Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga

Structural Patterns

Reflections on Art, Technology and Society

Archive for the ‘Illustration’ Category

Spring 2024 School of Practical Philosophy & Meditation Advertisement Campaign

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Jaime Rathore, the creative director for the advertising campaigns for The School for Practical Philosophy & Meditation once again hired me to create the MTA subway posters for the School. This time we worked with fellow School member and digital consultant Adam Wasserman to help generate ideas for the posters. Adam presented several ideas, the one that was selected features the word “TRANSCEND” trailed by a phrase that reflects common nagging realities (at least common to New Yorkers). A few of these phrases were:

  • your late-night doomscrolling
  • your roommate’s dirty dishes
  • slow walkers
  • your eight side hustles

The three that resounded best were: “TRANSCEND your late night doomscrolling,” “TRANSCEND your side hustles” and “TRANSCEND your roommate’s dirty dishes.” As both the budget and time were tight, I was asked to reuse some of the recent artwork. I did, however, create a new illustration for the doomscrolling concept (pictured above) as I didn’t have an appropriate asset. Below are the two in-car subway posters that will be presented above riders’ heads and one platform poster. Adam suggested editing the illustrated characters’ t-shirts from showing the entire School logo and name to only showing the logo (which I think works nicely).

Written by ricardo

February 19th, 2024 at 3:23 pm

Winter Ad Campaign for the School of Practical Philosophy & Meditation

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The winter MTA subway campaign’s in-car poster remained consistent with the fall design. However, the characters were given winter coats, beanies, the LGBTQ revelers became New Year 2024 revelers. The two men arguing along the bottom left were given NY sports team colored beanies. The mom and daughter to the right are making a snowman instead of tending to a garden. The bike deliver person has been given a winter coat, gloves, helmet and food delivery backpack. If one zooms into the helmet, it is decorated by WAK – WAK is the pronunciation for the Mayan hieroglyphic representing the number six. Places labeled six are cosmic realms in Mayan writing. As an ear decoration, this rendition of WAK wears a smart phone.

For the subway platforms, the creative director, Jaime Sears requested a new design. She envisioned a woman against skyscrapers, at ease as if meditating amidst the magnitude and intensity of New York City. Following her concept, I created a series of glass towers from the street perspective and placed a young woman with her eyes closed at the center, the towers rising all around her.

Lastly, I was asked to create a design for the Wallkill postcard. The budget was small and I was asked to work with existing assets, so I created a new setting and recycled the NYC characters. Linda Engler, a longtime member of the School who lives near the Hamlet of Wallkill where the School has an estate took photographs of New Paltz Main Street. Linda took the photographs to provide me with source material for the postcard. I used a photograph of the Indigo Velvet and Rock Candy Vintage building to help illustrate a New York town setting. I maintained the concept of an individual in meditation as the central element while other characters go about their lives. Hopefully, the postcard will visually engage viewers and draw them into learning about the School of Practical Philosophy and Meditation.

Written by ricardo

December 30th, 2023 at 1:34 pm

Immersive Worlds Podcast

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I have been a “New Media” professor since 1999 and while teaching technical production courses, I have learned that it can be inspirational for the student to interweave fiction into these courses. The short stories that I select relate directly to the technical material, such as web development. For example, a story such as E.M. Forster’s 1909 “The Machine Stops” is both inspirational and illuminating. Most students do not consider how a 1909 fiction may reflect contemporary life. Over the years, I have developed a list of such readings and I have decided to read, record and publish these readings. Although I am not a voice actor, I hope someone might enjoy these readings. (I am also enjoying creating the illustrations for these readings.)

The recordings are available via the browser and as a Podcast:

https://www.ambriente.com/immersiveWorlds/

https://www.ambriente.com/immersiveWorlds/index.xml

Apple Podcast link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/immersive-worlds/id1707925334

There are currently two stories available:

“The Machine Stops” by E. M. Forster published in November 1909 issue of The Oxford and Cambridge Review. Perhaps due to radio and an expanding telephone system and inventions such as the Nipkow disk and mechanical televsions Forster was able to envision people communicating via hand-held discs. But even with these 19th century inventions, Forster’s world in which people live in isolation and communicate via a live image seems incredibly prescient. Due to apocalyptic wars, humanity retreated into the earth and constructed a gigantic machine to tend to all their needs. After hundreds of years, the Machine is a god-like construction, until it begins to break down.

