Christoph Hitz

End of Summer
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 2:02 pm on September 1st

Initially, I had plans to upload some pictures of my garden with comments guiding you from Spring to Summer, then I changed my mind to some "drive by photos" I took on the way back from our vacation in the Outer Banks, North Carolina. I did end up bringing the powerbook, scanner and the Wacom tablet to the beach house, working on a job until the wee hours. It turns out I have to wait until I can show the project here. In June, I photographed an incredible local historical stone house, illustrated a few editorial jobs and I'm currently designing a website for an event management company. Yup, It was a fine mixed bag of a Summer with all kinds of surprises and changes. This summer I came across a tomato salad recipe in a few publications, including the New York Times, that seems to reflect this summer. To my surprise the white peach tree that I planted last year has produced about 30 peaches this year and the yellow cherry tomato plants are at peak production. I can't think of a better way to conclude this Labor Day.

Enjoy

Ingredients
Equal amount of tomatoes, cut in wedges, or sliced
Equal amount peaches, pitted and sliced
1/2 cup
Red onion thinly copped
Fresh mint leafs
3:1 Olive oil / Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Work with what you have, I'm sure any farm stand tomatoes and peaches will do.

See more: Country Living

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Chocolate?
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 9:37 pm on July 3rd

I finally found a way to recyle my old sourcebook pages...

I arrived in Manhattan around 2:30 by bus, then made way over for a quick walk trough Grand Central Station in the hopes of spotting some early birds with sketch books (sorry Don). It wasn't too difficult to find my way up to the Roosevelt Hotel, the Ballroom and then my designated table. After depositing my heavy back pack underneath the tablecloth covered table, I spotted Ross McDonald in the bookstore section. We talked shop and fence post mending.
I then spotted Von Gitschka, Felix Sockwell, and Peter Cusack.
Soon the place started filling up with more arriving artist, carting portfolios and tons of promotion material. Edel had a nice table right at the entrance where his assistant handed out fresh pens and ice for his overworked signature hand. In the meantime, Zina arrived with Barry schlepping all the tote bags. After introducing myself to my table neighbor, Heekyung Hur from Korea, I started setting up my table.
Upon opening my backpack, I immediately realized my laptop was gone! My heart sunk into my pants, "S@$%^&!" I quickly called me wife: "Yes, your laptop is here," she said.
That wonderful news relaxed me completely, nothing could go wrong now.
By this time, Nancy and Alan had set up their tables and there where just a few minutes left to talk to my fellow artists before the crowd arrived.
My table was located next to two very talented Aussi girls from Melbourne, Beck Wheeler and Andrea Innocent. The place started to fill up and for 3 hours my fellow neighbor artist went to work the crowd. I got to talk to a wide variety of art directors ranging from book publishing, design/advertising to editorial, some coming from as far as Germany and Canada.
In between mini breaks, I briefly chatted with the talented John Hendrix, Bri Hermanson, Kim Rosen, Pamela Henderson, Andrea Offermann, Cory Sandulis and Matt Hebermehl, all located in my quadrant of the room. Somehow, I managed to shake hands with Istvan Banyai and give Isabel Devereux a hug, and....BAM, time was up and Road show came to an end.
Looking over my table arrangement map, I missed talking to so many fellow artists. Overall, the show was well attended and a great success.
Mark Helflin and his crew deserve a big THANK YOU.
While packing up, Dave Barmundo, with a quick touch of the iPhone and Google, managed to find a Cuban restaurant where a tired crowd could settle for dinner. On the way out, I spotted the guy who was supposed to stop signing Posters at six o'clock. Yep, you guessed it right.... Edel was still working.
Over mojitos and aarroz con amarone, I got to talk to wonderful Jean Tuttle, Alan Witschonke, Peggy Goodman, Theresa Logan, Jack Tom and Melanie Reim. Time flew again, by now it was 11 o'clock and I had to do a mad dash to catch the last bus going back home to the Catskills.

I had the iBook printed up a few months ago, it has completely replaced my epson print portfolio.

See more: Recommended

Comments (9)

Die Robot die...
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 8:54 am on June 30th

Robot with a bow tie?

How to manage your inbox with filters, automation and a few folders, that was the topic for this MacWorld assignment. Personally I get a lot junk mail, so I proposed a spam sorting pig robot just to widen the gap of spam to important e-mail. At the end my spam sorting pig robot got nixed and the magazine choose a more classy idea. Nothing wrong with that.

I'm getting ready to go to New York for Icon5, hope to see you there.

See more: Sketch to Final

Comments (8)

LIEABILITY
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 8:40 am on May 14th

The illustration was published in the Globes printed edition, unfortunately for the Globe online readers, the Starbucks coffee advertisement takes up the space of my illustration.

I liked this story about true and false memoirs by Con Chapman that ends by offering a test to the readers as to his or her memory regarding memoirs. His parody investigates the widening blurry line between fake memoir and a true memoir. I'm glad Josue Evilla from the Boston Globe thought of me for the illustration since I love nothing more than a witty intellectual story. Great copy with a twist is what I call a tasty morsel for an illustrator.

