Whew, just finished my judging duties for this year’s 3×3 Magazine Illustration Competition! Professional artists worldwide were invited to participate in the competition which assembles the best work of 2011 in an illustration annual that is mailed out to more than 6,000 art directors and art buyers in the US.

The jury consisted of Jason Treat, DD, The Atlantic; DJ Stout, Pentagram; Mark Reddy, AD, BBH, UK; Haika Hinze, AD, Die Zeit, Germany; Emiliano Ponzi, Illustrator, Italy; Andrea Innocent, Illustrator, Australia; Andrew Bannecker, Illustrator, USA; and yours truly.

It was fun seeing all that great work that is out there, thousands of fascinating samples from our wonderful and mysterious profession. Good luck to all participants!

The good people of 3×3, the Magazine of Contemporary Illustration, Sarah Munt and Charles Hively, have invited me for an interview. My rants and raves can be accessed here.

We had the pleasure of having illustrator, designer, multi-media artist and cartoonist Oliver Weiss over to the studio for lunch. He’s in town for a couple of weeks following his trek out to Pasadena for this year’s ICON conference.

After a few minutes of conversation I could tell Oliver is not your typical illustrator; he’s done just about anything you can imagine including art. He’s been an author—short stories, poems and children’s stories, writer, freelance editor, freelance copywriter for ad agencies, ghost writer, founder and editor-in-chief of his own magazine, web designer—the first in Germany and comic strip writer.

Through all his experiences he has gained valuable insight into the workings of  the editorial, publishing and advertising worlds which puts him head and shoulders above many out there.