Owlses is a t-shirt brand that uses the world’s ubiquitous, smart, loved and simultaneously misunderstood extant nocturnal birds of prey that resemble and blatantly celebrate a (usually) stereotypical character in society.

Concept

The t-shirt brand is an extension of my own personal brand that’s heavily rooted in playful, minimalist but bold expression. As such, while one might expect an overbearing design sensibility from the Owlses call to action (getCharacter!), the site itself is largely understated and gives the products room to breath.

The words that instructed this design were:

minimal + clean + simple (but bold)

The Tshirts

the generOWL · the prepOWL

ARTIST: MAGNUS BLOMSTER
SIZZLE: magnusblomster.com
BLOG: blomster.tumblr.com

ARTIST: JOSHUA MIDDLETON
SIZZLE: joshuamiddleton.com
BLOG: joshuamiddleton.blogspot.com

On the contrary, a commercial artist executes work that his art director has directed him to, or if independent, work that his freelance endeavors have yielded for him, work that will eventually appear on billboards, in periodicals and other printed texts and media, on apparel etc. He is guaranteed a sale, and an easy sale at that.

Of course both kinds of artists have that intrinsic drive to create but I think the one that chooses to have job security is smarter than the one who won’t relent to societal, industry and/ or mainstream requests and will therefore starve. Hunger builds character, yes, but money builds so much more. Houses, for instance, that you and your extended family can live in.

That’s the difference.

TOT BREW is a microbrewery with the philosophy:

“everything’s great in moderation.”

Concept

In keeping with the philosophy, the flagship stout would go in miniature-sized bottles measuring *DIMENSIONS*.

This was the proposed package design for Desire Chocolate, a health conscious candy company.

Concept

The design for the packaging was inspired by the company’s desire to decadently indulge the taste buds while remaining health and diet conscious. A health conscious candy maker is no short of a breath of fresh air. The candy was thus appropriately packaged in a container that resembles a little gift box. The alternate packaging resembles strawberries.

This self-promotional book — designed to match my web and print collateral (business cards and letterhead) at the time — contained a sampling of my latest works. The book fit into a custom designed envelope and mailed.

Concept

Since so much self-promotional material is mundane and ignorable, I decided to make the inside of the book jacket a memorable little poster. Even with an overwhelming inclination to discard the book, I reasoned, one might want to keep the little charming poster (that, by the way, had my contact information

SAVE THE WORLD (from conformity) was an announcement for a grafitti art convention deceptively packaged as a CD

Concept

The CD itself contained a sampling of the artists’ work that would be featured at the convention and was designed to be the ticket to allow the holder into the event.

This was the previous iteration of this site; a portfolio of my work.

Concept

The words that instructed this design were:

minimal + clean + simple (but bold)