dantat.com

Where have you been Dan Santat?

OK, so I've been horrible about posting, but you can't possibly believe how busy I am right now. I will say though that I attended Book Expo America on Friday and had a pretty good time. I honestly didn't know what to expect but by the end of the day I was holding about $120 worth of free amazing  books. This one particularly caught my attention....


"The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie was an outstanding book that I read through in about a day. I've been working on the outline to my own young adult novel in the last few months and this book has totally inspired me. I recommend you pick it up and give it a read.

"Goat" to the GALLERY 1988 show tonight!

Hope to see you all at Gallery 1988 tonight for the "One To Grow On" Show. I'll be there for most of the night. Come say hi.

By they way, this is just a study sketch for a picture book I'm currently illustrating about barn animals

Character Designs

Here are some character designs I'm doing for a personal project

One To Grow On

For all of you in the LA area the gallery show which I have been telling you all about for the past few weeks is going to have it's opening night on  Tuesday the 20th of this month. That's next week. The show goes from 7-10PM. Hope to see you all there!

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Happy Mother's Day!

This is the Mother's Day card I made for my mother this year.

What? You were too busy playing Grand Theft Auto 4 that you forgot to get a card for your own mother? Shame on you. BUT, luckily, I'm here to bail you out.

Here are the instructions....

STEP 1: Slap yourself on the hand for not thinking about your mother.

STEP 2: Kiss your hand for opting to use my card

STEP 3: Download the PDF

Download mdcard_ds.pdf

STEP 4: Print it out and trim where necessary. (But don't be cheap and use simple paper. Use the nice heavy card stock. After all, this is my art)

STEP 5: hi five yourself and continue about your day.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

For fans, such as myself, of "This American Life" I often find myself learning a huge amount about the process of storytelling by listening to the show. So, it was a delight for me to discover that the host, Ira Glass, was interviewed on the process of storytelling. For anyone who is interested in writing books or telling stories of any kind I strongly feel that these four youtube posts can make a great impact on you as a writer if you listen to the facts and take the moment to really reflect on them and see how you tell a story. Although he talks about making stories for radio I feel the rules apply to any medium you use

Outlook Good

The last piece for the Gallery 1988 Show

Up up and Away..

What's that you say Dan? You've been secretly working on your graphic novel behind our backs? You say, there's a secret blog out there that you've been putting together for the project that no one can see besides you and your editors?

Well it's about time Mr. Santat.....

Don't label an apple an apple.

One of my favorite book jacket designers in the world is CHIP KIDD (Who wouldn't agree?) and here is an amazing lecture featuring Chip Kidd, Dave Eggers, and design legend Milton Glaser. I think if you watch this video over and over again you'll learn a tremendous amount about iconic design and typography which are essential tools for visual communication.

You and I Don't Often Agree

This is yet another piece for the Gallery 1988 show. So far, I think this is my favorite piece out of the bunch.