Anyway, here’s my latest review of last week:

• Created some artwork for Vector Pack 13. Specifically some stuff for Robots, Flow, and Bound. The robots were a lot harder than I thought actually. But I think they came out ok. Here are some that I did.

  

• I put a new shirt up on emptees. It’s really just a logo, but it was done for a shirt. It’s some 3D lettering for Fearless Records. It was meant to give off a strong rock n roll vibe. I quite like how it came out.

  

• Arsenal 2 is just about ready to launch into public Beta. Our goal is Thursday!
• Speaking of Arsenal 2, I had to get a Merchant Account and Payment Gateway so I used Merchant Warehouse to do that. Never did it before, but it was pretty easy. Now we will be able to accept credit cards on our site yay! And we’re thinking of getting rid of Paypal altogether. Why? Because Paypal is nothing but problems. From echecks, to chargebacks, to no seller protection, etc. Just watch this video which explains my thoughts exactly.
• We are working on new site for Ballher, a girl’s basketball clothing line. The design was already provided by the client, we just need to make the website work and get his shopping cart and blog installed. We’re using Wordpress and this plugin called WP-Ecommerce.
• We’re getting our aquarium filled up today which is awesome.
• We put in plans to actually make a break room, so we don’t have to eat at our desks every day.
• We’re in the process of building this really awesome Hoodie Template Pack. It’s more than just a template pack though. To be honest, it’s like an all-in-one hoodie design package. It will allow you to create all-over-prints in a few clicks. It will be setting the standard for apparel templates for sure. I think we’ll be releasing that this week.

Anyway, November is insane for the Arsenal. So if you’ve got some ideas for articles or tutorials for our zine, and are looking for some cash this year for the Holidays and a boost in your site’s traffic, hit us up!

I started using my Action Method Book from Behance again and pretty much stopped using tasks in Outlook. I find physically writing it down makes me feel more productive. I am not sure why. The Action Method books themselves don’t help me that much though because I don’t use them any differently than I would a standard piece of paper. I’m usually focusing on day-to-day tasks that are small and unrelated to eachother so it makes no sense to use the “action steps.” So why do I use the book? Well, for one, I have it and don’t want it to go to waste. And for two, it’s dotted graph paper and spiral binding just make it easy.

Anyway, here’s what I did last week.

• Continued discussion with CS Cart developers. We’re working on Arsenal 2.0 still - but we took a big step and they installed it on our server. We’re going back and forth testing and bug reporting until it’s done. Adam Wagner is clicking away as we speak uploading products and writing descriptions. That stuff takes forever. But it’s coming along nicely.
• Did a 3D model of this crazy zen product called “The Tetrad.” They call it the “art of stillness.”
• The shirt I did for Paint the Stars finally was released and is available for sale. They used a cut and sew technique to pull off the full frontal skull print. I think it looks rad.
• Paint the Stars is also selling the Candy Lettering hoodie I did for them.
• Worked on some new vector packs for the Robot and Bound packs that are going to be out soon
• Had a meeting with this guy from UPS to help us set up our shipping dept. at Go Media. Basically, we need an automated way of handing the shipping of our merch now that we have the space to store it. We’ll be selling shirts and posters and other goodies in our Arsenal 2.0 store.
• Submitted a few unapproved client designs to Jakprints for their “Touch and Feel” project. They plan on selling samples of high end printing techniques to allow their customers to get a more hands on look at their ability to do high end shirt printing.
• Did a type treatment for Fearless records. They had a small budget, so I chose to do a simple chromed out 80’s metal inspired logo. I still have to finish it…
• Did an interview with Designfeedr for their series on Black and White images.
• Did another interview with The Familiar Strangers. That should show up soon.
• Did some miscellaneous manual labor around the new office. Stuff is still being worked on and today was especially noisy as they install a few counter tops, a door handle, and finishing our conference table.

So what did you do this past week?

