns, they really are looking for imagery that helps to address local issues, such as the Atlanta Public Schools testing scandal, Marta, bad cops, the water wars with Florida and Alabama, etc. So, the students took that to heart and created images that dealt directly with issues that concern Atlanta and Georgia specifically.

The first of the published pieces to come out of that class is by Kari Brooks, who depicted a typical school teacher in front of a line-up board drawn on a classroom chalkboard. It appeared in the AJC on Monday, Oct. 17th. Congratulations, Kari! Awesome job!


Be on the lookout for a piece by Cory Thomas next Monday, the 24th!

One of my classes just finished up a project where they had to pitch and design a set of nesting dolls for the client of their choice. We had tons of great ones come out (I'll be putting them in the display cases this week!), but here are some of the ones I liked a lot (and was able to get decent photos of!):