Just listen to "Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963." It is music at its best and most exciting.
DESIGN Ken Meier
I have been seeing Ken Meier's work around quite a bit lately. He has some great typographic material as well as some really nice conceptual work. One highlight is the "Fascination" where he printed statistics of LastFM over the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Beautiful.
Its been a long time since I've added anything to this. Just been working a bunch. No long apologies. Noone reads this!
anyways, here's a post.
DESIGN Phillipe Apeloig
Phillipe Apeloig is one of the designers whose work was often shown in my undergraduate classes. His Chicago poster of the typography weaving itself around a corner in downtown chi-town is probably his best known work. But, I have found his other, more experimental typography work is what really excites me. He seems to do what all my favorite designers do, and that is something completely different and refreshing with each job.
MUSIC I'm From Barcelona
They're not. They are from Sweden. And there are 29 of them. And they make me smile.
holy hellfire its been a long time since i've posted. Work has been fairly crazy along with trying to squeeze in time for some freelance projects as well as my own portfolio site (be patient, it will hopefully be up soon), so I haven't had the time to give that good stuff you come to this blog for.
There has also been a new update to my bloglife. I will be contributing to bbqchickenrobot, so from here on in all new music or reviews of shows will be on bbq, while older music or random bands not as bbq friendly will be going up on here. SWEET.
MUSIC
At a bar in portland I recently saw a skinhead (not a racist skinhead, obviously) spinning some awesome old rocksteady and reggae music. I have long been pretty anti-reggae (thanks to trustifarians and people selling handmade glass pipes at saturday markets) but this stuff is incredible. The music was popular among mods and skinheads in the 60's, and was heavily influenced by American soul and R&B, so it has that heartfelt clarity and punch of old soul records, but with a heavy steady beat. check it out! I can't link you to any specific artists, but I can give you a compilation album that has guided my education of this music here
DESIGN
I love the Dutch! I recently found these sites while surfing for inspiration during my lunch break at work. All of these designers have an incredible grasp on typography, but never forget that good design can be also be fun. All you serious types might not like it, but who cares, you're boring. here's a few of the designers I wish I was (were?).
Good luck getting any work done. It's like finding someone with hot friends on myspace, once you start looking through these I guarantee you'll waste a good couple of hours.
So.. my friend Derek and I went to see Mum, the Icelandic whateverthehellyouwanttocallit pop band. It was absolutely incredible. Between the adorable dancing, thick multi-instumentation, and crisp electro/sound beats I could barely contain myself. I nearly sold all my earthly belongings and moved to Iceland to become an elf and swim in hotsprings with mum.
Oh yeah, and the opening band Talk Demonic was the second best band I've seen in a long long time. Guess who was first.
DESIGN
Ace Hotel
Two weekends ago I had the joy of staying at the Ace Hotel in Portland. I could talk about all the fun I had drinking beer at night and watching "Mindfreak" all morning in an ubermodern hotel room in the heart of one of my favorite cities ever, but I'm going to stick with design. The Ace just seemed to take everything into account. The design throughout the experience was clean and professional, but still retained the personality and innovation of the city it resides in. Even the shampoo looked badass, although I'm not too keen on peppermint shampoo. Mints for your mouth and/or pillow, not hair. I could go on forever but I'll leave you with something that should make you want to drop what your doing and get a reservation... Leonard Cohen lyrics on the wall in the lobby! What?!?!
DUMB
"Happy Halloween, now get me out of this f***ing costume."- dogzilla
The twilight sad piss me off. Mainly because they are making mature, soulful music and are still in their teens. When I was nineteen I was playing crappy metal riffs, eating too much candy, drinking too much Maddog2020, and spending 10 hours a day on AIM. These young gentlemen are creating unique songs with atmospheric guitars, punchy drums, and unconventional instruments, toeing the line between arty and honest punk rock. Oh yeah, the lead singer's accent doesn't hurt either.
DESIGN
Roanne Adams
I honestly just stumbled upon Roanne Adams a couple of minutes ago at Under Construction. In the few short minutes I clicked through her portfolio, I was impressed by her beautiful sensitivity to type, emphasis on a straightforward concept, and ability to create compelling, stylistic design without having her own distinct style. The site in itself is also a nice example of simpe working better than flash (pun intended).
Because I've been listening to music that most of you have already heard (and therefore telling you about it doesn't make much sense) i've chosen to redirect you to another blog. Hopefully you don't just look at this one instead of mine, even though its much better. This is a blog my friend Johnny Lee made and I just rediscovered. It covers indie/underground music and is not only full of good information, but its well written. Everyone who doesn't know Johnny should know Johnny.
p.s. sorry I stole your photograph from facebook John. (He's the cute little bastard on the right)
DESIGN
GHAVA
GHAVA, previously Graphic Havoc, is one of those firms that first inspired me in design, and has continued to do so. They started out as a grass roots company in Atlanta doing alot of work for friends in the music scene, and have progressed into working for large clients such as Sprite, while continuing to work with people in art and music. One of the most inspiring things to me about GHAVA is they put on their own exhibits, such as the Job #36:1 Exhibition which gave a corporate idenity redesign to none other than The Man Upstairs. Although they are landing big deals, they always return to their roots, and that seems to give them a creative freshness that alot of companies, I feel, are lacking.
DUMB
This one is also old but one of my favorite internet videos ever. I can only hope when I have a kid he or she is this entertaining.
