no, earlier

As much as I would like to feature one of my recent art projects on Cards in the Attic, I just couldn’t bring myself to post something on that blog that has nothing to do with either baseball or trading cards. I considered trying to justify the entry by discussing that one of the main reasons I was eager to work on this project is that I consider it a step forward in the direction of creating an opportunity where I will get to design trading cards to be published by a professional sports team. At any rate, it is probably a more appropriate time to dust off the old Blog Kabin Fever login and add some long overdue content.

I started picking up a little freelance graphic work with the Albuquerque Thunderbirds, our local semipro basketball team, at the tail end of this past summer when I was already splitting my time finishing up the Isotopes season and getting cranked up working in the video department at the racetrack. A fistful of print ads and a brochure announcing tryouts for the team’s dance squad later, and I found myself designing the official 2008-2009 Storm Chasers calendar. It was a fun project.



I did not shoot the photos of the dancers, but rather utilized those provided by Kim Jew Photography. I didn’t have any sort of calendar layout software, so I simply did the work in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.



The 14-month calendar features 17 different dancers, a 12”x18” team centerfold, some advertising and the basketball schedule, seating chart and ticket sales information. The calendars include date-specific reminders for Thunderbirds home games as you can see for yourself in this peek ahead to January 2009…



These things are selling for ten bucks each at Albuquerque Thunderbirds games, various fundraisers and Storm Chasers public appearances. I do not believe they are available on the Thunderbirds website, so let me know if you need one or more of these for your home or office wall- or as a gift for your favorite mechanic, and I’ll see what I can do. You shouldn’t sweat it if you don’t pick one up before the start of the New Year since they will work again for the year 2015 (as well as 2026). By that I mean that the days will all line up correctly, but there may be slight shifting of a holiday or two. The dancers’ birthdays will still fall on those dates in 2015, but they will not have aged a full six years (according to Mayan calculations and theorems).



The bottom line is that the client was pleased with the product, I like the final result, and it provides me with an interesting addition to my portfolio of commercial and other artwork. Well, a couple of quick glances and a double-take at my calendar revealed that Krismas is only a few days away, and blogging isn’t going to help get the tree decorated.