Btw, the artwork in this post was done by Chris Comella for a new screen printed poster we’re doing.

Here’s what Jan had to say about the Fitted Ladies Apparel Templates we just released:

Adam,
I just love your t-shirt templates for both guys and girls and as a shirt designer they are very useful but I have one request that would help me out even more, an added side view of the left and right sides of the shirts. Many requests have been for a shirt design that runs across the side so I just thought I’d ask. Thanks for everything!!
Jan

What You Get

Thanks for the idea Jan!

The side view Ladies T-Shirt template is exclusive to this freebie - it’s not part of any pack (yet). It does include all the little improvements though, like the Highlights layer, the Shirt Color layer, the streamlined clipping mask arrangement, and the “Sleeves only” mask.

This template should make it easy to drop your designs onto the side of a shirt, or just down the sleeve.

Go ahead and experiment with this template, I mean, it’s free. Hopefully you can use it to impress a client (or maybe just your friends).

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the full version.

It’s been a long time since my last weekly review. And this is my first post as a freshly married man! For those of you who don’t know, Kim (Go Media’s office manager and Arsenal Customer Service Lady) and I have been together for 5 years. And we tied the knot on Sept. 27th. We spent the following week on a cruise in the western Caribbean and had a great time! Now it’s back to work. Here’s the rundown of what I’ve got accomplished since I’ve been back:

• Moved into our new office and set up my work area. It’s cool so far. We’re still adjusting to the inconveniences of moving in while construction is still not totally complete.
• We have a phone system now and my extension is 227. Now we don’t have wait until someone is off the phone before we can use it.
• I’m working on revising some flash ad banners for Gallery Stock.
• I am going back to using my Action Book for random day to day tasks. I stopped using pen and paper when we installed Outlook 2007, but I still feel more productive when I physically write stuff down.
• Started working on the next Vector Pack. Some vines, brambles, and thorny stuff.
• Arsenal 2 is making more progress. It was installed on our server and now we’re testing and finding bugs.
• Added more skate decks to our Deck Peck store for you to purchase.
• Launched Texture Pack 3 and a new font!

Here’s a photo taken at the end of our wedding reception with some Go Media folk.

From left to right you have Katie, Adam Law, Me, Kim, Oliver, Liz, Heather, Bill (bottom left), and Chris Comella (bottom right).

Another week has passed and I’m here reporting what went down since the last review. Here we go:

• Our new office is just about finished, we spent some time this week painting the walls. Photos to come soon. We’re going to move in next week, even though there a few things that still need to be added - such as the aquarium and various other “extras.” But it will be workable next week.
• Starting doing a shirt design for the band Bloodbath. It’s not going to be pretty.
• Finished my clown design for Harley-Davidson, see the preview image above. Still waiting on approvals.
• Arsenal 2.0 development is finishing up. Still going through the last round of edits and then it will be up to me to clean up the look of some of their “design” they did while coding. Anyone who has worked with a programmer knows they don’t really care about design so you’ll end up spending time fixing the look of things once it all works.
• Go Media is a sponsor of the new game BAJA for PS3 and XBOX360.
• Worked more on this silly Monster Truck hat for Isaac Stout’s hat line. It’s a fun drawing, but we had to construct a hat mockup out of poster board and draw onto that. It’s totally not as easy as I thought. I hope all my art lines up once they assemble it together.
• Added a few of Katie’s boards to our DeckPeck Store.
• Started some tees for the Beastie Boys.
• I decided on my “spot” in the new office. I’m happy with it, but we’ll see once I get my desk and all that in there.
• Some last minute preparations for mine and Kim’s wedding coming up Sept. 27th.

