Deer Skull and Birdies

Some changes might be made for the client's version.

I know for sure that I plan on making 12"X18" prints of this image available for $10, but also plan on a larger size that I will update everyone on soonish. You can email me directly for inquiries about purchasing a 12X18 at bizhan(at)mendedarrow.com.

Feel free to also check out my store at www.mendedarrow.com for skateboards, prints, and tees. 

VCUarts Communication Arts Posters

Below are a few posters I designed to promote our department.

The first one's point of departure was sending posters with statements about art by our faculty to high schools around the country. High school art teachers are lacking in resources, so I thought that this would be well received since art/design schools typically send poster advertisements for their respective schools. The funding isn't possible for a massive campaign so we are going to distribute them internally. 

The next image is a statement by faculty TyRuben Ellingson's father, William J Ellingson. The image is by TyRuben Ellingson, a concept artist who has recently worked on Elysium and Pacific Rim. 

The third is a typographic experiment with our mission statement. Its a work in progress. We are encouraging faculty to also try their hand at doing a mission statement poster. The type is collaged from scanned photo-copies that were distorted by moving the type as it was being scanned.

Dia de los Muertos system

This poster was designed for 18"X25" poster, 11"X17" flyers, 4"X6" post cards, and 4"x6" private invitations.


Based on the above poster a poster specific to the Pre-Halloween Party was developed for 11"X17," but as these things sometimes go it was printed scale to fit on a 8.5"X11."


This months "Gallery5 After 5" lecture was also design using this system at 8.5" by 14."

Info about the month long celebration below.

Gallery5 Presents
Dia de los Muertos
Saturday, October 30th - Saturday, November 13th

Gallery5's observance of Dia de Los Muertos will be a multicultural experience, integrating traditional practices with events relevant to the immediate community. The holiday exists today as a fusion of Aztec rites from the Pre-Hispanic era, Roman Catholic beliefs, and modern secular interpretations that vary from city to city across Latin America, parts of the U.S., Canada, and Europe. These festivities celebrate death as a continuation of life and provide a time to reflect on our own lives and the lives of those no longer with us.

By observing such rich and vibrant traditions, Gallery5 hopes to encourage participation by a wider range of demographics, and to challenge common paradigms associated with death. Dia de los Murtos at Gallery5 will include several days of festivities, workshops and live performances. The celebration will begin on Saturday, October 30th and culminate in a Dia de los Muertos festival on November 13th.

All to be held at Gallery5
200 W Marshall St
Richmond, VA 23222

Festival Sponsored by
RVANews
WRIR 97.3
One South Realty Group
Octoprint
Magic Hat Brewing Co.

With special contributions from
The Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
The Latin Ballet of Virginia
National Hispanic Cultural Center
Skull-a-Day
The University of Richmond
Virginia Commonwealth University
Justin Laughter
World of Mirth
Premiere Costumes
Main Art Supply
Nationwide
Moe’s Southwest Grill (10839 W. Broad, Mechanicsville)

Saturday, October 30th
Pre-Halloween Dinner Party
7PM / $10 per person ($8 for members)
An early evening of great local performers and food to kick off your Halloween night!

Featuring Performances by
Tequila Mockingbird
Silent Music Revival
Lobo Marino
Voix de Ville Follies
Gull
Richmond Comedy Coalition
and more!


Friday, November 5th
Public Opening Reception
7PM – 11PM / FREE
This night will celebrate the opening of Memento Mori, an exhibition of contemporary art exploring death and the ephemeral in our main gallery upstairs. (On display until December 17th)

In our GallowLily’s craft gallery, we are excited to present La Danse Macabre, a solo exhibition of internationally recognized Papel Picado artist Catalina Delgado Trunk.

This night will also be an opportunity for audience members to add on to our Community Altar that will be constructed in our Lucent Phoenix space. Guests are encouraged to bring their own ofrendas (or offerings) in the form of small ephemera, flowers, unlit or electronic candles, clothing or non-perishable food. All food and clothing brought to Gallery5 will be donated to a charitable organization after the celebration. To encourage hands-on audience participation and give everyone an opportunity to take home part of the festivities, we will provide Traditional Craft Demonstrations. Learn how to make colorful tissue paper marigolds or mold and decorate you own sugar skull!

