Questionable Characters
Nov 21, 2008 · 0 Comment
We’ve just launched Questionable Characters, a new collaboration between myself and the esteemed Ben Barry. The idea came into existence after getting lots student emails asking the same questions, and discussing the situation with Ben. He was in the same boat, so we decided to create a site where people could ask questions and we both answer them. It was kind of a joke that evolved into something real over the past month.
Check it out! So go, ask us questions, sign up for the RSS feed, and get some answers!
Regularly Scheduled Programming
Nov 13, 2008 · 3 Comments
And I’m back. Whew, those tweaks on the site took longer than I expected. Want me to let you in on a little secret? I accidently deleted some files on the site that I shouldn’t have a few days ago. Mega-oops. Everything should be back to normal (and hopefully better than ever) now. The shop will be down for a couple days while I polish a few things up there.
Some New Work
Nov 05, 2008 · 1 Comment
I’ve added some new work to the portfolio. Check out a couple illustrations just recently finished for Business Week (one about generic products, above, and another about getting aggressive with a stock pile of cash in a weak market). Also, a poster for 30Reasons, another poster project that lead up to the 2008 election.
More exciting stuff in the works! Keep checking back, I suspect I’ll be making some announcements about new prints for the holidays pretty soon.
ArtCulture Interview
Oct 15, 2008 · 0 Comment
I was interviewed a couple weeks ago by Ryan at ArtCulture about creating work inspired by the mid-century in the new century. Ryan’s a pretty great writer. Check out this incredibly exciting, and flattering intro:
It’s 1952 in America. The war was won, more people have jobs than ever before, and you just bought a house with a white picket fence. Things are on the up and up. Now, fast-forward to 2008. We’re neck deep in traffic, debt, e-mails and basically life is just too darn complicated. Against this backdrop there has been a thread of design harking back to a simpler time. A quaint time. It has many names: retro, mid-century modern, post-modern. There are few designers today that capture that simplicity and charm as well as Frank Chimero.
Read the whole interview, if you’d like to hear me blah-blah for a bit.
It’s Nice That — Original Format
Sep 25, 2008 · 0 Comment
A couple of my states prints will be in an exhibition sponsored by It’s Nice That, called Original Format. The show showcases work shown on the blog in, um, their original format. Details below:
It’s Nice That // Original Format
24 September — 24 October 2008
The Viewpoint Gallery, Plymouth College of Art, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 6PW
The show will travel, so I’ll be sure to post more about any future dates and venues that are booked.
Five to Nine
Sep 25, 2008 · 1 Comment
I wanted to drop a note to let everyone know about the release of the new issue of 5–9, a zine focused on what creatives do in their off time. Issue 10 was curated and designed by swell-dude Damien Correll and is themed around nature. I did two illustrations for it: Mutter Erf and Death Puddle, but you should head to the website to check out the full issue because there’s other great submissions by Damien, Liam Devowski, Blake E. Marquis, Olimpia Zagnoli, Drew Heffron and a bunch of other talented folk.
So New, So Fresh
Sep 23, 2008 · 10 Comments
It’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally finished the new site. The last one was only supposed to be a temporary solution, but, as usual, life got in the way and it wound up lasting, oh, about a year. Oops!
There’s some cool new stuff going on under the hood that pleases me greatly, because I think it’s going to make my life much easier. Hopefully they’ll make you happy as well. Mainly, everything’s now under one roof. No more maintaining 2 or 3 sites. That was ridiculous. Everything now lives at www.frankchimero.com. Also, if you look to the left I’m now hosting my own online shop. It should serve to be a nice, central location to buy prints of my work. Also, it’s going to allow me to link up to the things that I make that are sold by other people. I think it’s a step in the right direction.
Another key thing is that now, work can live in more than one place. This one is a huge one for me. With my old site, when I’d add new work, I’d always get snagged up on what “category” that particular work would fall in to. Is it illustration? Is it art? Design? It doesn’t really matter now, because it can be all of ’em at once. So, if you’re browsing through the work, don’t be alarmed if you see the same project pop up in more than one section. Also, there’s now thumbnails! My buddy Doug and I used to argue about whether or not artists’ and designers’ websites needed to have thumbnails on them. Let’s just say the last time we talked about it, he made a very convincing argument.
There’s a few more nerdy things under the hood, but they don’t really matter very much to anyone except myself. I suppose the main point is this: with the redesign, hopefully the blog can grow into more of a work-related journal and the portfolio can be pleasant to explore and flexible enough to hold any sort of thing I can imagine.
Click around! See what you think, and let me know if things are broken, smoking from the hood, or exploding.
