October 2012 Calendar for Kid Icarus

Cropped bottom

Cropped top

Seriously cool store in Kensington Market, Kid Icarus, invited illustrators to illustrate each month of 2012. I got OCTOBER! Halloween is my favourite holiday, so I was so excited about this. Here are some cropped images of the Calendar.
My stomach hurts a little looking at it because I really want to put wood texture at the background. I will try it once the calendars sell out. There is a limited edition of only 100, so order yours now! A lot of my talented friends are also participating. Here is more info about the 2012 calendar project:

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On Sunday December 4th 2011, our highly anticipated 2012 Handprinted Calendar will be available for sale at our storefront in Kensington Market. You can also pick up an early copy at Handmade Holiday, Saturday December 3rd, St. Stephen-in-the-Fields. The calendar is a limited edition of 125 copies, with only 100 available for sale at $80 each.

If you are unfamiliar with the project, the concept is to take 12 artists and produce a calendar with each artist choosing one month to illustrate and only two colours to pull it off. There are no guidelines on layout or how the information is presented, the artist has full control. The entire calendar is screen printed by hand from the cover, right through to the backing.
Calendars will be available for sale at Kid Icarus, and other locations (TBA).
Introducing the 2012 Calendar roster:

January February March April May June July August September October November December

Jeannie Phan Selena Wong Melinda Josie Claire Louise Milne Mike Ellis Reverend Aitor Katherine Verhoeven Halley Rigbey Caitlin Taguibao Hyein Lee Nolan Pelletier Anjo Chiang

RGD Ontario Award for Design Thinkers 2011

I won RGD Ontario scholarship for Design Thinkers 2011. Thank you RGD!

This year's Design Thinkers was amazing. RGD arranged me to meet Eric Ryan and Jessica Hische, both of whom I was dying to meet! Yeah and of course I was very scared. I acted very strangely, but let's not talk about that. Their talks were amazingly inspirational.

Hand Lettered Canzine Posters ++ Pink Monster

Wonderful people at Canzine - Thank you Lindsay and Tara! - got me to work on this year's Canzine advertising campaign. Working with them was so much fun. Thank you for letting me do whatever I want to do! These furry fishes were 11X17" posters that were posted all around Toronto. I actually am rarely happy with my work, but I must say, I love the furry fish. I was very proud to see the posters reproduced. The letters "Canzine 2011" were embossed and everything was offset printed on beautiful papers. 

I hand-lettered all the type in the poster and I think that worked much better than computer fonts. This year's theme was "Piracy." I thought of plagiarism. These fish are copying each other in circles. They are mostly unhappy because they are being copied by the other. I got the furry fish idea from this movie/tv show I saw long time ago. It was set in a Victorian era. There still were unknown parts in the world still. Explorers would travel and bring back exotic stuffed animals. I remember the scene where the explorer/traveler brought a stuffed furry fish. It was of course fake, he probably was swindled or made it himself. Maybe he never went overseas. The woman in the scene was so surprised by the furry fish, she dropped the wine glass. That moment is so vivid, but I have no idea what movie that was. Let me know if any of you remember what it was. And are furry fish common thing? Meaning, are they in our collective conscious?

How they are reproduced.

Rough for the poster.

I had a table at this year's Canzine (last month). It was fun as always! Thank you everyone for kindly visiting my table. I took a photo in front of a wall covered with my Canzine posters. So happy!

Advertisement I illustrated and designed for "The Grid" magazine. All hand-lettered.

Lastly, here is another pink monster painting I did! The background is Toronto cityscape. This was commissioned for a wonderful patron. Quite big, 18X24". It was so much fun to work on. I'm so honoured to have my art work hung on his living room. Thank you, you know who you are. xo

Ammo Magazine + Art Elemento Features // if humans can love a machine

Ammo is UK based illustration magazine. I'm a huge fan of this beautiful publication, so I'm honoured to be included in the Issue #8. Thank you, Dave!

Awesome cover by talented Toronto illustrator Jess!

Ammo magazine is only £5. It's full colour with beautiful images. Go check it out!

Art Elemento, an English art magazine from Kwangju, Korea had been kind enough to feature my work in their wonderful website. The cover shows my noodle cup promo. Joe, the awesome editor showcased my work in four-page spread. I am very grateful.

I wrote the article for my section. I feel so insecure about my writing. I hope I didn't babble too much. You can read the whole thing for free here:

Because I've been too busy to upload on my blog, there still are so many catching up to do. I hope I remember everything. Sorry for being so scattered.

There was a big change in my life a month ago. I finally decided to join the human civilization and buy a cellphone. I know, I know. If you ever talked to me before, you know that I made some dumb iPhone apps. I made apps and don't have a cellphone?! I was probably the only Korean in the world without a cellphone. I felt like floating and smug. But deep inside, I knew that as soon as I get a smart phone, I'd be horribly addicted to it. And I was right; I'm hopelessly addicted. I feel a little uneasy without it. For the first time in a month, I took a walk without my cellphone tonight, and it felt liberating.
No, I don't really need a smart phone. I'm home all day anyways, why do I need a tiny computer with me all the time? The only thing that push me over the edge was... twitter. I envied my friends twitting photos via mobile. I had to take photos with a digital camera, import the photo to my computer, turn on the internet, and then tweet. Now, I can be like a normal person, just take the photo with a goddamn phone and tweet right away. God, certain material possession can definitely make a person happier. I love you, smart phone. Yes, I bought a smart phone for purely superficial and useless reasons. Gut me.

Canadian Family

This is such a late post! My apologies for abandoning my blog for an entire month!
Things had been crazy. I finally got my Master's degree and have been working on all kinds of projects ever since. I haven't slept much for a long time, so everything is a blur. Oh my god, time flies by so fast. A lot of projects are finally completed and the next week will be a bit relaxed. I have so much updating to do. There will be some frequent posting in the next few days.

I once again worked with the awesome art director, Colleen, on these illustrations. They were for the October issue of Canadian Family's "Ages and Stages" section.

Here it is in print!