Currents

I usually don't share much of what inspires me when i actually work on a piece. I collect/research everyday, but only apart of it directly inspires me to create. These have inspired me this week, from color, composition, fonts. I may do this weekly, i dunno.

What font is this?

Amy Seeley & Zachary Lucky

I made a new friend in Amy Seeley a month ago. She had seen some of my work via Lower Lights Burning and asked if I would be interested in doing a tour poster for her. After finding the basic details/co-headlining info I searched for ways to get the 2 in 1 feel with something Canadian.

I made 2 trees and then saw the rest of the poster. 3 images in one -> 1) 2 trees 2) 2 faces facing eachother 3) an wild animal/bob cat. I kept the rest simple, peaks for the illusion of mountains, smaller trees for more depth as well as changing their shape from back ground to foreground to show a progression, and a red moon to break the mono tone feel. I utilized the font MISO that I blogged earlier about, remember, the caps take the cake, drop the lower case.

Amy is an incredible musician with the character to match, a wonderful experience to work with!

Please check out these kids live if you are up in Canada and give em a listen!

AMY SEELEY

ZACHARY LUCKY

Q CAFE

Q jus released a promo video of sorts featuring my pal Bethany and the backing music is live GV! You'll see some other familiar faces in there...TK, Ben Blood, Noah Gundersen.... pretty sweet! Q is always stepping up to more and Bethany is a great part of that. Keep it rollin kids!

Q Cafe Live Music from Q Cafe on Vimeo.

Slip In

Jus after I ponder if it's to early to bring out the boat kicks I find that GQ has an accessories post on spring must haves that include some dapper boat shoes for the upcoming season. Here are a few that I wouldn't mind covering my toes. Gucci, Sperry, Quoddy, Cole Hann....Send me a pair please! The following are in the order of my appreciation.... GUCCI wins.

NO THEFT X FRESH ESPRESSO sighting!

Get these at FRESH ESPRESSO shows or get ahold of PSMOOV at psmoov@gmail.com while they are still available! (These are available for the gents as well)

NO THEFT X NOAH GUNDERSEN

Back in Oct '09 Noah asked me to do a poster for his Whitworth University show in Spokane. Looking back I see that this poster had a huge role in first establishing a knack in my design. These elements would be softer colors, more negative space, & simple shapes. I now have put these things into a lot of current works and have refined my process even more. It's nice to trace currents back, and I'm excited to share that this poster will be hitting the screen printing press of D&L soon, sans show info.

I'm currently working on a 3 color version that will include the NO THEFT logo on it. I'll keep everyone posted on the release and I'm going to work on getting an extra copy or 2 for a give away here & maybe over at LGC.

FRESH ESPRESSO

2 weeks ago Peter Robinson aka PSMOOV asked me if I'd be down for doing a FE shirt. He had me come in to the studio to talk ideas out as well as to get a sneak peek of new FE & MAD RAD tracks! HEYA! I always lean towards type and I wanted it to be SUPER clean. I wanted it to be 'oh so elegant' and have no image stereotypically hip-hop, meaning -> loud/excessive/poor type.
So I started sketching away in my Moleskine and was only satisfied with objects with motion seen by a 3-d element. I translated it to Adobe and threw in a halftone of sorts for the shadows.

These T's are currently only available at their shows and debuted last week at their sold out Neumos show! Congrads kids!

I first sent him this 80's themed font shirt that didn't vibe with him as much as it did me, which is really cool because that's jus how art is. 2 people will experience something visually/audibly and will have 2 diff responses. I actually enjoy working with diff views cus I get to understand other design theories and hopefully I can drop my pride to accept that into new understandings.
I usually don't show things that didn't make it, but as a fan of this I wanted to share.

Hit up FRESH ESPRESSO -> HERE

NO THEFT X HAITI X Q CAFE

I love being involved with doing good, and good that has very measurable effects.

Bethany whom i sing her praises often is doing so much for the Q Cafe which in turn is doing incredible things for the Seatown community. I'm honored to work with such company and to contribute to its fruition.

A majority of HAITI relief posters that I have seen have adopted tattered and distressed images/fonts. I wanted to shy away from that by not using textures. I started with the letter "Q" and made it into the globe, then cut out the AFE from it and used the globes arm for the letter "C". It's not TOO obvious, in fact you have to take some time on it to get it. I placed a book mark behind as a "remember this date" and put a white Swiss cross on it for the "aid" element. I mirrored the book mark ribbon behind the word 'benefit' for unity but changed it up to look more like a ticket, so it wouldn't be so straight forward.

I haven't utilized setting type on a kilter and seeing the position of the globe made it an attractive element to use. The final piece was the minimalistic Haitian flag in the top right corner.

Upon other fresh eye viewings it was suggested that reiterating the Q CAFE would be a plus in case the vague shapes of the globe and its arm weren't enough. I totally agreed and I feel like it was perfect for the negative space above the HAITI.

Voila! Please catch the show, empty your pockets for the suffering that's intangible to most of us. I believe strongly that the little will be multiplied.

LACOSTE SLEEKNESS

NO THEFT X GV

Garage Voice wanted to have new merch for the TOUR that just started yesterday. The Freeze & Thaw logo was born of snowflake to rain drop and everything followed. The 18x24 print was made by D&L Screenprinting of Seattle who are also responsible for incredible BRMC, RACONTEURS, RADIOHEAD, you name it prints ->they've done it. Only 100 were made for the tour so if you like it when you see it, get yo mitts on it before they're gone!

