If you want to know what's on my mind...

So I have three different blogs now, plus a twitter account. There's no point in updating all three...and I don't have time. So the blogger site is going to go dormant for awhile.

I'm working on my new web site, which will have a WP blog built in. Until then, here's how to keep up with me:

My One Lucky Guitar blog (that's the design agency I work for):
oneluckyguitar.com/us/blog/drew

My Publr blog:
drewkora.publr.com/

Or follow my on Twitter:
twitter.com/drewkora

My bookmarks on delicious (recently purged, so might not look like much there yet):
delicious.com/andrewkora

Cheers.

Modern Poster

There's a great show coming up next week. The bands Husband & Wife and Everybody from Bloomington will be at the Tiger Room, along with Metavari. I go way back with Everybody. Front man Matt Bruns and I both grew up and went to the same high school in NE Indiana, we worked together at the same screenprinting shop, went to art school together, and started our pro-level design careers at the same agency. So it'll be great to have him here in my city.

I designed a poster for the show. I've been watching Gary Hustwit's Helvetica a lot recently, over and over, in fact. So inspired me to do a clean, modern-style poster...complete with grid system and Helvetica. OF course, I did end up distressing it a little for a slightly vintage, weathered look.

The Desert

I've been creating some digital paintings lately. They are actually sketches for things I'd like to do with real paint, but I'm so busy I don't have time to experiment with colors and shapes in real life. So I'll start on screen like this, see the combo I want and then open up a tube of paint and put it on a wood panel.

I'm trying to come up with some cool art panels for my living room, so I'm thinking of a series of simple mod paintings like this one. I love hte desert, so maybe a series of desert paintings...

Down the Line 3

It's time for the third annual Down The Line benefit concert for The Historic Embassy Theatre in Fort Wayne. It's a really gorgeous theatre; it even rivals some of Chicago's historic venues. So all these local bands get together and play cover the songs of their greatest inspirations. Artists and designers in town create graphic slideshows which are displayed behind the bands. I was given the privilege to do some graphics for Ty Causey's performance of classic Marvin Gaye tunes. Here's a few of the slides I created for the show.

Timber on the Way

More good music coming to Fort Wayne. This one is right around the corner from my house at The Grind coffee house. Should be interesting to see a live harpist (is that what a harp player is called?) at a small coffee house. I hope it's LOUD.

Poster art compliments of Nate Utesch.

Deastro & Metavari at The Tiger Room

Metavari & Deastro played a great show last night. I'm a big fan of Deastro, but the new tunes he played last night exceeded my expectation. Our fair city was sparkling in the cold. Can't wait for the new disk to come out.

Deastro & Metavari vids on my Vimeo
Deastro on Myspace
Metavari

Helvetica Mug

Loving my new mug. Thanks be to my workmates who bought photos form Veer and scored some free merch.

Mod Numbers Project, 2: "HF&J" Style

I have more if the numbers fleshed out. Still not sure all the shapes are correct, but I feel I'm pretty close. I was anxious to see the fonts with some color, so I mocked 'em up HF&J style.

Nice Vintage Chair

Last fall I rescued a sweet vintage chair from certain doom. Fort Wayne's Philharmonic Orchestra was moving from their old offices and, as a result, were getting rid of all the furniture in the old building.

The building they moved out of was a really neat (though shabby) mid-century modern church on the south end of town. They had some real gems in there as far as furniture goes, so I gobbled up the brownish-orange chair you see here in my living room. I really love this thing. Probably early to mid-60s. It's in really nice shape, too.

Mod Numbers Project, 1.1: Typetool

As an addendum to the last post, I am looking into purchasing some font creation software. Most google searches for the "best font creation software" point to FontLab's "FontLab Studio" or Fontographer. Both look like robust applicaitons and are pretty expensive. For my typogrphy enthusiast/hobbyist needs, their entry level "Typetool" software seems like a good alternative.

I've downloaded a trial and started to place my Adobe Illustrator-sketched numbers into it and it seems pretty intuitive with lots of control over kerning. I'd like to try it out more and research some other options before I make a purchase, but for $100 it seems like a good entry-level package.