Studio Mission

Fully dedicated to making good work with good people for good reasons.

Studio Day Job is the creative portfolio of John Gilman, a graphic designer, art director and illustrator operating out of the foothills of scenic Western Massachusetts.

Interested in collaborating?

Studio Values

01

Be a human first.

Endeavor to truly see and connect with the people on the other end of the keyboard and don’t miss the forest for the trees.

02

Always respect the work.

Creative work is like any relationship, it requires time, energy and dutiful attention to maintain a healthy and rewarding balance.

03

Good work takes time.

There is a natural rhythm that creative work follows, and elements of the process can be hurried but never fully ignored.

04

Craft is not a solution.

Establish a core idea at the heart of your creative concepts and maintain it throughout production, otherwise you might find yourself pursuing aesthetics for aesthetic’s sake.

05

Right instrument — right result.

Use the right tools for the right job, and partner with the right people to produce the finished product. Don’t over-extend or let personal ego get in the way of producing solutions.

06

Give a damn.

Beyond the day-to-day pressures of the technical responsibilities, take time to consider the long-term affect of the work you create and the world you are creating it for.

Please feel free to follow along.

Last in this Happy Monster triptych for my Spooky Series! With it being Pennant season in the world of Major League Baseball I figured I would give this last monster some of that same energy! Side note: the Black Lagoon Creatures would be an excellen
Next up in the Happy Monsters Spooky Series triptych is this black & white beauty, suggested by the incomparable @melissaclear She wound up having kind of a sock hop and poodle skirt energy so the second slide has some of that vibe incorporated.
Now for something completely different: the next Spooky Series is Happy Monsters! Pretty stoked on bringing these funky goobers to life, and clearly this groovy wolf man is too!!🐺🧔‍♂️🐺 Who would you like to see next? Mummy? Vampire? Ghost?
Last one in this particular Spooky Series! ⚡️👓⚡️ These have been a blast to work through and a great opportunity to explore some different territory for me during this most spooky of seasons. I’m hoping to get at least one more in before we s
The second in line for the newest Spooky Series triptych 🌕 Building out this scene was a lot of fun and I’m definitely pleased with some of the different brushes I put to use throughout! I’ve got some ideas kicking around but I’
A new direction for the next triptych in my Spooky Series! ☁️🪓🌕 These are going to be more generally sinister than anything else, leaning heavily on a sense of the foreboding. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep them all in this same pa
One more for this brief triptych in my Spooky Series! 🐸 Lots of fun adding in the bumpy, warty details on this slimy familiar🧙 I think the next theme is going to be ominous scenes…basically implicitly spooky stuff without much gore in the m
Next in this little spooky series 👹😸👹 Not even a little bit inspired by our cat, Paulie, who is genuinely the most domesticated creature imaginable, whose version of this would be pouting in the corner when she doesn’t get the appropriate a
I’m not doing any of the cool spooky-themed challenges this month (although I’m avidly following along with a couple😄) but I’m going to do some fun Halloween illustrations over the next week for practice and because I just can&rsqu