Monterey Design Work

The works you find here are a sample of fun and interesting work I did for a number of events and agencies in the Monterey area. Representing work for clients as diverse as the Monterey Presidio and MPYRE, the Monterey chapter of the Burning Man group, I found a variety of inspirations and tried to work with them in these images. 

Sites and Citizens

For a while, I did environmental graphics for the Monterey Maritime Museum and these panels from the exhibition of photos from Cannery Row in the waning years of the sardine factory were part of that effort. These were all relatively large pieces, with the image in the lower part a 12 foot high banner hung outside the museum. The other two pieces were also large, with one placed across a wall at the stairway landing and the other near the main lobby, both about 10' on their long side. During this time, I also did the environmental graphics for exhibitions about the "Black Tide," the mysterious Pacific current that swept many Japanese sailors and fishermen to the shores of California long before Europeans reached the west coast.

Monterey Presidio Museum

These are samples from a fully realized environmental graphics project for the City of Monterey, The Presidio Museum, installed in a former administrative building on the Presidio grounds. The full project included nearly 20 panels and highlights then history of the Presidio of Monterey, the oldest military installation on the west coast, with its rich and varied history; everything from Spanish-American military confrontations, pirate raids, war preparation and quite a bit more. 

Z4D for NMC

I did this poster for a presentation I did for the New Media Conference. My presentation was based on the theory that visual design is a crucial, abstract function in contemporary design, a function that is independent from conventional concepts of form in motion, which tend to be bound by the constraints of narrative. That means that whenever we talk about motion design, we get hung up by story telling functions and that, with the emergence of motion design, we need to recognize and work with abstract design  concepts of motion, which aren't the same as abstract design theory for print graphics.

CD COVER FOR PSYCHOTROPIA

I did this CD cover art for an early experiment in abstract animation I created about 2008. This design is derived from the design work for one of my favorite artist/designers, Rick Griffin, who first found recognition doing Murphy, for Surfer magazine, the the sixties. He was part of the group of artists/designers during the Haight-Ashbury, Fillmore era in San Francisco and continued to explore the design realms related to alternative culture and spirituality until his untimely death in a motorcycle accident. There are more details about the video in the video section. 

MPYRE 2017

This poster is for the schedule of the yearly beach bonfire and music festival on the beach in Monterey. MPYRE is the name of the group, with a modest reference to the Burning Man festival, which is the umbrella event for the group and other regional groups. I like working with them because I'm allowed a lot of freedom. This work is also vaguely inspired by artwork done during the Fillmore era in SF, though more by a legendary design by Victor Moscosco in Zap Comix than by the era's posters. 

MPYRE Posters

These are samples of other posters I've done for the MPYRE group. If you consider the divergent nature of these three designs (the one above and these two), you'll understand why I like working with Alicia and the rest of the MPYRE group.