DESIGN: The two sides of a sharp sword

I'm weary of design being used to jump on the band wagon of pointing fingers at BP. To me the sarcasm in it makes light of the situation and dumbs it down. It's easy to be critical of others in the first place and 10x easier when others make mistakes. I'd like to see design make a turn for the better with the rescue outreach that is so greatly needed for the ocean/inhabitants, the jobs that are suffering at the cost of depending on the coast, & for great doers to arise from this tragedy.

I've chosen two pieces that are contrasting in my mind and direct attention to the spill in two diff. ways. The first is by Gavin Potenza whom I'm admire greatly. He constructively takes all the attention from this current spill and zooms out to other oil spill tragedies that have occurred. I like this because it's easy for one to be narrow minded when pain is involved, so to see the other sufferers in your spectrum deff. changes your perspective.


The other piece i've chosen is sarcasm heavy to show the polar opposites that design can have on the same topic. I haven't researched the designers identity, I'm not here to spread a fire, I want to see mending.

BE CREATIVELY HEALTHY

Hello fellow creative kids who use their skills for income. You owe it to yourself to stop what you are doing and read this ARTICLE

M KNIGHT x BEN BLOOD

(fotos by Ben Blood)

A couple weeks back my pal Melodie had a birthday bash and Ben Blood took snaps thru the evening & did a special photo booth at the end. See some special snaps HERE

ALSO why am I making such a face? What expression would you call that? I'm silly.

Karli & Caleb + ZUMI

My friends Karli & Caleb married each other this past weekend. It was one of my favorites weddings i've been too. Deeply spiritual, great live music through out, and Karlis amazing design touch was everywhere. When we arrived right before Karli walked down the isle Ben ran over to me and said 'here, shoot some stuff' 1 a minute later the wedding started. I didn't get as much as I had hoped, there was SO much amazing things to shoot, but the master of visual gold will take care of that for ya'll...ahem.. cough..Ben Blood. Here's a video he pieced together of some of the footage i shot. I'm so happy for these 2 precious people, i love em so much.

karli and caleb from Ben Blood on Vimeo.

MY NEXT DESK

Crate & Barrel

NO THEFT x TONY KEVIN JR

Tony is playing the The Abbey in a couple weeks, it's an excellent opportunity and in the midst of a great community of musicians/listeners. For this poster I wanted it to be more intimate and shy away from harsh lines of design. Tric took a snap of TK last week at Neptune and it's been on my mind since. I wanted to draw it as a modern bust, jus neck and up. I was about 3/4's done drawing it and my pen dried out, I was kinda grumpy about it, but then jus decided to go with it. I kept it all pen related with the exception of the block behind TK, my friend Heather was over hanging out while I was finishing this up and I asked her to write Tony's name in Pen. I was sold, I had her write all the information for it. (You're a champ Heather).

Design aside, TK has been writing like a warrior. His new stuff is killing it live, I'm very eager for his first Full length.

AMANDA DUFORD x NO THEFT

I have finished all the watercoloring/cutting out of my new record cover for Amanda Duford's first release. It's my most ambitious project yet and I'm super proud of it. VANJA. is tag teaming with me again on it with her foto skills. I can't wait to share this. This is it all packaged and ready to be shipped to VANJA.

HAPPY BASTILLE DAY

LIVE STRONG x TOUR DE FRANCE

There's not a day that I don't think of my grandparents Thomas A. Stiles and Mary Lou Carr Stiles, I was blessed to be by their side when they passed away from cancer. Their role in bringing me up will always be with me, as I mature, as I have my own children, and hopefully I'm alive when they have children.

I just saw that Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG is doing this thing called 'Chalkbot' where you use 40 letters to right a message. It gets posted on their site and some will get printed on signs to be put on the side of the road that Tour De France treks through. It's pretty cool reading some that have already been posted. I encourage ya'll to right something, hope gives courage in so many ways. This is one small way of spreading it. Here's my 40 letter message.

Go HERE to write a message.

Listening to:

My goal by years end is to have all of The Black Keys on vinyl.

LOG SEATS

I want to make these!

NEXT PROJECT

Visit the Botany Factory to get excited about plant nurturing.

Elliott Panigot

My little brother (ahem... 6 '3) turned 18 today! This kids a genius. Got great scholarships to go to college, has a wicked sense of sarcasm, and good looking of course..he's a Panigot. I'm excited to see more of his unfolding life and what he will do with it. 8 yrs ago he drew this picture of me playing a guitar. I hang it next to my Pablo Picasso 'old guitarist' from the blue period on my wall. Love you kiddo!

Amy Seeley

Amy Seeley asked me to do a poster for her show at the Woods coming up. I've heard about this venue and seen live performances of when it first opened on KEXP's blog. I'm stoked for her to have a show here, I'd deff. like to go, shoot, maybe I will. The concept hit me quick, piano player+venue hint. So I masked some sweet wood grain in the piano outline and went muted colors on it. I did this version with a tight gridded type box and another version pulling out the venue name because of its growing notoriety. I'm posting the one I'm more fond of :D

Amy is a dear to work with and it's incredible working with someone who is this active with pursuing music. I got some sneak peaks of her recording process during her time in Montana. I can't wait for those to go public. Very organic, instruments everywhere, just looked like a lot of fun. If you're in Portland Aug 11. make no other plans besides being at The Woods, gonna be a treat!

In Disguise

This is making my day so far.

Animated Goodness

Just saw this trailer, has an intriguing mysterious story with cool design elements. It's currently playing here in Seattle! Have a peak and see what you think.

JEEP

On this cold rainy 4th of July in Seattle several terrific things happened. I grubbed up with my extended family : Ben Blood, Roald & Lauren, Hillary, and Buce. We had 3 grills goin! We really porked out! Another amazin thing that happened was Hillary saying she had a Jeep, this sent a shot of nostalgia quickly into my Michigan avenues. We shared our families both always having Jeeps and both of us learning how to drive stick in em. I remember going to Uncle Tommy's house and he said 'heres the keys, lets go into the corn field and learn how to drive stick'. That was a great no bars full boar experience. I think I was 12.

(this is the one I drove today)

Hillary then told me 'wanna take it for a spin?' I was too nervous to take someones Jeep on a spin and insisted she drove and I'd go for a ride. We went out and she schooled me on ALL things Jeep. She named all the parts, explained the different engine types for different Jeep models. It was a full thrashing of my naivety. She finally got me to take it for a drive. It was much different than the easy Honda stick. You had to kinda man handle it, the gear shift wasn't really smooth, the stick needed some muscle to move it, and it also had an extra gear with an extended release on the clutch. As soon as I got the hang of it, I wanted to drive over everything and forget the roads! It was fantastic! I came back super gitty.

Thanks everyone for a swell 4th. Thanks Hillary for a glimpse of my past and hopeful future of having a Jeep!

I WANT ONE

Summer Currents of JUNE