VHSpresso Coffee Parodies

In order to help promote the VHSpresso coffee stand inside of Scarecrow Video in Seattle I came up with an on-going series of video cover parodies. They're all coffee themed and pretty ridiculous. I have to claim that Too Much Coffee Man is a huge influence on these.

 

VIDiscovery!

Here's a sample of a new project I'm working on for the Rewind This! a documentary about VHS by Josh Johnson.

VHSpresso design work

So one of the jobs I have at Scarecrow Video is sign-maker/designer. I come up with a lot of the signage for sections in the store. The latest super special section that we set up is the coffee cart. They named it VHSpresso and I've done all the design work for it so far. Below are some logos, signs, and etc. that I've worked on.

Here are the menu's. One for the wall behind the counter and one for the walk-up window. The one below is a manipulated back cover of VHS box art for "Runaway Train". 

Above is our stamp that we put on all the cups. Below is a web banner that I animated for the Scarecrow Video blog. 

Another piece of manipulated VHS box art from the movie "I Will... I Will... For Now". 

Here's proof that the signage is in place. "Like" VHSpresso on Facebook and stop by for some terrific coffee. We proudly use "7 Roasters" which is a local roaster and it's delicious.

VHS X MAS

The Grand Illusion in Seattle put on a single showing one night that honored the wonderful holiday specials and films that could still be found on VHS! Here's the poster that I created for that event! Snow flakes and lightning!!!

International Independent Video Store Day!!!

I whipped this poster up for such a good day!! Such a good that all video store employees should get paid time and a half. As if this day was as important as some other international holidays seem to think they are.

I'm going to be celebrating at my place of work Scarecrow Video. Come on by for some sales and discounts and other stuff. 

The yeti guy was totally inspired by "Aargh the Awful" on the artwork for the funny and weird post-apocalyptic film America 3000.

Laff Hole '88 with Paul Merrill

Paul Merrill asked me to come up with a corny 80's VHS box like poster for his Laff Hole '88 show this March 2nd at Chop Suey in Seattle. Brought to us by the Peoples Republic of Komedy
He knows my work well from doing the Adventure Buddies and even illustrating him for the 5th episode. 
This was fun to do. Pretty different from the Adventure Buddies stuff, but still focusing on the aesthetic of the VHS box art.

Choose You Own VHS Adventure! - Revised!!

This newly revised poster is making it's print debut in Austin TX at the Rewind This! art show. It's being put on to support Josh Johnson and his crew make a documentary about VHS. 

Trailer Park Boys come to Scarecrow Video

Did this for the in-store appearance of the Trailer Park Boys during their Drunk, High, and Unemployed Tour.

VHS Choose You Own Adventure!

This was originally designed for the Central Cinema for a event they were having.

TV Carnage Let's Work It Out

Pinky Carnage, the genius video mash-up artist of TV Carnage wrote to me after he saw my VIVA VHS poster and asked me to help him with a tour poster. He sent me a classic aerobic VHS cover to use as inspiration and above is what I came up with.

In Seattle, Pinky will be bringing his latest show to Central Cinema on Saturday Aug 28th at 9pm.

VIVA VHS T-shirt!

With the ever increasing joy that this poster brings to people, doing a t-shirt is just obvious.

Contact me at: swellzombie@gmail.com for ordering.

VIVA VHS

I recently finished this poster for Scarecrow Video's upcoming VIVA VHS show at the Northwest Film Forum.

With around 100 different scans of over-sized VHS box art I made a collage of some of best or most interesting bits off of them. Then framed it all up with a classic grid and put together a pseudo-airbrushed logo for the event.

Here's a list of the covers I used. I wish I could have designed this for a mural, there are so many great covers that I wanted to use.
Also, these are all available to rent at Scarecrow Video

America 3000
Assisi Underground
ATOR the Fighting Eagle
Avenged
Avenger X
Black Six
Blind Rage
Blood Voyage
Brain 17
Cannibal Island
Chimpo's Wild Animal Safari
Clue According to Sherlock Holmes
Conqueror of the World
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon
Duel of Champions
Equalizer 2000
Executioner of Venice
Executioner's Song
Exterminators of the Year 3000
Fabulous Fleischer Folio
Falcon
Fangs
Fast Money
Fear
Fearmaker
Feast for the Devil
Filmgore
Flying From the Hawk
Frank & Tony
Frankenstein '80
Freedom Road
Galyon the Indestructible Man
Gang War
Ghost Dance
Gold Wing
Guerrilla Girl
Headless Eyes
Heroes in Hell
Hollywood Clowns
Hot Touch
Human Duplicators
Kingfish
Metallica
Metiche Y Encajoso
Ms. Stiletto
One Shoe Makes It Murder
Riding High
Safari 3000
Thirteen Chairs
Succubare
Zombiethon

