JSH Portfolio: Keep It Charged

Staying inspired is tough and over the years I've had my high's and low's with it. I used to work at a billboard company called Adams Outdoor Advertising and David Adams and myself would do so much work in a given day that there would be times that we'd just self combust! Our Creative Director, Brian Haselton would urge us to step away, take a break, anything to get our heads out of work for a moment.

Each year we'd have an Adams Creative Conference where every Art Director and Designer from all the Adams Outdoor offices would come to Charlotte, NC for a two days. For the '04 Conference each office artist or artists if there were two were asked to choose from a list of presentation topics. We chose, "How can you stay inspired on a consistent basis?".

David and I chose this for obvious reasons, we were exhausted. But we also realized while discussing it that it's a universal problem and we've been dealing with it for years. How can you prevent the high's and low's on a consistent basis with all that a job or life has to throw at you? We came up with 25 Ways to Keep it Charged.























We quickly realized that it was more difficult than we at first thought because for this presentation our target audience was creative's who are the most ADD and bi-polar of people you'll find. Plus they were artists foremost, writers secondary. So we made it a visual presentation and began to sketch.

David is a brilliant artist and sketcher, so together we came up with 25 and started sketching. He selflessly let me illustrate all the 25 icons. I say selfless because he's good, really good, but he knew I was getting burnt out and I needed to throw myself into something other than billboards. David is and was a great person to collaborate with, we did many great projects together.

I illustrated 20 at home and started to get really into them. Brought them to work and together we created a consistency. Green as opposed to red was the color we chose for inspiration. This is because green signifies nature, always growing. Stick figures because they relate to street/restroom signs so as to be read a directional paths.

I love this piece because it was inspiring to create and fun to present to the creative's. We hand made little quick reference books with famous designers in the back in case they were inspired enough to learn more about design. I love it also because it was a true "designers" collaboration and it really opened my eyes that when two or more people act selflessly and keep there eyes on the prize, then great creative can be achieved.

To review each of the illustrations go to, www.johnshoward.com/02-1.html. Some of them push the edge a little, but it's an honest take on how creative's need to stay inspired: walk away, sex, get high, quit or be romantic, whatever it takes.

Note: Starting next week I'm going to introduce a weekly topic by featuring one of the 25 as a way to stay inspired for that week. We all need a little push, I know I do.