Cathedra Furniture Company

Just to be clear, this is a faux company. This was done for my graphic designer (Maggie Fritsch) who had to brand a company. She made hers up. The company sells do-it-yourself and authentic furniture for the up and coming crowd. Hope y'all enjoy.

Diamond Strike-A-Fire

Perhaps some of the most badass fire-starters ever created for outdoor use, these matches are made for any situation and gives you fire when you need it most (which usually is when it's about to snow or when you want s'mores). My art director was Lance Thomas who also happens to be my roommate. He's a designing ninja. Hope you enjoy the ads.

Khakis and Cocktails

This is an assignment that I had to write for a concepting class. We had to get into a target markets frame of mind. Mine happened to be an executive who believes in martini lunches and the golf course a conference room. Hope you enjoy it.

To: Bobby McFrangleton, VP Technology Division

From Will Thomsen, SVAP Marketing Division

Subject: The Week Ahead

Hey Bobby,
My apologies for getting back to you in a tardy manner. The traffic this morning was horrible and caused my ulcer to act like Mt. Vesuvius, but I'll spare you the details. After reading over your letter, I was shocked to find the laundry list of issues that need to be addressed. While it would be advantageous for us to take care of this post-haste as you had mentioned, I do believe that if you step back and analyze the situation you'll agree with the plan that I am about to lay out.

Pardon my bluntness, but starting today on the strategy session would be about as good as promoting Jenkins from mop jockey to department head. Did Hannibal conquer Rome in a day? Does America believe in Communism? Do you want to make another conservative pre-emptive strike upon a problem without research? The answer should be no! As our past has shown, a dive into strategy has presented obstacles that sometimes we never surmount because of our Sisyphean-type efforts.

That is why I recommend we wait until Wednesday to strategize. We can meet at the High Ball and do some drinking and thinking. Besides, it's almost three. Do you want to be late for our tee time? Make the plump girl from the front do the research and tell her to have it to me by morning.

Now Tuesday we'll have to meet at the gym. Mr. Roidrage is making me work my back since that disc slipped last spring. I'd say the only thing he’s helping me lose weight from is my wallet. The doctors prescribed some Xanax and Lahem-something or another, but it worked about as well as my stock broker. The kicker is he won't give me anything else for it so I self-medicate with Doctor Seagram's and his nurse Ms. Marnier.

Please let me know if that's possible because I'm taking the misses to the airfield at three and then it's squash at five with those guys from the Nagasaki corporation. They’re about to get a taste of the 1978 North Dakota state champion.

Like I said, Wednesday at the High Ball. Make sure that Judy calls for the car service. There's a reason they call it the High Ball. After we get back, we should coordinate with the Milwaukee office and overnight the documents to them after we're done with lunch. Have Bartlesby get with Romanakov and have them start on the ideation and development on Thursday.

I'm going to take Friday as a mental health day. You should too. We’ll talk more on the green.

Let me know if this works for you. Run it by Donice.

Well, I believe that is my three o'clock masseuse at my door and I wouldn’t want to keep these old love muscles waiting. I hope she's a real blond this time.

Get back to me about tomorrow,


Will Thomsen

My Favorite Words

As a person who likes to manipulate sentences, grammar, and the English lexicon, I have naturally developed a special place for certain words in our language. In somewhat of a hierarchal ranking:

1) Defenestrate
2) Quagmire
3) Epidermis
4) Cataclysmic
5) Bailiwick
6) Couth
7) Zoology
8) Discombobulate
9) Yesternight
10) Monophagus

If you don't know the meaning of a word, do what your parents told you, ask someone else.

National Geographic Magazine

So how do you advertise perhaps one of the most iconic magazines on the face of the Earth? Well, my team and I set out on what we thought would be a Sisyphean task because it was an intimidating client. However, after many hours of coffee, stacks of magazines, and a play list consisting mainly of mariachi bands, we finally thought of our message. We executed it as a 16"x24" poster and in the process I developed a new found respect for the profession of collage making. You'd be surprised how few magazines use the color purple. I know I was. Hope you enjoy it.

All-Bran Buds

This is All-Bran Buds. This was the only thing we got after two weeks of work. Let's just say it was a lot harder than I imagined. The subject of fiber is a fickle one. Maybe one day, perhaps after my time has come and past, toilet humor will be witty and no longer low brow. Jeff Foxworthy can only hope.

