Makin’ My Trailer Purtty

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I am sorry that I have been slackin’ on the posts but I am in the middle of a lot of projects and haven’t finished anything for a while. Here are my new pieces of art that I have acquired over the last month or so. First is the huge ass, completely amazing Sam Flores piece titled Flores y Zorro that I won from UpperPlayground.com. It is a massive 4ft x 6ft acrylic and spray paint on canvas. I won it by simply entering my email address on the Upper Playground site for their 10th Anniversary giveaway. Flores is a well know Bay Area artist who I first discovered in Juxtapoz Magazine. The piece was hand delivered to me by Adam Krohn, the VP or Upper Playground who is a pretty cool guy.

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The next piece was given to me by Forest Stearns when he was in town for the Art Show a couple weeks ago. It is a limited edition, several color, 18in x 23in screen print which I believe is titled The End of an Era. Forest’s work is always enjoyable to look at. There are plenty of little creatures and nuances I discover every time I look at this piece.

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My final piece came when I ordered Mastodon‘s deluxe Crack the Skye packaging which came with a 14in x 14in lithograph of Paul Romano’s album art. Romano’s design has made a huge impact on my work since I discover him and Mastodon on a shelf at a Tower Records in Long Beach. The music is great, the packaging is great. Check it out.

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Of course these aren’t in their final and proper hanging devices, but I just wanted ya’ll to see them. If anyone has a sweet baby blue frame to for the Stearns piece let me know!

Sonora Art Show Success!

There isn’t much to do out here in the foothills, but there is a small group of people looking to change that. Last night those brave enough to expose themselves to new music, images and ideas headed to the Frog & Fiddle in downtown Sonora. The Frog & Fiddle has become the new hot spot for interesting night life in Tuolumne County. The outstanding art of Forest Stearns provided visual entertainment for the evenings festivities. I met Forest through the Returning Show last summer. He is a great guy, terrific artist and an eager contributor to the new arts culture of Tuolumne County. Soon enough I will have collaborations and interviews with Forest to post for now if you missed out on the fantastic Art Show last night here are some images:

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{Forest Stearns and Duane}

The art of Forest Stearns is always impressive and inspiring.

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The DJs were doing their thing.

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A great time was had by all.

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Calligraffiti

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I have just been enlightened to the work of Niels Shoe Meulman. A street artist, designer and calligrapher out of Amsterdam. I discovered his work while researching Krink paint markers for upcoming live art events. Shoe, as he is called, started tagging in the early 80’s and has gained gallery notoriety be melding the grit and aggression of graffiti with the beauty and elegance of calligraphy. I am not one for words, so here is an excerpt from his site.

WHAT IS CALLIGRAFFITI?

The simple answer:

Calligraffiti is a combination of Calligraphy and Graffiti.

Calligraphy is about the art of writing and can have many forms. Whether it be Japanese ancient brush characters, Arabic pictorial scripts, illuminated mediaeval books or swirly quill writing… all calligraphy.

Graffiti is the art of getting your (pseudo) name up by writing on an urban environment. Perfected in New York City and now a worldwide phenomenon.

The fairly new art of Graffiti and its somewhat rigid rules prompts us to look further back into the history of writing. This is exactly what Niels Shoe Meulman has been doing since his teens, consequently starting to combine the two at the beginning of this century. Thus resulting in Calligraffiti: traditional handstyles with a metropolitan attitude.

Here is a selection of images from his Calligraffiti site, but you should really go on there yourself and check it out:

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Return on Design

This is an article that was forwarded to me by one of my clients. The article was written by Seth Godin a marketing guru of sorts who writes all sorts of books and blogs centered around marketing and whatnot. I am not sure what she is trying to hint at but it is interesting information. Hopefully she considers me to fall under a positive return and isn’t passively-aggressively telling me to get my shit together! How do your clients think of you? Do they consider you a waste of money? Take a glance at the article and give it a think. In these had economic time you are really going to have to sell yourself and your talents to wrangle up some clients.

