• Just finished hanging all my art at Resistor Gallery.

• Canvas prints all hung up.

• The "Cleopatron" art show poster printed to canvas.

• "La Femme" printed to canvas.

• Every table had a pile of little freebies, including stickers and cards.

• A great crowd to hang out with.

• Here's me and pal Nicolas Girard, Goodmorningstranger.com. Metalheads unite.

• Skratch Bastid provided the tunes for the entire evening. He put on an amazing show.

On April 25th at Resistor Gallery in Toronto I had my very first art show entitled Broadcast: The art of James White where I displayed 13 of my works. It was a great time preparing all of the little things that come along with such an endeavor, and I’m happy to say I hit no snags along the way. The folks at Resistor, namely Kim and Ron were excellent to deal with and I owe them both a huge thanks for making this such a great experience.

In order to make my posters a bit different for this unique occasion, I decided to get the designs printed to canvas. They were printed in Toronto and shipped directly to the gallery, so I didn’t actually see them until I arrived and set about hanging them. A rather reckless method of going about this thing, but I was ecstatic when I saw the quality of printing. I had never seen my work on canvas and the texture breathed new life into my work, not at all what I was expecting.

The doors opened at 7pm and I was very happy to see a constantly changing crowd as the night went on. I saw the faces of old friends and industry colleagues, and had the pleasure of meeting a tonne of new people who came by. All in all, a wonderful evening which found me quite overwhelmed with support. Thanks so much to everyone who made the time to come by, it is greatly appreciated!

I would like to pass on a big thank-you to Nick Campbell, the Grey Scale Gorilla. Nick was nice enough to create the excellent retro Signalnoise logo animation which looped on the television screens all evening, it looked like something out of the 70s. You rock, Nick! Check it out:

Another massive thank-you to the ever-talented Skratch Bastid for providing the killer jams throughout the evening. He kept the mood and atmosphere super fun with his musical stylings, as well as put on one hell of a turntable show later on. He even catered to my one ridiculous request by playing some Iron Maiden. Nobody can stop you, Skratch!

Last but not least, big thanks to my pal Chris Toms for snapping a tonne of photos throughout the evening, some of which you will see in this post. Thanks Chris!

If you missed the opening reception, my work will remain on display until May 25th at Resistor Gallery, 284 College Street in Toronto.

The next couple of weeks are going to be really busy and exciting as I prepare for a couple of events, both of which are happening on the same day.

As you can see by the poster above, I will be having my first official art show on April 25th at Resistor Gallery in Toronto. Check out the Facebook event page. I’m excited to showcase somewhere between 12 and 15 of my art pieces printed to canvas. I’ve never done canvas prints before, and will only be doing one of each for the show. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. The show is called Broadcast, same name as my online design discussions. Here are the details:

Broadcast: The art of James White
April 25 – 28, 2010
Opening reception: April 25, 7pm
Resistor Gallery, 284 College Street, 2nd floor (see map)
Toronto

On top of that, the art show will be taking place on the first day of FITC Toronto where I will also be doing a presentation entitled ‘Back to the Future’ on the morning of April 25th at 10am. My talk will involve some inspirational designs from the past and present, a showcase of my work, a short technical section where I walk through one of my process, some of the online tools I use to get my work out there, and a small advice section for aspiring designers. It will be a great time, I hope you can make it.

I’m looking forward to these two Signalnoise events, and have been for the past few months as I made the necessary preparations. The Broadcast poster above will also be available once I get some posters printed in the next week or so.

Looking forward to meeting all those who attend :) See you soon, Toronto!

In addition: FITC Toronto is also holding a gallery opening entitled Barricade at Function 13 on April 25th featuring the work of James Paterson, James Braithwaite and Jeremy Felker, 156 Augusta Avenue. Two cool events on the same night, Toronto!

Here is the poster design for the upcoming FITC Awards Party taking place on Monday, April 26 during the conference. My good pal Chris Toms and programming ninja Steven Sacks will be doing a DJ stint at the party, and we thought it would be fun to create a Signalnoise poster as a bit of fun promotion. As it turns out, this design will be landing in the official FITC program as well, so if you’re heading to the conference keep an eye out.

Like some of my recent designs, the inspiration for this one was taken from 80s metal. I wanted to develop a poster that was simply over the top, beat-up, maybe a little sun-bleached, something that might reside on the wall of a rocker kid in 1985 or a tour poster for Judas Priest. If you grew up in that era, you know what I’m talking about. After doing some research, I decided the evil knight was the way to go which was pieced together using a number of armor shots.

I will be doing a small print run of this design to be available at the conference via myself, Chris and Steven. I’ll nail down the details soon to see how we can get these into peoples’ hands.

The kind crew over at Design Informer asked me to participate in their latest installment of Ask the Expert, where Jad Limcaco and I discussed all things art, design, inspiration and technique. The team really did a nice job laying things out and citing examples.

Swing on over to Ask the Expert – Design Discussion with James White to check it out!

To kick off the new year in form, the kind folks over at the Tuts+ Network asked me to design a commemorative 2010 poster. I am always in support of those people and websites who help out designers and developers on all levels, and the team over at the Tuts+ camp constantly exhaust themselves. They run VectorTuts, NetTuts, AudioTuts, the mighty PsdTuts and a plethora of other art and tech sites. So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to help out such an admirable bunch.

Additionally, Tuts+ are having a giveaway on their site where you could win one of 10 copies of the 2010 poster. Swing over to the Tuts+ 2010 contest post to see all the information. I created a wallpaper set of the design to download for your computer or iPhone, all of which are available on their website.

I love having an open-ended ticket to create a design, which was exactly what the team requested of me so long as it said “2010″ somewhere. After doing some research on sci-fi publications from the 70s and 80s I took some heavy inspiration from Omni magazine covers. Omni had a way of creating interesting yet vague imagery, something that left a lot to the imagination. I wanted to strike that vibe for the Tuts+ crew, I even modeled the type after Omni’s title treatment.

Initially, the design didn’t come together as quickly as I thought it would and the original attempts had me on a completely different course of action. Check out these early type-based versions:

I decided to ditch the entire concept and start from scratch, I wanted to do something more striking than a stylized number. I went back to the sketch phase and started working out another concept, and one involved an ‘exploding astronaut’ which later became the Abduzeedo anniversary poster. A big thanks to Sean Hodge over at the Tuts+ Network for being so cool as I fumbled about with my concepts in my search for the right one. You rule, man!

Swing on over to the post on Tuts+ for your chance to win one of the 2010 commemorative posters, and why not grab some wallpapers while you’re at it. Happy New Year!