This evening will feature traditional and contemporary performances inspired by Dia de los Muertos. Seasonal brews available!

Featuring Performances by
Frankzig
Members of the University of Richmond Theater Department
Daniel Jose' Custo'dio
Flamenco Del Sur (Clarke Hedgepath on guitar, Derrick Englert on bass and Andy Brockmann on percussion)

D.J.’s provided by
WRIR 97.3

Also presenting
Ofrenda to the Disremembered: A multimedia installation by Salvador Barajas, Danah Bella, Liz Canfield, and John Priestly.

"Ofrenda to the Disremembered" is a trans-temporal re-examination of the Mexican tale of la Llorona, whose unthinkable act of desperate infanticide in the face of colonialist oppression made her, variously in different versions, a monster, a cautionary tale anti-heroine, and the protector of border transgressors. This multimedia performance considers la Llorona in a borderland defined by NAFTA, anchor babies, and nannygates in the border fence.

Colectivo caliban is a sound and movement performance ensemble comprising a creative intersection between modern dance troupe d a n a h b e l l a DanceWorks and three multimedia artists who met through the Media Art & Text interdisciplinary doctoral program at VCU. Their work investigates deterritorialization, crossing borders between bodily self and society, subject and object, noise and music.

Wednesday, November 10th
Gallery5 After 5: A Happy Hour Lecture Series
5PM - 9PM / FREE

Andrew Chesnut of VCU's School of World Studies, presents a lecture, Viva La Muerte: The Cult of Saint Death and the Days of the Dead in Mexico”

Also Screening: Death: A film by Matt Lively and Alex Germanotta (30 mins)
Matt Lively and Alex Germanotta both graduated from VCU and teamed up to make films. Alex is the Emmy-winning film wizard and Matt is the tireless internationally exhibited art-maker. The 30-minute documentary "Death" is the first collaboration between them. Lively and Germanotta are currently working on an animated short called "The Wind Chill Factory."

Saturday, November 13th

Dia de los Muertos Food & Craft Festival
11AM - 7PM/ FREE

This will be the culmination of Gallery5’s observance of Dia de los Muertos.
It will be a FREE all-day festival of live music, performance, and workshops.
A full schedule of workshops, performances and vendors will be available soon!

Green Patriot Poster book is finished.

Bizhan Khodabandeh's paster, "To Arms To Arms," is in the The Green Patriot Poster project's compilation of posters, "Green Patriot Posters: Images for a new activism." The posters originate from an online inspirational campaign to be more conscious about what we do to our environment, The Green Patriot Poster Project. The book is available here. Or you can pre-order the book through Amazon.com

Art Book's Description

Edited by Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel. Text by Michael Bierut, Thomas L. Friedman, Steven Heller, Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel.
Published by Metropolis Books

This book brings together the strongest contemporary graphic design currently promoting sustainability and the fight against climate change. Collectively, essays by Michael Bierut, Steven Heller, Edward Morris and Dmitri Siegel look back in time to posters and ideas that set the stage for the current movement (World War Two posters, images of international cooperation, posters from the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s) and address the state of the poster: what is the efficacy and mode of distribution for purposeful, message-oriented graphic images today? Thomas L. Friedman advocates for "a redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology that can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the twenty-first century." The bulk of the book is given over to a compilation of the best posters on the theme of sustainability by a variety of contemporary artists (both emerging and established), among them Shepard Fairey, Michael Bierut, DJ Spooky, James Victore and Geoff McFetridge. These posters, which have a strong graphic presence and which never rest on the tired slogans of the past ("Save the Earth," etc.), show that graphic design does not passively respond to the zeitgeist--it helps shape it. The book, which is sustainably printed in the U.S., reproduces 50 of these posters as tear-outs. Also included is a section on action, with documentation of designs at work in the world: on buses, billboards, protesters' placards, graffiti, t-shirts and so on. This movement is about a new form of patriotism, one that exhibits pride of place, but not fear of others.

