Portland Monthly Illustration!

TOM - I forgot to mention in my last post, but I am back in NYC! It was great living in Portland this winter, but it feels great to be back in my city. While still in Portland last month, I got an opportunity to work on an illustration for Portland Monthly. I had a great time working very closely with the art director, Michael Novak on this illustration. I went through a couple rounds of sketches for this one and there was quite a bit that went into solidifying this idea, but after all was said and done, it was totally worth it because both Michael and I were really happy with the way it turned out.

The article was about the contridiction between Portlands 'green image' and the undeniable truth that the Columbia river, with all it's trade between Portland and the Pacific has the potential to lead the world in the transportation of dirty energy.

Whoa.

We wanted to show the juxtaposition between the classic portlander/enviro and the pollution that the large amount of cargo ships are causing. Above is some of my thought process. I was trying to incorporate ideas of smog, carbon footprint, the 'portland rose', bike riding and of course, the ships.

After that first round, the dimensions of the layout changed, so I went ahead and did another round of tighter sketches in the new vertical shape. As it turned out, we decided to go with a variation of a sketch I did from the first round, incorporating the prefered mode of transportation in Portland, biking, vs. the pollution causing cargo ships in the background.

I worked out the idea and composition a bit and this is the sketch that finally got the go ahead.


Like I said earlier, I'm super happy with the way the whole thing turned out and Michael did a great job with the final layout.

Thanks for reading and Happy Monday everybody!

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