mfd | michael forbis design

The Bungaloo: Fairly Recent Update

My friend and fellow designer at the Bungaloo recently updated his site with some new work. As usual, the posters are so fun to look at. I especially dig his Liars poster with the torn wallpaper theme. Very cool.

Buy them here and make your crib look good.

Cool Infrared Photography

My fiancé recently got her hands on an infrared converted Nikon D70 and holy crap are the pictures unique. Yesterday she went to a park near our apartment and shot some pictures during the nice, slightly cloudy afternoon. What she ended up with were some incredibly dramatic photos that almost resemble a winter landscape due to the conversion of green to white. I can’t wait to see how portraits turn out this weekend when we shoot our engagement photos.

See her post here.

Tavis Coburn

Tavis Coburn is an illustrator who’s work is inspired by vintage prints, comic books and Russian avant-garde. His portfolio has several striking portrait illustrations as well as narrative and conceptual pieces. His portraiture is what really stands out to me. He uses a minimal color palette and half-tone patters to create a simple, clear piece, as you see in the portrait of Rupert Murdoch to the left.

Upon viewing this piece in his portfolio, I had a strong feeling that I had seen it before. Then I realized where. Grain Edit had this post a while back about an Italian magazine called Intelligence in Lifestyle. Coburn’s illustration looks amazing as a cover and works well with the vintage modern style of the mixed serif and sans serif typography. This is hands down one of the best uses of illustration for a magazine as well as one of the best magazine designs I have ever seen.

Kim Massie’s Tribute to
Women & Soul

For those of you living in St. Louis, don’t miss Kim Massie’s Tribute to Women & Soul this Friday night at Beale on Broadway. I was lucky enough to get the job designing the poster for the event as well as a few others through my job at Schupp Company.

The concept behind this design was to put Kim Massie in the context of the artists she paying tribute to by giving it the design treatment of the old Blue Note Records record sleeves (of which I posted about a few days ago). I even made the Blue Note logo lockup into a housing for the Beale’s address. Another poster design is to follow in the same style as this.

If you don’t know who Kim Massie is and like blues, soul and/or jazz, see you Friday.

bealeonbroadway.com

Redesign In Progress

Sorry for the appearance and lack of reading material. I have a limited hosting account so the only way I knew how to finish the development of my new site was to finish it live. Most links will not work yet but I am working on it.

Thank you for your patience.

The Last Exorcism Utilizes Chatroulette

The Last Exorcism combined the random chance meetings and real-life interactivity of Chatroulette with the exposure of YouTube to create some great publicity for the new film. This is similar to the way Paranormal Activity created tv spots consisting almost entirely of audience reaction to the film. Good stuff if you ask me.

View the video here.

Jazz Sleeves Brought to Life

Impressively creative video honoring the work of Reid Miles.

This is by far one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. You really don’t have to know a lot about Reid Miles enjoy what is going on in the video.

Find the video and more on Grain Edit

Don’t sin. Use type wisely.

Check out this awesome poster by Jim Godfrey titled “Typographic Sins.” I need this as a constant reminder next to my desk, although I don’t think I routinely break many of these rules. Hopefully there are no sins on this website.

Via FPO

Theodore “Hold You Like A Lover” | 02.09.2010

I would say that my folk/alt country, or whatever you would like to call that genre, kick ended, for the most part, about a year or more ago. An acoustic guitar and a sad, dusty voice just didn’t do anything for me anymore. Theodore, a group from right here in St. Louis and friends of mine, is a band whose music is so uniquely Midwest and impressively deep in tones and lyrical content. Their first release, “Songs for the Weary” was given to me and, embarrassingly, lost in my car for months. I found it out of its case and popped it in the player to see what it was and found myself pleasantly confused as to who this was. I am actually happy that I didn’t know who it was at first because, for some strange reason, I tend not to give local bands too much of a chance unless I see them live first. Needless to say, that album made a lasting impression.

As of late Theodore has really blown up. They have been busy traveling, gaining a larger following and writing and recording more songs. I received an email recently from Moon Jaw Records, who is distributing Theodore’s new record, announcing said release and declaring that with one simple click I would be granted the opportunity to download the entire album in advance. The upcoming “Hold You Like a Lover” is one truly beautiful record. The wide array of instrumentation, blending harmonies and poetic lyrics are astonishing. It has been perfect at work lately for myself and a few coworkers. If you haven’t heard of Theodore, visit their site and sample some songs.

Catch their release show February 13th at Off Broadway. They will be accompanied by Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and Andrew Bryant.