This will definitely be one of those moments in my life where I will remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news of Steve Jobs’ death. As I watch the thousands upon millions of tweets roll by paying tribute to the man, the feelings really start to hit home.

The only things I know about Steve Jobs are what I’ve read in articles or see in his keynote speeches. I’ve never met the man, never even seen him in public, but he is still one of the most influential people in my life. As the thought of a world without Jobs sinks in, I’m struck with some pretty heavy emotions, strange to feel deep sadness for a person I would likely never have met in my life. It doesn’t take away from the idea that Steve Jobs has done more for me personally than my own father—that isn’t anywhere close to an exaggeration.

I was exposed to Apple computers at a very young age, my grandfather being one of the early adopters, owning more than a couple Apple IIe machines. Back then, I was lucky enough to play simple games like Pong or Zork. Even though I didn’t buy my own Apple for decades later, the mystique of the Apple was firmly ingrained in me.

In 1996, I went back to school to study graphic design, beginning my reintroduction to Apple products. Back then, the company was in a bit of turmoil. By the time I finished school and started my first job as a designer, there was a strong chance Apple might fail. Even as Jobs assumed control as CEO again, nobody thought he’d succeed in turning the company around. Even I was certain Apple was doomed and I was destined to spend the rest of my design career in front of a Windows machine (shuddering thought).

When the eMacs came out, my boss bought one. It wasn’t ideal for design work, but it made a hell of an office machine. We used it as a scan station and a print center. He managed his business on that little, aqua-marine box and life was good. Shortly after that, when I was teaching a class on design at a local tech school, I saw my first iPod first hand. One of the students had a crowd surrounding her, sharing the details of the new device with everyone in the room. Right then I had a feeling this device would change things forever, but no one could have predicted the extreme level of impact brought on by the little, white brick.

Over the last dozen years or so, largely because of Jobs and Apple, I’ve embraced the idea that design could change lives, change the world. The iPod wasn’t the first MP3 player on the market, nor was it the best or the cheapest, but it definitely outsold everything else because of one simple idea—Make it pretty. Jobs may have been tough to work for, may have been the worst task-master in the working world, but he produced results and both his employees and his customers loved him for it. He embraced simplicity and design over everything else and those ideals turned a drowning company into the largest tech organization on the planet. I would never want to be the tyrant Jobs was at times, but I definitely have as much idealism about design as he; if only I could be as innovative.

Design permeates my life. It’s not uncommon for me to pick apart every day items based solely on their design flaws. I’m sure my family and friends are tired of me breaking down typography errors in every logo, billboard or advertisement I come across, but I soldier on despite their chagrin because maybe, just maybe, I might be able to shed some light on why design is important in our daily lives. Maybe the future generations will realize that utilitarian objects need not be ugly.

Without Steve Jobs, I would not be this way. I would not look at everyday objects from this critical eye. I would not be enraptured with the technology products that surround both me both at work and at home. Without Steve Jobs, I might not have become a graphic artist at all. Without Steve Jobs, I would likely be some slag in a dead end job, hating every moment of my existence. I am grateful for the life that Steve Jobs’ help provide for me.

“There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.” – Barrack Obama

In another one of my sharing moods, I took a few of my designs and made them into wallpapers for your iphones and/or other mobile devices. Download – Share – Enjoy

I’m counting down what I consider to be the best things in my life right now. Sometimes its easy to get down about all the bad crap going on in our lives, so to keep from jumping off a cliff over stupid stuff, it’s good to reflect on the positive elements in our lives. This is my list. If you missed the first part of this list, check it out here.

#5 – My Day Job

I complain about this job a lot because of the direction the upper management is taking the company. I do not feel any kind of security there because any one of us can be axed at the drop of a hat, making every payday very tense since that’s when pink slips are generally handed out.

Being in magazine publishing, business isn’t good. Books are dying off all the time and if you’ve been to a newsstand lately, not many are filling the empty holes. The mags that remain are having their pages cut regularly, advertisers are bailing for greener pastures in social media and online advertising, and it’s making for extremely tight budgets. Our editorial staff has been cut and my editor is asked to do more with less every month. It’s not a fun situation to be in.

