Blank black corridors get tiresome, so liven up your sex club’s walls with super-graphic super-graphics. Here I’ve chosen a nice bj image to set the mood. To add texture I’ve designed a subtle background diamond-plating inspired pattern using the logo of the club.

Paint the wall black – a flat finish is nice and velvety but a bitch to keep clean. I’ve chosen a Dunn Edwards interior black in eggshell finish – a nice amount of gloss. (Don’t get high gloss or u won’t be able to draw on it with chalk in a later step.)

Draw a grid on the wall in pencil based on the repeat size of your pattern. 18″ in this case.

Cut an 18″ square of Gatorboard, then Spray 77 a 1/4″ piece of foam to the board, overlay your logo (remember to reverse it), then cut it out of the foam. Using the grid on the wall, start stamping. It’s ok if some drip or don’t fully stamp – it’s a sex club, things should get a little messy. I’ve chosen DE6356 “Sheet Metal” although the lighter gray, DE6348 “Draw Your Sword,” seems more appropriate given the venue.

Now, in Photoshop make a scaled 18″ grid over your artwork, then divide each of those squares in half and print it out. This is our guide as we draw the line work on the wall in chalk. It’s easy because you’ve already drawn a grid on the wall for the pattern, now divide those squares again. It helps if you number the squares along the side so u don’t get confused as you begin drawing on the wall.

Time to run a paint test. Because i want the blue linework to fluoresce under UV light I’ll be painting it with Wildfire brand blue UV reactive paint. I find it’s best to paint a flat white undercoat, then the UV paint on top. UV paint is very transparent so it will take a couple coats. Because i want this to really pop, i’ve mixed 7 parts UV blue to 1 part UV white.

Now wipe off all remaining chalk marks with a damp rag, and light with UV fixtures. To avoid blasting the hall with UV light (which would cause anyone wearing a white shirt to light up the whole area when they walked by) I’m not using blacklight flourescent tubes, instead, 6 mini-UV-LED-spotlights and 3 blue UV mini-spots from MiniSpotlight.com. Now you’ve got a hot sexy wall that looks great under under bright lights for a photo or porno shoot (and promotes your venue by stamping your club name all over the image!), as well as regular, dark, club cruising conditions.

 Not that they were employing me. I just sent them (and a few other companies) my unsolicited design suggestions. I was 11 and living in Fargo but that didn’t mean I couldn’t collaborate with international fashion conglomerates after school. The above is a duplicate I painted at the time. I’d gone to Dayton’s department store (the only place in Fargo that carried ESPRIT) and asked for the corporate address and was very frustrated that the salesgirls weren’t taking my request seriously – didn’t they realize they’d be selling my designs next season? In the response from ESPRIT headquarters Stuart writes “We’ve forwarded them (my designs) to our design department for consideration.” This, like, MADE MY YEAR!  Ugh!, nothing came of it but just to be considered, CONSIDERED! – Someone was listening to me! (Stuart, if you’re out there, give me a call!) The other kids in class thought i was bonkers painting all this ESPRIT stuff, but i wasn’t playing, I was WORKING.

I finished the logo months ago but just recently pulled out my “ESPRIT: The Comprehensive Design Principle” (which u MUST own! Get the MEMPHIS book too!) And was horrified/delighted to see one of my favorite childhood design inspirations was clearly on my mind when i created the logo for THE ZONE. But more surprising was how sex club appropriate much of the ESPRIT design aesthetic is/was.

I mean, how many of these industrial inspired patterns am I going to use in the club? – AS MANY AS I CAN!

In fact, I’d already painted one whole wall of the club in a diamond-plating pattern using the club logo. HOTNESS! More to come…

Back in January u may recall i went to a sex club here in LA and was shocked at how big it was, but also how dull it was. So I contacted the owner and pitched my concept to create “the world’s first ‘designer’ sex club” – meaning the first sex club to have any actual design too it. My one stipulation was that it be a top-to-bottom (punny!) visual makeover – including a new logo, new ads, online redesign, and the club itself. Work has already begun and will continue slowly before being completed by summer 2010. I promise grafitti-covered back-alley porno-set HOTNESS – AND vintage designer pleather and chrome HAUTENESS! – the ultimate Obscene Interior really. It’s the most challenging and most fun job I’ve ever had. It’s basically a fun house for adults. Here’s the new logo in one of the new ads. I wanted “Come inside.” but that implied endorsement of unprotected anal sex – and that’s angainst club rules. Much more to come…

his site http://www.wildsiders.com

A few years ago after being laid off from Disney I worked as a production designer on a few micro-budget films and music videos. There was always the promise of it leading to bigger better higher paying jobs but the reality was each job paid less and less than the previous. (When people find out you’ll work for free you become very popular!) I’d just finished designing the pilot for “Noah’s Arc” – the gay black “Sex and the City” (more on that another time) when I was asked to design a film called “Flip the Script”  – another all black production starring Robin Givens. Although my title was production designer I was really a one man art dept. (Although I did get one assistant this time!) Very little design happened with these jobs. I was really a cleaning crew, moving company, and gofer when i wasn’t designing fake $1,000,000 checks or locating a tacky wedding ring for Robin’s character. For this i got $100 for each 18-hour day.

So we’re filming in some rich black people’s house in the valley and the night before we start shooting i have to go make sure it’s ok. Because this was a CHEAP CHEAP production we were using most of the family’s furnishings just the way they were. I think the entire art dept budget was $1000. I’d been given a key to the house and when i showed up no one was home. So i let myself in and saw that the family hadn’t bothered to do ANYTHING to prepare for a movie crew to fill their house for the next 2 weeks. That’s when i realized there was no location manager and I could add that to my job description. The first shots the next day are in the bathroom, and it’s supposed to be a guys bathroom, so i remove all the fake flowers and put all the women’s products in drawers, and the wife of the house has her panties all strung up drying over the tub so i take those down and put them somewhere as i say “i can’t fucking believe this” for the first of many times on this show.

