graphic. design.

And Then He Awoke : Part 2

2009-04-15T03:21:00.000-07:00

Second story in this collection. I've labeled them the true stories of fictional events. This particular story is different because it seemed in my sleeping imagination to be in a series of short acts each dedicated to a particular color. The players in the story are only marginally aware of the color of the act, and they themselves behave as though the pervading color was normal, as though they were used to the entire universe commenting upon their lives.

- 2 -

The World is: Green.

He watched her with admiration. The World seemed to flow around her feet. For her, with her, through her, and she seemed only semi-conscious of her effect upon it. She smiles.

The grass grew for her pleasure, he was sure of it. The birds flew and lit upon her fingers, simply because they knew she would enjoy it.

He was deeply in love - hopelessly adrift in the river that is her beauty. He felt himself moving in the general direction of the rest of the world: following her and doing things simply to hear her laugh and see her smile.

The World is: Blue.

They are in a car. She is driving and smiling and laughing and for some inexplicable reason he is in the seat behind her. They are on an off-ramp or a roundabout or some long curve. She is taking it fast. Very fast, and laughing as she does so. He is in the seat behind her. He can feel the mysterious forces of the speed and the curve pushing - pressing - his body against his door. He can feel his facial muscles ripple with the flow and a sudden inexplicable tremor in his heart. She laughs.

The World is: Red.

Autumn Red: warm and peaceful.

She has brought him to her home, and, seeing it for the first time, his admiration and love for her only grew. It had no roof or walls beyond the leafy canopy and branches and trunks of oak and fir. Fallen leaves and grass served as the most costly of persian carpets.

But, beyond the natural beauty of her home, what interested and delighted him the most were the things she had brought here to decorate it. The bed, although man-wrought, seemed almost to grow out of the ground. The silken panels above it, which drifted in the wind, must have been woven by fairy hands. Animals from the forest were here and shells from the distant sea. Glass orbs and fanciful puzzles lay scattered across bookshelves, themselves a work of art. Everywhere the eye rested, there rested also another trinket or toy to gather your interest until your eye found the next shiny bauble.

He notices now that she is watching him with delight in the delight she is giving him. He attempts smile, but finds suddenly finds his expression unresponsive to his will.

The red has deepened without his noticing and saturates everything like a fog. Almost dripping.

His heart, swelled with joy, breaks. With the last of himself he realizes he is becoming, has become, a hatbox. She stoops, and lifting, places him delicately, lovingly, in her collection, between a perfume bottle and coatrack.

And she laughs.

Then he awoke.

Trio Postcard Flyer

2009-04-15T03:09:00.001-07:00

Cocktails for a Cause at Trio Restaurant supports a different organization each wednesday. This a small flyer the 'Cause' can use to advertise their event.

Life.

2009-03-02T22:57:00.001-08:00

And Then He Awoke

2009-02-28T03:38:00.000-08:00

This is the first part of a hopeful series. Hopeful in that I actually hope to have time to complete it. It is subtitled:

"A Collection of True Stores."

I think this could be better if you could see the broken-typewriter font this was drafted in.

...

- 1 -

He stopped before opening the door to glance up and down the cobblestone street. The sunlight reflected off of puddles, refracted through imperfect windows, and cast an oblique shadow across one half of the alleyway. The wind was blowing gently through through his hair; he could feel it vibrate around the edges of his knit cap. He squinted in the sunlight, watching a bit of newspaper drift past. The sun, and the wind, and the newspaper, and himself were all. Besides these, he was alone.

He pushed the warehouse door. It resisted, red paint peeling from its rusted hinges, but nevertheless budged.

Inside the building now, He peered through the gloom of another world. The cobwebs and thick gray dust were only interrupted by shafts of weary light. The dust itself seemed intent on forcing the light away, swirling up in drafts of wind, as if in armed rebellion against it. The dust appeared to be winning the battle. Through this gloom, the boy can see the vague outlines of walls and lofts and pillars of wood. He’s looking for something, but entirely unsure of what it is; just as he is unsure who or what is chasing him.

Advancing into the room he left a sort of pathway with his already dirty feet, as if it were through snow. The light seemed to cautiously take advantage of the still partly open door to make a brisk charge into this enemy territory, but is turned back again, repulsed by growing number of combatants kicked up into the action by brave bare heels.