New Graphic Design Awards

The above poster will be published in Print Magazine's Regional Annual.


The above poster will be published in Creativity International's 40th Print and Packaging Competition by Harper Collins.

210 posters that actually say something!

I was published in this book last year, but wasn't aware of it until one of my ARGS students, Kevin Zweerink, pointed it out. All the posters take up a full page in the catalogue. Each artist statement is included with a picture of the designer. My copy came with a sticker stating "210 posters that actually say something." The statement made me smile and I hope the book makes you smile too. All of the work is incredibly impressive.


Info taken from the Good50X70 site
Good50×70 2009 Book is out, and it is GOOD indeed!

The 2009 catalogue is now available for purchase at major online bookstores and, of course on bispublishers.nl

The catalogue collects the 210 best responses to seven briefs on seven critical global issues and it includes the comments of the jury members.

Offset printed by Bis Publisher.
288 colour pages on FSC paper, 24,5 x 17,5 cm paperback.

Wretched Glory

I have work in this poster art exhibition.

About:
Curated by Patrick Godfrey (velocitycomics.com), Thea Duskin (ghostprint.com), and Spencer Hansen (loose-limbs.com), this show will feature the show posters, handbills, and flyers of Richmond Virginia’s recent and past events. It’ll open at Ghostprint Gallery on Friday, August 6th. The walls and temporarily installed telephone poles of the gallery will be plastered with ephemera used to promote Richmond’s music,
bands, and events with a showcase of select show posters and other artwork for sale.

Opening Reception:
August 6th, 7pm

At Ghostprint Gallery
220 West Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23220-4217

Work will be up through the month of August.

New Work: Comics and Posters.

Below are select pages from Samad Behrangi's "The Little BLack Fish" artwork by Bizhan Khodabandeh












Above: Cover for "The Little Black Fish" with custom logo type referencing Persian calligraphy and comic lettering.



Above: Illustration and Design for Chili Cook Off by Bizhan Khodabandeh

I have also been working on a logotype for a Jewelry store that has yet to be given the go ahead ...

... and posters for both poster4tomorrow.org and good50x70.org, however, I do not think you are allowed to post your submission anywhere until after the contest

I will soon post posters, images and info for Gallery5's Sustainable Richmond exhibition.

This years May Day Parade bandanna.

This year's May Day bandanna was designed by Bizhan Khodabandeh and references the May Day Parade poster design seen at the end of this post. The theme of this year's parade is the sabo-cat, a symbol of wild cat strikes, and threat to the "bosses." More info about the sabo-cat - as well as a sabo-cat poster designed by Bizhan Khodabandeh - can be found at maydayrva.org.


Above is a detail of the bandanna. The patterning is a reference to M C Escher's work. A repeated geometric pattern of a cat alternates between black and white. This was a particularly difficult image to create - more difficult than the cat and cat-worker illustrations seen on the poster.


Above is an image of the bandanna while it is being worn. The cat mouth becomes part of the wearer and a direct metaphor that comments on the sabo-cat as a device to amplify a worker's voice.



Above is the original poster design by Bizhan Khodabandeh for May Day.

Model Citizen opening this Friday

I have a T-shirt design in the fashion art exhibition, Model Citizen, at Gallery5. The exhibition opens this Friday, March 5th. The shirt, Indigenous Resistance, is available for purchase on Team8 Press' website.





Gallery5, Rumors and CECO Studio Present:
Model Citizen
Gallery5 is excited to announce the first annual, Model Citizen. This two-day event and month long exhibition will showcase the best of Richmond’s fashion industry and seeks to inform the audience of the abundance of local talent and offerings. This exhibition is created to encourage our community to support their locally owned businesses by shopping locally. The event will feature runway shows, student design work, exhibition openings, craft vendors, musical performances, and more - highlighting our favorite boutiques and fashion designers. According to show coordinator Casey Longyear from Rumors, "I wanted to really display elements that are the heart of this city regardless of age or interests. This fashion show recalls the history of the city, recognizes the beauty of the river and parks, pays attention to the dirtiness of the streets, and showcases the ability to express yourself.

