Security Benefit Group is an insurance company that began in Topeka approximately 30 years ago. SBG offers a wide range of products and services, from retirement to life insurance. ↓

Security Exchange" was a bi-monthly news pamphlet for customers. Each featured various pen and ink drawings of wild animals in their natural habitats. ❦

Tidbit: There were two close encounters with crime at Admark on 7th and Harrison, near downtown Topeka. One of our copywriters and I were on our way to lunch, walking to our cars in the parking lot when an enraged man ran past us with something in his hand. Seconds later, an officer rushed by in pursuit, catching up with him a few yards in front of us. When the man turned around to face the officer, he revealed a large knife in his hand. The officer instantly placed his hand on his holstered gun. Swinging the blade back and forth, the man argued and threatened the officer. In a calm voice, the officer tried to convince him to put down the knife, but he would not. Soon, other officers arrived, surrounding him as he slowly put down the knife and gave up. The officer put the man’s hands behind his back and cuffed them. He then took him away.

The other incident was while our vice president was working in the office at night when a man broke in through a window. He heard the commotion from inside his office and went to investigate. He rounded the corner, locked eyes, and the man scrambled to get out the same way he got in, through the window, while our vice president called 911. By the time the police got there, the man was long gone and never caught.❦

Each month, as a self-promotional tool, Admark created a calendar for clients, prospects, and employees' families. Every employee had the opportunity to develop a calendar concept. It was up to the designer/illustrator to bring their idea to life and make it into an exciting and pleasing calendar. Mona’s concept reflects her passion for music and her love for the piano. Credits were listed on every calendar of everyone involved, along with the name of the paper and printing company. I designed and illustrated this calendar on the computer in an app called FreeHand. This vector-based program was popular with designers for a time but soon would be replaced with Adobe Illustrator. ↓

I admired Louis Armstrong for his unique voice and singing style, not to mention he was the G.O.A.T trumpet player. This painting became my calendar in September of 1982 (shown without the calendar) after forming our new agency, Admark, Inc. I painted Louis in gouache (similar to water-based tempera paint), making blending difficult because it dries quickly. To solve this problem, this sounds disgusting, and it was censored in the description of the calendar. I would stick the brush in my mouth, wet it with spit, then mix it with the paint. The saliva would prolong the drying time just long enough to allow it to blend. I don't like to toot my own horn, but it worked pretty well!

I painted this when the agency was “The Professional Advertiser,” on 29th St., right across the street from where I lived at “Rain Tree” apartments. The painting was later chosen as a calendar once Admark Inc. was formed. ↓

My 1984 calendar was a graphic exercise in impossibility. If you examine the smaller cubes inside the larger cube and follow their path, you will realize that the perspective is impossible and does not make sense. Google, M. C. Escher, the king of impossibility to see even more twisted distortions of reality. ↓

This calendar is a tribute to the Native Americans and my dad, who admired them and their culture. Dad had two big enjoyments in life aside from family; one was electric trains, and he had many. The other was his love for Kansas history. He loved to hunt for Indian arrowheads with me and collect them along with other artifacts. He also enjoyed reading and educating himself on the history of Kansas. This concept was designed with a photo taken of the arrowheads we had found over the years combined with a superimposed vintage photograph of a Native American warrior. The ghostly image suggests that the Native American spirit continues on through their finely crafted arrowheads and artifacts. ↓

When I saw this young geisha girl’s photo in a magazine, I knew I had to paint her and do it in an unusual style. This is a photo of the painting without the actual calendar. I painted this in the basement shortly after I was married in our first house on Munson, just off Gage in Topeka in 1986. The watercolor painting was done in a loose but controlled style on a coated illustration board. First, I created a comprehensive marker drawing to determine the scale, color scheme, and detail. Then, a tracing was made and transferred to the illustration board. Before working on the finished painting, several studies were made to experiment with style and technique. I then used Windsor and Newton watercolors, keeping my brush full of pigment and water to allow the colors to run. It was done on an approximately 2ft X 3ft board, and took several weeks to complete. It won an award of excellence in the illustration category. ↓

The inspiration for this calendar was from our Audio/Visual production technician. It was a spoof on an old dramatic movie poster, loosely like “Gone With the Wind.” I wish I had more time with this calendar. There was still so much more work to be done especially to the faces. I count this one as unfinished. Oil paint was my first choice to illustrate this calendar. Unfortunately, it takes too long to dry, so that forced my hand to use acrylic. ↓

Our Chief Research Officer was the brainchild of this concept of a young boy being respectful to Old Glory and singing the national anthem at his baseball game. The photo/illustration was a high-contrast photo that I simplified on the computer. ↓

