By Mark Kaufman
Dedecus in vos (Shame on you). New spot for a story on the Acting King County Prosecutor Dan Satterfield (R) and his role in working with the Seattle Archdiocese in the Catholic priest abuse scandal. Read article here. Support the Bill Sherman (D) running for King County Prosecutor against Satterfield here.

By Mark Kaufman

By Mark Kaufman
I rarely get to show my illustration in context, unless I also design the piece. Here's a very nice example though. Ellen Meany, the CD at The Isthmus was kind enough to send me the page design for the article with my spots in place. Thanks Ellen!

By Mark Kaufman
Over at Design Observer, Michael Beirut tossed up his student portfolio for all to see. With that in mind, please alert the media. After 20 years of using an old, chewed up, broken set of french curves I have finally invested in a new set. They are German, they are beautiful. Deal with it.

By Mark Kaufman
In July, The New York Times reported that psychologists at the University of Texas, asked nearly 2,000 people why they had sex, and assembled a list of 237 reasons.  The Isthmus in Madison, WI asked me to draw a few spots for the list of 58 reasons compiled by Michael Feldman, Madison resident and host of NPR’s Whadd'ya Know?

By Mark Kaufman

By Mark Kaufman
Apparently the emoticon is 25 years old today. I hate emoticons, I never use them, die emoticon, die! Miss Manners doesn't like LOL either.

By Mark Kaufman
I was just thumbing through the Seattle Weekly and was stopped in my tracks by this image from David Calkins. Very, very nice. Great type treatment as well. We worked with David many years ago on some radio station rock show materials we designed, so I just wanted to give a big shout out and say “job well done”! 

By Mark Kaufman
I found this over the weekend. It’s one of a series of spots I did for the Graphic Artist Guild a few years back. Here’s the final on lobbying along with some rough sketches. The spots were for the various advocacy and legislative initiatives the Guild undertakes on behalf of you, illustrators, designers and artists everywhere. The notable part that I wanted to highlight was my brief unexplainable R.O. Blechman period. I am assuming that all illustrators at some point figure that the wiggly line style suits a particular project. I don't know what I was thinking in this case, but I haven’t attempted it since. Totally weak and unconvincing. Leave it to the master I say. If you are not familiar with Mr. Blechman’s work, get out from under your rock and see how his work seemingly so simple and effortless, is so breathtakingly intelligent, witty and strong.

By Mark Kaufman

 
By Mark Kaufman
This morning I finally got around to thumbing through Key, the real estate magazine from this past Sunday’s New York Times. What took me so long? The fantasy of looking at mansions, luxury condos and homes that I cannot afford is wearing a little thin these days, but putting that aside, there was an interesting feature on the contents page. The editors added a bunch of sketches from John Maeda, the artist, author and Associate Director of Research at the M.I.T Media Lab. Mr. Maeda designed the cover for this issue, and it’s fascinating to get a glimpse of the thought processes behind the final work. Some interesting ideas were sketched out, and the notations are equally intriguing. In this case it's interesting on a couple of levels:
1. To see the trust that the art director and editors have for Mr. Maeda, because at the thumbnails in the feature are very, very loose.
2. To see the humility of someone so enormously intelligent and talented. On a couple of the concepts he flat out states “Someone else could do this better.” I got to meet John at an AIGA Seattle conference I was involved in a couple of years back, and he actually does seem that nice.

Check out slide show available here because my photo isn’t great. 

By Mark Kaufman
I spent my entire weekend cleaning out my basement, in particular sorting through thousands upon thousands of comic books and baseball cards. I now have a rash from all of the dust and must of old boxes of comics from the early to late 1970s. It is now time to put away childish things…for money that is. All aboard the eBay Express to Nerdville! 

By Mark Kaufman
Oh Joy! In the letters section of the latest issue of Seattle Metropolitan Monthly is some hate mail about this piece that I did a couple of issues ago. To quote one reader:

 “…I am disgusted and disappointed at the porking pigs, and here’s why: Stupidly vulgar, a crude cartoon like this appeals to kids who don't know what it represents…I don’t want them seeing that.“

Thanks! That just made my day. Hell, it made my week. It’s nice to know that people notice something you’ve done. Even if they hate it. I'm not sure how many kids read regional magazines though. Unless they’re in the market for luxury condos, aesthetic dentistry or to find out the best bars in Seattle. Keep those cards and letters coming.

By Mark Kaufman
Here are a couple of characters I created for an article in The Stranger on 9/11 was an inside job conspiracy theorists. I did 10 drawings of various characters poking, proddding, measuring and pointing figures. Aaron Huffman the Art Director was going to use these on a stark type treatment of the text as twin towers. My assumption is that the editors felt these were a bit light for what turned out to be a serious look at the 9/11 Truth movement. Can't win them all. Now where’s my check?!?