Five Hours of Power was a live broadcast event this past week. The broadcast featured Justin Maller a freelance illustrator and art director, Nick Campbell a motion designer & photographer), James White a visual artist & designer, Fabio Sasso a graphic & web designer, and last but not least Erin Loechner of Designchat. Only three of the broadcasts were recorded, but there is still a wealth of advice and information to be taken from each.
I hadn’t heard Justin Maller speak before so it was very refreshing to hear him answer a lot of questions about freelancing and business. In fact besides mentioning “explorimenting” his whole broadcast was about the business side of things. If you’re interested, I believe Justin has a live broadcast Thursdays at 4PM EST.
James White of Signalnoise (we aren’t related) always has something interesting say. The questions were all over the map but there were some particularly great ones about where he finds inspiration and about about growing as a designer. Check out his weekly broadcasts on Thursdays at 3PM EST. I recently have been tuning into them and find them to be inspiring.
One of my favorite of these talks was Fabio Sasso Abduzeedo. This was his first broadcast and Prior to it hadn’t been a close follower of the site. That has completely changed now. Fabio seems to have a lot of great information to share, especially about blogging and doing what you love. He seems to have this way of talking that makes it really easy to listen to.
Thanks go out to the speakers for putting this together and to Fabio for including Wanken on a few of the daily inspiration posts.
You may have seen the new Old Spice commercials and you may be tired of seeing a man without a shirt on, but have you seen these Old Spice response videos? This Old Spice campaign has been one of the most talked about in the history of the company. Even their previous spokesmen Neil Patrick Harris, LL Cool J, Will Farrell and Tony Stewart hadn’t received as much buzz as Isaiah Mustafa.
http://www.vimeo.com/12053055
Some things in our creative industry deserve lots of respect. This music video by Jonas Francois for Audio Bullys is one of them. It employs a stunning use of typography. Most of it cut quickly to the beat but also designed in a way that it is legible to the viewer.
My favorite part about this music video, besides the narrative use of type, is the perspective. The angle is from underneath the action looking up. The setup used to film up at the action is probably plexiglass much like this one by Chase Jarvis.
The Creators Project is a new network dedicated to the celebration of creativity and culture across media, and around the world. At a time in the history of the arts where digital technologies have revolutionized distribution, changed accessibility, and completely re-imagined the how artists can create a vision and reach an audience. The Creators Project is a completely new kind of arts and culture channel.
Now, if only I had a helicopter and a few hundred thousand dollars…check out more these video stories from the creative minds at The Creator’s Project.
http://www.vimeo.com/11673745
Time lapse sequences have always amazed me, partly because of the difficulty in producing them, but also that it’s a dynamic showcase of what goes on around us that we don’t see. The photographer who shot this time lapse—Sean Stiegemeier—said about his video:
So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.
Sean shot this on a Canon 5d Mk II on a motorized dolly. I’d be curious to see the dolly set up he used. Eventually I would like to get into shooting timelapses like this one. See more of his videos on his Vimeo.
Nikon’s 140 second film festival has been going on for a while now but now the submissions are closed and 50 finalists have been chosen. The final submissions will be judged by Chase Jarvis, Rainn Wilson and Justine Ezarik (iJustine) for the judges award of $100,000 but the audience award of $25,000 is really up to us–the persons video with the most views and highest rating will win this award.
Some of the submissions seem to stray from the original “your day” submission guideline and more towards a video showing off their work, but nevertheless they’re nicely done. The videos above, the first by Skill Lab and the second by Josh Friedberg, are my two favorites. Both are creative ways to look at your day. The the first “numbers” video especially. You can still see/know what is going on even though you’re only seeing a closeup shot.
Mozy on over to NikonFestival.com to watch a bunch more of the submissions. They are inspiring and may quite possibly spark some ideas for you.
Alongside Objectified, the design documentary film by Gary Hustwit, comes Art & Copy, a film about advertising directed by Doug Pray. Judging by the trailer, it looks to be a very interesting film and can’t wait to see it later this month.
Synopsis
“Art & Copy is a powerful new film about advertising and inspiration. Directed by Doug Pray (Surfwise, Scratch, Wise!), it reveals the work and wisdom of some of the most influential advertising creatives of our time — people who’ve profoundly impacted our culture, yet are virtually unknown outside their industry. Exploding forth from advertising’s “creative revolution” of the 1960s, these artists and writers all brought a surprisingly rebellious spirit to their work in a business more often associated with mediocrity or manipulation: George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, Lee Clow, Hal Riney and others featured in Art & Copy were responsible for “Just Do It,” “I Love NY,” “Where’s the Beef?,” “Got Milk,” “Think Different,” and brilliant campaigns for everything from cars to presidents. They managed to grab the attention of millions and truly move them. Visually interwoven with their stories, TV satellites are launched, billboards are erected, and the social and cultural impact of their ads are brought to light in this dynamic exploration of art, commerce, and human emotion.”
Hit the jump for the Seattle screening times.
Seattle Times
- Friday, Aug 21 at 07:00PM
- Friday, Aug 21 at 09:00PM
- Saturday, Aug 22 at 07:00PM
- Saturday, Aug 22 at 09:00PM
- Sunday, Aug 23 at 07:00PM
- Sunday, Aug 23 at 09:00PM
- Monday, Aug 24 at 07:00PM
- Monday, Aug 24 at 09:00PM
- Tuesday, Aug 25 at 07:00PM
- Tuesday, Aug 25 at 09:00PM
- Thursday, Aug 27 at 07:00PM
- Thursday, Aug 27 at 09:00PM
As creatives or any positions really, we see this so-typical, unmanaged, client relationship that results in completely ridiculous requests. Time and time again we are pushed to actually fulfill them. If you do, then more often than not the work that you’ve done falls into the category of “Who’s really designing this, the Client or Creative” and if you don’t fulfill the ridiculous requests you’ve just stepped into the ring for a power struggle. This is where we need to check ourselves and make sure we’re managing the relationship effectively from the get go.
