6/10/2023 0 Comments Tad carpenterIt was brilliant and I have it hanging in my office still.Īnother person I met was Gordon MacKenzie, one of my dad’s best friends. Happy 9th birthday!” with a dog peeing on Alfred’s leg. I’ll never forget this for my ninth birthday, Paul sent me a drawing of Alfred E. He was also one of the lead character designer for the abominable snowman from those claymation Christmas movies we watched as kids. One person was Paul Coker, who was one of the original illustrators for Mad Magazine. I got to meet all kinds of people growing up there. But outside of Pixar maybe, there’s nowhere that has this much creativity in one location. A lot of us think of Hallmark Cards as a place where fluffy bunnies and sentimental flower cards are created-there’s some truth to that. The fact that I grew up in the hallways of Hallmark Cards really shaped my voice as a designer. He really set a tone for me as an illustrator and artist. Even to this day, I run sketches by him all the time because he’s the most amazing draftsman and idea man I’ve ever met. Some sons and fathers work on cars and some do illustrations together, which is what me and my dad did. ![]() As a teenager, I rebelled and thought I wanted to be a painter for a while, but then I realized how important illustration and design were to me, especially growing up with my dad. He started as an illustrator and writer and is now Creative Director for Hallmark International.įrom an early age, I had a good idea and understanding of what illustration and design were and how they were important to us. My father is an illustrator and has worked for Hallmark Cards for almost 40 years. She dyes her own wool and hooks these beautiful rugs. When I went to a friend’s house who had a parent who was an accountant, I thought, “What the heck? You guys don’t sit around at night making things?” It was so surreal. I grew up making and I never knew any different. I was an only child, or a lonely child as I thought it was. I was really fortunate to grow up in a household with parents who were both artists. I wanted to explore new ways to output my ideas, and doing so with new materials in new creative ways became a huge part of the process.Describe your path to becoming an illustrator and designer. As this project grew, I found myself building sculptures, huge masks, routered wood signs, arranging photoshoots, screenprinting, painting, and installing murals. "I want these suns to be exploratory and spontaneous, but inevitably many suns took on a life of their own and took much longer to complete. Ideally, Tad aims to work out the concept, design it, then share it within two hours. That's not to say that some of my suns are not aesthetically driven (What can I say, I love a good symmetrical logo-sue me)." I try to spend more time on the idea than the execution of the design. "I draw fast, creating thumbnail sketches, exploring the concept and composition. "I start every sun with good old pencil and paper," he adds, stressing that he does his best thinking with his right hand. "How can I apply meaning in pictures or use this vessel (the sun) to pour meaning into it?" he'd ask himself. "It injected me with a little hope each and every week it really has made me look at things with a more positive lens."Īnd seeing as he creates logos, brand systems and strategies for a living, it's no surprise that Tad approached this activity like he was developing a brand. "This project has given me so much," he says. ![]() ![]() He enjoyed it so much that he whipped up a sun in one form or another every Sunday morning from then on out. With no rules, no client expectations, and no creative brief, the simple act of drawing a sun made Tad feel a bit better about himself and his craft. It was then that he started designing a sun for himself and nobody else. ![]() Making art had always been therapeutic for me I needed to find that again." "I really needed to get back to making things I loved and remind myself how much I truly love to make. "We as people tend to find joy when we are doing something we love," he explains. That's when he realised he needed to reconnect with his love for design by experimenting and playing. After heading to the studio one Sunday morning in2015 to get a head start on his work, Tad found himself stalling, gazing out of the window, and watching the sunrise.
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