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!

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

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!

 

  

 

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?!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Don't let a bad idea knock you down today.

We're Published!!

We are excited to have just received our copy of Hugo Award Winning StarShipSofa's Stories, Volume 3. We were asked to participate and participate we did. See our piece below. If you're a fan of awesomeness in the form of Sci-Fi, then definitely check the book out. There's more amazing art tied into their 50s sci-fi theme.

Behold...the power of the Darth Star!

Hello folks!! The first post is on a blog is always crucial, huh? Our official "outing" was at the Chicago Comic Con and the response we received was pretty awesome! So awesome, in fact, that we're going back this year (so we hope to see you again). We've started to get into "let's start making cool stuff" mode, so what better way to kick it off than with a little (literally) Star Wars. I like to think of a young Darth Vader as small and mischievous versus that little blonde boy from Tatooine. Enjoy!