2007-07-08 Illustration Friday -- 'Geeky' -- Lock

2007-07-08 Illustration Friday -- 'Geeky' -- Lock, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

This week's Illustration Friday topic -- 'Geeky' -- coincided with a need for me to exercise my inner geek.

Someone in my block of flats doesn't seem to understand how locks work. We've got this intense security gate leading from the parking lot, and it has a double action lock on it.

One of the dumbskucks in the complex seems to be unable to get a key to turn twice.

So I decided to make a sign to put on the gate explaining how and why to turn the key twice.

In the background of the pic I've layered in some plan drawings, just to make it look even more geeky.

For your info, the hand lettering took me about nine frigging hours to do. Yeeks. I've gotta find a better way to do that!

This painting was made in two parts. I did the mock-up in CorelDraw10, using Compacta Black Condensed for the headline, and Clarendon Black for the body copy. I went to the Yale lock site, and found a decent reference pic there. I comped them all together, sorted out the typography, and exported a jpeg. I used ArtRage 2.2 to import the scamp, which I then handlettered for hours and hours and hours.