My apologies for skipping June. Apparently my schedule got the best of me last month. For now, I promise to get a July calendar to you. Here’s the July 2013 desktop calendar / wallpaper image for you to use on your own computer. (download here)

The whisk with hard shadow is an image from a recent in-house test we were doing with shadow and color.

Happy 4th of July!

– Kyle

Directions:
1. Download Here.
2. (on Mac) go to  > System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver
3. Click the ” + ” button
4. Find the downloaded image on your computer and “Choose”
5. Close Preferences by clicking on the red dot in the upper left corner.

Well, as with many projects we’ve waiting months and now this one is finally available…well, it will be on July 1…Frostings by Courtney Whitmore. You might already know Courtney for her popular party planning site pizzazzerie.com.

It was great working with Courtney again. (We worked with her on the Pushup Pops book in 2011). She’s like a nice fun version of the Tasmanian Devil…but more productive than destructive. 🙂

Additional credit is due to Caroline Brewer for her set styling. Thanks too to Ian and Rory for their great assistant work as usual.

You can order Frostings at Amazon.com

Maybe I can talk Courtney into doing a book on chocolate next time!

-Kyle

Here’s some behind the scenes footage from my Marionette project.

The idea started with an open-call from our ASMP chapter to use models here in Nashville. I don’t work with models much but thought this would be a great opportunity to use models as props…almost interacting with food. From there the ideas started to flow.

Here are the final sketches I shared with our production team to help articulate where I wanted the shoot to go.

Probably the biggest surprise for people outside of our industry is how many people it takes to do a shoot like this. Here’s list of crew for this production.
• set designer/builder
• set painter
• prop stylist
• food stylist
• hair/make-up artist
• wardrobe stylist
• first assistant (lighting)
• second assistant (grip)
• digital tech
• production assistant

Oh, and don’t forget the two models.

See final images here: http://www.dreier.com/projects/marionettes/

I’ve got plenty of additional ideas to make this into a series. We’ll see if my schedule allows.

– Kyle

Here’s the May 2013 desktop calendar / wallpaper image for you to use on your own computer. (download here)

This is from a shoot we did recently with a client. While it might look like we’er on location we were actually in studio. Gotta love “natural light” that we can control. 🙂

Happy May Showers…and pancakes!

– Kyle

Directions:
1. Download Here.
2. (on Mac) go to  > System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver
3. Click the ” + ” button
4. Find the downloaded image on your computer and “Choose”
5. Close Preferences by clicking on the red dot in the upper left corner.

Well, as is my apparent habit now I’m about three weeks into this month before I report on last month’s highs and lows. March was a busy month. Lots of great client work, lots of family fun and lots of anticipation of spring…warmer weather, warmer weather, warmer weather.

Highs.

I had the honor of being asked to speak at the Nashville AIGA meeting. I actually accepted the invitation and managed to cram twenty-plus years of my career into a 53 minute presentation. If you missed the event then you didn’t get to hear some of the titles I’ve had over the years such as “art director”, “door-to-door salesman”, “genius”, “idiot” and even “presidential candidate”. Oh, and don’t forget “loser” (incase you’re wondering how my campaign turned out). Thank you AIGA Nashville for a fun evening where I got to talk about myself.

Another high for March came when Zac Hardy dropped by the studio to do some digital tech testing with a wireless shooting rig he’s developed—I could have been in a scene from Mission Impossible. He had me shooting wirelessly tethered with my Mamiya/PhaseOne to multiple devices simultaneously. Pretty neat setup and just as fast as our wired tether setup.

On a personal note, March was fun doing Boy Scout’s Pinewood Derby with my boys, multiple mocha dates with Amy, fantastic carrot cake (thank you Susan McKinney) and an almost perfect cheesecake (I’m still working on that recipe). Oh, and don’t let me forget the Nashville Art Crawl—very fun and inspiring.

Lows?

I’m seeing a trend in my reporting of each month’s lows. I’m really close to considering just getting rid of the “lows” portion as I’m finding it increasingly difficult to report. It’s not that I don’t have lows in my month, I’m just finding I simply seem to be enjoying the highs more and they overshadow the lows. I know, you’re thinking “Uh, oh…Kyle’s losing his critical edge. Is it possible he’s becoming…optimistic?” Ok, ok…here’s a low for you—the water line in our fridge broke and messed up some of the flooring in our kitchen at home. That’s a low. In fact, it will probably be a low for a while as I work to muster up the energy and focus to fix it. There, see, not everything is peaches and cream around here. 🙂

So until next month (which is already three quarters done)…Have a great April!

-Kyle

Here are tear sheets from the November issue of Diabetes Forecast. Yes, I know, I’m a bit tardy on getting this posted to the blog. At least I got these up before Memorial Day…isn’t that the rule. 🙂

Credit to Whitney Kemp for food styling, and thanks to the rest of our crew.

-Kyle