Good News, New Stuff and Things to Share
First, the good news. Starting June 21st I will no longer be unemployed! After more than 8 months of inconsistent income, overwhelming stress and general economic slumps — I will rejoin the working class. Awesome, and I have 3 weeks off until then to work on odds and ends without dwelling on the future.
I put up this weeks mixtape. You can listen to it, or download it on the sidebar to the right. Um, the language is NSFW. But so is leaving the window open. I guess try it out with headphones first before you start a dance party in the office. This will be a weekly thing, unless I find it to be too much to keep up on. For now, no problem on that front. Enjoy.
30 Days of Creativity starts today. I made a mix to kick things off. I have a few ideas in my head and sketch pad that I am going to try and get more developed. One of them includes a remodel experiment for my family’s house down in Florence, Oregon. It’s a really great mid-century ranch style house. Some other things will show up here before or after that. This 30 day project will be my motivation to really kick my portfolio into high gear.
“30 Days of Creativity is a social initiative encouraging people to create stuff, anything, every day for 30 days.
This is your excuse to buy that tub of Playdough, unbox your Erector set, or dust off your Holga. You might be working on one huge project for 30 days straight. Maybe you are creating something new thing every day. (That’s the best way to participate!) It could be as simple as taking a picture of your outfit for 30 days to something as involved as a writing a song or making a movie every day.” — MAKE Magazine Blog
#30daysofcreativity — A How To Guide from 30 Days of Creativity on Vimeo.
Finally, something to share. I’ve been trying to share at least one project/design a week that inspires me. Today I am sharring the Palmyra House located in Nandgaon, Maharashtra, India. This has been featured on a few architecture blogs. So it may look familiar. It was designed by Studio Mumbai Architects.
What I like most about it is the interior use of very dark and rich woods, along with natural stone and concrete elements. It has a strong textural aesthetic — almost rough looking. Still though, the end experience that I observed from the images it that the the house has a quiet and soft feeling. The house has great Eastern Asian design elements as well, to unify the modern design with traditional finishes. More images and observations are available over at Contemporist.
Check, check it out!
Oh, I want these! These are Limited Edition skate decks by artist Ian Johnson. Featuring illustrations of five of the world’s greatest Jazz Musicians. Made by Western Edition.
The Miles ‘59 series is an homage to the original band that created the epic recording “Kind of Blue” 50 years ago this year. -Rad Collector
Ian Johnson has some other amazing work up on his site, to check out. Someone hire me so I can pick these up.
GOOD.is has posted a really cool project, in which they asked people to create a flag that represents their neighborhood. There are some Portland neighborhoods in there, as well as many more really solid designs. I love the Roseway flag. Check it out.
Still Keeping On
I’ve been busy lately, which is why nothing new has gone up here recently. So what have I been up to? Work. Just as I typed my desire for work, situations present themselves.
First, I’ve been finishing up some revisions for the Whole Foods project I was working on last month. Secondly, I’ve had the opportunity to work on restoring a 1890’s era house that a friend of mine purchased. No design work though, just good ol’ back breaking labor! This is turning out to be a very rewarding and educational project, working close with the General Contractor and asking questions on the blood and guts of a restoration project from the man building it. They didn’t teach me this stuff in school, and a good deal of this experience should go toward helping me be a better designer. The bad part is there isn’t much work left that I can do.
Last week I had another interview with Netflix for a call center position. I found out today they went another direction, which I guess has a positive outcome. I needed more experience interviewing, cause I know I don’t make the best first impression.
So well, it’s back to the grind of Craigslist and the land of lost resumes. Hey, at least I can pay half my bills this month. Right? The question is though, what the hell am I qualified to do now? It seems all I hear back is I am overqualified for the opportunities available at the moment. The work I do want, which I am qualified for isn’t available because of the great economic slump we are in. Even then, I am only entry level at this point and there is better experience in the talent pool right now. Meh.
On to other stuff, and what my fellow peers in the unemployed designers subculture have been up to…
My friend Colin just finished his book Pedestrian. It can be purchased here. Colin is my typography and design critic, who has countless times torn apart my own attempts at graphic and print media. And I listen and respect every nag he has about my work because of things like this. Pedestrian is a very strong mixed media project.
How about some music? I want to start a podcast of sorts called “Permanent Solution”, I’ll try and discipline myself to get that going this weekend. Meanwhile, I’ve been listening to the release by Cast Spells titled “Bright Works and Baton”. This is a track off that called “A Badge”. Cool.
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Coolness achieved
How cool is this? The Guggenheim’ Wright Restaurant opens today, and I wish I was there to see it.
From the NY Times article.
“…exactly as Frank Lloyd Wright himself would have wanted it: among the 400 drawings he made for the 1959 building, a few were devoted to a ground-floor dining space, though not one particularly suited to a contemporary audience. “The layout was very simple, almost monastic, with clusters of tables aligned with the portholes,” said the architect Andre Kikoski, who designed the restaurant. But, as he explained, “it wasn’t conducive to social interaction, and it certainly wasn’t about the integration of art.” Rather than executing Wright’s original sketches, Kikoski turned the space — most recently a generic cafeteria with brown carpeting — into a modern homage to the legendary architect, who designed the museum to harmonize with the artwork within.”
Read all about it here — The Guggenheim’ Wright Restaurant
This is equally amazing. How cool would it be to work in this office? This is a design by Maurice Mentjens Design, based in Holtum, the Netherlands — designed for Postpanic an animation and design studio.
The link to this is here -Cool Hunter
Weekend manifest
So things around here are about 95% done. I’ve done quite a bit of work over the past week. I just have some fine tuning and various small tweaks left to do. I created a new logo this morning and a new background earlier in the week. The Portfolio page is up, but needs some changes to the function and interaction of the images, and some more static images.
This isn’t a sports blog, so I will spare my opinion on a few things. But, I have to say — it is hard to be a Blazer fan. I am not a huge “luck” guy, I think that good things come from good decisions. However, when your coach is injured something isn’t right. It will be interesting to see how this team bounces back from all the injuries. New York is showing it’s possible to play well well with limited resources, and this Blazer team has battled back and shown toughness in the past. I’m still a Blazer fan, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I just wish it would be a little easier.
This is a print by Vasco Mourao, only 10 were made. I would be stoked to get my hands on one of them. I love the depth and weight of it. I must of spent a half hour just starring at it. The print is I bet quite a mind blowing visual experience.
I still have about a days worth of work left at CDS. I’ve been doing SketchUp work for a Whole Foods store proposal in California. If they like it there might be more work for me. It feels great doing something that I have fun with. If I can I’ll post some renderings of the store.
One quick rant: I really wish the Food Network had a vegetarian show. I am a huge Food Network fan, but it really lacks vegetarian programming. What would it take to get a well produced, fun veg friendly program? Please?