Global Pet Finder

Here are some ads I did for Global Pet Finder which is essentially GPS for your dog. This was all hand drawn by an illustrator (David Ortega, AD) at my school and then put into vector. My partner (Stacy Mann) and I were pretty stoked on how it turned out.

Coming soon... cool, hip slap bracelets featuring GPS for kids! Own'em all!

More?

So it's almost half way through quarter and I have oh so neglected this blog. I apologize. Not so much to y'all who happen to read this, but more so to myself. Write. Write. Write. No more slacking. So hold onto your knickers. It's about to be a long, strange road.

And It Comes Full Circle

This is an old Detroit Public School book depository. You could call this a phoenix-like phenomenon or a shameful waste of knowledge/tax payer money. I prefer the former. Link

Dewey Decimal Decimation

So this is not not possibly the most bizarre game ever. Unless the noble profession of librarian is in your five-year plan. See how fast you can organize! http://www.library.cmu.edu/Libraries/etc/game1/game1.swf

Does The Stork Bring It?

Kurt Vonnegut wrote this.

It's funny how people always compliment others when they see something that they can't do. Ideas come from everywhere especially the nether regions of our brain.

Everyone has a creative monster inside them. It's all just a matter of letting it out of the cage.

An Addiction To Fantasy

A healthy fetus leaves its nine-month cocoon and turns into a bouncing baby whatever, cigars are handed out, weeping ensues, and the mother calls for another round of morphine and a shot of Rumplements. The baby cries, everyone snuggles, and the candy striper takes a pretty Kodak moment. Hooray.

But would they be as excited knowing that they have just brought into this world not only a sinner, but an addict? Because that just happened. Mind you, I’m not bashing either because I can’t talk. I’m both too. We all are.

St. August proposed an alternate idea of original sin than that of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. According to one of his treatises, he claimed that when Adam and Eve fell from God’s grace so did every man, woman, or hermaphroditic combo thereafter. ‘Preciate it. But that’s not the point. If you believe that Augustinian theory, then get baptized, go to church, say your prayers, and vow celibacy. More power to you (Just don’t attempt to press it upon me. I have Jedi powers). I choose a different belief path, but that’s for another self-analytic session.

So, we’re all addicts. Usually when we hear that word, we assume that some lost or impressionable soul has succumbed to the crutch of an inebriative substance such as booze, weed, cocaine, and the ever taboo crack. While mainstream society looks down upon the general stereotype of the addict, they should look in the mirror.

We all share an addiction to fantasy. Personally I am a heavy user. Sometimes it makes more sense than what is real. I have attempted to substitute reality with my own, but I haven’t really figured out the whole metaphysical space-time continuum thing yet (I’ll let you know). I, like billions of others, became addicted as soon as we sought the comfort of our mother’s (or nurses, doctors, baby daddy’s, fathers, random guy with the camera, or whomever) arms. It’s that feeling of love, safety, comfort, and ultimate trust that our psyche seeks constantly after the initial needs are met. Basic human needs must be met to develop and survive, but when does necessity cross over into a gluttonous state?

So that’s when the addiction begins. Then it expands to a satiation of breast milk (or formulae if that’s your bag), the wanting of toys one can’t have, even to the creation of imaginary friends (Which is normal because everyone does it). I remember sitting in my Radio Flyer at the top of a hill ready to hit the ramp and fly back in time to Bedrock. I always wondered how a pulley system worked on a brontosaurus. I attempted to indulge my fantasy. It didn't work. Just so you know, I did go down the hill, I did hit the ramp, I did not go back in time, but rather into the side of a Buick.

As we grow older, we shift our fantasies to more mature ideals. We begin to place people, ideas, lifestyles, pets, theories, and other poppycock on a pedestal. Why? I don’t know, but I don’t think I want to. Whatever it is, people continue to pursue it. And they should. My attempt to indulge was only stopped by the side of a steel fender. Sometimes people use catalytic means (which may or may not be legal) in order to get to that fantasy land. Others just go to Disney World. I tend to daydream, talk to myself, or pretend my rapturous solos in my radio-less Volvo rocks the ears off a star-eyed crowd.