Return on Design

by Seth Godin

Return on investment is easy to measure. You put money in, you measure money out, divide and prosper.

But return on design? (Design: graphics, system engineering, user interface etc.)

Design can take money and time and guts, and what do you get in return? It turns out that the sort of return you’re getting (and hoping for) will drive the decisions you make about design.

I think there are four zones of return that are interesting to think about. I find it’s more useful to look at them as distinct states as opposed to a graduated line, because it’s easy to spend a lot of time and money on design but not move up in benefits the way you might expect. Crest might have a better package than Colgate (or the other way around, I can’t remember), but it doesn’t sell any more units…

Negative return. The local store with the boarded up window, the drooping sign and the peeling paint is watching their business suffer because they have a design that actually hurts them. Software products suffer from this ailment often. If the design actively gets in the way of the story you tell or the utility you deliver, you lose money and share.

No impact. Most design falls into this category. While aesthetically important, design in this case is just a matter of taste, not measurable revenue. You might not like the way the liquor store looks, or the label on that bottle of wine, but it’s not having any effect on sales. It’s good enough.

Positive return.
We’re seeing a dramatic increase in this category. Everything from a bag of potato chips to an online web service can generate incremental sales and better utility as a result of smart design.

The whole thing.
There are a few products where smart design is the product (or at least the product’s reason for being). If you’re not in love with the design of a Porsche 911, you would never consider buying it–same as an OXO peeler.  The challenge of building your product around breakthrough design is that the design has to in fact be a breakthrough. And that means spending far more time or money than your competitors who are merely seeking a positive return.

Knowing where you stand and where you’re headed is critical. If you have a negative return on design, go ahead and spend enough money to get neutral, asap. But don’t spend so much that you’re overinvesting just to get to neutral. Watching a local store build an expensive but not stellar custom building is the perfect example of this mismatch.

If you’re betting the whole thing, building your service launch on design first, skimping on design is plain foolish.The Guggenheim in Bilbao would be empty if they’d merely hired a very good architect.

Josh Ryan, my friend

I see that many people have been searching the blog for information on the sad story of Josh Ryan. Here is what I have for you:

A few weeks back I posted an excited rant on the new screen printing business my friends and I were working on. Josh Ryan, the guy who brought us all together to get excited about the project ended his life last week, Tuesday the 24th of February. Josh was one of the nicest, most out going and personable people I have ever had the pleasure of calling friend. We met in high school and got to know each other on the wrestling team. We were the same weight so we had to wrestle off for the varsity position every week.  We lost connection (like I did with most people) when we parted ways for college. We reunited when we both moved back to Tuolumne County. He would always ask me about graphic design and screen printing and propose the idea of working together. It wasn’t until recently that we really started working together and setting up the business plan with our partners. We had met with potential clients, attended community meetings and signed up for volunteer work together. He was always talking about the future and setting up plans for us and the print shop. The last day I saw him I had brought him to the print shop I use for my relief printing. He was really excited to learn the craft and start a new painting. We made plans to meet the next day to work on a project together. The next day came and I couldn’t get a hold of him. I didn’t think much of it because Josh didn’t have a working cell phone. Later that night Calen called me and told me of the news. I was in a state of disbelief and denial for the rest of the week. It is still hard to believe that my friend, someone whom I had been working so closely with, could be feeling how he did without ever showing the slightest hint of depression, distress or angst. Know that nothing is so bad that you need to end your life. Attend his memorial and you will see the hundreds of people loved Josh and would have done everything in their power to keep him here with us today.

A memorial will be held in Josh’s honor this Sunday, March 8th at 1:30pm at the Sierra Bible Church.

UTL v. Monterey

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I spent the last weekend having a great time in Monterey, CA for my girlfriend’s 25th. Monterey is a great place to visit (tourist trap) with plenty of period typography and hand painted signs. Take a peek:

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{vintage seafood packaging greets you as you enter the aquarium}

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{I noticed this driving through downtown Monterey}

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{showin’ ya the finger}