100 Voices from the Little Bighorn Deluxe CD-ROM Bundle Edition by Bruce Brown

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A few words and images...
About Running Dog,
AKA Bruce Brown

EN ROUTE to careers as a journalist and an author and a scriptwriter and an artist and an entrepeneur and a cartographer and an athlete, I somehow found time for another career -- that of a designer.

My design work has always been something of a compulsion. There have always been many other, "more important" things to do, but somehow I found time to design books, magazines, Web sites, mass retailer department concepts, advertising campaigns and, yes, even life-sized, Mr. Pizza costumes made of foam rubber.

During the 1970s, I did creative work for most of the big advertising agencies in Seattle on accounts such as Nordstrom, Continental Telephone (which became Verizon), the successful reelection campaigns of U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson and Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman, and Pizza Haven.

The latter was a large Seattle pizza restaurant chain for which my advertising partner, artist Les Wood, and I created Mr. Pizza, a funky, long-running Seattle commercial persona that sadly outlived Les.

So there you have it, my darkest secret: I was co-creator of Mr. Pizza! Unfortunately, all of my early advertising stuff (including TV spots and a full Mr. Pizza costume that was always a hit at Halloween) was lost in the fire that gutted our office on Seattle's south Queen Anne Hill in 1978.

From a design standpoint, I'm probably associated most with the "acid New York Review of Books" look -- that is to say graphic design built around 18th and 19th century steel engravings, used not as directly illustrative graphic elements, but as often ironic commentaries on the story they accompany. The Sumas Astonisher, BugNet, astonisher.com and eAuctionTimes.com all share this quality to one degree or another.

In truth, though, I've only tended to go in this direction because it's a cheap and effective way to look good on a budget. One of the things I love about designing for the Web, books and CDs is the ability to use luscious color and high production values, what Les Wood used to call "eye candy."

Here are some more recent examples of my design, illustration and advertising work, most of which has been done under the name Running Dog.

-- Bruce Brown


Be Prepared!

Be Prepared! The puss in boots (above) is from a series of illustrations using old engravings that I did for BugNet in 1995-96. The Digital Rip Van Winkle (below) is from 2010.


"The Digital Rip Van Winkle" by Bruce Brown


Logo & Label Design...

Pizz Haven Mr. Pizza logo from the Seattle Center Food Circus
InTouch logoI created the Pizza Haven Mr. Pizza logo with Les Wood (see above) in 1973. This photo of the redoubtable Mr. Pizza by D. Greaser on SilencedMajorityBlogs is from the old Seattle Center Food Circus, another fond and departed Seattle landmark. The logo for the FCNintouch medical service is from 2000, while the Sumas Astonisher masthead design dates from 1991. I designed the label for Kulshan Water and the Astonisher.com Web site in 2004 and 2003 respectively.
astonisher.com logo

erbun.com logo

UrbanAttack.net logo

Kulshan Water label


Web Design...

I've designed a bunch of Web sites since I started in 1994. The first of them -- BugNet -- was one of the most identifiable and best known visual identities on the early Web. Here is the May 1997 cover of BugNet, and the cover of EVRfilms.com from 2005.
BugNet Cover, May 1997


Illustration...

The mask illustrated a BugNet story on the buggiest software of 1996. I created the Q-morph for the cover of The History of the Corporation in 2003. Osama Bush illustrated my 2004 Skinny piece, Why George W. Bush is a big supporter of Osama Bin Laden. I painted "Temple of the Sky" in 2002, and used it the next year in the Kulshan Water label (see above). "The Digital Rip Van Winkle Returns" was for Astonisher.com series of the same name in 2010.
"Mask" by Bruce Brown "Q Morph" by Bruce Brown
Osama Bush
"Temple of the Sky" by Bruce Brown


Advertising...

As noted above, all my early creative ad agency work was destroyed in a fire in Seattle in 1978, but here are some examples of my later work. I created the animated GIF for a BugNet campaign on Lycos in 1997. The mt. bike posters are from a series I did for GalbraithMt.com 2001 - 2005. The Lone Jack Coffee ad dates from 2005. BugNet animated GIF

GalbraithMt.com poster -- "Kara's Leg" by Bruce Brown GalbraithMt.com poster -- "Jimmy on 911" by Bruce Brown

Russ Barlow at Sandy Stone on Wonderland, Galbraith Mt., Bellingham, WA

Lone Jack Coffe ad

 


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