IF - Patterns

Do you find yourself thinking the same thoughts over and over again? I do. What's worse, I didn't even know I was doing this until I read an article that stated that 90% of people's thoughts are repetitious. So that means only 10% of our daily thinking is original. Talk about a rut! The first observation is close up and everything seems new and swirly and fascinating and original. Until you step back and look at the whole picture, and see then you see the pattern.

First Day of Fall

First day of fall? Today? Wait a minute! I'm not through with summer yet! I haven't had that vacation to some far away national park, I haven't cleaned out the garage from last winter's collection of debris (well, now I won't have to, since winter is nipping at our heels), I haven't been to a picnic...I'm just not ready to say goodbye to summer yet. So I won't. The first day of fall is now officially November 1, please mark your calendars accordingly.

October Cover

Here's the latest cover I did for Minnesota Medicine magazine, which featured an article on the HIV virus.



This is a detail of the collage of the virus, consisting elements relating to the medical/research community. I used the diagram below as my source of inspiration.




But it didn't begin with a concept anywhere near the end result! The following are my initial thumbnails. The original instructions from the art director were to follow the article's premise, which was that the virus is evasive, mutates quickly, disguises itself within the very cells that are supposed to destroy it, it's a chameleon and quick-adapting. So I came up with some sketches and added splashes of color to indicate the impact that color could provide. But the resulting decision was that they preferred to see less. So we went with simplicity. It may be simple to look at, but to come up with the patterns and find the correct corresponding images was not very simple at all! But I do think it is an arresting image for the serious subject matter.