This is an artwork I created on the the topic of information technology. The idea was to have a monumental “IT,” set in an idyllic landscape, which is maintained by lots of little people.

Some of the people are looking at plans, replacing chunks of the monument, painting parts of the monument, rewiring plugs in its side, adding “whistles and bows” to suggest new software, calculating costs, placing orders on the phone, thinking far ahead, etc.

Here’s my latest piece for today’s Welt am Sonntag Sunday newspaper, illustrating the two worlds that people living alone vs. people  engaged in a relationship find themselves in. (I managed to incorporate my mom and my grandma into this image, which is always a treat.)

The world population will reach a whopping 7 billion in October, experts say. I have created this image for a feature on this topic for Welt am Sonntag (Axel Springer Publishers) for their economy section . It shows the Very Crowed Globe full of people, along with a bunch of skyscrapers and landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, and the Taj Mahal.

In my latest assignment for Süddeutsche Zeitung, I have composed a cadavre exquis for the career section that runs across a major part of the page.

This formerly surrealist concept works with folded pages; the top parts showing the head of a person or animal, the middle parts the torso, and the bottom parts the legs.

My “exquisite corpse” shown below was designed in a slightly three-dimensional fashion. It consists of a cowboy, a crocodile, a gorilla, a robot, a little boy, a tree, a skirt, and a fish.

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I’m a maid who would marry
And will take with no qualm
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Harry, Dick or Tom.

I’m a maid mad to marry
And will take double-quick
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Tom, Harry or Dick.

- From Cole Porter, Kiss Me, Kate

Here’s a mixed-media illustration of mine which visualizes the achievements of great people (including those who still need to grow to be great).

Here’s a happy little machine producing happy little people :-)

Same train carry my mother,
Same train, same train,
Same train be back to-morrer,
Same train, same train.
Same train carry my sister,
Same train, same train,
Same train be back to-morrer,
Same train, same train.

Same train a-blowin’ at de station,
Same train, same train,
Same train be back to-morrer,
Same train, same train.

- Old Folk Poem (19th Century)

These are a bunch of images on the art of living, and the art of surviving – from wall street disasters to The World’s a Stage to finding some peace and quiet.

Here’s a male portrait I made which consists entirely of scrap paper and cut-outs from postcards and magazines.

People I’ve known…

Persnickety Peetah P. Penderquist, PhD,  poured proficient philosophical pronouncements of paramount (put provocatively perfunctory) principles in a perfectly prepossessing performance.

The latest event guide for the German Trade Union (DGB) in Munich has just been published. I created both the jacket design and the inside illustrations. The postcard-sized brochure lists the many seminars and workshops and lectures and events and whatnot that the DGB provides for Munich (click for a larger view).

The cover art is a collage of assembled portrait photos, around which I spilled acrylic color. My goal was to create a vintage look (hence the predominantly dated photos from the 1930’s through 1970’s) which looks fresh and modern at the same time. Here’s a closeup view of the spread (click for a larger image).

I actually got to include some relatives of mine in the collage, such as my mom on the cover (the pretty girl below the number 20), my grandfather (covered by the headline), and my sister when she was Very Small (below the DGB logo on the back).

I have been doing covers for the Trade Union for many years now (illustrations and jacket designs), which is especially nice since Munich is my hometown, and a city that I love dearly. With every season, I create completely new designs in styles that I haven’t used before with the client. As of the 2005 booklet, all editions were headed by the terrific Alexander Klier who is always immensely open towards new ideas.

Along with the booklet, I usually also create stuff like postcards and bookmarks. I once even did an animated movie which was shown on info screens in the Munich subway.

Here is the bookmark for 2010 (click for larger files), showing, among others, my grandmother (back side yellow area, my grandfather (back side on the left of the blue balloon), and my brother (back side far left).

Covers from Past Years

Check out my covers from past years! Mind that all jacket covers are continued on the back side (which I can’t show in this 3d rendering, unfortunately).

TOP: 2008 Spring Issue – This was a real gem where I displayed some pitch-black silhouettes of well-known bridges of Munich against a golden background. We used a Pantone gold color here, which added a really cool touch.

BELOW: 2008 Fall Issue – That year’s topic, bridges, was used for the a setting in the wonderful English Garden which is located right in the heart of Munich.

2007 Goes Pop Art

TOP: 2007 Spring Issue – Munich goes pop art. Dirndls, pretzels, Frauenkirche, and happy buildings all over the place. Actually, this sort of captures the spirit of the Oktoberfest, I find in retrospect. Little did I know that I would actually win the Oktoberfest poster design award only a year later.

BELOW: 2007 Fall Issue – Pop-art-style rendering of happy people in a happy city. You can spot the Friendsengel (”Angel of Peace”) and the Maximiliansbrücke, one of the city’s largest bridges.

Goings-on in 2006

TOP: 2006 Spring Issue – For the year 2006, I went for a collage of a great many square-shaped visuals which are all linking to the city of Munich and its people, and the many activities offered.

BELOW: 2006 Fall Issue – This is the design for the second half of that year, once again using square-shaped plates for the visuals.

2005 Flies up High

TOP: 2005 Issue – In 2005 I received a call from Nöck Burmeister who I had worked with many years before, and he offered me to work on new cover design for the upcoming event calendar. I was thrilled to be given this opportunity after all this time, and readily jumped on it. This marked the beginning of a beautiful continued collaboration for the years to come. The edition for 2005, which was subsequently headed by Alexander, saw only one brochure covering the whole year. It shows a girl working on a laptop while sitting on a flying carpet hovering above the city of Munich.

BELOW: 1999 Issue – This issue was the first cover for the DGB that I assembled on the computer. The elements are all hand-painted, using gouache on thick watercolor paper. I went for a fun motif here, showing a jungle setting, with animals peeking in from the sides, and a monkey doing the Tarzan as he is carrying around a building of Munich’s landmark, the famous Frauenkirche.

It all Started Back in 1994

TOP: 1994 Spring Issue – This marks the very first cover I ever did for the Trade Union, and also one of my very first major assigments ever. The artwork uses the cartoon figure that I used to work with at the time. The tree was actually modelled after the beautiful plum tree in my parents’ garden (Reine Claude plums – very succulent and sweet). This was all handmade back then, including the lettering which I cut out by hand.

BELOW: 1994 Fall Issue – Another hand-designed painting, showing the silhouette of a clown watching the sun rise. The background for the lettering consists of assembled snippets in different languages. I had only come up with this graphic illustration style a year earlier, during a two-month stay in Rome. Now you may wonder – this was actually thought of as a sunrise, but I remember people wondering why I would have wanted to create a sunset for the cover? True enough, Im am still uncertain as to what it really is!

Here are some more b/w whimsical illustrations on a variety of topics ranging from interest groups (people hanging in a tree) and being in love (guy carrying a heart with a picture of his girl), to teachers lecturing on complex issues.