Model Citizen Facebook Page / Ceco Studio


SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
FREE Friday, March 5th
7PM - 11PM First Friday Opening Reception

We kick things off Friday during the First Friday Art Walk, with multiple exhibition openings in each of our gallery spaces.

Featured work will be exclusively from Richmond artists and designers and will include fashion illustration and photography. Original textiles and accessories will be showcased by Live Models throughout the evening. These live mannequins will also display looks from the winners of our Young Designer competition, showcasing the best fashion design work from area students and recent graduates. Vendors will be located both up and downstairs selling handmade designs and Gallery5 will feature a wall of local T-Shirt designs that will be available for easy sale by local artists such as Barf, Thief and Bandit, Flux Rad, Bizhan Mended Arrow and more! Live music will take place on both floors!



$7 Saturday, March 6th
Doors 8PM, Fashion Show 9PM
Dance Party 10PM and on
Model Citizen Fashion Show
Sponsored by: RVA Magazine and CECO Studio

The main event continues Saturday night with runway shows from Richmond’s best boutiques, a juried show with looks from the Young Designer finalists, hair and makeup provided by CECO Studio, raffles, and more with music provided by some of our favorite local DJs. After the show, the excitement continues with the official after party held right here at Gallery5.

Participating boutiques include:
Need Supply Co.
Dominion
Pink
Eurotrash
Halcyon
Exile
and others.

New Work: Various posters/illustrations and Gallery5 shirts

May Day Parade poster. The theme of this show utilizes the "Sabo-cat," a symbol associated with anarcho-syndicalism. The body copy has yet been decided upon.





By The Bull's Eye has moved from crafts to cakes. This is the beginning stages of their logo. Not happy with the type arrangement, but that's what happens when you have a one day turn around. They have already put the logo to use, however, further revisions are anticipated.








These two poster designs that utilize past illustrations to create new images.





T-shirt design for Gallery5. Printed in the tradition t-shirt spot. These are now available at the Gallery5 store, GallowLily's.

New Work: illustrations, comics and logos

Click on images to enlarge.

Poster design for a film showing of Beautiful Boxer. The film is based on the famous Thai boxer, Nong Toom. The academy I train at, Richmond BJJ Academy, will perform a Muay Thai demonstration before the film.

Film info:
Free February 9th at Gallery5.
Potluck begins 6PM
Muay Thai demonstration 7PM
Film showing begins 7:30PM








Posters for the SAYLOVE exhibition at Gallery5. The exhibition's mission is to present different perspectives of Love & Hate. The exhibition also involves audience participation in defining both Love & Hate. Designing an interactive poster was the best solution. More info can be found on Gallery5's website.

Exhibition info:
Opening reception 7PM January 8th
Say Love is a project that celebrates the triumphs and struggles of the LGBT community. This month-long event, exhibition and public-arts project is about inclusion and will showcase regional and nationally known visual and performing artists. This event will partner with numerous community organizations, non-profits and businesses to bring awareness to our under-represented GLBT community. This event is intended to not only express ourselves through art, but to inform all demographics across the board of the passions, struggles and triumphs we face.

Say Love is proudly brought to you by:
The Say Love Project
GayRVA
Gallery5
WRIR 97.3
The Rainbow Minute
Gay Fathers Coalition of Richmond
Taboo

Featuring Works by:
James Robertson
Aaron McIntosh
Lilly McElroy
L Weingarten
Kristina Willemse
Jesse Finley Reed
Eric Russell
William Davis
Kevin Orlosky







First two fully colored pages of The Little Black Fish. I still might make some changes. This is just the beginning stage of the coloring process. Out of the three approaches to coloring I have tried so far, the above version seems to work best. I am also thinking about using Art Rage as a method of coloring with more texture, but I am not sure yet.





The top logo is one of the versions I like, but wasn't appropriate for the client. We decided on the bottom logo since it would be more versitile by only using one color. The color choice is still undecided.