On the other hand, why would I complain about a job that allows me to dress in t-shirts and shorts every day, gives me a flexible enough schedule to get home to hang out with my family and pays me to use my creativity on a daily basis? I’m not highly paid, probably marginal compared to a lot of art directors, maybe higher than some at my company, but I have good benefits and lots of vacation time and I have a whole bunch of really cool people I get to hang out with. I also have a boss that is by far the best boss I’ve ever had. He doesn’t micro manage, gives guidance when needed and backs up his team when their pushed into a corner. Answering directly to a Senior VP has its privileges.

Yes, the job can get mundane at times, doing the same thing month in and month out, but the long and short of the story is I get paid decent to use my right brain often. Compared to a lot of people in corporate America, my job is golden.

#4 – My Friends & Family

This is one of those no-brainer items. Of course my friends and family are on the list. Without them, I’m a pretty uninteresting person, really. I combined the two groups here because many of my friends are like family to me. In fact, a lot of my family members are less important to me than my group of close friends. I have some buddies I’ve known for 20+ years that I would jump in front of a bullet for, and some family members that I wouldn’t, but they all are responsible for partially making me who I am today.

I also married into one of the best possible families I could ever imagine. My wife’s family is gigantic, to say the least, and even the quirky ones (you know who you are) are good people and I get along with them very well. I’ve also gained a lot of deep respect and admiration for the Japanese culture through them.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t bring up my mom here. She’s been the center of my universe from the beginning. When the man who would call himself my father decided to up and leave both of us stranded and destitute, my mom stepped up and did what she had to to make it, not an easy task at 20 years old. Most would assume she’d run back home, but my mom was determined to push through. She got help from family, and we suffered many slings and arrows together, most of which I never fully appreciated until later in life.

My mom and I don’t always see eye to eye, I can be a bit rough on her at times because of my lack of vision and clarity for situations, but it’s only because I want to lift her higher than she’s ever been before. I do this because I feel I owe it to her after all she’s done for me over the years. I’m blessed to have her in my life and I’m glad she’s got a real man in her life to do take care of her better than my “father” ever could.

#3 – My Creative Mind

Again, how awesome is it that I get to create art for a living. Sure, I’m not selling so many art prints right now that I can retire on the funds. Heck, I couldn’t pay my monthly food bill with what I sell right now, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that I have an almost endless amount of creativity at my disposal to make neat stuff. Even if I wasn’t selling anything, I would still be creating art. I’ve done it all my life and I will continue on for as long as my mind will allow.

I had a conversation recently with a friend who is an art sales dynamo. He confessed to me that recently, while setting up for an art and craft fair, he looked around at some of the old dudes in the other booths and wondered if that was his destiny. Would he be in his 60s and 70s still slogging away trying to hock his art and shows every weekend. When he brought it up, it didn’t sound very appealing at all. I thought about it some more afterward and I found the other side the story.

What if these old guys came out to these art fairs every weekend, not because they had to, but because it was what made them happiest? They get out of the house, interact with people they’ve never met and get to make a few bucks. Maybe they do need the money, but as I eluded to before, how bad of a job is that really? Would they rather be working at Walmart greeting people at the door? I doubt it.

#2 – My Wife

You know that line in the wedding vows where you repeat, “for better or worse”? My wife really took that to heart. She is the angel in my life, the rock beneath my feet and a constant source of love and support no matter what we go through. We balance each other well, taking the hard times as they come, and relishing in the good times with lots of laughter.

I often reflect back to the day we got married on a beautiful beach in Maui. I saw her walking with her sister up the path to where we waited, she almost moved in slow motion. Everyone gets jitters at that point, but I somehow knew I was making the best decision of my life right then. I’ve been asked by other friends who’s marriages aren’t going as well as they’d hoped; they ask if I would get married again if I could have a do-over. The answer is always yes. I’ve told more than one person over the course of our marriage that she definitely got the raw end of the deal, and I’m lucky to have such an awesome woman in my life.