“With Folded Hands” by Jack Williamson published in the July 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Following World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Williamson felt that “some of the technological creations we had developed with the best intentions might have disastrous consequences in the long run.” Today, with the rising use of artificial intelligence, Williamson’s short story seems as relevant as when it was first published in 1947.

Written by ricardo

September 19th, 2023 at 9:03 am

Philosophy Works 2023-24 Ad Campaign

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The School of Practical Philosophy & Meditation offers a journey of self-discovery that guides students toward understanding their innate wisdom and appreciation of the underlying unity connecting us all. Philosophy Works, the introductory ten-week course, prepares students for mantra-based meditation, an offering upon completion.”

THE CHALLENGE
In-person enrollment has been dropping for the last two years. The brand identity has gone through many iterations. We need a campaign that will once again establish the School as the NY community hub for Practical Philosophy.

THE GOAL
To reach our audience more efficiently, speak to their pain point and engage them with the benefits of PHILOSOPHY WORKS. We expect to increase our in-person Philosophy Works classes on the Upper East Side and Tribeca.

MY DESIGN APPROACH
When on the subway, I seek out the illustrations commissioned by the MTA and I tend to lose myself in the stories that the illustrators create. I do not seek out advertisements. (Of course, I don’t need to as they can’t be missed.) Generally, the advertisements are not engaging. My approach to this project is to be a visual artist and storyteller, not an advertiser. My goal is to create an in-car advertisement that people may lose themselves in through illustrated New Yorkers and the possible interactions and activities of these characters. The School’s Creative Director, Jaime Sears felt that the advertisement needed to speak to the difficulties and uncertainties (“pain point”) commonly experienced by New Yorkers at this time. Ideally, the scenarios in the illustration will be familiar to most New Yorkers.

With these concepts in mind, I rode the subway and traversed the city. I photographed fellow commuters and eavesdropped on their conversations, observed their interactions. Specific individuals and life moments are represented in the final illustration. The majority of the characters in the final composition are real New Yorkers – commuters, pedestrians, recyclers, and even our infamous subway rats…

Poster for the subway platforms – goal: simple but striking

THE CAMPAIGN
As meditation is a key element of the School and a practice known to calm people, I elected to have meditation be the central element to the design. Without the funds for a photo shoot, I searched online for people meditating. I found an attractive young woman sitting on the floor with her hands’ index finger and thumb touching. At the School, people generally meditate in a chair, however, design-wise, I felt that the chair would take up too much horizontal space, so I purchased the rights to the photo of the woman on the floor in a criss-cross applesauce pose and changed the hand pose. I based the central illustration on this photograph. I also wanted to make the name of the School central, so I placed the School’s name on her t-shirt at the very center of the design.

10 second animation for social media

I surrounded the meditating woman with vignettes of everyday life from subway to street. Moving from left to right: subway musicians, a Hasidic commuter studying, a young woman with her earbuds in place, a businesswoman busily texting, two men in conflict, an MTA maintenance worker sweeping as he watches a business dandy toss his coffee cup on the platform floor with a trash can nearby… At the center, a woman meditating with a fiery aura outlining her figure. Then to the street (right side of the design) – a young female pedestrain wearing a surgical mask, PRIDE revelers enjoying life, an older man observing the street scene from his window, a mother and daughter gardening, a food delivery guy on his bike, and people recycling. A few of these illustrations, I had already created for past projects. The subway musicians and female subway rider I rotoscoped long ago for a series of animations reflecting New York City life. The rat and delivery guy are from a 2D video game and installation, una geografia de ser. Recycling past illustrations was necessary as the turn around on this project was very tight. However, the rest of the work is new.

I created a version of the graphic illustration with thought bubbles or spoken text for the various characters, but the School preferred that viewers interpret the illustration for themselves. Throughout the illustrations, I attempted to represent points of conflict that are common to the density of New York City.

