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I made that.

I always think it's fun when I encounter my own work in a place I didn't expect to see it. Occasionally I'll be driving around town and see a billboard that I made, whose location I didn't even know. I just look up from the road and bam! There it is. Or, browsing some city newspaper or magazine, I turn the page and some particularly familiar layout presents itself. It sometimes takes a second for me to recognize my own work. haha!

Anyway, I just had particularly poignant example of this phenomenon when I encountered this ad during the morning news. I thought I'd share:

  (I worked on the graphics only, of course, not the actual video production. I did help a tiny bit with the script writing) 

Little occurrences like this make me really grateful for my job and the type of work I get to do in graphic design. I know it's not saving lives or educating the great minds of the next generation, but I enjoy it and I like to think my work has the potential to beautify the world.

Fall Fur Post Card

A finished project is the best kind of project.

When I can't create, I imitate

Last night I was feeling particularly unoriginal, so I decided to make it official and just flat out copy the work of someone I admire.  And thanks to a nifty thing called Twitter, I'm never short on awesome people to admire.  One pop artist I've been following, Joe McDermott, became the unwitting target of my reproduction. I really hope he won't mind me drawing out of his deep well of talent. 

Here's my rudimentary attempt at his superb style. I call it Pup Love, my spin on his Pop Love.  

Pup Love, Ruthy Stapleton

Pop Love, Joe McDermott

Check out more of Joe's great art here, and buy a print or six. 

Note: this work is done for my own practice and enrichment. It won't be sold or used commercially.

What I think when I hear someone say they are their own biggest critic.

by Ruthy Stapleton twitter.com/pinkstapler

[ a peek inside my sketchbook ]

This past month I seem to be surrounded with unfamiliarity: a new home, new city, new (and  few nearby)  friends. It's been exhilarating, but equally exhausting. This morning I spent some time developing visual ideas that had been been knocking around in my head, and it was comforting to enjoy such a familiar activity that I had been neglecting to do for weeks.

While I was at it, I snapped a few photos of other sketches in this utterly familiar book. Funny that I never realized this before but -- I can hardly call this a "sketch" book if sketching is defined as roughly drawing what I observe.  It's much more a collection of images I see in my head, and now that I look at a bunch of them together, I realize they are more 'cartoons' than 'sketches', but why get technical?

Here you go:

                              

Time to be different.

Here's a fun booth promotion I made for Smile Reminder. This was displayed via LCD billboard at the American Academy of Cosmetic Densitry Conference  in Los Angeles.

The GOAL: Attract customers to the Smile Reminder service with a creative and whimsical digital billboard.

The RESULT: Thanks in part to this billboard, Smile Reminder had more sales at this year's conference than at any previous AACD conference. Woohoo!