#1 – My Son

Honestly, I was going back and forth on which person was the best thing in my life, my son or my wife. It wasn’t easy, but I finally decided to add the little guy to the top of the list because nothing in this world makes me feel more special than when he crawls up onto my lap, wraps his arms around me and lays his head on my shoulder.

His smile is infectious, his antics crack me up and his affection is electric. No matter how bad my day is, no matter how tough my commute or how tired I may be, nothing gets my spirits up more than one look into his smiling face. I know I’m in for a lot of trying times between now and when he finally leaves the nest, but I will always cherish the sweetness that he brings to our lives daily. I am a better man because of him.

What about you? What are some of your best things? Write ‘em down, share them with others.

Like a lot of people, I tend to dwell on things a little too much, usually the stuff I probably shouldn’t be dwelling on so much; things I either have no control over, or things I could easily fix if I focused more attention toward and got it handled. It spurred me to try and dwell on some more positive things in my life for once.

At first when I thought of coming up with 10 things in my life that bring me happiness, I wondered if I could come up with enough mostly because 2011 has been a bit of a challenging year for my family. Then I realized I was thinking too big, as if every part of this list had to be epic, or even hugely substantial. Truth is, there are tiny things that make me happy that I take for granted on a fairly regular basis, and it’s about time they got some adequate credit for the smile on my face.

#10 – This Blog

Sometimes I dread having to write. It becomes a chore. Any of you who have blogs know exactly what I’m talking about. I write because I feel the need to keep it fresh and updated, not get stagnant and lose what few readers I actually have.

Sometimes the inspiration for what to write about just isn’t there. I’ll sit in front of the computer for a long time trying to post something that actually is worth sharing, and most of those times, I’m certain my readers are going to tell me to shut the hell up and start bringing the awesome instead of this drivel.

Other times though, this writing makes me smile. The catharsis of putting the proverbial pen to paper in order to extricate a creative synapse in the form of a blog post is one of the best feelings in the world, especially typing that last punctuation mark and hitting the publish button. I thought of tossing the blog out many times, but then I remember the good feelings that come with a published piece, and the responses I get, usually in commiseration, and it pushes me forward to the next potential post.

#9 – My Customers

I love buyers, and not just in the sense of receiving dollar bills in exchange for my art. I also love my buyers because I’ve made a connection to someone. They found my artwork appealing enough to either post up on their walls or share with a friend as a gift. We connected on some small level revolving around my creativity and their inspiration. Every time I see a note in my inbox telling me I made a sale I smile, and I’m sure the person on the other end of that transaction is smiling too. At least, that’s what I hope is happening.

#8 – My Sense of Humor

As lame and egocentric as this may sound, I laugh at my own jokes all the time. I make quips and puns on a regular basis with real folks or friends on my various social networks, and I laugh anytime I say something I think will potentially make them literally LOL. I seek out these opportunities quite often.

Sometimes people don’t get the joke, or they don’t quite appreciate my twisted sense of humor. I can’t win them all. If I ultimately have to explain my point of view, then I’ve obviously failed at my attempt at humor, but that doesn’t keep my from trying. Shun me if you will, but I’m still smiling and LMAO for real.

#7 – My Car

Yes, a material object brings me joy. My little VW is a blast to drive spiritedly and I love putting it into really tight and fast corners whenever possible. Even the way it feels when I’m driving on my daily commute makes me smile. It’s not the fastest, most luxurious or the most economical, but it’s 3,600 lbs. of pure, unadulterated joy.

It’s comfortable for being a small car, both in the front seats and the back (yes, it had plenty of leg room). It can also hold a tremendous amount of crap. When I did my last art shows, I was easily able to shove all my stuff into it with the seats folded down. The stereo sounds great as well as the exhaust note, and drives like a go-cart on a cloud, but the best part is the feeling of pushing the throttle down and having it explode past anyone around me. It’s not my dream car, but it’s pretty close.

#6 – My Dog

Come one, look at this face and try to keep from smiling. Can’t be done.