Managing the relationship can be as simple as outlining in the very beginning what the scope of the project is and building the client’s confidence in you. Outline what each party is expecting from the other so you don’t hit road blocks amid the project. I particularly like this quote from the video where the client says, “You aren’t meeting your commitments to me.” The creative then responds back with, “We’re trying, but your priorities keep changing.”
How does this affect our industry?
The more times that ridiculous requests are filled, the more confidence the client builds in requesting ridiculous things.
Think of it as Man vs bear.
Respectively replace “Creative” and “Client” with man and bear and who wins? The bear will seemingly always win unless the man is armed with a gun. The gun in this case is knowledge of dealing with this particular situation. If man (creative) is armed with knowledge, he can tame the bear (client) if you will and deal with it on a human level (by no means am I advocating the use of firearms on clients). The key here is knowing how to effectively stop it or drop it and the more times that designers/photographers are put into this situation, the less chance we have to create work that benefits our clients while having complete creativity.
So here’s my idea—just say no to those clients that from the start expect ridiculous requests from you and those who continually change their priorities. Learning how to say no and still maintain the relationship is tricky. Feel ree to share any thoughts or experiences concerning this topic. This is definitely not rocket science here, rather, something that is often slightly overlooked in the beginning.
Some of the most interesting title sequences are ones that reveal elements of narration through simplicity in design. ‘Catch Me If You Can’ does this consistently throughout the piece; Video after the jump. » CONTINUE READING THIS POST
Nearly two years have soared past since I shot this Super 8 footage at the Carson Ianson Memorial Jam in 2007 and I’ve finally pulled this footage from the dusty archives for this short cut. The snowboard jam was held on the ridge of a tall mountain outside of Cascade, Idaho.
The trailer for Where the Wild Things Are is here. This trailer is great and the movie will be even better. There has been a lot of skepticism about whether or not the film will be as big of hit as anticipated. For now, while we wait, check out the trailer, or if you prefer in HD, on Apple.
Also take a look below at the similarities of the teaser images to the original illustrations from the book.
Head Like A Kite is Dave Einmo, joined by drummer Trent Moorman, and in the studio by a cast of musical friends. Their combined efforts result in a blend of progressive, instrumental, poppy electronic music. Head Like A Kite debuted in 2006 with the Pattern 25 release, Random Portraits of the Home Movie, an album built from samples of Super-8 home movies from the 70’s. What a great band to add to the Songs for Singing collection, check out a song and live performance below.
Francis and the Lights. There really isn’t much background information on this band which is great, because it leaves it up in the air as to how the band was started. Deciding whether or not they were very good was hard at first. There is so much energy being pushed out by the dancing that its hard to listen to the music. Every move to the beat is as if he is conducting the whole video.
Francis and the Lights – Striking
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Francis and the Lights – A Modern Promise
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Yes this may literally be bordering the line of a song for singing, but it fits greatly with the new and fresh songs that I intend to group into the Songs for Singing category.
The Bottom line: Francis and the Lights is intriguing. Their 80’s, Prince, Soul sounding music simply rocks. Check out some more of their songs onMuxtape.
Everybody likes great music––I’ve been gathering a lot of new music lately and have some great songs to share. I will be putting these songs in future posts with a “songs for singing” tag so they can be searched.
Bon Iver (pronounced: bohn eevair; French for “good winter”) is a greeting, a celebration and a sentiment. It is a new statement of an artist moving on and establishing the groundwork for a lasting career. He––Justin Vernon, the head of the band––is also one of my favorite musicians/singers because of his uniqueness in vocals and the vocal range he uses.
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The first time listening to this talk by Malcolm Gladwell at the 2008 AIGA Business Design Conference was eye opening. The first few minutes of the video pulled me in as Josh Liberson steps onto the stage, introduces himself, and then proceeds to tell us of how Malcolm knows nothing of design. Malcolm then comes to the stage and starts speaking about Fleetwood Mac–I’d never heard of the band at this point–and I began to wonder where he was going with the topic.
It’s not until the second and third time listening in that you’ll really start to process what Malcolm is saying and how to apply it. So lets back up and look at his points main points:
Dedicate at least 10,000 hours to whatever it is you’re trying to master.
Only 10,000 hours? Well, yes. If you look at the time it takes to master something, it takes about 10,000 hours–that’s roughly four hours a day for ten years. It’s not to say that creativity and mastership of a profession can’t be had overnight or in a shorter period of time, but it just doesn’t happen for most people unless they’re solving a problem that can be summed up that simply.
Malcolm then goes on to say that the choice of profession is not trivial–I agree. The example that Malcolm uses is that if you decide to be a teacher, being a great teacher is not something that simply happens. It is something that comes out of an investment of your time (10,000 hours) and the things you’re a part of. You can’t just walk in and become a teacher and be great at it. It simply doesn’t work like that. The same goes for being a designer, photographer, or a profession in any other field. It takes time to learn and and develop each of the creative tasks and then solve them.
Additionally, someone could invest a large amount of time to a profession and still be terrible. You have to take into account the quality of the time and the underlying intent for spending that time.
Here is the link to the video again as well as a transcript of it word-for-word so you can gather more information from his enlightening talk.
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