To Hell in a Handbasket (or Messenger Bag)

Ditch the paper bags and pillow cases. Carry your stuff around in style. Devil style.

The Devil's Candy Store Official Messenger Bag


From The Devil's Candy Store Official Swag Collection

Clive Barker

Sarah and Phil, the lovely folks over at Revelations (the official Clive Barker website), were nice enough to put a link to the 'In The Flesh' posters at the Burning City store. There's also a cool little video of Clive giving a gallery tour of his work.

Holiday Shopping Has Begun

Over at the Burning City store, we're starting to see some holiday shopping happening. People have bought Alex's t-shirts and also some Ralph the Punk merchandise. And I am pleased to see the Shakespeare Xmas cards are moving, too. They are discounted through this Sunday. Thank you, shoppers!

I am working on getting some more Shakespeare t-shirts back up online. I took them down from before because I wasn't happy with how the first set printed. I have made adjustments to the artwork and they look much better.

Here's a taste of what's currently available at our fine Emporium. Currently featuring work by myself and Alex Wald.

Shakespeare Xmas Cards

I have finally put the improved Shakespeare Xmas cards back up in the Burning City store.



The inscription within is:
"Joy, gentle friends! Joy, and fresh days of love accompany your hearts!"
Wm Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act V, Scene 3

Get 'em while they're hot.

Flesh and Chrome

I have added both the Burning Chrome and In The Flesh posters to the Burning City Store. These are the posters from two world premiere stage adaptations of William Gibson's and Clive Barker's work, respectively.

Cocktail Party Tidbit: William Gibson's Burning Chrome is the short story that introduced the term 'cyberspace' to the world.

Late night with Cafepress

12 days, 19 hours, 27 minutes.

That's how much time there is left until the Wizard World convention as I write this entry. Last night was a classic '10 minutes to the deadline' evening, as Alex and I raced to get a t-shirt order into Cafepress while we still had a 20% discount Shopkeeper sale going on. Man, am I learning on the fly with this one. Things that seem obvious in hindsight are totally opaque to me as I try to build the Burning City webstore. We learned the hard way that you currently can't print on the back of the black t-shirts. Not a big deal unless you are planning to put your brand and copyright notices on the back and not on the front design. Aargh.

Anyway, we now have some shirt samples and more are on the way. I've learned that I need to trust the Cafepress mantra - 'What you see on the screen is what you get". Almost all of the artwork I have done so far has been too light and subtle in the detail department. I get it now. Really, I do.

The Store - Second Draft

Well, it ain't Amazon.com, but definitely an improvement over the first draft. I wrassled with the Cafepress interface and (heaven help me) actually got into custom HTML to get a cleaner look from the template a started with. Better.

And I've finally added the Shakespearean Christmas card set. Tomorrow I'll add Ralph the Punk.

The Store - First Draft

Well, that was a pain in the ass. I have been singing the praises of the Cafepress.com concept for awhile now, but actually building a site with their interface is another story. After a long day and evening, I have gotten some products up in reasonable form. I used a template provided by Cafepress and that was very constricting, but it will do the job for now. I'll have more products soon, including an updated Shakespeare Christmas card pack. (Hi, Marie!) At this point I'm just relieved I'll have some place for the Artists Alley folks to go (in less than 4 weeks!)

So, for the brave who wish to take a peak at a work very much in progress - welcome to the Burning City store.

New Branding

In getting ready for the conference and the new website, it was time to refresh the brand. Some have argued against it, but it was not only recharging the look of Burning City, Inc., but represented a fresh start for myself, as well. I thought I would show a small part of the work process and follow the birth of this one design.


Step 1 is the scanned first doodle that I wanted to play with. It was tiny. Step 2 is the enlarged and cleaned up version to place into Illustrator to go from raster to vector. Step 3 is the first vector draft that could then manipulated to my liking.


I soon realized that the full figure didn't lend itself well to a logo design. Duh. I cut the figure in half and added detail to the gas tank on her back and played with simplifying the eyes. All with an aim to size reduction.


After adding some text, I felt the need to edit some more and enlarge the eyes so that they would read when reduced. Now we're getting somewhere. I'm willing to live with this version for awhile.


And here is a stab at a black t-shirt design for the Wizard World Chicago conference.