Another busy week flew by over here. Here’s the rundown:

Jeff’s Week in Review:

• Moved some of the sidebar modules into the footer. The sidebar was getting pretty long!
• Tinkered with Universal Type Server. We’re looking for a Server Based Font Management solution so we’re trying this one out. It’s got a lot of great features, but it’s really slow. Still not sold on it yet.
• Made a post showing off some tees at Target that used our vectors. Some poor choice of words incited a few people to blast me for calling out a bad design, even if it was made with a product we sell. I feel bad if I offended anyone, but I think some people overreacted. You can read the post and comments here.
• On a related note, I opened up a discussion on the general use of stock artwork. You can voice your opinions here like a lot of people already did. I think there’s a lot of inspiring commentary going on.
• Worked on a crazy clown sketch for Harley-Davidson, but it ended up too scary. Next round is a little more tame and comedic.
• We set up a store at DeckPeck to sell skate decks with Go Media art. So far it’s just my art, but there will be other staff here contributing soon.
• Did a shirt for the Killers. But they said it was too “touristy.” I have to say I agree, but I thought that was the vibe they wanted. Oh well, the next round should be closer to what they’re looking for.
• I have a new article going up this week about How to Win at Design by Humans. I did an interview with one of the creators of the site and he gave some good tips on what they want to see.

Oliver’s review from the past two weeks:

• A piece of artwork for Balanced Growth’s new Innov8 campaign that will be used in a lot of their materials.
• 2 Tee designs for Harley Davidson. One of them caused Photoshop to crash 4 times in a row, each time when I was saving. Causing me to lose hours of work each time. I punched my desk so hard that I thought I broke a knuckle. It’s still kind of swollen.
• 2 Tee designs for the Killers. They like to change their mind and we’re going through mountains of concepts, but the work is fun and they’re pretty open minded.
• Finished up a promo poster for the Arsenal. If the printing turns out like I want it to, it should be a pretty solid piece.
• Did an ad for a contact lens company that was along the lines of the concentric circle stuff.
• Speaking of that circle stuff. I submitted a design to Design by Humans. Vote on it!
• I also did an illustration for the Obama T shirt contest which mysteriously never showed up on their site.
• I did a vector illustration for the Cleveland Marathon. It was cool because I hadn’t done anything like that before, but also very annoying because the person that I was illustrating looked slightly like Jerry Seinfeld. It was driving me nuts, and in the completed illustration, the guy looks exactly like Seinfeld.
• This week should consist of some branding, gig posters, and more merch. Could be a good week, even though the Browns were dominated yesterday.

The long weekend is now past me and it’s time to get back to the grind. I feel I could really use a vacation because I’ve got quite a bit going on outside of work that’s keeping me from being as focused as I usually am. Mine and Kim’s wedding is only 25 days away and things are getting hectic. It’s hard to stay inspired through all of it. But here’s my review of what I got accomplished last week:

• Arsenal 2.0 - A few more tasks were completed and a new one is started. Estimated to be done with CS Cart dev on Sept. 11 - but troubleshooting and cleaning up their design will follow.
• I set up a store on http://gomedia.deckpeck.com and will encourage the staff to submit their designs to the store.
• Did some new sketches for a hat line of one of our clients. Some mean looking monster truck slinging mud everywhere. The client wants us to do what we want, but he has extremely long descriptions of what he wants. I anticipate this will be tougher than it sounds.
• Twitter interview with Vectips on Wednesday and continued with the twitter design help thing
• Had meetings about gomedia.us V5.0 - entering the mockup phase for our new portfolio site. It’s fun.
• GoMediaZine made a few blog posts about top creative wordpress themes as well as got included in a handful more CSS Galleries.
• Fest 7 site went up with Go Media sponsorship logo and tshirt for sale
• We are working on converting all our vector packs to Photoshop Brushes and will be releasing those tomorrow (wednesday).
• Also worked on some shirts for Harley-Davidson and the Killers. Not sure if things got approved or not.

So yeah, that was last week. You’ll notice the blog posts have been slower. I feel like I’m overwhelmed with stuff, but when I look at my plate, there’s not a whole lot going on. I’ll need a few weeks to get myself back on track. Perhaps after my Honeymoon I’ll be more inspired. This happens from time to time. Fortunately, I have my fellow designers to pick up my slack.

