conn.creatives -
Don Carter: After-Hours Art
There’s a lot to love about the communication arts — the expressiveness of typography and color, the tactility of paper and ink, the craft of a clear and simple message. But at the end of the day, you’re still capturing the essence of someone else’s brand, promotion or marketing message. What’s missing is self-expression.
By day, Adams & Knight creative director Don Carter is no slouch. He’s won loads of awards, from Clios and Effies to accolades from the New York One Show, the Boston Ad Club, the Boston Hatch Awards, the Connecticut Art Directors Club, and the Connecticut Ad Club. His work has also been featured in Communication Arts, Photo District News, Art Direction and PhotoDesign magazines.
But after punching out of the agency world, Carter taps deeper into his creative self as Art Farm, creating, designing and illustrating children’s books and animation.
Carter crafts his book illustrations in layers of foamboard, drywall compound and acrylics, creating a three-dimensional world of shadow, texture, color and fun. His books include Wake Up House!, Hello School (both with Dee Lillegard), See You Soon Moon (with Donna Conrad), Get to Work Trucks, Send It!, Heaven’s All Star Jazz Band, and most recently, 2007’s Old MacDonald Drives a Tractor.
Carter also dabbles in character design, most famously as creator of Playhouse Disney’s Happy Monster Band, an original animated short-form series about four lovable little monsters and their dreams of pop music stardom. The shorts debuted in late 2007, with 10 more in production for release later this year. And another tv show pitch is in the works, this time in collaboration with illustrator Dan Yaccarino.
The Happy Monster Band character designs are unabashedly vector-based, deceptively simple and infinitely charming. Quite a departure from much of his book illustration, yet perhaps closer to what you might expect from someone with Illustrator open all day.
All of this work makes for a truly inspiring Flickr set. Check it out next time you’re feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day. It just might make you ditch your mouse and grab a paintbrush.
This is incredibly inspiring. Adams & Knight’s work is certainly of a high caliber, but see one of their directors go from the corporate world, to the crazy kids realm shows a magnitude of depth I certainly was not expecting. The juxtaposition of Graphic Designer- to Artisan Craftsperson (foam core cut outs, hand painted)- to modern illustrator (happy monster band) is profound and should serve as an example of how designers are not just decorators who know software. Great work Don, Great work.