ISO50/Forum Give-Away

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ISO50 & Forum are giving away a Forum Roost 161 snowboard with ISO50 graphics on it! Check out the contest details here.

NTU Art & Design Book

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This book was designed by Andrew Townsend for Nottingham Trent University and their Art & Design department. This is a nice piece of work. I love the custom design typeface on the cover, based on Avant Garde Bold, but adapted to have their individual textures. Sweet. This is an inspiring piece of work.

It includes multicolored sketching paper + stencils, and more. Sweet! I want one.

Stop Motion Graffiti

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
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This absolutely blew me away. Incredible.

Moleskine Pocket Sketchbook

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I have been seeking to encourage myself to draw more. So, I picked up a Moleskine Pocket Sketchbook to foster this creative movement. I forced myself to sloppily graffiti the first two pages (some what unusable anyway) with a reminder.

I chose the Moleskine Pocket Sketchbook because of the thicker paper and the size. Plus it has that Moleskine-ness that makes it lovable. And I chose the Sharpie Pen because it won't bleed and it acts and writes just like a Ultra-Fine-Point Sharpie Marker (which I love to draw/write with but usually can't due to the bleed factor).

These are all the sketches to date, with a few notes.

Garamond Powerline

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This is a great re-design of a classic typeface, one of my favorites. Check out the rest of the typeface here, as well as other great work!

New President

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Barack Obama x Z-Trip x Shepard Fairey x Fresh Pressed from Barack On! Obamathon on Vimeo.

Whether you voted for him or note ... he's president, and this video is pretty sweet. And I love street art and graffiti. That is some serious talent.

Sticky Note Typeface

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Check this out. A typeface originally designed & Exact-O-Knifed out of Sticky Notes! I love it. Great photos too. Check out the site here for more info & work.

Cochrans / Aldi

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I saw the Aldi logo, and immediately thought of the Cochrans ski resort logo in Vermont. (I apologize for the terrible image quality, it's the best I could fine online.)

I appreciate the 'old school' nature of them both. I wish I could say what era or genre of design history that they come from or inherit their style from, but I can't. In fact, I can't tell you the history of much design at all. I probably should have paid better attention in Graphic Design History class in my BFA, and read the book(s) for that matter.

Anyway. I love the muted flat colors of both logos, as well as the flat two dimensional nature of both logos. They both make good use of geometric shapes, typography, and subtly asymmetrical layouts.

Pretty in Pink

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Here is the latest 'piece of work'.

I'm sort of on a pink kick. Pink in my blogs, in my graphics, in my email color templates, etc. I've even considered purchasing a pink dress shirt, and or tie; perhaps even a t-shirt. I'm not convinced yet that it is a good idea, we shall see.

I took some time to experiment more with some traditional methods & styles that I have seen lately online in vector artwork. I am continually trying to add layers of detail, texture, and form.

The piece is sort of at a critical mass, so I needed to end it somewhere. That 'somewhere' is here. It's a 'first stab' of sorts.

The title was inspired by my good friend J.

Enjoy.

(No tunes right now.)

Jewelry Design

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Below is a photo of my wife's and my wedding rings. (That grammar sounds so messed up ... is it? I can never figure that crap out.)

With my wedding ring, finding nothing on the market in my price range, I tried my hand as jewelry designer. I think it turned out pretty well.

Below is the sketch from my trusty Moleskine that I made of my ring as I woke up one morning. It was April 12th, 2008 to be exact. I just woke up with this idea for a ring in mind. And sure enough, 2 weeks later, I had the ring in the photo before me.

The jeweler and I went through about 7 different edits to the ring, mainly surface treatments. But I think it turned out well. There are 2 diamonds, and 1 natural ruby between them. (The same three stones in my wife's ring) The surface treatment to the right of the stones is a hammer finish with a satin finish over the hammer strikes.

Tunes: Spybreak by Propellerheads

Moleskine

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Love the Moleskine.

For those of you who do not know, it is the legendary notebook used by many famous writers & painters such as Picasso, Hemingway, and Chatwin. You can read about the history on the website.

If you have never experienced a Moleskine notebook/journal, I would highly recommend. It is a superb tactile experience.

If you are a Moleskine aficionado, then you must find out the rank of your addiction here. I am quite sure that it will help you cope. I am a level 4 addict, 'Apprentice'. (Because I embossed my name on the cover. Sweet. It was my first shot at it. I've gotten much better at it since then.)

I wanted to post a few photos of my Moleskine experience, and a sketch as well. The sketch below is the small beginnings of some of the work I posted months ago, the 'New Jerusalem'.

Check out the Moleskine website, you can get all sorts of journals, city guide journals, weekly planners, graph paper, Japanese according books, watercolor sketchbooks, etc. It's amazing. They also come in small, large, or extra large. You can pick them up at Barnes & Noble, Borders, stationary shops, and online of course.

I'm thinking about getting a pocket sized one for sketching design ideas ... enjoy.

Tunes > b.hantoot Cix-piy
Check it out, free download.

