Helping hoodies

Pancho, Clark, Milo, Jet and Lucci may be cute and small. But they have big dreams about helping others.

Sarah Sung, a graphic designer based in Lawrence, Kans., is the creative brain power behind the cartoon quintet. It's aim: "To promote social activism in our communities," Sung says.

Sung works as a full-time graphic designer and tends to The Lucha Narrative brood on the side. She and her sister, Venus, also do freelance designing.

Each Lucha character represents a separate category of advocacy. Clark, the accordion-playing monkey, he's passionate about music and arts, of course. Lucci the pirate, peg-legged owl loves promoting literacy. The list goes on.

How can you help? A portion of proceeds sold on The Lucha Narrative Web site go toward non-profit aid organizations. (Think cute T-shirts, hoodies and tote bags.)

Sung has also started venturing into event planning by organizing a benefit concert this month. There's little doubt there will be more do-gooder goodness coming out of this fledgling project.

Learn more by checking out an awesome audio interview with Sung on lawrence.com.

(Photo courtesy of the lawrence.com/Lawrence Journal-World.)

Jenny Kim

A graphic designer by day and an illustrator by night, Jenny Kim is “trying to build a clientele for both areas and plunge myself into a diverse array of projects,” she said.

Summer events such as cultural festivals and movies currently “quench” her “inspiration thirst.” She recommends checking out "Megane" by Naoko Ogigami and "Thirst" by Park Chan-Wook.

“I couldn't stop drooling as I watched both movies, but it was the solid screenplay, cinematography, combined with the art that made the movies top notch,” Kim told Creative Cat. “There are so many people who are just way too talented in this world.”

Music also keeps Kim going. She keeps Priscilla Ahn, Vampire Weekend, Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor, Cocoon, Duke Jordan Trio, Nujabes, Naomi & Goro and Kings of Convenience on heavy rotation in her iTunes.

Kim lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. There, she is working on ideas for personal and commercial illustration projects. She’s also focusing on photography – working with her Lomo lc-a and Pentax Spotmatic-F. Keep tabs on her Web site for more.

R.I.P.

Weeping milk? Check. Hungry zoo animals? Check. Snarky, snappy designs by illustrator Philip Tseng of San Diego, Cal.? Check, check, check!

Check out Tseng’s clever T-shirt graphics. But better yet, give his Fruit & Veggie AlphaDeaths series a spin. I can almost guarantee you’ll get a good giggle out of it, if not a full-on belly laugh. Tseng says he created them using Adobe Illustrator, overlaying textures from actual grocery store wares. “I’m a big fan of food and thought it would be funny,” he wrote to Creative Cat.




Tseng says he’s thinking about creating a book out of the series. Here’s to hoping.

Coffee, illustrated

It's dreary — yet again — here on the East Coast, which makes me crave a cup of coffee and a good book so I can curl up under a blanket and cozy the day away. Alas.

At any rate, I'll admire this spiffy coffee graphic by Lokesh Dhakar, of Baltimore. Buy T-shirts and mugs here. Mmmm...mocha...

Pandamonium

Artwork by Stephanie Grace Lim makes me smile. Grin, really. Afterall, who doesn’t need a healthy dose of pandas, sumos and ninjas, especially on a Friday?

Lim is an artist, illustrator, designer and overall creative firecracker who is based in California. She most recently worked as a creative designer at PayPal, but her background is in newspapers, logging time at the San Jose Mercury News, The Charlotte Observer and The Ann Arbor News.

Fulfill even more of your (OK, my) panda fixation here. Tai Shan, the panda cub at Washington, D.C.'s National Zoo, turned 4 on Thursday. He celebrated with a beet cake!

So noted

Joy Deangdeelert Cho is a Philadelphia-based graphic designer who runs Oh Joy! Studio and OhJoy.com. She transfers her love of color and pattern into products for the likes of Swell by Cynthia Rowley and Ilene Rosenzweig, Target, Mattel, QVC, Charlotte Ronson, Michele Varian Home, Otis & Claude, Pfiff Lingerie, Mari's New York, Joya Candle and Urban Outfitters.

Current offerings include a winsome set of notebooks available via her Web site. I am especially fond of the “Noted” Olive Ombre Notebook, pictured above. So pretty! File folders, available through Chronicle Books, are also tempting. Why waste precious desk space on boring manila?