De La Soul

This group takes me back to being a teenager listening to 3 feet high and rising. Run DMC got me into hip hop, but after Raising hell, they kind of stayed the same. De la managed to tweak their sound on every album. Their live shows were a blast – a great party vibe. Their albums after stakes is high have their good tracks, but don’t do as much for me as their earlier work. That being said, how many hip hop artists/groups manage to stay together and produce work over 2.5 decades. Here is a sampling of their sound. For those who don’t know, you should.

Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)

Ego Trippin pt 2

Stakes is High

Dave Mckean: Mister Sandman

I first came across his work while I was in college. I was starting to use some comic book style elements in my work, so I headed in to the local comic book store to see what artists were up to. I was a super hero fan when I was younger, so comics for an older audience were a new concept for me. Personal history lesson aside, I saw this kick ass cover to a Sandman comic. I was just learning photoshop and Dave’s work has been an inspiration ever since.

His illustration style has branched out into motion graphics and film:

Advice on Marriage

Ok, I was not planning on a second post today, but I read Advice on Marriage on thedenveregotist.com and thought it was funny as hell. For all you married creatives out there I am posting a taste (you’ll have to visit their site for the rest, since I am using their content)

I have landed the gig of my dreams working as an Art Director at [agency name removed]. Everyone here is pretty much expected to work serious overtime and my wife is starting to get seriously pissed off about it. I love my job, but I also love my wife. Part of me expects her to be more understanding and supportive of my situation, what should I do?

Yours in desperation,
Jacob Limpic

Dear Mr. Limpic,
I hear this problem a lot. Who among us in the creative industries hasn’t found themselves toiling away at work night after night and spending less and less time with their loved ones as their career takes off? The divorce rate at advertising agencies is one of the highest in the nation. I suspect the same holds true at design firms, but I couldn’t find any statistics for civil unions so I can’t be sure.

Do we work like this to make humanity a better place and maybe save some lives? Of course not! We do it because we hate our spouses or because our Creative Director just got transferred to our office from NYC and he doesn’t know anyone here or have anything better to do than work all the time… Read more

What up dog?

I want to challenge myself on Fridays, so I am now going to try to find humorous creativity to post every week. The mini interactive urinal post was the start, this week we continue with the Dramatic Prairie Dog. 15 seconds to take you into the weekend.

Hitting the digital wall

So, as an interactive designer you always want to come up with innovative ways for a viewer to be able to play and use your content. Adobe has come up with an execution that uses the motion of a persons body to interact with the content on the screen via infrared sensors. First – I want that kind of budget for my next project. Second, I think that it is pretty damn cool and a glimpse of things to come. Again I defer to a better writer to offer more info:

Maria Aspen of the New York Times writes:

Adobe will unveil an interactive wall of projected animation this morning in Union Square, along the 14th Street side of the Virgin Megastore. As pedestrians walk past the wall, infrared sensors will lock on to the person closest to the wall, who will then be able to control a projected slider button at the bottom of the wall.

As the selected pedestrian continues walking and moves the slider along, the wall will start displaying colorful animation and playing music, effects that will grow or recede at the pace that the person advances or retreats. When each selected pedestrian reaches the end of the wall, his or her design will be in full blossom, above the campaign’s message: “Creative license: take as much as you want.” Read More .

See the wall in action:

Designer, Artist, Hybrid?

Joshua Davis is a designer that gets to do the work other designers would love to do. I have never met him, but I have seen him speak at a few conferences. He is an engaging speaker that makes you look at your own process of idea development. I know this project for BMW is not his latest work, but between the video and the final product, this project gives good insight into his creative process. The picture below is of the three styles of the prints.

Now for how he got to that point:

For more on Joshua Davis go here.

He might blow up but he won’t go pop.

Today’s post is a little different. Stan Whitney is a painter, a rather successful painter. He is also a professor at Tyler School of Art. So, his paintings are good, but the focus of this post is how he forces (yes forces) you to be creative in his class.

I had him as a professor about 10 years ago at Temple’s Rome campus. The non art students used to come to our class to see us get bitten in half, chewed up, spit out and finally stepped on.

“I feel as a professor you want to tell [students] the truth,” he said. “My job is to guide them in the right direction; whether they get upset doesn’t matter to me. In the end, it will make them better artists because they will have to defend what they create beyond the classroom.”
Read More.

Two people in the class could not hang and bailed out, one went as far as to leave the program completely. I took my weekly beatings with my friends laughing at me. I would spend all week trying to come up with something that would get me off the hook.

My favorite critique was this:
“I was talking about you at dinner the other night (this has to be good right??) and I think you are in the wrong field (fuuuuuuck me). You have a beautiful voice – have you thought about radio? I really don’t think you have what it takes to make it in the creative field” Now, that hurt a little, but he was right. I spent most of my time over there partying with a little dash of art on the side.

So, I did not quit and go into radio, I spent a little less time partying and a little more drawing (or did both at the same time). I finally had a good critique “Guess who finally showed up this semester!”

At the time, I hated that class, but it is the one class that I look back on most fondly when I think about college. Stan forced me to actually think about what I was doing. He probably would not remember me now, but I tip my hat to him, w/o that class my creativity would have not grown in the way it has.

Thanks Stan

Who are the people that helped you establish yourselves creatively?

I am what I do.

Ok, I admit it. I am a bit lazy – not at work, there – I bust my ass, but outside of work. Just getting to the gym or going for a run is enough for me. So, when I saw this site, I was impressed. It kicks ass due to the fact that it is such a simple concept that even I could participate at a minimal level . I am starting off w/ Shutting down my computer properly. I know, I know, it’s not much. But a man has has to start somewhere.

From their mouths:
We’ve created 100 simple, everyday actions that can improve our environment, our health, and our communities and make our planet and the people on it much happier. We started by putting these actions into a book but it rather burst its bindings. Today it has gained momentum, gathered community and become a global movement with two books and over 500,000 registered actions.

Learn more here.

Yours handles better than mine.

It’s Friday, so I am going to try to set up the weekend a little bit. Mini has done a bunch of clever advertising, but this ‘interactive’ urinal ad is one of their best. What guy would not take his car through the paces on this course? I would not want to be the person who has to set up or tear down these cones…

Broken Social Scene

I think there are about 40 members in this band (the real number is btwn 9-17 depending on the song). I guess you would call them an indie band, but that seems to pigeon-hole them a bit… Alissa Quart of the New York Times is a bit more eloquent than I am:

To call BSS a “band” is to simplify matters drastically. It’s more like a network, or, as Emily Haines, a sometime BSS’er and lead singer of the Toronto band Metric, put it, “somewhere between a tribe and a cult.” Most of the members of BSS are also members of other bands that are released by Arts & Crafts. The very name connotes what all the artists on the label have in common: they are lo-fi, heartfelt, ironic, makeshift and as tightly interlinked as the kids in a summer-camp lanyard-making session. Read More.

The video for Fire Eye’d Boy:

Their music pretty much stays on the mellow side, but is perfect when you need to tune out the office noise and crank through some work or if you just want to chill at home. Visit their site here.

Since the band has a ton of members, they are releasing albums titled Broken Social Scene presents. Info on the first release and a free single download can be found here.