Drop the e in sale ad and you have salad. They both sound the same to me. The proofing of a newspaper ad is a nod toward my design and print life and the vegetables are a tip of the cap to my inner farmer. Anyone old enough will get the Dan Quayle reference even if I didn’t use a potato or is it potatoe?
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I like phrases that sound the same such as Bear Pause and Bear Paws. In illustrating this Visual Pun I took the advice of Saul Bass—”Don’t avoid cliches, use them in a fresh way.” You can’t get any more cliche than a bear with a picnic basket. “Eh Boo Boo?”
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This one is based on a character I created for a kid’s book called “The Last Tree” where the lumberjack finds himself face-to-face with the last remaining tree. Should he cut it down or not? This lumberjack had no hesitation and now he is “stumped” as what to do next.
The pose is straight from Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker.” This is the first time I’ve used gradients for shading and it may be the last, but, it does help with establishing depth.
Lenny the Lumberjack represents where we are currently, as a human race, we’ve reached 7 billion people on a planet with limited resources and climate change. I can only wish we would all be contemplating our future like Lenny here.
Click on Visual Puns at the top of the page to see past puns. Thanks for your viewership!
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This one was pitched to me by Jeff E. as Hall & Oates (enjoy music video below). Jeff has horses and I think his vision was of a person carrying a bag of oats.
Not my vision. So I went with what I know: Sitting in a small grain truck at the end of the field with no air conditioning or clouds in the sky with the Hubbard Grain Elevator thermometer placed on the seat showing 100 degrees.
My job was to wait for the tiny hopper on the combine to fill and then I would drive to it so our neighbor Henry could dump his load. I was small and could barely reach the pedals and was not allowed to shift gears, but, I still felt like I was going 50 mph. Every time the truck would go over a small rock or clod of dirt the load would shift and my heart would leap into my throat.
I’m surprised I didn’t get heat stroke, but I did get to read lots of comic books while waiting for Henry to wave at me. When I forgot to look up from a particularly engrossing comic, Henry’s motions became a little more “urgent” to say the least.
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Not sure if this is a pun or more of a statement on men getting old. That’s right guys, once you hit thirty you need a weekly supply of Q-tips to keep your ears clean and the hair? Good lord you can go to bed and upon awaking you have a four inch timber sticking out of your ear. You need a pruning shears to trim it. Any bigger and Jack will be climbing it.
The inspiration for this one comes by way of Ben Bikin’ (see image below) a spiffy biker from Sparta, WI. You may be thinking “what the hell,” how did Ben inspire ear wax guy? Well, I had no idea how this visual would look until I found my Ben image and instantly I knew I had to do a vintage look— big top tent, horizontal stripes, old weights, etc. It pays to take those side trips to see crazy stuff. You just never know what and when it will inspire you.
For my design students I choose a symmetrical layout (formal) and used repetition by repeating the mustache curly shapes on the eyebrows and ear hairs.
Ben Bikin’ is located in Sparta WI and is located on the original Bikes to Rails Trails.
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This pun feeds off the last one I did. While I was doing Root Seller someone read my caption and it sounded like Root Sailor, giving me this visual. I decided to do a pirate theme. The captain is a carrot because of his flamboyant, flowing top. The side kick is a potato and he’s angry. Instead of having Captain Jack Carrot say “Shiver me timbers” I have him saying “Shiver me tatters.”
The flag is a beet or rutabaga crossed with french fry crossbones to continue the “root crop” theme. I lightened the flag at the curve to push the waving part further to the background. To make it look like a ship I gave the railing a bowed look and placed lots of ropes hanging with purpose in the background. Since the flag is so dark I kept the sky white giving a feel of the type of openness you would find on the high seas.
To view past visual puns click here or on Visual Puns at the top of the page.
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This visual pun is a play on the words root cellar. While in secondary school, every day on the bus, I would see a root cellar near Blue Bird Landing (the inspiration for the root cellar behind the “seller”) by the Mink Farm which was by Sucker River. Sorry for the long explanation, but, for the few class mates who follow this blog, they will know exactly what location I’m talking about. This particular visual pun brings back deep memories of a simpler time and of good people no longer with us.
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This bonus Visual Pun for the week comes from medical student, Luke H. Pitched to me as we shared a Black and Tan. I’ve cleaned up Luke’s original concept that had something to do with the rectum to make it more family friendly. Usually when someone pitches me a visual pun they have no vision of what to do with it. At least Luke formed his concept as a joke giving me a little more to work with.
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Soft drink was pitched to me by Drew H. When I asked him his vision he said he had none. Sooo, I grabbed a pop (yes we say pop not soda around here) and by the time I was done with it I came up with this. A “softie” being taken down by a power drink.
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I have many nephews and nieces who over the years, have gotten their driver’s license sooner or later. All of them would lament about the parellel parking portion of the test and how nervous they were or how they screwed up trying to park. We now refer to it as the “Perilous Parking” portion of the driving test.
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pencil me in 