Schrock-A-Doodle-Doo

As 2019 was coming to a close, Tyler Schrock, Team MVP Pro asked me if I would like to do his 2020 Tour Series disc. Working with Tyler is pure joy. He’s kept an animal theme over the past few years that allowed me to do design an octopus and sloth. This year, his idea was a rooster. It turns out that his father was a chicken farmer! He raised chickens for 25 years. So this stamp idea was something he knew his family would love.

This idea started with chicken reference gathering even though I had a good idea of how I’d be able to pull this off. I think the strongest silhouette of a chicken is from the side. It gave me the room in the center of the disc to stay free from any no stamping zones. The chicken mouth action/or spit never made the final. That was an attempt to add that classic “action” seen in cartoons to show loud noises. We didn’t want the chicken looking like it was spitting so it was axed toward the end. The shading detail near the chest add a bit of contrast to show that it’s different color of feather.

The final pass was simply to add body/feather detail and import the consistent ring graphic from last years design. It was important to Tyler to continue that look and feel from year to year. When you display these side by side; it really adds a nice series look to them. I hope you all dig it! Share, like, comment on what you think!

Axiom Prism Plasma - Stock

The Axiom Discs Prism Plasma plastic brings the shimmering beauty of a core fused with the luster of a candy-like Prism outer rim. In this development blog, I dip my toes into a few decisions that made me arrive at its current design. With pen and paper in my hand; the first thought was how can I get in and get out with the least amount of wreckage?

The plastic combination does the work for you! My goal was to create a non-intrusive 3 foil design that allowed the plastic to speak to the consumer. Axiom branding has dabbled in the Fibonacci sequence, DNA, flying machines and very artistic approach to high-level concepts. I centered this piece on simplicity. The ring uses to shape sequences that follow the 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 sequence. The design is duplicated and flipped on the opposite side. This creates this really cool halftone fill/ inverted look with the silver holofoil. Again, making this design bleed some of that beautiful, shimmering foil through. The 3 foils break down to Black, Silver holofoil for the ring and color transition holofoil for the Name/Prism logo fill. The font chosen to represent the disc name and flight numbers is Antonio. I wanted a font that was clean with a little bit of height to be legible from a distance.

All in all, sometimes the super simple designs take the most time. I’m glad we stuck to our guns on the outlining goals of this stamp art. It’s simply celebrating the look of the plastic and allowing a stamp to go along for the ride. It also looks really cool spinning through the air.

Stock Proton Pilot

Here it is! My very first complete stock stamp designed from the ground up. It’s a first and I’m super excited on how it turned out. The Streamline Pilot has been one of those molds that has really taken off. Fans of the disc love its glide and super straight flight. It’s a great flyer and I knew early on that this disc was going to be a go to for a lot of disc golfers.

The whole goal in this design was to bring back some of that art deco/ retro futurism flavor that was in some of the earlier stamp designs from Streamline Discs. I really liked what Zachary Kelbaugh did with the Proton Drift and wanted to create something that is vaguely familiar with the consumer. Most importantly, I wanted to reestablish Streamline’s identity.

This is more of a take on the classic fighter pilot but abstract enough to offer viewers an ability to create their own story; their own hero. The intended goal was to create a design that had breath-ability but also had refined class. I found some great inspiration online. The classic silent film “Metropolis” was a huge inspiration and was the backbone of the main center figure. From there it was inserting flight numbers and logos in a way that didn’t feel obtrusive. We went with a silver holographic foil to really embrace that high polish look. I think it worked really well for the candy-like color properties of the plastic itself.

All in all, I’m very happy. I had always pictured my first commission stock stamp going much differently. I had that feeling that it would be so out of the way of how I did things. I don’t think I could have gotten more lucky. I want to thank Brad/Chad and crew for having the confidence in me to deliver.

Robokitty 2.0

I received a request from an Team MVP member to change up a 2018 stamp design. Amanda Melwiki had a great 2018 year and her Robokitty design was a hit. She came to me with the idea of changing up the foils and adding a few elements to last years design. I had bigger plans for Robokitty and I’m glad she trusted me to do something new but a continuation of the concept.

I knew I wanted to show a fiercer side of the kitty. I wanted to marry the concepts of cute/friendly with the deep down drive and determination of getting better. That fueled the fire going into the concept stage. I had the idea more stored in the back of my head so this design didn’t really consist of a lot of reference gathering. Bringing in that exaggerated anime pop and allowing the opportunity to expand on the Robokitty character were the goals first and foremost. From there it was a few experiments with stars and how I was going to incorporate them into the design.

A huge thanks goes out to Amanda. Were you able to snag one? If not, she has a few available but will be selling out fast. Follow her here:

https://www.facebook.com/AmandaMelwiki

Mike 'Sully' Sullivan "45"

When Mike Sullivan of Team MVP approached me to do his Team MVP stamp, he was kind of giving me the reigns to come up with something. We chatted a bit over private message and our conversation led to music. Mike is a huge 70's punk/ New Wave fan. He also shares a common interest in vinyl. I've been wanting to do a record stamp for a while now and this was the opportunity to pitch it. Some of his favorite bands from that era were Crass, Joy Division and The Clash. My advice to upcoming designers: Talk to you clients! Make a connection. You just never know what might come out of it. I’m sure most people outside looking in had no idea Sully used to be an avid vinyl collector. I’m glad both and he and I were excited about pursuing this challenge.

