What is Heartwork?

Heartwork is a project designed to raise money for art supplies within the art room at Target House—this wonderful home-away-from-home for the families of children facing long-term treatment at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The whole idea started simply enough. We, along with a few other creative individuals, were asked to work on various design projects for Target House. But, in the process, we were so deeply moved by the experience that we didn’t want it to end. We witnessed first hand the special connection the kids had with the art room in particular. It was a place where we saw kids at all stages of health just being kids.

So, we began to wonder, “What if we could create a ongoing way to support more and better art supplies for these children?” It was then that Heartwork was born.

The idea is simple. Every year, a group of talented artists will create a series of prints to raise money for the art room. Each of the prints will feature a different interpretation of the Target House elephant mascot, chosen because it represents family, long life, strength and playfulness—attributes with special meaning at a place designed for families to live, play and heal.

Print details:

Archival giclee - printed with pigment inks on archival cotton rag paper Size: 11 inches x 14 inches Signed & numbered editions of 40

Purchase the prints here.

"Elephants Love Ooey Gooey Peanut Butter" by Johnny Yanok:

"Snailaphant" by Nate Williams and "When Elephants Fly" by Anna Chambers:

"Collaboration" by Don Clark

"Love To Grow" by Scott Thares and "Balancing Act" by Christopher Lee:

"Circus" by Katie Kirk and "Better Days Ahead" by Richard Boynton:

"Waterworks" by Ryan Clark:

"Tuskers Ahoy" by Michael Bartalos:

The Scott Hamilton Arts & Crafts Room at Target House:

We're honored to be part of this project and thankful for everyone who donated their time and talent.

It's officially summer. At least that's what we've been told anyways. Join in the fun by grabbing our new Splash 'N Squirt and Happy Birthday Gift Cards. Many thanks to our awesome A.D.'s: Brian Holt, Ted Halbur & Aaron Muther!

We recently had the luxury of working with Rhymesayers Entertainment once again, this time for Seattle-based artist Grieves. RS is one of the only labels still investing their time, effort and finances into elaborate physical packaging... because they care and they believe their listeners deserve it. And obviously we love any opportunity to work with cool, innovative people to create unique packaging and artwork. Check out this video of the new Grieves package for "Together/Apart," and be sure to pick up the record June 21st.

We're honored that we could help out with Target's 7 cube win the other night at AIGA Minnesota's annual Design Show. Go Bullseye.

We're honored to have a few projects for Target featured in How's 2011 Design Awards issue.

We often get asked what our process is like. While we have multiple ways of conceptualizing and pitching ideas, the 3-step process that I'm going to outline below is pretty standard fare for us, as I'm sure it is with many illustrators. Sketch, sketch some more, sketch again, then on to final. 'Final' for us, usually means we hop into Illustrator and block out shapes. Once we have our shapes dialed and approved, we move on to lining and shading in Photoshop. There are many times when we start and finish in Photoshop as well, but a typical project like this will begin as vector art. I thought it might be fun to break down the evolution of an illustrated project, specifically a Gift Card for Target. Let us begin ...

With the majority of art direction already fleshed out by the wonderful team at Target, we're given the project and asked to create sketches based on their initial ideas. Since their initial ideas are always completely awesome, it's a joy to build off of them. The name of this particular card is 'Glow-In-The Dark Space Maze'. In this case, it's a card that doubles as a glow-in-the-dark space maze that doubles as a spaceship. Wait, is that triples as? ... Nevermind.

The first task is the game itself. The manufacturer needs to get started on producing these suckers, so the game dieline is first priority. After a few sketches, we dial it down and come up with our shape.

After the basic game shape is a wrap, we get to the fun part - figuring out the maze! After heading to the store to pick up a few similar maze games, we play, throw down to the floor and curse at said maze games. Once we think we know what we're doing, we start to sketch out our walls. To make it easier, we're given the ball diameter and wall thickness before we begin. After a zillion attempts, the sketch below is the winning configuration - which means anyone under the age of 5 can conquer the game in under 1 minute while the rest of us need about an hour.

After the sketch is approved (and tweaked a little), we move to final vector art for the manufacturer. Bada-bing:

After the game material is off being made, it's time to move into final art. With the nature of this card being glow-in-the-dark, the client asks that we use bright colors. Done. Here are a few colors we pitched:

... as well as this color scheme, which ultimately gets chosen.

So now that the game itself is done, time to start sketching the actual card backer - which is always a big chunk of the fun. We sent the client a few options, with this particular idea taking home the trophy ...

So now what's next? You guessed it. A few tweaks, then on to Illustrator. That's when we start blocking out shapes and finalizing color schemes. After a few rounds of small revisions, we have our final ready for shading ...

And there you have it ... a finished Gift Card. That was fun, right? Now it's your turn.

See it a bit larger in our portfolio. Now go grab one and keep the cursing to a minimum please.

Our latest Gift Cards for Target, The Love Meter and Glow-In-The-Dark Space Maze are now available in stores or online. Grab one for that special someone, and two for yourself.

