Graphic Arts

I’m not sure I have an identifiable design aesthetic. Some of what I do is inspired, some miscellaneous, some serve a client, a brand, or work as a user interface or user experience element. Most of my work is a playful combination of photography, graphic design and vector graphics. All of it is fun to create.

Beer Labels

My wife and I have been brewing beer since 1995. Our first labels were created with a now extinct application called SuperPaint before moving on to Photoshop. The question is always – which will turn out better the label or the actual beer!

Jazz Mutt 2023

Description.

For this year’s Jazz Mutt I brewed a Strong Scotch Ale and of course it was brewed to celebrate the Saratoga Springs Jazz Festival. The “scotch” theme is highlighted in the kilts, bagpipes and highland background.

This was also my first time playing with AI generated images. The kilted jazz musicians in the highlands is one image and the dog (jazz mutt) playing the bagpipe is another. I then combined the images in Photoshop and found a version of the Macdonald tartan (my wife’s clan) to use as the border.

I really like the effect. The printing of the label and the neckar was more difficult than usual. Not sure why, but I’ll need to play around more with sample prints before sending labels off for final printing. 

The “Rufus Hoppy Quartet” is a playful reference to Rufus Harley, the only bagpiping jazz musician I know of!

Oh, and I forgot to put the year on this label!

 

Information.

  • Title : Jazz Mutt 2023
  • Style : Strong Scotch Ale
  • Main Font : Jazz LET (and…? Rasterized the “Jazz Mutt” text not sure what the font is)
  • Medium : Graphic Design, Photoshop, AI image generation