She’s a pain in my ass sometimes, but most of the time, she’s a smart and loving dog that loves my and my wife and tolerates the heavy handed petting of my son, who will eventually become her best friend, I’m sure.

Check back next time for the #5 through #1.

My first car was a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle. It was the ride that took me and all my friends to the beach, to concerts or the occasional ill-advised road trip for distances the “bugaroo” shouldn’t have travelled. It spent more time on the side of the road than it did on it, whether from breaking down or being pulled over by the local police, guilty of driving while being young and stupid. The repairs nickel and dimed me to a point where I finally had to sell it for my own sanity, but no matter how much regret I have for that car, I still feel a deep sense of nostalgia for the car and have vowed that one day I will own another one… just in a lot better condition.

Back when I was in my twenties, living by the beach, the second most cherished vehicle in my stable aside from my boards was my beach cruiser. On a beach cruiser, everything is casual and nothing is rushed. Yeah, we’ll get to the store, or the bar, or the beach eventually, but right now we’re just enjoying the cruise. Get your hands on this little bit of bicycling nostalgia.

Someone recently asked me questions about my design process, how I go about designing a piece, but I had to answer her honestly and say that it’s not a systematic approach. Of course there are certain things I do that are similar in order to maintain my sense of style, but because the final image is largely dictated by the source images, I never know exactly what I’m going to do until I do it.

I also get a lot of questions about how I go about posting my work, both to my various marketplaces, but also in social media sites, so Instead of talking design process, how about I share how I go about my promotion process? Maybe it can benefit a few others.

The first thing I did before I started this process was to add bookmarks to the listing pages of each of the following sites, and I placed them all in one bookmark folder. That way I can right-click on the folder and choose to open them all in tabs to have them ready for me to move through quickly.

The Marketplaces

Since Etsy is the nucleus of my selling hub, I always start there once I’ve finished a piece. With an Etsy listing, I establish all the main key elements that I will use across all other platforms, including title, description, tags and photos. Once the item is posted, I leave the listing open and copy the URL. While in Etsy, I head over the the forums, where I participate in a few Teams, most of which have a “new items” thread, and I post my latest work in those threads. If I have time, I might spend some more time interacting with other posts for a few moments, just to help move the community along.

After  Etsy, I move to my other marketplaces including Society 6, Cargoh (in process), Artflakes and Zazzle. I copy and paste the information from the Etsy listing across all of these other platforms to maintain continuity as best as possible. Most of these are Direct to Item printing, meaning I supply the artwork and the website has it printed once someone orders, which means I only have to do this once and the rest is up to them. Sometimes I need to adjust the images to they look right on the objects, and occasionally I’ll ditch the listing altogether if it doesn’t look right. These types of sites are a double edged sword because on one hand you can set up the listing and then leave it alone letting the site do all the fulfillment. On the other hand, you have little to no control over how your image looks in the final process. It took me a little bit to get used to the latter idea, but once I started receiving order confirmations and didn’t have to do anything except wait for a check, I was ok with it.

The Portfolio Sites & Blogs

Once all my marketplace listings are handled, I move over to the portfolio sites like Flickr, Behance and DeviantArt. Along with these being good, free portfolio sites, they all have a reasonable social media aspect to them. Even though I don’t push these very hard, occasionally my images do get some attention from the viewers.

From there, I’ll add a quick post here with an image and maybe a small description and a link to my Etsy page. I’ll also take that Etsy listing and share it on both Tumblr and Pinterest, both with their own merits.

Facebook and Twitter

At this point, I’m pretty much finished with all the visually oriented postings, so I move to the cornerstones of my marketing; Facebook and Twitter. I’ll post a quick link on my FB fan page, then share that post on my personal page. Twitter automatically gets updated from their, but I also set up a delayed post to launch later in the day or evening to re-share the link to anyone who might not have seen it the first time. Sometimes I’ll schedule several postings, but point them to different sites, all with different verbiage.

It’s important to note that I don’t leave my social media efforts to just posting those links and then walk away. It irritates the hell out of me when someone posts links and then disappears to any interaction. I engage anyone that interacts with me (except for spammers) and I try and stick around to respond to other people’s posts and tweets. I’m convinced that most of my sales come from my social media efforts and that is only in part to me exchanging thoughts and/or ideas with the folks on there.