New Work: G5 Posters and Little Black Fish Inks

Hand drawn type and illustrations for the "forgetters" show. I was messing with using both pencils and felt tip pens to do line work on the severed fingers. The end result was unexpected, but still appreciated.


Poster for the current exhibition at Gallery5. Not completely happy with it, but it works well for the time constraint.


First stage of inking The Little Black Fish cover. I will be adding lighter "inks" digitally to break up the forms even more. The created shapes will function as a map to use multiple shades of the same color similar to a mosaic or stained glass.


First sketches for an eventual illustration of Nong Toom, the famous Thai Boxer. It still needs a whole lot of work - even for an initial sketch. I intend to: change the flowers to orchids, marigolds, & carnations (referencing the Pong Malai), add hand wraps, add ornamentation/border (also referencing the Pong Malai), and of course change the composition itself.

I also plan on exaggerating the flower explosion and figuring out a way to have the figures overlap more without messing up the perspective. My hope is that these two changes will emphasize the impact more.

The finished illustration will be used for a film showing at Gallery5, but I would also like to do a screen-print of the final version (sans the film showing info).

Works in RVA Mag Vol 5 Issue 8

A few of my illustrations - as well as a lot of other artists' incredible pieces - are exhibited in Volume 5 Issue 8 of RVA Magazine. You can have a peek on page 8 at RVAMag.com

Sleight of Hand 2 call for entries!

Sleight of Hand II: National Juried Contemporary
Craft Competition.

The Sleight of Hand II exhibition at Gallery5 seeks craft-makers who push the boundaries and definitions of craft. Craft-making is too often pigeon-holed into traditional definitions of basic utilitarian objects in clay, glass, wood, or metal. In reality, most craft-makers are not unlike fine artists in many respects. They push new concepts, introduce new materials and techniques, expand old techniques and use traditional materials in new ways. Gallery5 invites craft-makers fitting this criteria to submit their works to Sleight of Hand II.

Artists must be a resident of the United States

Up to $1000 in prizes
Jurors: TBA

Submission Fee: $20 for up to three works, $5 each additional work.
Submission Deadline: Wednesday, January 6th.
Notification of Selected Artists: Saturday, January 9th

Accepted artwork must be delivered to Gallery5 no later than Friday, January 29th.
Artwork must be packed in reusable packaging with return shipping label included.

Opening Reception and Award Ceremony: Friday, February 5th.
Exhibition Ends: Friday, February 26th.

Application can be downloaded here.

Repressed V call for entries!

REPRESSED V: FREE TO SPEAK May 2010

José María Heredia - poet: inspired the Cuban people to stand up and fight against Spain.

Seymor Chwast-designer - illustrator: his anti-war poster "End Bad Breath" indirectly encouraged the anti-war movement
of the 70's.

John Lenin and Yoko Ono - famous musicians/artists: created the powerful anti-war campaign stating "THE WAR IS OVER...if you want it to be."

What makes statement driven art so emotionally powerful? It being witness to a piece of work that creates a bond between you, the viewer and the creator of the piece. A bond that can change the direction of thought and purpose.
A successfully executed statement driven piece can be the catalyst that inspires the average person into an active agent for change. Art exists in societies to create shared dialogues and experiences. No matter the medium, art and artists can be the spark to establishing a commonality, to allow us to empathize with each other and encourage altruistic pursuits for the greater good.

Dedicated to social awareness, Gallery5 invites visual and performing artists to submit their statement focused work to Repressed V: Free to Speak.

More info and an application can be downloaded here.

New Work: defacing the local tattoo shop

Here are some work in progress photos of a mural I was recently asked to help paint. It is currently unfinished. The other artists will continue working once it stops raining and they procure some scaffolding. I intend to post images of the finished mural on this blog.

If you would like to take a look at the mural in person; you may at 127 W Brookland Park Blvd. While you are there, you should get a tattoo or piercing. Brookland Park Tattoo hours are 12:00-8:00PM; 7 days a week. More info about the tattoo and piercing artists can be found here.

As always click on images to enlarge.



My contribution to the mural.