I know of other people, friends to strangers, who formulate improbable situations and what they would do. Like what if zombies really did exist and how would they survive? What if a briefcase was found with a suitcase and a grenade? Maybe a cougar pops out of your pantry? What then? Granted it’s these fantasies that fuel fiction, television, most reality shows, some news stories, political policy, business, and the list could go on. Without it, life would be as mundane as the color grey.

Sensation is the nectar of fantasy. It provides Technicolor to a whitewashed world. It helps break the routine, the mold, whatever you want to call it. It leads to discovery fulfilling both personal and even humanities needs because sometimes other people choose your fantasy to participate in. Look at religion (Again, another topic discussion for a later time).

I do want to point out that fantasy addiction is different from envy. Envy is more of a desire to ascertain the relationships, ideas, standard in life, or inanimate objects of someone else. By this I mean if buddy has a delicious chocolate milkshake, I want his milkshake or one that will make his treat have dessert jealousy. With fantasy, it’s more of a state of mind. It’s an ideal that can never be reached—like a unicorn. If fantasy is something that can be grabbed like an apple off the tree, it loses its taste and value.

A life without a fictional reality would be like having your television stuck on the snowy channel and only catching glimpses of the naked woman behind the blizzard. It would be unfulfilling. St. Augustus said that we have no choice in being sinners, but through faith we can be redeemed. I say we have no choice in our addiction to fantasy. However, I don’t think anyone desires a miracle pharmaceutical or clinical treatment program to cure them. I know I don’t.

So indulge your addiction. If you have a healthy one, you don’t need to search for what’s behind the televised snow. Just grab some tissues.

Garrett

So here's a picture of a portrait that I did of my nephew. It's on 12"x16" canvas with spray paint. I'll post a better picture when I get a chance. Stay tuned for more.

Part-Time Canvas, Full-Time Bear Tamers

This is a project my homie Ben Salas did for his one of his type posters. It was a Spanish song about hands called, Minas Piedras. That's Spanish for... The Nino. He has swell hand-writing skills. It also tickled like crazy.

If I was A Gas Station Worker...

Gluttonous Poverty

It's a bit of a contradiction, yes, but it's the ironic situation that I find myself in right now. Currently my income is blessed upon me by the Sallie Mae Foundation. Some magic machine filled with electronic money sends funds to my school which lets me know when it's okay to live again. I live for an e-mail from my financial aid person and respond to it like a Pavlovian dog. I trundle into her windowless office, speak the idle and certainly non-friendship bearing chit chat that makes me seem friendly, but never that memorable (That way she won't be mad at the nice kid, whatever he looks like). It's shallow, but effective. Then I beeline it for the bank and inevitably splurge a small percentage on some new kicks or some spray paint. The rest I attempt to survive on.

I've taken out enough money to put a down payment on a house, but it seems like the "living expenses" portion after tuition is assessed, is similar to that of a welfare check-- insert ignorant comment. So while I live the lavish life of the left-brained student, my need for eating seems less important. I'll resort to one solid meal a day and then general grazing throughout. Even then it's not a big deal. So while I have money, I don't eat as much, but instead choose to spend it on other things like fedora's.

Which is why my current situation is such a debacle. I have two accounts, whose powers combined I think will help me make rent this month. So it's either have a place to live or eat well for two weeks. I'll choose the former. Yet, I find myself needing to eat. And not just normally, but abnormally. It's biggie-sized everything and when asked, yes I will have whip cream on my metro-sized coffee, but only if I can find the change beneath my car seat. Not having that option to choose to go out for fast-food or tapas sucks. Instead, it's a never ending cycle of Goya Frijoles Negroes and Kasmati Rice (Although when seasoned correctly, it rocks socks). Whatever it is, I find myself needing to feast when instead I should be attempting to fast.

I don't know why that is. I attempt to indulge when I shouldn't. I guess it's a need to live a lifestyle that I want even though by doing so, I'm preventing its existence in the future. Wanting things when you can't have them and vice versa make perfect sense right now. It's a shame that I can't make other rationalizations when my financial situation is reversed. Then again, I don't know if I would want to.

If a man has no arms, but carries a gun, is he armed?

Think about it.

Reuters All-Star Pics

For more from Reuters, here is the link.