Final Thought

This is my process. Yours may be totally different, using different websites. If those work for you, great, go kill it with those sites. In fact, if you think you have a site I should be including in my process, do tell. I’m always on the look out for new places to share my work, and if you have any questions about any of the sites I’ve talked about, feel free to hit me up.

By the time you read this post, I should have successfully revamped my entire shop on Etsy and other places to reflect my new strategy. I was really in a serious quandary over this decision for a long time and then I was hit with a major epiphany.

I’ve been wanting to start offering my work at a more affordable price point, but wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. I’ve got these large stacks of signed art prints waiting to be sold, which deserve to be sold at a certain level due to their quality. Also, to be fair to the people that have bought from me in the past, it’s wouldn’t be cool to turn around and immediately start selling the exact same thing at half price. At least I think that would suck and I don’t want to be that dude. On the other side of that, I don’t want to totally confuse everyone who visits my page on why certain things cost different prices even though they look virtually the same.

I also want to start selling only one size of prints so I can streamline my process, opting for my larger 11×14 prints and getting rid of the 8x10s and 5x7s, but what should I do with those I’ve already printed? I don’t want to let them languish dead on a vine, but I also don’t want to have too much stuff muddying up the works of my shop, again, causing confusion. These thoughts had me waffling for weeks.

While sitting in traffic one evening, dwelling on this a little a little too much, the epiphany hit me. If I’m not selling the 8x10s and 5x7s anymore, doesn’t that technically make them limited editions? They aren’t numbered because I never intended them to be, but if I do not print anymore after what I have now, they will ultimately be a closed edition print. So, I sell the small prints as limited edition and all the 11x14s will now be printed and sold at the new price point, a lucky few people getting their hands on a signed edition at the better price.

So, if you’ve been holding out for to buy some art, want to get your hands on a few of my smaller prints, NOW is the time to jump in because once these 5x7s and 8x10s are gone, I will not be printing any more. I have lowered the price a bit to make the deal a bit sweeter, and even more so if you buy one of my Combo Deals.

The 11×14 poster prints are now available at the smoking hot deal price, and you can combo those up as well. Get your ass over there and buy some stuff; if not for you, do it for the children.

Photo: Diefenbunker Museum

It was just about 1 year ago now that I started working on the very first image that would become the start of Beach Cities on Etsy. Looking back on that piece, It’s almost painfully obvious that I’ve grown a lot as an artist in that short time, but it’s more than just skill level, and the irony of the quote on the piece (Memora Praeteritum), does not escape me. Aesthetically, my work is moving in a different direction, mostly because I can only come up with so many surf/beach metaphors before I need a complete saline flush from all the salt water.

The original idea of Beach Cities was about capturing my life growing up in Southern California, but as I move along, the work I’m putting out is also about my life now as well. I’m inspired by so many new things. The bird work started as a gift to my wife, who is a huge source of inspiration and support. It’s only fair to say that she is as much a part of my development as an artist as any other influence I’ve encountered in my life.

Cars are also a big part of my life. I work with them daily as an art director for an automotive enthusiast magazine. I’m surrounded by gear-heads and car junkies on a daily basis, everything from American muscle cars, hot rods and motorcycles to European and Asian rockets and exotics. When I was a kid, I remember having tons of posters of different cars plastered on my wall, along with the occasional sexy pin-up of Heather Thomas or Christy Brinkley. It only goes to reason that I would create similar posters with a more interesting aesthetic (the cars, not the girls… but maybe the girls too).

There are other themes I want to explore, expand my horizons a bit, and I’m grateful to my friend Adam for helping me make sense of that idea. I’d also like to thank John W. Golden for his insight on the subject. There’s a ton of people that have helped shaped Beach Cities into the shop it is and will become. I’d like to thank them all personally, but would you be ok with a blanket, “You Effing Rock, I Love You”?

The first in a long line of pieces that forge my new direction.