Alien obduction inspired ....

See more: Sketch to Final

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BRAIN FOOD
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 12:08 am on April 1st

A nice touch from the chef, distraction with parsley

Abrill Eins from Food magazine called me out of the blue. She gave me roughly 24 hours for this express job.The assignment was about a Wall Street restaurant that has seen an increase in businesses serving organ meat every Thursday for lunch.
The restaurant had promoted the fact that organ meats contains vitamins B12, D, A and C that enhance mathematical thinking. Unfortunately for me, Abrill asked me to stay on the conceptual side for this job. Who would have thought that big Wall Street mortgage bankers are pigging out on a pig heart for lunch?

What's your most outrageous topic?

See more: Sketch to Final

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Tapped Out.
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 10:45 am on March 28th

The sap is dripping in my neck of he woods, the two professional sugar houses down the road look like something from the past with their steady stream of smoke and steam rising to the sky. I tapped eight trees in my drive way and made about two gallons of maple syrup with the use a propane outdoor cooker. Alex who let me borrowed some taps and buckets called and invited me over for a tour, I figured I bring my cool pix and shoot some black and white.
Enjoy.

See more: Country Living

Comments (9)

St. Paddy Day Atlanta Style.
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 12:25 pm on March 17th

The animated gif is a combinaton of the sketches, tests and the final illustration.

I got this assignment a few weeks back from Atlanta Magazine. "Could you do a a drawing of the St. Patrick's Day parade?" the art director asked. "Sure," I said. I've been to a few parades in the last few years, just to get a glimpse of my wife's nephews Paul and John playing the bagpipes while marching up Fifth Avenue. All the big piper marching bands train for this televised spectacle in New York. In the old days I would try to find a reference in my own books, or perhaps go over to Borders and try to find a book about Atlanta's architecture and culture. For some reason I just couldn't picture an Irish St. Patrick's Day parade to be like the one in New York or Boston. I wanted to give Atlanta Magazine an illustration that matched their parade. With a bit of luck I found this video clip on YouTube and started sketching from it. Heck, if all the bagpipers must play in the Big Apple, send in the clowns with cars.

Happy St. Paddy day everyone.

See more: Sketch to Final

Comments (5)

Totally Board
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 11:45 am on March 1st

Over the years I've done less then ten jobs with illustrator. I used the application primarily to aid my work in photoshop. More recently I started learning the program more in depth, so when Rob Dunlavey posted the Salomon Snowboard competition I incorporated the challenge as learning exercise. I had fun, Thanks Rob.

Big Foot
This one is about being the biggest animal on the slopes. I did do a few variations on this design at the end I placed the big foot prints on purpose where the binding is located to empower the boarder.

Fable Animal
I wanted to do a design for girls without the usual colors, it had to be cuddly but not too cute
and I wanted to create a modern fable creature. It turned out to be a blend of a bush baby, meerkat, dragon, monkey and as i realized toward the end Spirou the cartoon character. The tropical look gives it a hot & cool aspect as soon as this board hits the slopes.

Carving Snake
With this design I had teenagers like my son Emmett in mind. I wanted to emphasize where the boarder stands and illustrate what the board can do by creating a snake cartoon character. Snowboards make a more scruffy noise than skies, that notion prompted the scruffy dynamic look.

Bloody Hell
It's a macabre joke that will get peoples attention while lining up for the ski lift. Initially I didn't wanted
to upload this idea until I got overruled by my family. They said it's 2008, anything goes.

See more: Loose End

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Lunar Eclipse Reminder
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 2:54 pm on February 20th

The sketch above is from a 1986 sketch books. When ever I see a drawing of mine I recall specific things that happened that day, that I wouldn't recall otherwise. That full moon night helicopters chased a burglar with penetrating searchlights while all the neighborhood dog where hauling, it was a hot sweltering night in Echo Park LA. I talked with my friends about fascism and played chess until the cooler air arrived with the morning dawn. Is your memory linked to your drawings?

Don't forget to step out side tonight.

The spectacle of a total lunar eclipse will lasts for about an hour from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. EST.

See more: Loose End

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Helvetica the Movie.
Posted by Christoph Hitz at 9:25 pm on January 11th

I laughed, I cried, the suspense, the drama and the haunting beauty....

I noticed the title "Helvetica" while cherry picking trough the Netflix documentary film list. The movie commemorates the 50 year anniversary of the timeless type face. The director Gary Hustwit mixes clever pan shots of the type face in use with interesting interviews of prominent designers like Erik Spiekerman, Herman Zapf, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Lars Müller, David Carson, Massimo Vinelli, Paula Scher to name a few. Since it's inception in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Edi Hoffman for Haas Schriftgiesserei in Switzerland the type face took off and has become the worlds most visible font. Not without controversy, the purists among the designers who used solely "Helvetica" and the proponents of the type face make this documentary a very interesting movie to watch.

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