About

By day I am a mild mannered web, app, and video game developer. By night I play Doctor Octave, a mad musical scientist, in the band Cartoon Violence. I enjoy using technology to celebrate music and creativity. I once ran San Francisco’s first gay wedding chapel, as well as a music studio rated #4 on Yelp. I currently live in Portland and help run The Adventureland Ballroom, a music performance space and artist incubator.

I am available for hire or as a tutor in any of the following:

  • Web Design & Development
  • Graphic Design for Print and Web
  • iPhone and iPad
  • App Design, Development & Consulting
  • Programming
  • WordPress Themes and Plugins
  • Podcasting
  • Music Recording
  • Sound Engineer
  • Piano
  • Guitar
  • Percussion

You can click the links in the navigation bar to see examples of my work in various types of media or contact me for a quote.

Apps

I have made video games, mobile apps, and custom software for large companies and small, on a variety of platforms. View All…

Web Sites

Check out these web sites I’ve made. Some are for my own ventures, and some are for other people’s businesses or projects. Some are simple blogs and some are full-fledged custom web apps. View All…

Music

I have been playing music since I was a very small child. I started on the piano and eventually moved to guitar and drums as my other primary instruments. I’ve also been known to dabble in accordion, bass, and mandolin. I have been largely self taught, playing by ear and improvising rather than reading sheet music or playing classical compositions.

Over the years I have recorded a handful of demos and odd songs under the name Regular Gonzalez, a moniker I stole from Futurama and use for my solo projects. Occasionally I perform these songs in public, currently in the Portland area.

I currently have two bands with my long-time musical collaborator, Blake. The first, Cartoon Violence, is a nerd rock band along the lines of DEVO or They Might Be Giants. The second, Chewbacca Khan, is an instrumental lounge act playing piano and drum jazz interpretations of 80’s and 90’s radio hits. I also play keyboards with The Sincerelys, who are the house band at Adventureland Ballroom, where I currently serve as the promotions and booking manager for live shows.

Graphic Design

I have been using computer software to generate images since my first experience with LOGO in grade school. Since then, whether it’s MacPaint, CorelDraw, or Photoshop, my aim is to offer something unique and impactful, with an emphasis on legibility and clearness of information being presented.

In various web design and programming positions, I have needed to create graphics to accompany the work. I have also designed the logos and advertising for businesses and other creative projects I have started. Here are some examples of the work I’ve done for various projects I have been a part of:

Heart of the Castro Wedding Chapel

Year: 2008
Responsibilities: Logo design, website, 4×6 cards, and magazine ad campaigns.

My goal for this project, San Francisco’s first gay wedding chapel, was to present a bright and whimsical logo with evocative design themes and just a hint of vegas kitsch. The logo and related color schemes were then used across the web site, 4×6 cards placed in local businesses, newspaper and magazine advertising, and even the souvenier wedding certificate.

hotc_card_pews_horiz funmaps_hotc_thingstodo-final
HEARTOFTHECASTRO-fullpage-copy Promotinal Display hotc_website_aboutpage

Cartoon Violence

Year: 2009-2016
Responsibilities: Logo design, website, posters, flyers, merchandising.

In service of my band, I coordinate all the graphic design for our merchandise and print materials, as well as our online properties such as website, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

Show Flyers and Posters

Many of our shows get flyers made for them often as a collaboration with my bandmate, Professor Robot. Many posters begin with a pencil sketch he sends me, which I then clean up, colorize, and turn into a layout with fonts and effects and other elements. Other times they may just be collages of photo and clipart elements with band logos.

GeeksVsPyrates_Gilman_WebFlyer copy The Not-An-Xmas-Show Flyer from 2011
Cartoon Violence 2015 June/July Flyer 8bitSF 02.24.14 Poster (pencil drawing by Professor Robot) – This poster is on display at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco
Mew Yorker Fancy Cats Art Show Flyer (pencil drawing by Professor Robot) 3rd Annual Star Wars Day Extravaganza with Cartoon Violence and Friends Night of 100 Robots Music Video Premiere

Robots and Dinosaurs (Album)

A lot of thought was put into our debut studio album to develop a consistent look and feel across the CD packaging and related merchandise. Artist Adam Davis was chosen to illustrate a collection of robots and dinosaurs, which I then manipulated into album art based on his initial concepts. The website, Twitter, Facebook, and BandCamp pages all received updates with backgrounds and images from the album art. I worked with a manufacturer in Fremont, CA to produce the CD with custom art and a 16-page full-color booklet. The booklet was crafted with art compiled from both Professor Robot and myself, which I cleaned up, colored, and composited in Photoshop, doing final text layout in Adobe InDesign. Accompanying the CD, we also produced a limited run of peel-off die-cut sticker sheets featuring isolated characters from the album art. These were a hit with children and adults at our shows.

The front cover of our Robots and Dinosaurs CD Digipak Our new CD includes a full-color 16-page illustrated lyrics booklet! RAD_Stickers
RAD_BandCamp RAD_Website CartoonViolenceOneSheet_RobotsAndDinosaurs

Cartoon Violence Has A Podcast

The production of my band’s monthly podcast involves creating a suite of images using the logo I designed, including images for the website and YouTube episode videos. The title and logo are inspired by the original “Andre The Giant Has A Posse” meme stickers, and combine the faces of the two characters in the band. The logo has also been used on band stickers and T-shirts.

CVHAP_YTEL-03-Guest-Photo TwoFace_Stickers TwoFace_BlueSweatshirt

T-shirts

Our first two shirt designs were printed by hand using screens that were burned from PDFs I produced based on art from Professor Robot and Bay Area artist Chris Micro. After that, we started working with Threadless to do print-on-demand, where I created a dozen shirt designs based on existing logos, flyers, and photos.

JarJar_BlueTee that70shirt_OliveDrabVNeck deathtaxshirt_BlackJersey

Geoff and his Two Dads in: Tomato Trouble (iPad App)

Year: 2010-2012
Responsibilities: UI Design, iTunes App Store images, posters, and flyers.

I was contracted to write a children’s storybook app for iOS based on existing art, music, and sound. In addition to writing the code, I developed my own touch UI playing off the illustrator’s style but adding a more primary color twist. I also contributed to the animation of the game as well as processing all the graphics into sprite sheets for the app and creating publicity graphics for websites and iTunes.

Tomato Trouble Available On App Store Facebook Cover TomatoTroubleFeatures_iTunes Portrait Screenshot 1 TomatoTroubleFeatures_iTunes Portrait Screenshot 3
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Bestimus Mucho (Logos)

Year: 2008
Responsibilities: Logo brainstorming
These logo designs were made for a friend who was considering starting a website called Bestimus Mucho. The theme would be nerd pop culture news, which is why one logo consists of letters constructed from video game and comic logos. The other logos played off the initials of the site while echoing the title’s faux Mexican theme.

galaxylogo benhur-logo-1 sombrero-logo-1