This is The Design Bureau of Amerika’s™ Official Blog. Here you will find all the latest news regarding The Bureau’s projects. To show our gratitude for those who have supported us over the years, we are making available for download many of the assets that we use to create our work. There also will be content created exclusively for this site. All content will be FREE.

We will try to update this site on a fairly regular basis as time permits. There are a lot of great projects planned for the near future, so make sure to sign up for our RSS Feed to get the latest updates as soon as they are posted.

Take a look around and thanks for visiting,

Keith
Director of The Design Bureau of Amerika™

My Aunt passed away yesterday. She had a long but troubled life battling a weight problem and a misdiagnosed form of schizophrenia, which resulted in her living most of her life as a recluse and a shut-in. My mom was a single working parent during most of my childhood and my aunt lived with us to help raise us. Besides my grandmom, she was the only one in my family that I could relate to and she was instrumental in helping me find my creative path.

She loved TV and her favorite show was the original StarTrek, how cool is that?. She introduced me to everything from Adam 12, The Rat Patrol and Emergency One to Lost In Space, Six Million Dollar Man and Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot. One of my favorite memories was during the summer she would call me in from swimming in our neighbors above ground pool (which was rare in our neighborhood) to watch Space Angel and Captain Scarlet. I would sit on the floor, soaking wet in my bathing suit shivering from the air conditioner memorized by the fantastic visuals of both those shows. She would watch with me just as enthralled. Even as a recluse, she would get someone to drop her off at the movie theater when there was something playing that she just had to see. I remember they took the first season of the original Battlestar Galactica and released it as a movie in the theater for a short time. My aunt went by herself and she stayed in the theater after it was over until the next showing and watched it a second time because she loved it so much.

When my mom used to try to punish my bad grades in school by taking away my comic books, my aunt would hide them for me and sometimes smuggle me a new ones. We would spend Saturday afternoons reading comics and watching Dr. Who. My love of all things superhero comes from her. My mom couldn’t tell the difference between Spider-Man or Superman but my aunt did as well as their alter egos. I would lend her my comics to read and then we would talk on the phone discussing them like a bookclub. We were close during most of my formative years but she never forgave me for moving out of the house when I was 18 and not talking to my parents for almost 5 years after that. I didn’t see her much these last few years and we never got a chance to reconcile…well I guess we had chances but never took them because we are both stubborn.

Jenn and I went to see her on her deathbed, she looked so sickly that I barely recognized her. She was on alot of pain medication and could barley open her eyes or talk. I am not even sure she was aware that we were there. She did open her eyes at one time looked at my mom and struggled as she very hoarsely and quietly said “I’m sorry”. I felt awful because I wanted to make sure that she understood what a positive and profound influence she had on my life, but I am not even sure she even recognized me. She shouldn’t have passed away thinking that she had to apologize.

She did make alot of friends in the retirement community she lived in and probably had more friends there than most of her life, so I am happy for that and that she went peacefully. I am sure she will be rewarded in the next life for the struggles she endured in this one. Rest in peace, Aunt Sondra…you were loved.

Finishing up the designs for The Ink Initiative Project’s Second Series.  This artwork is almost done and the poster most likely be printed horizontally. Enjoy!

Oh hello,

As some of you have noticed, it has been pretty quite around the Bureau lately.  The reason for this is because all Bureau projects,  including The Ink Initiative Project have been put on hold due to the fact that I have recently been laid off from my senior art director role at Red Tettemer. During this time I have been hard at work updating and designing a new personal portfolio site that will be used in my search for new employment.

I initially designed a site and my friends at CINQ Partners offered to help me out and handle the site development. Unfortunately half way through the development(in which they were doing a great job),  I decided that I needed to make some changes to the look, feel and motion of the site so that it better represented myself.  So I turned to my friend Chad from Steam Powered Designs, who was responsible for development of the Ink Initiative website.  As usual, Chad came though and delivered a quality developed site that was exactly pixel perfect to my design.

So now the site is finished and launched(although there is still a slight issue with it in IE browsers…surprise!) and my resume is updated, it is time to finally start looking for new employment. The sooner I am able to find work, the sooner I will be able to turn my time and attention to Bureau related projects,  specially the Ink Initiative.

So if anyone out there know of a place that is looking for a whoop ass senior art director / ACD,  please send them this link or let me know!

Check out my new personal portfolio

Thanks!

>Keith

Hey all, I am working on Series Two posters for Amerikan Made Print’s: The Ink Initiate Project. Hopefully we will be rolling out this series by the end of summer. In the meantime, hear is a preview of one of the posters and don’t forget the 2 for 1 “God Bless Amerika” sale ends on July 12th. Get on the deal today!