Just ahead lay a curious device, rather like a dumbwaiter. It must be used, thought the boy, to take tools and materials to the loft high above. It consisted of nothing more than a square metal platform, spidery railing, and a single slack chain which clung to something near the ceiling. I climbed aboard, hardly knowing why. Looking up, I could see the ceiling, the joists barely outlined in the shadows. Looking down, I grew queasy. I heard the chain rattle over some drum, and creak for want of lubricant.

Darkness.

Image again. I knew time had passed, but not how much. The boy didn’t seem to notice. I’m now standing under the spot where the makeshift elevator once operated. The time has not alleviated our confusion in the slightest. The dust still lies on the floor, only thicker if that is possible. The light still shines through the partly opened door, but perhaps brighter. I go to it - the light and the door - and looking back, I can see an empty chain swinging and creaking gently in the draft.

Outside, the wind is still blowing, now bits of newspaper are joined by aluminum cans, each of which would have been priceless not very long ago. The boy doesn’t know what they are, or even what they’re made of, but I do. The street is paved.

I’m running down the street, frantically searching for meaning, and.. life. I pass unseeing people, turn the corner, feel the wind in the nameless boy’s hair, stumbling over my feet and bits of garbage and priceless aluminum. A dog is barking. I run and turn and run and turn, and am standing next to the warehouse door again. We stop, the boy is breathless.

Facing the dirty gloom once again, we enter the building. Still searching, searching for something, and still uncertain what it could be, and still with the feeling that someone is right behind us, coming closer.

A hand on our shoulder.

The boy can’t turn around. But I force him. I must know.

Slowly, tenuously, we turn to look. The hand does nothing to hinder or encourage us. At once, our breath is gone. There is a woman there, as beautiful as we have ever seen. Strangely outlined in a subtle glow. Strangely causing the dust that is floating in the air to sparkle like mysterious microscopic diamonds. Strangely out of place, but we have the feeling that she is perfectly in place wherever she may appear. Everything about her is strange.. and magnificent.. and perfect. I don’t know what she’s wearing, if anything. She leaves more of an impression, than an image. I’m certain her clothing must be light, and airy, and float in the light breeze that seems focused around her, conflicting with the draft in little turbid whirlpools of shimmer.

Her hand moves from our shoulder to my own hand. Our own hand. The hand of the nameless boy. The functional end of the arm-appendage of the useless physical body that seems to follow me around. Perhaps i follow it.

She takes my hand and leads me to a door in the wall I had not seen before. It’s closed, and locked, but at her touch it opens without a sound from its rust laden hinges. Inside the small room, growing smaller, I look down and see my body.

It would seem that it should be a troubling experience, to see one’s own body. To see the feet that had hurried down the cobblestone street and the hair that had been displaced by the wind ever so long, and not so long, ago. And I did feel that trouble, nagging somewhere at the corner of my heart, but mostly what i felt while hovering above that body, circling the tiny room while the wonderful lady looked on is this:

“I’ve found it.”

And then I awoke.

Roanoke Sketches

2009-02-28T03:21:00.000-08:00

Material for a new menu for Trio Restaurant.

The infamous Dr. Pepper sign.

The infamous H&C Coffee sign.

The even more infamous Roanoke Star

The hopefully-soon-to-be-infamous Taubman Museum (i decided, after i put all the hours into this sketch, that i don't like the angle and will redo it.)

The beautiful Hotel Roanoke.

And of course, Trio itself.

Enjoy.

2008-11-25T13:52:00.000-08:00

draft material from new website.

We Rock the Lake.

2008-07-18T11:28:00.001-07:00

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.

1st Quarter.

2008-07-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Joe was Here.

2008-07-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

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.

Sketches of the Day.

2008-07-07T11:07:00.001-07:00

All the World's a .jpg.

2008-07-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-07-06T14:28:00.000-07:00

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.

Release your Inner Gardener.

2008-07-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Haitian Reboot

2008-07-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

So, yeah. She was grumpy.

Love/Haiti.

2008-06-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

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.)

Kindergarten Tracing.

2008-06-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

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.

The Newest Look

2008-06-27T10:13:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-06-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

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

A Place to Call Home.

2008-06-24T10:43:00.001-07:00

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

A Website in Draft.

2008-06-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

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.

On Blue.

2008-06-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

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.

In Pursuit of Purple.

2008-06-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Pamela Jean Gallery

2008-06-03T22:57:00.001-07:00

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.

Unprecedented Plug.

2008-05-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

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