Dictaphone's Lament | Video

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I don't care. I'm gonna post two Tycho videos in a row. Yep. Even though I referenced a link to this one in the last post. I feel bad for not posting anything in so long. Hah.

Peace.

Tycho | Live

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Brokenbeat > July 2007 This is a good example of one of Tycho's live shows. He's got some pretty sweet visuals, all his own design of course. Check it out.

Also, this is a tight video made specifically for Tycho's song 'Dictaphone's Lament'. Directed by Will Jones. Check it out.

Latest Work Update

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I wish that I had more to show for my absence than this, but hey, whatever. I've got some other stuff in the works, we'll see how it goes. But for now, here are 2 new pieces. Ever since I made those last 2 city landscape vector pieces, I have been thinking about new ways to work it. J put the bug in my ear about making a 'New Jerusalem' vector-scape. (referencing Revelation chapters 21-22) The idea intrigued me. So here is the outcome. I hope you enjoy it.

I'm workin' on some other stuff, possibly reiterations of already posted work. But I am hoping to rework them with muted colors & post process them in PS. We'll see, I'll probably come up with something new anyway.

Tunes: Temper by Dabrye GhostlySwim compilation record [Free Download] There is the latest Tycho single on this album, a track off his up and coming new album, slotted for release in mid 2008. Enjoy.

New & Revisited Work

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Here are two more pieces similar to the previous post. I am continuing to explore this 'new to me' idea of vector landscape. I am continually influenced by Scott Hansen's work. Check out this poster, you'll get the idea. His talent is remarkable.

Hansen (Aka 'Tycho') also uses Photoshop brushes & accents after he has finished the vector work in Illustrator, which gives the piece its distinct distressed look. Bringing the vectors into PS allows for a myriad of unique options typically unavailable in IL. This is still an unexplored avenue for me to this point; but I hope to experiment sometime in the relatively near future.

I just need a sweet idea. Lemme know whatcha think.

Tunes: I Am in Love With You by Imogen Heap from 'Speak for Yourself' (Check out Hide & Seek also, an amazing song.)

More New Work

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I'm pretty stoked about this new stuff. I'm continuing to build my vector library & learn new techniques. I'm liking the layers & textures that I've come up with on these two. It's always nice to start with a graphic/vector to build the piece around. That seems to work better. A piece seems to come together to completion much easier if I begin with a focal or reference point.

So here they are. Click to enlarge.

New Work

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Here are 2 more samples I designed recently. 'You Are Mine' I did a few weeks ago when I got the idea to work up some mug/cup stain vectors. Obviously influenced by Tycho's album cover for his most recent release 'The Daydream/The Disconnect' single.

I would have to say that I am overall & most recently influenced by his design/style. By 'him' I mean Scott Hansen. He is the man behind Tycho music, as well as some excellent design & photography, known as ISO50. I have posted several of his website links to the right in the 'Of Interest' section, check it out. He does photography, design, and music just like I would, if I was that sweet.

Anyway, the 'ABC' piece is what came out of my day off yesterday. Fantastic it was. I plan to be working more in IL with layering, textures, like colors/tones, patterns/geometric, etc; Hoping to come across some more work soon. I would like to continue to create a few pieces a week.

There it is.

New Design Samples

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I was on a creative kick last fall, so I started working with some fresh ideas that I'd been seeing around the web & elsewhere. Here is the fruit of that splurge. Not too much to say for it. Working with the wood grain backgrounds, popular. Flat color graphics. Trying to import more found web objects like the 'awaiting instructions' kid. I was so desperate to create that I used any phrase I could think of, hence, 'owned'.

More to come soon, hopefully.

( ... )

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First Post. Challenging. Intimidating. Scary.

Fundamental Issue #1: Most people blog for the sake of hearing themselves talk. (Which immediately brings the substance of this post into question. Ha-ha.) They assume they have a vast wealth of knowledge about this topic or that topic, or that people have copious amounts of useless time to dedicate to the reading of their online melodramas.

Do I assume that I have anything more interesting to offer? Perhaps not. Do I have vast volumes of knowledge to bequeath upon the masses. Most definitely not, and I will try not to blog like I do. But, none the less, I don't want to be just another one of those.

I hope this to be more about photography & design than anything else. But if I get inspired, perhaps I will go on a few rants about politics, religion, the church, etc. Don't think I won't. I just want it to be interesting and helpful. I hope to post designed & photographed eye candy, samples of awesome work elsewhere, and whatever else I come across.

Fundamental Issue #2: I do not have a digital camera of my own. Gross. If I want to shoot, I have to borrow. Annoying. That's way less impulsive, spontaneous, and convenient. Clearly. Also, I don't have a scanner. Gross x2. I have limited abilities to import textures and any other awesome material I find.

So all the 'sweet eye candy' that I hope to post at this point will have to be purely based from the existing libraries that I have right now. But, all that said, I have no excuses for not producing any work at the present. Samples to come soon, hopefully.

Here is a shot from the Amsterdam Airport last June, 07.