So we start filming. In the kitchen there’s a pan filled with grease that the flies love. I ignore it and hope the owners will do their dishes before we get to filming in the kitchen. I’ve repeatedly asked for a  moving truck and storage space for all the furniture we’re not using. The producer’s solution is to tell me to go to Home Depot and buy some tarps to spread out on the back yard and just put it all there. I do this. I notice the backyard is lumpy with years of dog poop that i’m not even going to start removing so i put the tarps down on top of it – someone can deal with the surprise later. As i’m wrapping the chairs and couches one of the producers asks me if i cleaned up all the dog poop first. I gave her a look that said “You have GOT to be kidding me” but she read it as “Of course I did,” so that worked out.

Then the production started to run out of money. I went to use the restroom in the trailers but they were locked because they quit paying to have them emptied. So i went into the next door and was considering using the toilet in this dressing room when i realized i was standing in Robin Given’s trailer, and then of course she walked in and i’m standing there for what appears to be no good reason.

Then the Assistant Director, who is a good friend, comes to me and asks me for the luggage. I say what luggage? He shows me the scene and says the director wants them to be carrying luggage. I say there’s no mention of luggage in the script, implied or otherwise. He looks it over and agrees and goes back to the director but the director has decided last minute to add luggage to the scene – designer luggage no less. That’s when i remember seeing some in the closet when i was there to prep the house before shooting. I go get it and bring it to one of the producers and tell her these belong to the owners and could they call then and ask if we could use them. This causes some bizarre freakout with the other producers (there were 11 of them) so i put the luggage back. Later that day i pass one of the producers as she’s looking through a bible and says to another “Corinthians actually has many verses that apply to filmaking if you really read them…” And I go HOLEESHIT and can’t wait to tell my goth-ish assistant what i just heard.

The next morning i show up early because there’s a big party scene in the living room to prepare for – the scene when it’s revealed that so-and-so didn’t really die, and this has all been part of a reality show, and this urn (a spray painted doggie treat jar) doesn’t contain his ashes but instead a check for $1.000,000. A new crew member joins us and i introduce myself and she says she’s here to help with the art dept. I say great because it’s going to be a busy day and we could use the help.

Then the producers show up and the one fond of quoting scripture approaches me with what looks like her black lesbian bodyguard and asks if she can speak to me out back. That’s where she fires me. I guess the dyke actually was there as a bodygaurd – as if. The producer explains to me how my having gone into the owners closet was unacceptable. I don’t tell her about folding the owners panties and putting them away. I was just speechless.

I went back inside and discreetly told the DP that i would no longer be on the production. He’d shot “9 to 5″ so of course i liked him and was sad I wouldn’t be working with him anymore. He was shocked and exclaimed “But you were the only one doing your job!” and was about to go fight for me to stay but i said it was fine. I told my assistant and said she doesn’t have to leave just because I got canned but she said fuck it and packed up with me. I told the AD and the 2nd AD (who were both friends) and they said fuck it too and told the producers it was their last day too.

I explained what had been established (what set decor had been filmed) and where all the rental props were to the new girl who wasn’t just “helping the art dept. but was replacing me. I gave her my card and told her to call if she had any questions.

While i was loading up my car with props i’d loaned the production from my own apartment the producer that had hired me came running up and apologized for not having told me earlier. “Justin, you don’t realise what happened. They thought you’d been stealing things from the house. I told them you wouldn’t do that, that that was crazy. But Justin. Last night they held a prayer circle in the back yard for your soul.” I could see she was reconsidering her involvement in the production herself. “We held hands in a circle and prayed that you wouldn’t burn in hell.” And with that i went and had and OMFG breakfast with my assistant.

Within the week I got a call from Paramount and was designing a SpongeBob SquarePants ride.

Anyway, here’s the preview for the movie. I’ve never seen it.

http://www.80spurple.com/shop/product/89275/5302/fyasko-men-s-nuclear-trunk-boardshorts-multi

Here’s the guest rooms. Again i’m using other people’s pics and don’t know when i’ll  see it myself. That’s what sucks about these projects – you work on them for years then they open without you. FYI my commercial work site is here showing other projects.

You can find small versions of the over-the-bed prints on ebay.

These are shots other people took of the art in the public areas. (I’m purposely not mentioning the name of the resort to avoid search engine queries – this blog doesn’t share the same “family” audience as the resort.) It opened last week and I created 30-some pieces for it’s walls and most of the art in the guest rooms. It’s located between the neat A-frame resort with monorail going through it, and that famous park with the big castle. Sadly it’s only available for members of the company’s time-share program so the rest of us will have to settle for pictures. To see my other commercial work go here. (But i can barely show anything as almost EVERYTHING I do is part of a confidentiality agreement or something.)

All pieces were created digitally by me sitting here working in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. There’s two pieces on each of the 14 floors (each floor gets the same art in two colorways.)

While working on this i also made an iPhone wallpaper out of rejected concept art for this project.

 

No jokes about how he loves pussy.

http://www.myspace.com/4520527

It opens this week. I made lots of “wall decor” for this project. I’d say more but this particular company doesn’t yet seem comfortable with their designers discussing the work they’ve done outside of their approved channels. I haven’t seen the resort in person so I can only rely on what photos I find on Flickr. I’ll post more after it opens (when hopefully people will have uploaded their pics.)