Christmas Newsletter Illustration, 2024

Deciding on what exactly to do this year proved a difficult decision for me. In years gone by the imagery flowed with greater ease, or I already had an image waiting in the wings. Starting around Thanksgiving, after mulling it over for a couple weeks, or so, I finally decided on sharing something that goes well beyond the Christian mainstream. A concept that is alluded to briefly in the Bible, that has an expanded meaning due in no small part to the Book of Mormon and modern prophetic revelation. This Christ centered idea of the Tree of Life is deeply meaningful to me and my family. Every Christmas, not only do I share the story of the nativity, but I also include Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life and its meaning. The ideas engendered in his vision of our Lord and the Tree have become inseparably welded into my heart and mind whenever I see a Christmas tree. For me the Christmas tree is a symbolic representation of the Tree of Life pointing us to God through the living Messiah, even Jesus Christ.

The first part of this post will be about the process and tools I used to create the illustration. If you are willing to stick around, the second half will be a more in-depth explanation of the meaning behind the illustration.

An Epic Play Mat

At the beginning of October my youngest son approached me with a task of creating an illustration for a playmat. Essentially this is like a mouse pad, only larger. It will be rolled up, then unrolled, when he is ready to do some serious card gaming.

I accepted the challenge. Before I even began, he came up with a mood board and instructions for the playmat. I love how he used a little typographic hierarchy to tell me what is most important about the illustration. 

Together we figured out I needed to produce an illustration 24 inches wide by 14 inches deep. 

With that, I dove into creating this. To expedite the speed in which this would be produced, I chose to use a combination of AI image generation, compositing techniques, using Affinity Photo, and digital illustration where needed.

Mountain View Corridor and the Mitt Romney Visit

Couple months ago, Mitt Romney came for a visit to check out the pieces of military property that needed to be transferred into state hands so they can finish building the MountainView Corridor. I was asked to generate a couple maps to make clear what is being proposed. Went through multiple revisions. Used Adobe Illustrator to produce these. 

Graphics in Review, Nov. 2017

Another rip-roaring month at the Deseret News. Below is my contribution, with the first 10 or so being my top picks.

American Family Survey graphics

I did a number of graphics for a series of stories that ran in the Deseret News. Below is the massive graphic I did for online. Here is a link to its location on the landing page for this series.

Graphics in Review, Oct. 2017

October went fast. Here, again, are graphics and imagery I've created at the Deseret News in the month of October. Enjoy!

Temple distances project

I was tasked with creating a world map that highlighted various distance extremes between Mormon LDS temples all over the world. Obviously something this large doesnt work very well on mobile screens, so I broke each distance into their own graphic. Considering space restrictions etc., I think this turned out rather well. This is probably the top graphic of October.

The rest of October

Cranking out the News in Education pages

Following are 3 one-page Classroom Connection pages I did for the Deseret News. All were published in the Newspaper.

Invasion of Poland

With all the craziness going on in our world it's easy to forget the catastrophes of long ago. I was asked to do this one-page on the invasion of Poland. I hope what I chose to focus on really helps anyone see a snippet of history on this hugely key event in our worlds history.

Detail of the headline

Hard-hitting graphic on the human cost of war

Especially prod of this one. Did a bunch of research to put this one together. Hope I got it right

All about Humpback Whales

Love whales, their grace, uniqueness and size. Decided to do an NIE on Humpbacks. Found out these creatures are born weighing about a ton, and reach maturity in only 10 years! For how large they are, I find that amazing.

Detail of 2 of the graphics

Detail showing the cutout work made with photoshop, then laid out in InDesign

Hurricanes

I did this quickly and on the spur of the moment, thinking it would be timely with all the hurricanes hitting islands and U.S. coasts. Most of the graphics are direct re-makes. The graphic in the lower left, with its small illustrations are of my devising. The 3D illustration in the bottom right graphic was created using Illustrator and Blender 3D.

Detail of graphic with original illustrations depicting the devastation of different hurricane intensities

February 2017 Graphics in review

Bit late on posting these. Better late than never. Enjoy.

December 2016: Graphics in review

Made it through another year, Yeah!

Here is what graphics for December looked like. As always, the first 10 are my favorites. The rest are in no particular order. Enjoy, Happy New year and God bless.