I have a love and hate relationship with the color maroon and its cousin, burgundy. Ever sit through a meeting and heard “oh, I know, how about a nice maroon, or burgundy instead?”, I know I have.

Face it, non-designers love to suggest this color. Yes, I have freely chosen to use these colors in the past, but maroon can’t just be thrown out anywhere and at anytime. On the wrong project, maroon becomes the abomination of banality, and every time you return to that client’s project, the color I swear looks more and more faded.

What I have found over the years, is that if you use maroon or burgundy, then you have to just to pour it on. It isn’t a color you can just sprinkle into a bright setting and expect it to still be that luscious hue you’d hope for.

Keep it in the family of other provocative colors, maroon needs black, deep reds, chocolate browns, purples, and several variations of itself. Used in a brighter composition, and it tends to look washed out (hence why I keep thinking it’s somehow digitally fading on my monitor and proofs straight from the printers).

Now, I should clean. Maroon happened to be one of the primary colors for my wedding back in the late 90s, but I think that decision came down to a matter of us having little choices of which napkins to choose, which that decision then snowballed to dictating the look of the entire ceremony, but I digress.

A friend of mine nailed it when it came to defining people’s attraction to this color. As he put it, in their mind at least, “if you need an interesting color but you feel you need to project a little bit of class, then maroon is the choice.”

In case you were curious, I think this should explain a lot.

This is the obligatory introductory post to Schpunk, so lets get right into it.

Who am I
My name is Aaron (that’s me with Spidey circa 1979), a Texas based designer and artist who since 2000 has been operating under my own company, Pixascope. Through this outlet, I’ve unleashed various forms of creative endeavors and had several opportunities to meet and work with some incredibly talented people along the way.

I’ve been given many names over the years, my least favorite being “workaholic”, but my favorite moniker being “Dad”, which I have the pleasure in being called this by my three boys (my poor wife is outnumbered).

Currently I am illustrating a children’s book and also formulating how to build a tree house in my backyard.

What is Schpunk?
Only Pippi really knows, but it’s a word I fell in love with in the 90’s so I adopted it as the name of my personal site and blog.

What is left braining your right side?
There is too much ideology in the creative industry. There I said it. It’s true. If you know me, then you know I believe in common sense, efficiency and practicality in the creative process (and no, that does not mean sacrificing integrity either). I believe “paralysis of analysis” is the downfall of all creative individuals, and what is even more crippling is the elitism that many artists create to justify they are right (because God forbid any artist be wrong).

It’s easy to get caught up within the right side of our brains, because frankly, it’s more fun. I fall victim to this a lot, especially when I have the most creative control. However, I’ve learned that whenever my left brain knocks on the door and intervenes, I tend to get ahead in all areas of my work, career and life. “Left braining your right side” is like having your own little producer or project manager built into your head to slap you around. Better to have an internal left braining than rely on an external source (ie - The Beatles & Brian Epstein or Elvis & Col. Tom Parker)

What will be served on the site?
Schpunk is going to mainly focus on all aspects of the creative industry, but expect a lot of left braining along the way to keep everything in perspective. Also, it is already decided that Tuesdays will called “Off Topic Tuesdays” because everybody needs a soap box. You’ve been warned.

If you need to contact me, drop me a line at aaron [at] schpunk [dot] com .