Merry Christmas!!!

Well hello friends!

2013 has been quite the year for the monster duo. We've been extremely busy (in a good way), but more importantly have had the pleasure of working with the greatest folks. Some of whom we've had relationships with for over 10 years and others whom we consider new friends. The common link they are share is they're some of the greatest people we know and we're super blessed to work with.

We don't look at our jobs as a series of individual projects, we look at them as opportunities to help our friends' businesses grow and achieve new heights. And as people who are addicted to positive change, it's been a rewarding year.

So to share a little of our holiday joy with you, we wanted to share our e-card we've been shooting out to our business friends.

On behalf of the Monster Crew, we wish you the greatest Christmas (or holiday of your choice) ever and even greater New Year!! Celebrate safely and stay awesome!

Look Who's Talking Too

Not only was it an amazing sequel to an amazing movie (Bruce Willis babies are adorable), but it's what's happening in the near future. Visual Voltage, a student run design organization and chapter of AIGA, is hosting their annual SPARK conference and they've asked me (Luis) and 3 other talented and established individuals to offer up our thoughts on this year's topic: INSPIRE. Check out the link for more details: http://vvspark.com/

Monster Update

Hello friends!

It's been a while since we've posted, but that doesn't mean we haven't been doing anything. On the contrary, we've been kept busy by our rock star client family and also developing personal projects and even a little Idea Monster passion project/venture. We're still too early in to disclose any specifics, but take a peek into what lies ahead.

In terms of personal projects, we view these as opportunities to stretch ourselves and work outside of our comfort zone and try a new approach. Below is a piece that was developed to appear as if it were done on a letterpress.

We also have the tendency to have a random thought pop into our head while working and we'll either jot down the idea or do a quick sketch so we can return to it in between projects. Below is such an example. Friends, there's no need to hurt Mr. Chocolate's feelings. Ever.

Well, thanks for dropping by! Hope you enjoyed your stay! Drop by any time :).

An A-maze-ing Project Update!

Hello friends!

Sorry for the pun. It's almost impossible to not share bad puns around here. Don't judge.

Anyways, we're excited to have received the green light to post this project we did for the super great (I almost said a-maze-ing) folks at Marbles: The Brain Store. If you're not familiar with who they are, please do check them out. They're a store (on-line as well) that specializes in keeping you mentally healthy and growing through classic as well as new and innovative games, puzzles and activities, so we respect them right off the bat. What makes them even greater are the people. Very down to earth and very funny. More importantly, they bring their humor and wit into their own products and quality is not a close second, it seems to be their number one priority.

That's what made this project so great; they put as much work/thought/quality into their packaging as they do their product. We were asked to create the packaging for their updated version of Labyrinth. They gave us little guidelines and much freedom. Having designed packaging for national retailers, we know every penny counts, so we played it safe (but sexy) with most designs, but we also threw in a couple of pie-in-the-sky options and thankfully they went with our personal favorite! We designed a 3D maze with an actual marble on the cover of the box and allowing it to dot the "i" in Labyrinth as an extra wink. Their team of genius engineers and manufactures were able to make it come to life and the feedback has been, and I apologize in advance, A-MAZE-ING!! I believe the term "hot cakes" was used to describe how well it's doing. But we're only one small piece of the puzzle. They did an incredible job updating the game with regular, yet challenging, mazes, and in true Marbles fashion, they put their own spin on it and added a Periodic Table of Elements and map of the USA on a couple of the mazes. A nerd's dream come true. So check out a couple of the photos below and if you, or someone you know, is in need of some brain exercise, give them a visit here or find a store near you.

Merry Christmas and an awesome New Year!!

Hello friends!

We're going to keep this one short and sweet. 2012 was a big year for us. We opened the doors to our little creative studio and through all of the ups and downs, we feel blessed for all that's happened and all of those who've helped us along the way. Thank you!
 
Now we get to celebrate the upcoming holidays! So however you choose to trim the tree (hee, hee. Get it?) or celebrate the holidays, on behalf of the monsters here, we wish you a super amazing Christmas and an even greater New Year! Stay safe, and more importantly, stay awesome.

See you soon!

A Christmas tip from the monster crew

We've all heard the saying, less is more. That's actually true in most cases (not true when dealing with donuts or bacon). That saying is most certainly true when dealing with home decorating. With this being the holiday season, we wanted to share a tip on how to pick the appropriate Christmas tree. The picture above pretty much speaks for itself.

