Brennan Black Illustration & Design

Family Tree 2010

Brennan — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 03:28:23 +0000

Wow. December/Christmas/New Year’s is and was insane. As you can see, I didn’t get around to getting the new site up and running (as usual). Here’s a piece of my excuse: our family tree. This image is a composite of the SIX Christmas trees that served Bronwen and I over the course of those few mirthful, fattening, lovely days.

Merry Christmas

Brennan — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:57:32 +0000

Merry Christmas you. Today is the first day of a two week break from work! This means my new site might actually get finished up (feel free to hold your breath). I’ve been excitedly learning the ins and outs of my new camera, the predecessor to which was stolen in August. Here is a photo of a wreath I made out of recycled Christmas ornaments.

Christmas is Coming, Look Busy

Brennan — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:51:31 +0000

Christmas is just a week away which means, if you’re anything like me, your day-to-day life is haunted by the prospect of crossing the all too fine too-much-nog line. The drawing below was inspired by the sweet, milky scourge of the season.

DESEMBR->13

Brennan — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 02:35:33 +0000

Lots of exciting designy arty stuff going on in my world. The immediate future looks bright and busy. For the moment however, here’s an exciting learning to spell item from the world of my nephew Cai. Something in this hearkens to Basquiat.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Christmas Cards

Brennan — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 00:57:09 +0000

Here are a couple of designs for in-lieu donation Christmas cards that I developed this week at work. Lots of mega changes happening right now and some time slated this week for website work. Hopefully we’ll see some major changes soon.

Hope Mission

Brennan — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 22:29:14 +0000

The new Hope Mission website went online at about noon today. I’ve been working with a couple of other dudes on this site and an overall rebrand since the beginning of June. Hope Mission is an amazing organization that has a long history of caring for people in Edmonton. It’s an honor to take 80 years of history and be entrusted to re-package and re-present it visually. It’s also really cool to think that the design work I’m doing is actually helping to support homeless and disadvantaged people in Edmonton. Take a looksie at www.hopemission.com.

Olive Avec 309

Brennan — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 03:18:39 +0000

Well, it’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything here. That minute, however, has been incredibly full. I’ve been swimming in lakes in the shuswaps, skateboarding everywhere, optimizing photos and making tiny, icon-ish graphics for the new Hope Mission website, flying in planes and having my camera stolen, amongst many other things. I’ve had next to no time to get this site going but it’s definitely coming…sometime, along with a re-designed blog. For now I’m pleased to present a graphic that I did for Olive Skateboards’ fall 2010 line. Getting my work on an Olive is definitely a huge honor and I’d like to thank Rick and Nick for the opportunity. My design is the furthest to the left, titled “wisdom.”

SOS Roundup

Brennan — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:50:54 +0000

The Sounds of Old Strathcona Music Festival is wrapping up today and it’s been phenomenal. My musical highlights? Well, glad you asked: Women, The Paranomasiac and Artesian Loyalists so far and I’m sure today is going to rule with Whitsundays, Yoav and Shout Out Out Out Out. SOS has been, by far, the largest, most ambitious project I’ve worked on. In the month leading up to this weekend designing for the festival became like a second full-time job. I’m really looking forward to the weeks ahead, just 9 to 5ing it. I’m going to set up my new hammock asap, maybe read a book, barbeque something. Here’s a t-shirt I designed for the festival. Party on Garth.

Information

Brennan — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:48:17 +0000

Man, one of the least enjoyable aspects of design (for me anyway) is information organization; taking bits of a text document and developing some kind of structure; Ctrl C, Crtl V for hours. Typically I find it super mind numbing, however, today I ran into an exception. As I started constructing a schedule for the SOS festival it started to form into something uniquely appreciable. I got some flow doing this, lost myself in it, which was a pleasant surprise for a project like this. Here’s a snippet.

Bonus web recommendation: Typography Dot Com

New Site Soon!

Brennan — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:21:53 +0000

I’ve been working on my main site/portfolio for a while now and it’s nearing completion. I’m excited for it. I wish someone would give me the birthday present of a day off that I could devote to finishing it up. However, it is coming soon and it will be good. In the meanwhile here is a bit of a graphic that comes from a poster I made up for the Young Lions Film Festival that took place last week. I sort of like it and heck, what’s a blog for if not for sharing half-cooked ideas?