VHS Cover Redesign 03 - From These Roots (1976)

For my third cover redesign, I picked a VHS box that had barely any sort of box art at all. It was really necessary that I do something respectful for it.
It comes from Scarecrow's Harlem Renaissance section, titled From These Roots. It's directed by William Greaves and is a nice short documentary about the Harlem Renaissance during the "Roaring Twenties".
The image for the cover was inspired by one of the visual artists, Aaron Douglas that was featured in the film. His art had summed up the Renaissance and I felt that his work would be best featured on the cover. So I found the piece below "Creation" and did a vector drawing of it in Illustrator. I then embelished it for the back cover and added text. I was trying my best to do something like what I've seen come out of the Criterion Collection.

VHS cover redesign 02 - Wild Party (1929)

For my second cover redesign for Scarecrow Video, I went with Dorothy Arzner's 1929 The Wild Party. I had watched this film early last year and when I concidered doing this cover project, I knew I wanted to do one for this film. The VHS copy we have isn't that great of a copy. I'd love to see a quality transfer of it on DVD, but until then...

This is what I came up with after testing a few different inking styles (below). I really wanted to show off the awesome showgirl like costume that ends up getting Clara Bow into trouble in the movie. Instead of rendering it exactly like it was in the movie I used the lightning bolts to heighten the design and work well with the simple drawing.

I really had no idea what I was going to do at first, so when I got the right style of drawing the rest was easy.

This is the original sketch that I did based off of a found photo.

My first ink was super tight and detailed. I don't mind this one but I was really unconfident about whether or not it resembled Clara Bow. She's beautiful and people would be able to recognize her if it was done well. If not done well, then it's just a drawing of some girl.

So with my second inking, I tried to loosen things up. A bit too much I think.

This third and final ink was WAY looser and more fun. I liked the minimal lines and I was able to get the curves that I wanted. For the final design I took out all the crappy lightning bolts and digitally colored it in Photoshop. I just went with my gut on the colors for the cover. It's a black and white film, but I wanted the cover to be nice and appealing. Blue is calm and helps keep the design looking clean and fresh. From what I've seen in posters, Clara Bow had shocking red hair. So this was a nice becon of contrast for the center of the design. The likeness isn't what I'd like it to be, but I think the drawing gives the impression that she's cute and the "Wild Party" isn't a sleazy deal. Here's the original art on day glow pink paper. It's not horrible, but I liked this movie so I was happy to make up something new for this film.

VHS Cover Redesign 01 Kamen Rider AMAZON! (1974)

So as an employee at Scarecrow Video I get to see a lot of films, and a lot of cover art for movies. Many of them are brilliantly designed, some of them are amazing paintings, a few are terrifically horrible and have a beautiful quality of their own. Most of the video covers that I see are bland and/or just rotten. Lazily constructed from production photos and over-used Photoshop effects.

With nearly 100,000 videos in the Scarecrow inventory, there are covers at the store that have no "real" cover art at all. Someone printed out the title of the film, maybe with a found photo from the Internet onto a sheet of day-glow paper. It's then put into a plastic VHS or DVD case and put on the shelf. There's really nothing appealing about this and only if you're searching for this title would you be interested in even touching this case.

As a designer and a critic of cover art, I'm taking it upon myself to design some covers for these lost covers. This gives me the chance to design covers with all sorts of freedom. Scarecrow doesn't care that I'm doing this, so they're not going to edit what I do. They'll hopefully gain some more turns on these rentals. I'm not getting paid anymore to do this. It's more or less an exercise for me. To get my designing muscles stronger and maybe land a real job designing this type of thing.

The first cover I tackled was for a VHS that we have with some episodes of Kamen Rider AMAZON! This Japanese television show from 1974 was priority for me to design a cover for. I recently chose it for my monthly staff pick and the previous cover was quaint, but I knew it wasn't going to rent. So I came up with what you see below.

I researched pictures of Amazon and found a set of photos that were taken of the highly detailed action figure that was produced by Medicom. So I found the picture that I thought would be the best on the cover and repainted it using Photoshop and my WACOM tablet.
This was my first redesign so I didn't put a lot of creativity into it. I was mostly interested in having a realistic image of the character on the cover, I concentrated on rendering the digital painting well enough.

photo: copyright modxtoy.com

Here's the original artwork that was in the store for years. Yeah, it was made sideways.

Scarecrow Video T-shirt

Here' s the design that Scarecrow is using for their new t-shirts. Check out more on their blog. blog.scarecrow.com/blog/?p=317

The drawing was done with pen/ink then digitally colored and prepared on the computer.