• Worked on a new shirt for the Killers. Did something different this time. I didn’t draw anything, but I am happy with it.
• Sketched some ideas for a client with a new hat line. Got his feedback today, it’s a few pages. This is gonna be a lot of work…
• Spent time answering the questions of our twitter followers. Right now we’re following over 400 people who could potentially ask us design questions. We aren’t getting as many questions as we thought, so bring it on!
• Launched Vector Pack 12 last week. Lots of fun new art in there.
• Answered email for an hour or two every day. I can see why some people don’t email everyone back. It just takes so much time out of your day. But I still don’t want to be the jerk who doesn’t write back.
• Arsenal 2 had a small update, things are going to pick up again with that.
• Finishing up some more animations for the Tattoo Show that will air on A&E this fall.
• Had a meeting at Quicken Loans Arena about potentially doing work for the Cavs or Lake Erie Monsters. Could be a cool lead, but they do most of their work in-house.

This weekly review is short because I have some other projects that I need to take care of asap. When we’re busy this will happen.

Back again for another weekly review. This time, I’ve got some cool links to share with you. Here’s what I got done this week.

Jeff’s Weekly Review

• Launched “Design Help via Twitter” network. Very experimental, and it could end up being very cool or very lame. So we’ll thinking of cool ways to use Twitter and this was something we thought of. For more info, go here.
• Published part 3 of 15 Mistakes Made by Designers in the Music and Apparel Industry. The series is now complete and has been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And thanks to all the amazing artists who helped out. I’ll be looking for you in the future to help me out on some more articles.
• Worked on some zombies for Vector Pack 12 - which will be released this week!
• Prepped some new portfolio artwork
• Launched some nice apparel templates and a tutorial of making photorealistic t-shirt mockpus.

Cool Links:

• Good Read: Why Brands are Unsuccessful using Twitter
• Vector Photorealism - why not just take a picture? I still don’t get it.
• Over-produced music sucks

Next week I plan on getting more links to share from the rest of our staff.

Adam Wagner’s Weekly Review

Well Jeff’s been encouraging the rest of us here at Go Media to share our weekly reviews, so here it goes:

• Contributed a few pieces to the 8-Bit and Linework 2 packs to be released with Vector Pack 12
• Made braid and tooth vector pattern brushes for a forthcoming Illustrator Brush Set. Pattern brushes are a really powerful tool.
• As always, mined and reported sales numbers in Excel
• Planned out a product release schedule for the Go Media Arsenal and posted it up around the office
• Posted free vector fingerprints on the Go MediaZine
• Started a poll in the sidebar of the Go MediaZine
• Tried to keep up with all of our new twitter friends!

• Phase 2 of Arsenal 2.0 development is moving along. Paid the invoice for Phase 3. Things are looking good.
• Bill posted some new pics of our new office that’s being constructed. Check those out! They tell us we can move in Sept. 1st, but I’m not so sure it will be that quick.
• Worked on some Tattered Scroll Vector packs and posted a cool video of how I draw them.
• Worked on some seamless halftones for Vector Pack 12.
• Vector Pack 12 should be finished by Friday of this week. So that means a probably launch date next week!
• We launched some handy apparel templates so you can mockup your t-shirt designs and make people think you really got them printed! Don’t worry, those of you who asked about ladies tees and other stuff like hoodies and even jeans, they’re already in the pipeline and should be out soon.
• Had a meeting with staff about reworking the Go Media site.
• Spent all day Wednesday at Cedar Point with the rest of Go Media staff. See pics.

That’s pretty much it. Now I gotta get back to work on Vector Pack 12! I caught a glimpse of the 8-bit pack that Adam Law is working on, it looks awesome!! It’s our first color vector pack. See a preview below.