Tuesday, November 25, 2008


draft material from new website.

Friday, July 18, 2008

We Rock the Lake.


One idea for "The Roanoker" Full Page advertisement for Floyd Enterprises.  The idea is to express both classiness/wealth/design and fun/style/lakeside life in one ad.  The dichotomy is great, in my opinion.

Peace.
- jacob musick
graphic. design.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

1st Quarter.



The top image is a draft of the Pamela Jean Gallery quarter-page advertisement in The Roanoker magazine.  The second is the final version of the Joe Rowell/Pamela Jean Gallery half-page advertisement in City Magazine.  That's all the inspiration i have left for the day.

cheers,
jacob musick
graphic. design.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Joe was Here.


The Pamela Jean Gallery recently commissioned me to do three advertisements; two in the upcoming "The Roanoker Magazine" - a fairly high-class local glossy - and another half-page in the August City Magazine.  (Both should hire me to do website design, in my humble opinion.)  The City ad is going to feature the work of Joe Rowell, and this is the rough draft that I'll show off to the Gallery tomorrow.  Joe Rowell is brilliant, by the way.

- jacob musick
graphic. design.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

All the World's a .jpg.


The beginnings of a complicated website for our beloved Sister Cities, who's current site is very much in need of an update.  The concept involves a significant amount of flash, signposts, and ancient map-dragons.  I'm very much looking forward to presenting the ideas at the annual picnic thingamajig next saturday.  This small image can do no justice to those that currently reside only in my head.

Identify Yourself.

This is the first non-graphic related thought this blog has seen.  Although my current projects are all arrayed in the background of my computer desktop, it's Sunday, and I'm enjoying a little bit of breathing room.   The most recent bit of deeper thoughts that have been drifting around in my head are preparing to take this opportunity and charge the barriers of my laziness and formulate into something cohesive.

Bam.  The catalyst - someone in a crowded room and noisemakers in the corner sporting fashionable bracelets emblazening the emblem, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

It's a funny thing, actually, modern popular philosophy.  The era of thought i am formally familiar with concerned itself completely with the nature of reality.  The question was "DO I EXIST?"  Today, no one cares about existence.  Reality is taken for granted.  "Sure, i exist, but WHO AM I?"

It's self-centered, i'm nearly positive, to care nothing for the nature of the envelope of universe surrounding your being - to focus on the identity of the being itself.  It's definitely apathetic never to question the reality of reality, and follow Descartes' lonely trail of doubt; instead, the only journey we want to take is the journey to oneself.  

Who am I?

We can approach this question is much the same manner as the question of existence.  We can ask things like: upon what set of "data" - experience, actions, senses - should we base our identity? But there seems to be an important question which is never really asked, but only assumed by those seeking themselves:

Is identity something that can even be approached rationally and studied under a glass like some rare insect specimen?  Is identity tangible?  (Does identity exist?)

What proof have we that WHO I AM is something that we can define?  (Shouldn't we know before we go to the trouble to define it?)  We seem to chase phantoms searching for some elusive person called "SELF" that is supposed to exist separately from the cumulative set of ideas that make us human - Goals, loves, drives, history, mothers, beauty, holding-hands, spirit, good-books and hot-coffee, laughing-children, joy, sorrow, shade-trees on summer-days, prayer, experience, work, family, and all the concepts that are a part of us - but more than that, a part of how we relate with everyone and everything around us.  Identity then requires relationship.  It requires others.

The more we seek to find our "self," the farther from ourselves we find ourselves.  You don't exist in a dark room meditating.  You exist in the arms of small children and laughter and astonishment at the color of the shade of the apple trees.  You find yourself in the eyes of your best friend.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Release your Inner Gardener.



Here's the current concept for the brand new Roanoke Community Garden Association.  I think we're going to go with this, but I still need to work on the font, the detail and weight of the seedling and the proportions.   Something about the seedling still doesn't look right.  The leaves are the wrong shape or size.   Anycase, this is the work in progress.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Haitian Reboot


So, yeah.  She was grumpy.



Monday, June 30, 2008

Love/Haiti.



I generally don't do puns, but this time I couldn't resist.  

Here's the latest work from the newly official Jacob Musick Graphic. Design. company.  It's unfinished (I think) and I still haven't decided which of these to use - or if I use this design at all.  

The beautiful photo was provided most graciously by Troy Livesay.  Troy and his family live in Haiti, running a ministry titled "WorldWideVillage Haiti" which I imagine has something to do with this organization.  They're currently creating what promises to be a wonderfully unique, lovely, and perhaps a bit unsettling photobook - which is available here - to support the mission.

This poster, obviously, is for the upcoming Taste of Culture: Haiti event for Local Colors.   If you're having problems with the image, the event will be July 11th from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm at the SunTrust Plaza in downtown roanoke (click here for a map.)  Come Love Haiti.

