IMA24 Puttin' On The Ritz

Page 24

P U T T I N ' O N T H E R I T Z

    Individually hand-signed, museum quality, limited edition prints of the Ritz tubes and bottles below are in short supply, so get yours while you still can. Buy the whole collection and receive a substantial discount compared to purchasing them one-at-a-time. Okay, so I'm just kidding and just searching for an introduction to this minor compendium of drawings. Not exactly one of my more epic productions, but these were all kind of fun in their own way.

    Each was (would-have-been) a soft, squeezable plastic dispenser, white with blue (or other) wording and standard Ritz logo. I included these with my other "art" because they serve as an example of how, when it comes to this kind of work, no job is too small, as the saying goes. Especially when it involves friends. In this instance, the assignment came from my good friends at "The Good Life People" (www.glp.com) for whom I've done a lot of jobs over the years, some more creative than others, but all of them interesting and rewarding, both figuratively and literally.

    As a brief aside, including a shameless, unpaid plug, The Good Life People are indeed good people. Their website is worth a look if you're interested in some of the best high-end and highest quality skincare products around. Once again, here's an instant, bare-footed run straight to the beach: Take me there now!

    While this particular proposal was never sold or adopted, it did add to my artistic repertoire and could have easily led to larger and more extensive projects. In this sense, it was never envisioned that these were an end until themselves, but rather a beginning only. The world of commercial products is no less fickly than any other, however, and we do what we can, when we can, and by doing our best, hope for the best.

Fig. 1. A nice beach pic I stole from the GLP website.

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Here are some additional pieces I produced for The Good Life People, most notably the near-famous (well, a little bit) logo design for Pest-Off, a superior insect-repellant still available on the shelves of many stores. A funny story in hindsight, involves the execution of the Devine Healer label. Keep in mind that while this particular design went through several stages of development, it also went through the hands (and eyes) of several other people. And none of us noticed that I had misspelled the word, divine. Not until after hundreds if not thousands of labels had been printed. What can I say? And you know they still paid me. I wouldn't have. Well, in Monopoly money maybe. Actually, I convinced everyone that the mistake was purposeful and simply placed emphasis on the word in question. I think they believed me. Or paid me out of pity. Hey, pity dollars are legal tender; I'm not proud.

Never saw the light of day.

Fig. 11. Unused logo proposal for The Good Life People.

Fig. 12. Color "rough" for the final GLP logo design.

Fig. 13. A final concept drawing.

Flashback 1990's: The home computer (PC) had yet to debut as an affordable, mass-market item. In the meantime, product labels such as those displayed, were done entirely by hand using rulers, pencils, and paper. Oh, and lest I forget -- erasers. Still in use today, the lineup of skincare products sold by The Good Life People continue to sport my original label designs. Some of the initial art for both Devine Healer and Pest-Off is also on view. Also worth noting (for those who take the time to note such things) is the circular GLP logo design as integrated into most of the labels seen below.

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All of the skincare products shown here (and more) are available @ the Good Life People website: www.glp.com

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The Iced Bronze product labels.

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Fig. 21. A nice design, if you like nice designs.

Fig. 22. Another nice design. Hard to say which is the nicest.

Fig. 23. The Pest-Off logo. Less nice but effective.

F L A G S

Here I am trying to out-do Betsy Ross. While not suitable for flying in front of the White House, I thought these might make interesting variations on Old Glory's more traditional look. Especially on a small scale. Like really small. I had them lying around the house so I decided to include them here. I don't think anyone has to worry, just yet, about any of these replacing our American symbol of national pride. What do you think?

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I made this one for Herman Schneider, the master knife maker whose work can be seen on page IMA18.

Fig. 28.

Sports Medicine & Masters Center

This was actually one of my more successful efforts from the years prior to home computers. Based on a referral from another client, this outfit originally wanted a stoic, Romanesque head to accompany the company name. At some point it was decided to go with a full, upper body look. I think it was definitely the right decision.

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An example of how the right choice was made to
change from a head-only design, to a full body bust.

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Fig. 34. The final version prior to professional typesetting.

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