Mike loved the idea and I quickly got to work. The hardest thing about doing this was that this needs to work on every disc color. Records are finely detailed and it would take lines under typical stamping requirements to pull off the sheen/ intricacies of the grooves. I had to plan smart and figure out a way that this could be possible, while also keeping it graphic and instantly recognizable. One common theme we both agreed on from the very beginning is this was before advances in colored label and surfaces. Most punk records were black and white or very simple graphically. I don’t know much about these bands so it was straight to google search to get some overall themes established. We knew that a full 12” record wasn’t doable with the center sprue being off limits. The next option was a 7” and if fit perfectly for what we were wanting to pull off.

The important thing about this stamp was breaking up the huge fields of black within the design. I used a simple halftone pattern technique to break apart the solid black and help ease up the overall tonnage for the stamping machine. One reference I found really fit well for placing all the information while mimicking the exact punk style Mike was aiming for. I had a blast working in a different style than past stamps. The initial plan was to use a clear holofoil for the record surface. MVP was out of that foil so they wisely went silver metallic and it worked out perfectly. It reflects the disc color and almost achieves the same effect we were going after.

Overall, I appreciate Mike Sully giving me full reign to run with it. I feel these bursts of excitement toward a project creates an overall better product in the end. Thanks everyone for tuning and and learning a bit about how I was able to pull it off! Share this blog if you feel so inclined.

MVP Open-LE Resistor

With the success of the MVP Open Pro side Limited Edition Fireball stamp, it was now time to turn my focus. The goal was to take the same general theme as the Fireball and create a triple foil stamp with the same visual appeal for the Amateur side of the MVP Open tournament. Since this disc will also debut in the same new "Firebalm" Plasma plastic as the Fireball, it should me for a pretty nice pairing. 

Going into this design, the idea of inverting/ flipping of what was done previously, was brought up among the marketing team. I really liked that idea and ran with it. The Resistor is a widely used utility fairway driver that also has a lot of overstability (the typical flight of a disc that turns left for a right handed backhand thrower). Since I couldn't use the shot mimic'd in the first stamp, I have the disc golfer throwing a typical backhand hyzer that follows the overall circumference of the outer edge of the stamp.

The Fireball had it's font treatment on the bottom of the design, I also wanted to change this up as well. For the Resistor wording on the top portion of the design, I would design that area to act as if the circuit board and different pathways connecting itself to it. As I continued to layout out the circuits and pathways, it felt flat. I switched gears toward the end and made the call to work around the Resistor typeface and create bolts to simplify.

All in all, it was awesome to continue a theme from one Limited release to another. That's a first for me and hope everyone digs it. Thanks so much for stopping in and reading about this design. The MVP Open was a huge success and I can’t wait to see what next year brings for MVP Disc Sports.
 

Schrocktopus

With the 2018 disc golf season among us, it was with great excitement that the first tour stamp of the year leaned on my love for the octopus. I was given pretty much open freedom to come up with a stamp for Tyler Schrock of Team MVP. "Schrocktopus" is his nickname, so we ran with it. 

Going into this project, My focus was on giving Tyler Schrock the real estate I thought he wanted. I went to the sketchbook and used the octopus within his name plate. The ideas resembled something he could take and use on other applications or patches. The feedback I received from the thumbnails surprised me a bit. While most Tour Discs have the sponsored player either written somewhere in text or with a signature; Tyler didn't want that. He wanted his stamp to focus more on the art and his nickname. Going into the rough draft, I had a pretty clear picture of how this artwork was going to finish out as. There were last minute changes that needed to be made, though. It's a valuable lesson on logo use and the end solution was to insert the official Team MVP seal. It replaced the MVP "Orbit" logo from the initial final.  The stamp lost a little bit of playfulness (in my opinion) but I still think it came out great!  

It was a pleasure being asked to work on this for him. Contact Tyler Schrock through this link for inquiries on availability. 

MVP "Limited Edition" Teleport

The MVP Teleport is the first one out of the gates for MVP Disc Sports 24.5mm class of high-speed drivers. To commemorate the release of this disc, MVP came to me wanted a limited edition stamp.  My job was to portray teleportation while sticking with what MVP's brand identity is and to create this design using their three foil stamping abilities. 

Mathematics, science, and technology take the forefront of what MVP's graphics have always been about, My mind started there. How would I depict teleportation in a way that worked well? That was tough. If you take a look at my thumbnail process in the very first gallery image, you see the spectrum was pretty wide. Anything from math grids and charts to space pilots entering a warp tunnel. My main hurdles with this design were turnaround times and getting the funnel graphic and perspective to give off a disorienting point A and B. Hot stamping has a limit to line width that will be transferred to the disc successfully. What I wanted to do is convey these two portal entry's that disappeared to the disc color while keeping the main and important element (the Teleport name and MVP logo) bold and black. 

All in all, I'm super grateful for the opportunity and learn the most when I step outside my comfort zone. The Limited Edition stamp will be available through most major retailers that carry MVP Disc Sports merchandise. What do you all think? Does it keep with the brand? Leave me a note in the comment section. Thanks for stopping by.