Other Holiday tips:
Don't make snowmen out of yellow snow.
Actually, avoid yellow snow at all costs.
Gift cards are actually a good gift.
Puppies are actually a bad gift. The type of presents they leave are the ones you can't return with any amount of receipts.

Well, we hope we've been of some help to you. How ever you celebrate your holiday season, we wish you a safe and awesome season and an even better new year. Merry Christmas!!

Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!!!!

As we near our 1 year anniversary, we have a lot to be thankful for from our awesomely wondiferous clients (clients sounds kinda stale, huh? We'll call you our friends), to our fans (that sounds weird, let's just call you friends also). We are thankful for our entire circle of friends and family. We wish you all the safest and most delicious Thanksgiving ever!!

Cream or sugar with that coffee? How 'bout some nerd?

So a little while back, the good folks at Bloc, a group of elite nerds (Coming from a nerd, I mean that in the most honoring way possible) with amazing experience and backgrounds, banded together to form a company that offers courses in web development (though more courses are on the horizon). Anyways, they contacted us to illustrate a graphic for a tee shirt they could hand out at their booth at trade shows. After speaking with tech guru, Hani (greatest guy ever), we understood they wanted a block character to serve as their mascot. They were pretty open aside from that. We felt a wooden block tied best in with their brand identity. Their excitement over the final product was only matched by those receiving the tees, which made us equally excited. It was a triforce of happiness. They were so fun to work with and we wish them the best as they raise up another generation of programming nerds (again, that's a good thing). If you're looking to bulk up your web development skills, check them out! Below are some photos of the final product.

Are you feeling the burn yet?

We recently had the pleasure of working with the innovative fitness company Wahoo Fitness, who develops product and technology for the everyday athlete. What we love about them most is their sense of humor. While they take their business very seriously, they don't take themselves too seriously. They've recently developed a new piece of technology and felt the best way to pitch it would be via illustrated story boards. That's where we came in. After listening to their needs and asking some essential questions, we had all we needed to proceed. The initial feedback has been very positive and we wish them the best and hope our work continues to support their work. If you are an everyday athlete (or an every once in a while athlete like me), be sure to pay them a visit here. Below are just a few of the images we developed. Thanks!

© Wahoo Fitness 2012

© Wahoo Fitness 2012

© Wahoo Fitness 2012

Hooray for Halloween!!

Hello folks! Luis here!

I had the absolute privilege to work on Target's Halloween collection in 2010 and lead the development in 2011 and 2012. This year was by far my most ambitious to date. I lead the cross-functional and cross-departmental teams in a number of brainstorm sessions to identify white-space opportunities in our assortment, merchandising and general product ideas. Developing a collection of this magnitude is a huge undertaking and takes a large number of people, but it's fun and has been the most rewarding project I've had to work on because it is so big, and heck, it's Halloween!!

As I mentioned, it's definitely a group effort that combined the talents of many people and departments. Aside from having to develop the trends, I personally oversaw (and pitched in on) the development of the artwork/style guide. I also dabbled in some of the product designs and/or art directed our business partners. To me, the most exciting part is co-developing the strategy with the merchant teams. In 2011, we saw an opportunity to make pumpkin decorating bigger and more fun, and we expanded it for 2012. Usually the design team pitches in to help develop merchandising solutions, but by that time I had already left and opened the doors to Idea Monster. Below are just a few photos of some of the assortment in all of their glory. Enjoy!!

Just a snap shot of our home decor offerings.

A wreath I developed. I don't know why, but I really love this guy.

New for us in 2012 was adding real pumpkins to our pumpkin decorating statement. I wish I could take credit for that one :(.

I wanted our animated decor to feel as cohesive as possible so we tied it all together with materials, color and finishes.

  

Who doesn't love a party? Aside from developing the "Spookier" artwork, I also designed these shaped plates. My favorite to this day.

 

After an observational "field trip" to my buyer's son's school Halloween party, we identified the need for some school or group games/activities. While I developed the basic look and concepts, a talented designer and friend did the actual designing and saw it through to production.

New Art Prints Up at Society 6!

Hello folks!

