‘Slinky Headz’ Toy Designs for Alex Brands

by

Last year the toy company Alex Brands hired me to work up some character designs for a new line of toys called Slinky Headz. Each toy is a cylindrical monster character with a slinky inside, with the idea being that the top and bottom half of each can be removed and mixed-or-matched. One tricky restriction was that each piece needed to look good upside up and also upside down (in other words, if you flipped the face upside down it still needed to look like an upside-up face).

I was asked to brainstorm several rough designs, which were then narrowed down to a werewolf, a witch doctor, a zombie, and an lizard alien.

The client was happy with what I did but ultimately the decision was made to change gears and go with a different style of artwork for the final product. Oh well, sometimes that happens. Still it was a lot of fun to work on.

2016 Highlights and Accomplishments

by

2016 was another jam-packed year for my illustration studio. I’m deeply grateful to have such a fun job where I get to work on so many exciting projects with so many amazing people. Here’s a few highlights from our most recent trip around the sun. (I’ll warn you there are a lot of projects I can’t reveal yet but I’ve linked to as many as I could):

ILLUSTRATION

  • I created a couple of more spot illustrations for Highlights magazine. You can view them here and here.
  • I was hired by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to help them pitch advertising ideas to several businesses and brands, including a national pizza chain, a local Renaissance-themed event, and a couple more projects I can’t reveal yet.
  • Speaking of art I can’t show, I also illustrated an activity puzzle for a major home improvement retail chain. I should be able to post the art sometime in February.
  • Goldfish Swim Schools hired me to illustrate a fun photo standee featuring their mascot (which I also designed). I’m also in the middle of a very large project for them that I hope to be able to show in a few months.
  • I helped out the Svedvick Collective with some ad concepts for a major cereal brand (again, I’m not allowed to show the work yet. Kind of a theme here.)
  • I illustrated another Gospel tract/comic for the ministry of Living Waters. This one dealt with the subject of Atheism.

TOY DESIGN

  • I continued to help with toy design and concept art for multiple Hasbro projects (most of which I’ll never be able to show for legal/confidentiality reasons).
  • I was hired by the Strottman agency to help them pitch several toy ideas to Chick-Fil-A. Once again I’m limited in what I can show but here’s a sample.
  • I helped out the Smiley company on a large toy concept pitch for a well-known novelty toy brand, which I hope to be able to review soon. In the mean time, this year I was finally able to reveal l small sampling of another batch of concepts I did for them back in 2015.

CHARACTER DESIGN

  • I was hired by Mountainside Farms, an east coast dairy company, to design a cow mascot for their packaging.

MISC

  • My goofy cartoon sketches evolved into a webcomic I’m calling Sketchbook Silliness. People seem to like it and a couple of the cartoons went mildly viral. I’ve put together a list of my ten most popular cartoons from 2016, and I recently launched a Patreon campaign for the project which you can support here.
  • I stepped up my involvement in the National Cartoonists Society. I’m now the social media guy for our chapter which means I run our Twitter feed and Facebook group. I also organized a draw-with-kids event at the Minneapolis St. Jude Walk/Run for childhood cancer, and travelled to Sioux Falls for our fall cartooning conference.
  • I once again exhibited at both MSP Comic-Con’s.
  • I re-posted a free download of sketchbook ideas for Inktober.
  • Although most of my work is very cartoony, I also do courtroom sketching from time to time. This year I worked at trials related to Prince, ISIS, a police shooting, and the man who killed Jacob Wetterling. You can see some samples on my other website, courtroomsketches.com.

Whew! I’m exhausted just thinking about it all. I feel very blessed. Thanks to all of you who have supported me and shown interest in my work over the years. I wish all of you a happy and healthy 2017!

Throwback Thursday: Target FPO Maker Comps

by

Here’s another never-before-seen piece from my files.

Way back in 2010 I was hired by the award-winning Minneapolis agency KNOCK to help them sketch up some FPO marker comps for Target. Target needed some endcap signage with a wine-and-cheese theme and KNOCK was pitching them some concepts. If my memory is correct they sent me some rough thumbnails along with some specific samples of the types of food, wine, glasses, etc. that they were looking for, then I sketched these up.

I was able to spend a little more time than normal polishing these up to make them look very clean and tight, a luxury I don’t always have. It was a lot of fun.

(Click to enlarge.)

winetime-billboard-markercomp-v2-800px
winetime-endcap-markercomp-v2-800px
winetime-fin-final-v2-800px

Coca-Cola FPO Comp Art

by

Coke Tubes

Recently I was hired by the local marketing agency CPC Intersect to work up some FPO comp art sketches for a presentation to Coca-Cola. The idea was to show possible designs for some fun interactive displays. The one pictured above illustrates a booth that uses an iPad system to dispense ice cold Coke bottles through a pneumatic tube, complete with dry ice smoke.

There were five concepts total. Because of the tight deadline I hired a couple of other illustrators to tackle three of the concepts. I did the one above, and one more which the client has requested that I not reveal since it involves a clever idea they don’t want to share too widely just yet. So, for now this is the only one I can rightfully show as my own work.

Just the other day I did some preliminary work on a new pitch involving Coca-Cola. I’m looking forward to hopefully sharing that one eventually as well.

Comp Art for Best Buy

by

Last summer I was hired to work up some rough FPO comp art ideas for a Christmas catalog for Best Buy. The focus was on home appliances (vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, etc.) Here’s a few of the sketches, done under the art direction of Randall Herrera at Olson in Mineapolis. The empty/ghosted areas were for text to be added.

BestBuyChristmas-Cover1BestBuyChristmas-Cover4BestBuyChristmas-Interior1BestBuyChristmas-Interior4BestBuyChristmas-Interior5

Updated PDF Portfolios. Get ‘Em While They’re Hot!

by

Free PDF Portfolio Downloads from Cedric Hohnstadt Illustration

It’s been over a year since I last refreshed my PDF Portfolios. Since I just posted a brand spankin’ new logo, I thought it would be a good time to update them as well. The new portfolios come in four flavors: Character Design, Toy Design, Illustration, and FPO/Comp Art. Click the links to download or grab them off my Downloads page. They’re yours to keep so print them out, file them away, or share them with your friends.

Contact me if I can ever be of service and, as always, thanks for your interest in my work!