One of the bigger projects I’m working on right now is called “The Usual Error.” It’s a fantastic book on communication, written by my friends Pace and Kyeli. (I just did a guest post for them, too, on their blog — it’s here if you want to read!) When they asked me to be the illustrator for their book, it was a no-brainer: I’d already been to all their workshops on the topic, and really learned a lot about communication from them.
Also, it’s really challenging to illustrate communication ideas. …well, I could just draw people sitting around talking for every chapter, but that would get pretty old. I wanted the illustrations to really add something to the text and examples, so that people get even more out of the book.
Of course, I helped Pace and Kyeli come up with the ideas for the illustrations, so you know you’re going to get some real gems like a tap dancing slab of meat, a guy getting blown away by a land mine, and the first 5 seconds of a nuclear holocaust. But no zombies. I promise, you’ll get enough zombies in my other projects. Plenty of zombies to go around without mixin’ em into the Usual Error Project. Ha!
One thing I’ll say for this work is that it’s amazingly entertaining and enjoyable. I know my m.o. is evil in all its myriad incarnations, but I really get a lot out of this. I hear rumors of more books from Pace and Kyeli in the future, and I’m seriously looking forward to working with them again. I have always liked doing “concept art” but in this case I’m “illustrating concepts” and I’m having a great time!
So, if you’re interested in learning about awesome communication, or you just wanna see the kinds of weird things I come up with to illustrate crazy abstract concepts, be sure to check them out. The brilliantly redesigned Usual Error Project website is here (Megan and I did that! Neat, huh?), and here’s a link to where Pace and Kyeli blog about the Usual Error Project. Go take a look! You can thank me later. (O_~)