GV has also made some sweet tour merch packages that in my designers opinion are too cheap! BUT if that means more peeps can have the goods...i guess its worth it. Look over at GV's site later today for the diff. merch packages that will be available (tanx vanja for your hard work :)

Wear your colors

This year I'm becoming more French. I'm going to celebrate Bastille day, learn some new vocabulary, cook everything with butter, eat more bread w/cheese and hopefully be in France for my birthday. I'm sure by purchasing either one of these sweaters from French brand SIX PACK would be a great way to jump start the process.

Searchin

I need a new pair of kicks. I've been really good at not buying every shoe I like, and now when I'm ready I'm in a dilemma. It's the akward middle of the season era. It's winter both in season and whats available fashion wise, but spring is knockin heavy on Seatowns door and with the buds already poppin' I'm eager to match my kicks with the times.

Is it to early to bring out boat kicks? MAYBE, but us coast kids have a better excuse to bring em out before the rest of the states. I want casual kicks that can team up with my dress/casual look. I want to be street when I want and a lil dressed up when I want. Is there a shoe that can do the tag team? Here's the latest i've been looking at.

Terrariums

So Jenn got me sold out on these glass plant containers during our last tour. I've been wanting to get going and make some ever since. I started small, 2 plants from IKEA, 1 died while i was on tour and i jus got a new pretty one :D

This is the next step of having lovely nature things in my office. ANYONE have suggestions on how to get started on a very poor mans budget? I REALLY really want to do this!

MARTIN + OSA

Um yes please! Get on my legs!

Vintage Slim Fit Jean

MISO

I've been using the font Quicksand lately and really like it, but it's nice finding more to like ;D This is MISO and I really like the uppercase and number/goodies, lowercase though is no gem, so don't bother with it. If you like caps and sans serif i'd test this one out, its free HERE

Washington Mile

Katrina Ong is the Director/House Manager/Booking Person at the Renton venue The Upper Room. Me and the GV boys had the treat of being apart of the opening and since then, Katrina has been committed to uping the anti, bringing in local/seatown bands, and developing the Renton music scene. My boy TK jus played a packed show there, so watch out for more to come from this up and coming venue, its gettin LEGIT!

When I find a font its easy for me to use often, as soon as I tried this new deco font I found for the WM I saw a mailbox and ran with it. At first it was horizontal with a closer cropping to the main image. Katrina was concerned that the presence of the venue wasn't strong enough, so I changed it to vertical, zoomed out a bit and placed the venue dead center. I liked the negative space but it needed something to break the sterile mood of it. The falling letter could bring so much implications to a story that it was impossible to resist throwing it in there. I dropped the band names from the top and put it in the letter. I used an international letter for a little more exotic flavor too.

I'm grateful for another venue opportunity! Thank you Katrina, you're a gem :D

GV & ADAM PASION

Well here it is. I just wrote a lengthy theory blog beneath this to explain it all :D It's always more challenging for me to do something for GV than any other client.

Freeze & Thaw Tour

Garage Voice is about to embark on the 1st tour of the year. It's going to be really special. We are touring with Adam Pasion whom i look up to greatly. A wonderful spiritual brother whom when i'm around i think of Jesus' character. The 3 weeks are going to be inspiring in so many ways, i'm most eager to begin that time together as equally as promoting the Freeze & Thaw record. We have some brand new merch for the tour that the boys entrusted to me, and I think its some great stuff ( i even ordered an extra shirt for me to wear...is that bad?).

This tour poster was the hardest challenge for me yet. I dunno exactly why, a tour poster is bigger than a show. In my mind it carries more weight because it's seen by a lot of first timers to the band name maybe? for instance in seatown where we play more often the name becomes more household and association may not be dependent to one poster design. Where as an area we come thru maybe 3 times a yr the first impression could mean a lot! I may be overthinking this, but this is a glimpse into my struggle for creating this new poster.

I overcame this 2 week struggle by looking at single elements of touring, scenery, activities, moods, i then decided to make independent images to reflect that. I'm not an illustrator, so this is intimidating to do, i think TYPE first and then arrange pieces around that very minimally. One by one after creating them I started to put em together. The below are some of them with thoughts!



This is the logo for freeze & thaw, the transfiguration of snowflake to teardrop, i'm really proud of this actually. I then wondered how i could do something similar for Adam Pasion's record.


Adam's album title is "O hear the Rattling" so i thought of the album cover of a gent w/top hat holding hands with a skeleton. The images were pretty easy to do and i liked keeping the same shape of the bezier curve at the tops for the unity of the pieces.


This past tour had 2 amazing fotographers, Ben the Blood & Michael the Porter. They kill whatever they touch/shoot. Always inspired to be around em.


Many times on the road you can look for miles and miles and feel like nothing is getting closer, this image describes that perfectly in my mind :D


For the first time GV has Freeze & Thaw on vinyl! One of the stickers is orange :D


Either music or road safetly announces, the radio passed some lengthy drives

RING! DING! DING!

This terrific girl Karli, I have no other words, I'm overwhelmed with joy!! The very best to her & Caleb! The tears are comin!

Thats Not Nice