The platform poster is much simpler and hopefully striking. It merely presents a woman meditating. Since people are on the platform for a shorter span of time, waiting to get on a train or exiting the station, I wanted to create a graphic that would immediately speak to the commuter.

Here are images posted in the subway cars and in the platforms:

Philosophy Works poster on the 4/5 Line
Subway poster mounted in the subway car
Philosophy Works along the subway platform
Philosophy Works at the Grand Street platform

Written by ricardo

August 4th, 2023 at 3:49 pm

New Castro Design

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Fidel Castro T-shirt

I’m ordering this t-shirt for myself.

So I export a lot of my illustrations or frames from my animations to images that can be printed onto various products from t-shirts to coffee mugs to stickers and I post them to RedBubble or Society6 or TeePublic. This design I really like and I partly do this because I want to wear some of the stuff that I draw, and this is such a case.

Written by ricardo

January 20th, 2017 at 10:08 pm

Ometepe the Video Game

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Ometepe the video game

In June 2013, the Nicaraguan National Assembly approved a bill conceding the financing, planning, construction and management of a cross-oceanic canal to the Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Company (HKND Group) headed by Chinese billionaire Wang Jing. The agreement spans an initial 50 years with the possibility of a second 50 years. The initial phase of construction began in December 2014 and the target year of completion is 2020. The agreement to this 40-50 billion US dollar project was discussed by the Nicaraguan National Assembly for only one week before approval. The agreement was not made public prior to the decision. The construction of the Nicaraguan Canal would entail the largest movement of earth in the planet’s history and would have immense ecological impact. The planned route of the canal would require the forced relocation of campesino communities.

To help bring attention to the Nicaraguan Canal, the video game Ometepe is set on the island of the same name, located in Lake Nicaragua through which the canal will pass. The island is formed by two volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua that are linked by low wetlands; Ometepe was officially declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2010. Although the canal project appears to be stopped due to lack of funds, the Nicaraguan government remains secretive about the project.

Concentration Game

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AMNESIA: Match a Dictator

Play the memory game concentration with the portraits of dictators from across the globe in recent history. The memory game features illustrations of Stalin, Putin, Smith, Mugabe, Batista, Castro, King Idris, Gaddafi, Somoza, Ortega, Hirohito, Il-sung, the GOP and Dems. Test your dictator knowledge and see if you can identify the portraits! Play it multiple times to sharpen your memory.

Stalin to Putin

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Stalin/Putin, Smith/Mugabe, Somoza/Ortega, Hirohito/Kim Il-sung, Idris/Gaddafi, Batista/Castro, GOP/Dems are ongoing portrait pairings of autocratic leaders that reflect a corruption of power. These illustrations have been created with the intention of animating a transformation from one face to the other as video loops. “Stalin to Putin” is the second animation of the series. “Somoza to Ortega” was completed quickly following the Sandinista’s last constitutional amendment that got rid of term limits, facilitating Ortega’s permanency as Nicaraguan president. I created the illustrations and my assistant Thomas Medina is the animator behind “Stalin to Putin”.

Drawings for Bernie!

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Alevo Zkaynak drawing for Bernie

On an outing to Fort Greene Park yesterday afternoon, I met Alevo Zkaynak at the entrance of the park. She was holding a home made banner declaring “BERNIE DRAWS THE LINE – LINE DRAWINGS!!!”. From the banner hung 5 terrific line drawings created by the artist to generate donations for Bernie. She told me that she was out of money to give to Bernie, so she made the drawings to sell; she’d send half the proceeds to the Bernie campaign.

It is this sort of youthful and earnest enthusiasm that makes me wish that Bernie Sanders Political Revolution did occur. Unfortunately as with Obama’s HOPE, the United States is far too divided for any revolution to occur whether it’s a revolution of bigotry and hate or one of openness and love. As with much of Obama’s tenure, the Republicans are blocking the President’s right to select a new Supreme Court judge. When our representatives are unwilling to do their job, it is amazing that any legislation gets done in this country. Change must occur, perhaps it will happen through today’s youth, people like Alevo Zkaynak.

Who Is ISIS?

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Who Is ISIS?

Creatures filled with hatred toward other human beings.

Written by ricardo

November 24th, 2015 at 8:23 pm