jerome baker designs
Perhaps the first vector graffiti logo ever created, and certainly the most famous, I drew this by hand way back in 1996 and then used a now-defunct app called Adobe Streamline to convert my drawing to vector where it could be enlarged to any size with no resolution loss. The style is based on my daily exposure to graffiti on the subways and trains in Philly back in the early 1980s. Fast forward to 2024 and Jerome Baker now has a gallery in New York City, in Soho, as well as a factory in Las Vegas, and is officially part of licensed Grateful Dead merchandise.
I was going through an old portfolio of finished printed pieces the other day and found this blast from the past! Created in what was the premiere page layout program back in the day, QuarkXPress, this little gem was in mint condition in my portfolio box and I just had to include it here as it might be the first brochure I ever created. I remember having to place that giant glass bubbler pipe on a flatbed scanner at the University of Oregon since there were no digital cameras in those days...boy did I get some looks!
youtube vids
I've started making YouTube vids that are 4:20 in length—amazing how that's taken off since I learned about it in the mid 1980s from a graduate of the high school where it was invented—using the JBD logo to stand for the words Just Because Dude. There's a story behind this, maybe I'll make a vid explaining it one day...
“My story of how and where I first met Jack Herer way back in 1990 at his bungalow in Venice Beach and the crazy story years later that ties it all together.”
“Random story of how it used to be back in the day trying to score weed and how it could take days or sometimes weeks to find even a gram of herb.”