Directory Illustrations, Part 2
Another Post featuring my Directory Illustrations over the years. Like many illustrators, I have relied on a few national artists’ directories to advertise my offerings. Here are some pages I produced for two of them, The Workbook, and a now non-existent volume, American Showcase…
From Workbook. Aside from the WSJ portrait style I was known for, I had gained a reputation for my ability to create currency illustrations. The Hamilton portrait above was for an ad promoting a retail chain’s sale —- “Save Ten Bucks!” The lips were for the cover of a Valentines Day tome by Quirk Books. The Tiger Woods image ran in Sports Illustrated.
Workbook again. The goldfish image was for a Design Studio called Addison. https://addison.com Most of the other images were produced in my days working at The Wall Street Journal. This was a rather early Workbook page.
Workbook ad page
The main image here was produced for a Las Vegas casino. Interesting concept, depicting our founding fathers as Royalty. Here again the currency style, a tad loosely executed. The salt and pepper shakers were created for a barn-siding furniture maker from Pennsylvania. He rewarded me with a fine chest of drawers, still in use today.
Next a few pages out of the directory American Showcase. I suppose it could be said that they were the biggest player in the field for a while. Their book was certainly large! I found the size of this directory unwieldy! It was not only a thick volume, but somewhat oversized. Everybody was in it, including me…
The main image here is of “Old Man” Leek, the founder of Ocean Yachts, which were built near my home at the time, in Southern New Jersey. The company made a large poster of this illustration which they displayed at boat shows. The schooner image was originally produced in black-and-white for a restaurant menu.
The main illustration here was created as a tee-shirt design. A man from the World Wildlife Federation called me one day. He offered $500. and 50 tee-shirts to do the illustration. How could I refuse? I still have a couple of shirts hanging around somewhere. The orange tree was very large in its original art form. The illustration was so large that I drew it with a Sharpie magic marker! A 6-foot version went into supermarkets to hype this company’s premium Orange Juice. The interesting television-cum-bow-and-arrow looks like an editorial illustration about the CBS Network. All kind of Fun!
This last example is full of my favorite works for some cool clients. For several years, I made illustrations for Brooks Brothers print ads. It was an enjoyable, steady gig. A fringe bonus was sometimes getting to keep an item or two that I illustrated. The samples I produced for them surround the central illustration of Hollywood Stars. The Stars illustration was created for a Talent Agency in Los Angeles. The two priests, aka Sean Penn and Robert DeNiro, was commissioned by the New Yorker magazine. Back in the 90’s when I was a steady freelancer for them, the magazine only printed their “Goings On About Town” section in black-and-white, so I was a natural for the frequent jobs that came came my way from that august periodical. The stylized tree was created for a corporate client whose name I have forgotten.
In the next installment in this series… some surprises!