January Returns concept was output by the IT guy who was also my commuting partner back and forth to work from Topeka to Lawrence. I wanted to break away from the norm and make it more entertaining by illustrating it in a cartoon style. The calendar numbers are the “take a number” tickets for the clerk to call the next one in line. This was a kooky and corny calendar that was a lot of fun to create. It was created in pen and ink along with watercolor. ❦

In the mid-90s, we stopped the self-promotional calendars and launched the Callahan Creek art posters. This one was called “Prairie Air,” the answer as to where the hot summer prairie wind comes from, a concept by a fellow employee. Our photographer took a full-color panoramic shot of the prairie in the Kansas Flint hills and other shots of the fans and the serviceman. Even the sky was a separate photo. I composited the images in Photoshop, which looked pretty good. That could have been it, a beautiful full-color panoramic photo of the prairie with fans and a serviceman in it. However, I knew something was wrong. It didn't feel hot and it didn't feel dramatic at all. So I began to experiment with no success until it dawned on me: I’ll shift all the color to a warm, rich, golden brown, which would look and feel like a hot summer day and, at the same time, give it a more intriguing dramatic look, killing two birds with one stone and achieving what you see. The poster won awards and was published in “Communication Arts” magazine, an honor among graphic designers. It's the only entry I ever had published in “CA.”

Tidbit: Myself and other employees, especially in the creative department, would work late quite often and sometimes even the weekend. It's the nature of the advertising business; we did whatever it took to meet the deadlines, and sometimes that meant working around the clock. We persevered even though we were dead tired. One of the symptoms of extreme exhaustion was irrational behavior, which would manifest late at night or in the early morning hours. We would slowly become demonic and get this overwhelming desire to scare the peewaddens out of someone! There was the time when a female artist was finishing up a stat (a black and white image on photographic paper) in the darkroom and was about to exit the darkroom. The darkroom had automatic sliding doors that slid open from the middle. They would instantly open when the mat was stepped on, precisely like the old TV series Star Trek. When she stepped on the mat, the door instantaneously opened to reveal me yelling at the top of my lungs with a bright camera strobe light flashing in her face. She spontaneously broke into a run but didn’t goanywhere as she screamed back at me.

I felt a sense of achievement. It was glorious! Of course, I knew I made a grave mistake when she told me my days of serenity were numbered. Sure enough, there was another late night a few weeks later, and she was about to make good on her threat along with reinforcements, our photographer. I had gone into the darkroom to make a stat, and upon leaving, I stepped onto the mat. The door slid open, revealing two possessed people screaming at me and a bright flashing light in my face. This time, it was me that was horrified and running in place! How humiliating! I now felt betrayed by our photographer assisting my vengeful victim, and so I couldn’t leave well enough alone! One other late night, our photographer was coming out of the break room with a plate of food with Cheese Whiz sprayed on top. He walked through the door's threshold, and of course, I scared him. When the dust settled, he looked down and saw Cheese Whiz adorning his shirt; however, he somehow managed to hang on to his plate of food. Don't worry, he got me back! ↓

Young teammates huddled up to plan their next play to counter the offensive threat and defend their lead was a proposed agency poster concept. ❦

Tidbit: Shortly after we moved into our new building in a wooded area off of Burlingame, an incident made us believe we were in the tropics. However, the tropics don’t have seasonal changes, and we were well into Fall with all the leaves off the trees. One day at work, a fellow artist yelled, “What the hell is that!” as he looked out the atrium windows. The rest of us instantly lifted our heads and saw something bright green moving about in the leafless trees. We couldn't believe what we were seeing as it turns out, it was someone's pet parrot that apparently escaped and got away. I know their wings are supposedly clipped, but somehow, he managed to get up in the trees.❦

Prerogative initiative to capture the women's market and to position ourselves as an authority in marketing to women. The booklet has faces sliced into thirds. When a face section was flipped up, it would reveal that portion of another face below it. You could make all kinds of strange faces, and along with the booklet, there was an accordion brochure featuring the Prerogative women's faces. The Prerogative campaign won a couple of design awards. ❦

I hatched this concept for an announcement to let clients and potential clients know we now have two locations. On the cover was an image of a single egg. ↓

When the card was opened, it revealed the egg cracked open, releasing a double yolk with the Callahan Creek logo reflecting on both of them. ❦

When I designed this national magazine ad for Hills Science Diet Treats, it had an extremely hot deadline. I was told there had not yet been a photo shoot of the product's entire line and wanted the ad produced like yesterday. So, they charged me with creating 3D illustrations to create the ad. Yay! This ad went in several national magazines, and it also won awards. ❦

Hill's Science Diet offers a complete line of products, including dry and wet food, treats, and prescription diets for dogs and cats.