So, anyway, consensus?  Flag version or No-Flag version?

(Oh, and in case you missed it, here's a link to the china poster I created for last month's Taste of Culture Event.)

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Kindergarten Tracing.





Just finished a simple trace job for Maynard Keller  at American Financial Planning for his new Kingdom (K) business.   Essentially, if you are interested in building retirement funds for your business that are morally responsible (that don't invest in such things as pornography, cigarettes, alcohol, and the like) then Mr. Keller is the man to talk to.  

I'd like to convince him that he needs a brand new website, for both Kingdom (K) and AFP, but so far all I've done is a trace of the lo-resolution .jpg image (at top) used for a logo on the Kingdom (k) site.  Now he has a .eps which we could theoretically use to wrap around the moon.


Friday, June 27, 2008

The Newest Look


That's what we're working on.  I haven't told josh yet, but i already have ideas for a new one.   (It's likely that I'll drive him crazy before we ever make any money.)  Eventually, you'll be able to choose a design from the left bar and reload the page with another look.

I'm published!

City Magazine published my advert for the Gallery.  Excuse me, but I'm excited.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

A Place to Call Home.

Josh and I are busy, busy creating my new website. You can check in on our progress at his development server.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

A Website in Draft.


I've had this design in my head for a while now.  I've thought about selling it, and maybe still will, but for now it's a work-in-progress design for my own website.

The four colored blocks in the center are for navigational purposes.  They won't be stationary...  that is, they'll move or grow as the mouse rolls over them.    They'll also have images inside of them representing what they are for.  News, Home, Portfolio..  something along those lines.  

Hopefully within the next couple of weeks, this site will become real.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

On Blue.

I attended the Home Educator's Association of Virginia annual convention in Richmond, and never had a chance to upload this image.  This is the final for the Pamela Jean Gallery print advertisement for Roanoke's City Magazine that I had promised to upload in a previous post.

Taste the Culture.


I'm nearly finished with this poster for the upcoming Local Colors: Taste of Culture event.  This month they're celebrating China, somewhat in remembrance of the Sichuan earthquake victims.  The event will be in downtown Roanoke in the Century Plaza on Friday the 2oth.  

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

In Pursuit of Purple.


Personally, I dig the purple for Susan Saandholland's work.  However we compromised and settled on a deep semi de-saturated blue which I'll upload tomorrow.  Oh, and we put the lights back behind the artwork.

I hope that it prints well, and the dark background doesn't wash out the colors of the photographs.  

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Pamela Jean Gallery


In the process of building this advertisement for the Pamela Jean Gallery (115 Salem Ave. in Roanoke) showcasing the work of Susan Saandholland.  This will be published in our very own City Magazine.  I'm happy.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Unprecedented Plug.

I created this on a rush job for a good friend last night (or rather - early this morning.)  If you're in the Roanoke/Salem/Vinton/Boone's Mill/Garden City/etc. area and need to a professional lawn job that you can really feel good about (and possibly get some tax deduction) please call Mr. Tim Price.   540.537.7961

The Progression of Idea.

I'm currently building several graphics and logos for Mr. Gary Mellas at www.gmelstudios.com.  The process of creating the header for his blog went through several stages (and is, even now, as yet unfinished) that I decided to share:

 The Initial Upload:

It's fairly ugly, I know.  But that's okay, because this image initiated conversation which helped me further my understanding of what the customer desires. 

Notice also that the image was created in shades of gray. That was intentional.  A client will often be turned off by an excellent idea it it is presented in undesirable colors.  I intended to add in color (in the background or in the lettering) and did so in several of the next mockups - although here i will only show a few.

Background Color:

The Mellas's expressed a desire to see a more "square" or "professional" design, and this is one result.  I know the "G" in the logo is out of proportion to the "M." (The G needs to be wider.)  This was a quickly rendered image to gauge response.   The background has moved from gray to blue.

Swoosh:



We disliked square. The changes between these two images were made to hopefully increase the legibility of the "G" in the logo.
Swoosh:

Final. For Now.

Back to dark gray.  We'll see how it goes from here. Check out GMelStudios' homepage to see it in action.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Current Happenings.

I'm currently busy building the graphics and layout of www.gmelstudios.com.  For cost effectiveness we decided to build a semi-permanent blogspot site and remodel it for our purposes.  As this is being written, there is nothing there, but we should have a much more interesting site relatively quickly.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Creative Blur

This is the temporary location of jacobmusick.com.  The permanent website is in development, but until then requests for my domain will reroute here.  I'll be keeping this blog updated with site development news.  Here's a sneak peak of one site element:



- jacob musick