As we're gearing up for Comic Con (Wizard World) which is later this week, we took some time out to post some older graphics we did for tees that we didn't end up using. We loved them too much to see them go to waste, so now they're available as prints over at Society6. Check them out and go ahead and buy one if you like it!

Speaking of tees, we'll have a new tee up for voting at Threadless very soon! Check back in a day or two for details.

Thanks and enjoy!

Twice the Man

Proper Mr. Otter

The AMAZING Spidey

He's everywhere... and now he's on a slab of wood. And adorably so.

Adventure Time!

Check out this painting of Adventure Time - Acrylics on Wood.

Turtle Power!

This week is Chicago Comic Con and we are so excited to show all the fun stuff we are bringing to the show!

Check out this 3D plush wall art. There are four canvases to the set.

Good news! More Whales!!

Hello folks!! We just received an email from Threadless today letting us know that due to popular demand (I added the "due to popular demand" part), they've reprinted our "Shave the Whales"tee! I know most sized went pretty fast. If ye like, check it out here: www.threadless.com/product/3660/Shave_the_Whales/. Thanks folks!

Awesome tees for awesome-r beverages!

Hello folks! Luis here! We recently partnered with the great people of Novamex to design some tees for some of their Summer marketing initiatives. If you're Mexican, know Mexicans or just love Mexican food, you definitely know who they are or have at least [repeatedly] tried their products. They're the saints that bring us Jarritos, Sidral Mundet, Sangria Senorial, and the delicious hot sauce, Cholula (the one with the wooden cap), just to name a few.

We had the task of designing for my personal favorite sodas (honestly), Sangria Senorial; which, as the name suggests is derived from the alcoholic beverage Sangria; and Sidral Mundet, an apple-flavored soda that comes in two flavors: red and green apple. Below are the designs (the monster tees did not move forward, but we still loved them, so wanted to show them off ;).

It was such a rewarding experience working on this project, not only because they were such a blast to work with (nicest people in the world!) but for me, it's a brand I grew up with and brings back so many fond memories of my childhood. Read about the two beverages here www.sangriasenorial.com and www.sidralmundet.com and see what other products Novamex distributes here: www.novamex.com/.

Thanks Novamex and thank you for reading!

Los Luchadores Maravillosos

 Hello! Luis here - The Chicago Comic Con is fast approaching and we're scrambling to create some new pieces for the visitors this year. We'll being some old favs from last year, but people want the new. We'll be posting some other projects soon, but until then here's the latest pieces. For as long as I'll live, I'll always remember my summer vacations as a kid to Mexico where we'd visit our family. Long car rides to Acapulco without air conditioning, is something I won't soon forget, but more unforgettable were the many, many times my uncle would take us all to LUCHA LIBRE at the local arena. It was AMAZING! The flips, the characters, the toys and most of all, the masks! I had a personal collection of my favorite luchador masks (El Ultimo Dragon was numero uno!). For this personal project, I thought it'd be cool to interpret some of my favorite super heroes as luchadores. The masks are totally lo-fi and what you'd expect to see from the luchadores back then. I took the liberty and creative freedom with the names as well. I imagined my mother saying Captain America's real name Steve Rogers as Estevan Royers (her Gs aren't always there). What do you folks think of the aged paper textures? Keep? Thanks and enjoy!

 

  

 

Hooray for nerds!

We came across this cool nerdy site yesterday, Geek Rest, and lo and behold...they had posted some of our work we had done for Wizard World 2011! A lot of our work is whimsical and very stylized, but on this grouping we wanted to explore some simpler designs. There's also a Spongebob piece we did which they didn't include. Check it out: www.geekrest.com/2012/03/stylized-superhero-designs-by-idea-monster/.

Anyways, we are prepping  for Wizard World 2012 and we're putting our heads together to see what kind of fun, new surprises we can cook up for all of the awesome people we'll meet this year!! We'll recap for sure! Stay tuned. Different Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!! POW!!! BAM!!!

Super Awesome!!

Hey folks! Long time, no update. Sorry about that. We've, thankfully, been busy at work but we had the opportunity to work with the good folks at Steal This Art on this piece. Unfortunately the art is a limited run and is only available for 24 hours then it will merely be a thing of legend and myth. In case you missed it there, here she is in all of her glory. Enjoy!

Is that a Ninja Turtle?

A sneak peek at something we are cooking up for Wizard World Chicago. Cool illustration mixed with... sewing?!