Taken from the brochure, this is a condensed version of the history of Hill’s Pet Nutrition.

Hill's Science Diet has a rich history that began in 1943 with Dr. Mark L. Morris, a visionary veterinarian who believed certain pet diseases could be managed through carefully formulated nutrition. Dr. Morris had the chance to prove his theory when a young blind man asked him if anything could be done to save his guide dog, Buddy, who was suffering from kidney failure. Dr. Morris formulated the first prescription diet, K/D, designed to help dogs with kidney disease.

Thanks to Buddy's recovery, Hill's Pet Nutrition was founded, and the field of clinical nutrition became the first of many milestones that Hill's has brought to the industry. ❦

Hill’s Science Diet is a well-known premium specialty pet food brand that is sold throughout North America, mainly in pet retail stores and veterinarian clinics. This booklet was introducing the new “Healthy Defense System” product. The half-page red cover was cut out in an arch along with the logo. Notice the subtle image of a woman on the red cover. ↓

With the cover opened, it revealed the full-color image of the woman. Hill’s was extremely pleased with this piece, and it ran for a couple of years.❦

Tidbit: Hill’s had gotten several positive testimonials from satisfied customers all over the United States who fed their dogs the Healthy Defence System dog food. I was assigned to direct the filming of these testimonials. The videographer, crew and I filmed in Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Georgia, and Florida for a week and a half. It seemed as though we were in the air and on the road most of the time. I remember one house we filmed at to get a testimony from the pet owner and clips of her dog. It turns out she also had cats, lots of them, and this was not a large house. Once the filming had wrapped up, I asked to use her restroom, to which she replied, “Sure, just through that door and to the left,” so I opened the door to enter the first room as directed when about my third step in I was instantly blasted with this suffocating stench, that practically set my nose hairs, ablaze! It was the pungent odor of ammonia from the cats' urine mixed with other disgusting smells. I held my breath with what little good air I had left in my lungs, made my way to the filthy throne, peed and hurried back to the door, opened it, and sucked in as much clean air as possible. I tried to hide my beet-red face from the dog owner and the crew until my lungs again took in clean oxygen. As we left, I told the crew about the gas chamber I invertedly wandered into to relieve myself. They laughed and said they weren't surprised by the number of cats she had lying all over the furniture and kitchen counters. It's a smell my olfactory gland won't forget!

The footage was taken from all locations and would later be edited into short promotional spots shown on social media and the Hill’s website. ❦

This is the Hill’s Science Diet merchandiser sales pamphlet for introducing the New Small Breeds dog food. It shows informative graphs, sales projections, and in-store promotional material. ↓

Hill’s Science Diet was sold as a premium pet food at “Petco,” “PetSmart,” veterinarian clinics, and other select merchandisers. ❦

A Hill’s Science Diet merchandiser sales pamphlet is for introducing Simple Essentials Treats, which also shows informative graphs, sales projections, and in-store promotional material. ↓

Science Diet Simple Essentials Treats is a premium pet treat in seven flavors.❦

Tidbit: All of our client printed material was press-checked to ensure quality. I once press-checked a job for Hill's Pet Nutrition in Akron, Ohio, that turned into a nightmare on steroids. We usually assign our approved printing companies to our clients. However, this time, Hill's insisted that we use their cheaper choice. This press check should have been simple. The promotional material to be printed consisted of solid shapes of color that just needed to butt one another (it's called keeping the color in REGISTER) and is elementary from a printer's point of view. The first run went without a hitch, so I signed the press sheet for approval and went to lunch with the sales executive. When I returned, the pressman had one of the companion press sheets waiting for my approval and signature. However, the colors didn't butt; there was space between the colored shapes (out of register). I instructed the pressman to make the necessary adjustments, but it still didn't butt properly. This sequence repeated itself for hours, with the pressman growing more agitated with each adjustment. I decided to stop the presses, which is costly to the printing company and an insult to the pressman. I found out later that the sales executive bypassed me and cried to my office superiors and told them about the dire situation I put them in. The pressman shouted at me, "This is as good as it gets; this is within our printing standards," the sales executive said, "We've never had this happen before!" I told them this is precisely why I'm here: to ensure quality for our client. My office then returned a call to the sales executive, telling him they had complete confidence in my decision and that if they didn't meet OUR standards, we would pull the job and have it printed elsewhere. They complied and used a better printing press and pressman. Hill's agreed it was their mistake to use them and thanked us for fighting hard to keep their image looking premium. ❦