We'll never forget that day in 1983 that our mom brought home a bag of Legos the size of a small car. She had picked it up at a garage sale (who sells Legos?) for $8. From that point on, we were hooked. For obvious reasons, Legos ended up being our favorite toy for years to come  - and as with most things in parenting life, it's come full circle and is now my son's favorite toy. Like many folks, those bricks have been a big part of our family.

So as you can imagine, I wish I could hop in one of these to go back and tell my 8-year-old self about our newest project for Target, the Lego Build A Bullseye! Gift Card. We've been fortunate to work on many cool projects over the years, but this one was sorta special. We actually wrapped this up in May, so it's fun to finally see it in stores for the holidays.

Below are some shots of the carrier on press a few months back:

And here is the endcap fixture at the store. They were sold out at noon today, so I'm guessing there are other human beings that like Lego as well.

Thanks to our (always) amazing art director Ted for the brains behind this project, and the fine folks at LEGO for giving us the green light.

Oh, and check out the cool little animation below:

Here's 4 new (ish) books that we've been featured in recently: 1000 Indie Posters by John Foster (out in January), The Graphic Design Exercise Book by Carolyn Knight and Jessica Glaser, Typo Lyrics by Slanted and 1000 Supreme CD Designs by PageOne (This one actually came out in '08 but we spaced on it). Now you know what to get your favorite uncle for the holidays.

Just wrapped up the artwork for Starflyer 59's 12th album, "The Changing Of The Guard." The music, as always, is incredible... and it's always refreshing to work with Jason Martin, a guy who truly "gets it."

We are extremely honored that the Minnesota chapter of the AIGA recently recognized all of our 2009 Target projects in their annual Design Show. See details here and here. Many thanks to our incredible A.D.'s over at the bullseye. More fun stuff to share coming soon ...

Super cool 'Thumb War' gift card created by our buddy Christopher Lee.

We just wrapped up the cover for 'Cohesion', the new album from Perth's own Gyroscope. Listen to the album and pre-order here.

We just launched a pre-order for the new Demon Hunter record, The World Is A Thorn. Go here to see the different bundles being offered. The deluxe edition box is filled with goodies and there are some extra odds and ends that you can add for dirt cheap. Oh, and the music's not too shabby either.

Having a baby soon? Know someone who is? Forget the ultrasound, grab our new Gift Card and find out immediately what the sex will be. Contrary to what science may tell you, you now have a 25% chance of adding twins to your family. And it all wraps up nicely into a portable diaper. And yes, we apparently love making 'spinny' things for Target. Get yours here.

I gotta be honest, apparently I've been living under a gigantic rock and hadn't heard of the awesome NOTCOT until today when they posted a really cool write-up titled Art Of The Gift Card showcasing some of the new holiday Gift Cards at Target. They even went above and beyond and devoted a special something to our 'Winter Fishing Hole' Gift Card/Game. We've actually been getting reports that they are selling out at stores (that's a good thing, right?) but you can find them online through 12/31.

Oh, and yes I'm multi-tasking by kicking myself while adding the NOTCOT RSS feed to my daily visits.

The holidays at Target are always fun. So, naturally we were pretty excited (okay, thrilled) when they asked us to create a board game for one of their charming holiday Gift Cards. Our Winter Fishing Hole! Game is in stores and online now until the new year. 1 - 4 players. Spin The Fish!

Here are 3 recently finished album covers. Had a lot of fun with all of these. All great records too!

Just wrapped up both (regular & special edition) packages for the new DevilDriver record. I'm a big fan of the band, so it was an honor to work with Dez and the guys.

Spring has hit Seattle (well, a little) so we thought it'd be a good time to update you on what's happening in IC world ... and of course shamelessly plug ourselves all at the same time. We're having a ton of fun at the shop lately, so why not share in the joy a little bit?

The Takeover interview - Short and sweet.

RBTL podcast - This was a lot of fun to do, but maybe I shouldn't have had so much coffee before recording.

IC on Twitter - Sign up! Updated regularly with IC happenings and random pretentious garbage no one needs to know about. Oh, and this may soon take the place of '5 Things We're Digging'. I wish it wasn't so addictive, but it is.

Sasquatch! Festival - It's coming up hot. Thankfully, we have a new set of limited edition screen-printed posters available to help celebrate its arrival. Coming soon.

Coalesce 'OX' - This project was a blast in many ways, but I had no clue the band would want to feature the art on so many stinking cool pieces of merchandise. Icing on the cake. Limited edition (signed) art prints, a flask (with super cool box), quality hoodies and shirts, etc. Take that, Fugazi.

Having fun with new projects from Nike, Target, Wired, Devildriver, August Burns Red, Coalesce, The Not-It's, KEXP, Brother Ali + Rhymesayers, etc. We'll be showcasing these new projects (and much more) on our new website and store towards the end of August. Very excited to be working with the masterminds at Gridplane & Instrument.

There is much more to talk about, but not enough time to do so. Thanks to everyone who has made the IC blog a part of their daily RSS feeds. 6,500 and counting!

Oh, and special thanks to Cale Glendening for the above photo.

Check out the cover we recently created for the new Falling Up album, "Fangs!" The illustration is based on the very interesting story told within the lyrics- having something to do with poison threads and foreign planets. Drawn with ink, colored in Photoshop.