“Let’s Ghost Some Ghosts.”

Last October I Married a Witch and for her birthday I made this poster to remind her. Pulled inspiration for text elements from several vintage “IMAW” movie posters but ended up going with my own character design and layout.

My Life as a Musician and the Importance of Failure

After college, I was pretty sure I’d end up being a musician of some sort. The last year of film school really took it out of me. I got overly ambitious with projects and continually shot myself in the foot with intended scale, failure to adapt and refusal to scale back. I failed about as hard as I ever have that final semester and the summer after, about all I did was sit on porches reading comic books and rode a bicycle. In hindsight, I do think the experience was good for me. Since then I’ve learned to get things out, not only to have them done and off my plate, but to push myself to produce more and worry less about any work’s reception. It’s a balancing act of perfection and timeliness, a constant struggle that makes or breaks me daily as a designer and illustrator.

But back to music, I spent about a year after school concepting and working on an EP in my childhood home in Maryland. I’d write and record music for most of each day. Many months of this ended up in my being broke and a bit burnt-out on music. I kept producing the EP but started looking for a part time job. I was lucky enough to have a friend who had moved to New York after school and had a small illustration gig for me, illustrating tarot cards for some website for maybe a movie I think. Anyway, it went alright and it got me back into something I’d done my entire life but hadn’t much considered since highschool: drawing. I took the moderate success of the illustration gig and started scouring Craigslist for freelance design gigs. I suppose the rest is history, to skim over the agonizing period where I hunted awful Craigslist ads to work on my chops. As this started becoming more and more something I saw myself doing, maybe even for a career, the album started working on me in a bad way. I felt like I didn’t have enough time to finish it and I’d devoted so much time and energy on it already. So in a last crazed push, I slapped the thing together, called it Brighten Up Sourpuss (a directive and goal for me at at time of pretty extreme isolation) and sat on it. I had always intended to “shop it around”, whatever that means, and go on tour with it… I know. So, I went on with the design life, moved to Brooklyn and set about carving out a place where I could work for myself doing something I liked (something that didn’t make me as crazy as music did) and gave me the time to enjoy other things too (friends most importantly).

Well, here is the result of those many months in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by drums, cables, microphones, guitars, a xylophone, a banjo, a recorder, harmonicas, and anything else that I needed to commit to audio. It was a good time (again, in hindsight) and I’m rather proud of what I produced. I hope you enjoy it.

Legends of Rock #02 - Neil Young

Next up, the most American Canadian ever to grace us with rock and roll music. There isn't a whole lot I can say about Neil Young other than the man's a true Legend Of Rock and his run of 5 albums from 68-74 is unrivaled in my estimation of rock singer/songwriters. 

A Neil mix for proof of prowess.

Neil Young, the American's Canadian by Austineustice on Mixcloud

ae album picks: On The Beach (1973) & After The Goldrush (1972)

Haven't drawn a bat man in far too long. Here he's being extremely mischievous. 

Season 3 Episode 6 in which a man woos women on lonely hearts chatrooms and dates them briefly before suffocating them with goo. From his mouth. Into their mouth. If he doesn’t do this, he gets wicked messed up looking.

This is part of an ongoing project to catalogue the villains from the television series X Files. Check out the others here!

Legends of Rock #01 - Ric Ocasek

Starting out with one of the most interesting looking people on earth (with the most improbable facial anatomy): Ric Ocasek. This man has put out a bazillion hits with The Cars and has produced albums for Suicide, Guided By Voices, Weezer, even my beloved Jonathan Richman. A perfect new-wave rocker and bubblegum popper, Ric Ocasek is a Legend of Rock. 

To get you started in the world of Ric, I've made an excellent mix of the choicest Cars.

The Cars - a Ric Ocasek Mix by Austineustice on Mixcloud

ae album picks: The Cars (1978) & Shake It Up (1981)

The "let go dilemma".

Cloud Study

Drawing from nature is always a good way to sharpen an artist’s skills.

I was working on some icons for a live music app today and somehow I got to messing around.  What isn’t surprising is that skulls were the subject of my messing around. 

Double Business

Working on an identity for DJ Lani Love, who also happens to be half of the fashion blog Sugar Rock Catwalk.  For the upcoming NY Fashion Week, she needed something that could do double duty, as she will be DJing the Independent Fashion Bloggers event and there as a representative for the blog.  Information overload on business cards is a tough thing to deal with.  I tried to keep it clean with a lean font and simple graphics.  As with nearly all projects, there ended up being a designer’s pick and a client’s pick.  On the internet, you get to see both!