Some things from my mind and hard drive

I was asked by my good friend and amazing Austin TX photographer Patrick Meredith abut some ideas for a smallish logo design to use for god knows what (Patrick has his irons in 80 different fires at all times, that’s one of my favorite things about him). So I began working on some things he might fance. He was looking for something really simple and straightforward with little to no graphic element to it. So these are what I shot his way.

Designs for Patrick Meredith

I’ve been immersing myself in the whole minimalist aesthetic for a while now thanks to Mr. Stephen Wasson, a great designer and an amazing photographer in his own right. I can usually be caught surfing the MOCO LOCO website at least once a day checking out the architecture and design centric furniture and such they have such an affinity for posting. I also recommend Jim Krause’s Color and Type indexes for those of you who are color blind like me and Stephen or would like to see some examples of others’ use of text and color. For those of you who are much too advanced for books like those, you should check this out: here

-listening to-

The arcade fire – demos

By Hook or Crook – Eudora e.p.

The anniversary – designing a nervous breakdown

reasonings for the seasonings

I’ve been tapping in to a bunch of design blogs that I have truly come to love. I’m going to share some of that love with you here, now, in the nude.

awesome

iso50 is absolutely the shit. Scott is a design master and a lot of his shit is a sight to behold, not to mention the fact that he’s a pretty bitchin electronic music artist as well and goes under the band name Tycho. The sheer amount of posts he and his evildoers do on a weekly basis is amazing, that doesnt even touch on the technical information, awesome videos and general wealth of knowledge to be explored on the blog. Scott has a wealth of knowledge that he’s been so kind as to shell out on every occasion he can; from explaining what raid 0 and 1 drives do for you and your files to reviewing some sweet musical equipment. ISO50 is a renaissance mans design blog.

a DDC Joint

I’ve been following the blog of Aaron Draplin of the DDC (Draplindustries Design Company) very closely as of late. His blatant use of profanity and “yer” made him a quick favorite of mine. He’s had his hands all over the snowboarding industry and is part of the coolest sketchbook makers this side of a child labor camp: Field Notes. You can also see a sneak preview of the documentary coming out soon that is apparently about him here. (lots of F-words, great story though.) Oh yeah, not only is everything he says hilarious and his blog posts are usually super good, Aaron is also a hell of a graphic designer too.

I was recently turned on to this website by Steve Wasson called Grain Edit. Grain edit is a collection of uber inspiring work from several designers all over the place. I suggest checking it out if you have the brain shits one day. There are some seriously awesome designers and products touched on in their space on the web. Worth mentioning are the articles on Delicious Design League and the neither fish nor foul interview.

Sascha Barr of thisisthenewyear.com

I don’t think there will never be a time in my life as a creative when I don’t gush over Sascha Barr. I love his work and the overall aesthetic of the stuff he does. He’s made posters for a friend or two of mine and for people I can’t even begin to wonder what it’s like to work for as well. He comes off as a nice and humble dude via email and is eager to answer questions if you have them. If you have time check his stuff out at length and make sure to check the detailed images.

I think my blog is going to slowly but surely become a place for me to share more and more of my design oriented feelings and inspirations. Next time I’ll be exploring the effect of post modernism on the printmaking world at large… nah I’m just fucking with you. It’ll probably be dick and fart jokes.

-currently listening to-

Blind Pilot – 3 rounds and a sound

Lucero – 1372 overton park

Patton Oswalt – my weakness is strong

-Currently reading-

David Cross – I drink for a reason

Empty house.

It’s the end of an era. I will be moving back in with my parents soon. I’m doing so to alleviate bills from my life and make sure this summer is open for possibilities of touring, road trips and general tomfoolery. I’ve been squatting in our empty house for a few days now and it’s been good, but lonely. Theres no footsteps across our shitty hardwood floors, theres no loud tv coming from C’s room. I feel like a parent whose children have left but in reality I’m a dweller in a place where I’m leaving and feel like the house is taking something from me. I know it sounds silly but that’s how I feel. For about the last two years I’ve called this place home, Now I’m gutting my things out of it and feeling less than great about it.

Music I cant stop listening to 9/23

Good Old War – only way to be alone (on your now with The Honorary Title and my buddy Cory Branan)

This will destroy you – s/t

Band of Horses – Cease to Begin

Tooth ache

My wisdom teeth have officially kicked my ass. It’s done that’s it, it’s over. I’m in enough pain that I’m blogging about it rather than whining. I took 4 Tylenol PM’s last night and passed out to wake up this morning around 5a.m. in a lot of pain. Orajel was very little help. I’m gonna need booze and hugs, STAT.

Piss Poor/design

I do a piss poor job of keeping up with this nonsense but lately I’ve had a wild hair up my ass to write a bit more. I’ve started using Stumble Upon and Delicious in tandem and it’s pretty much the greatest thing to happen to me since sex and/or whiskey (both together usually ends badly and with mutual disappointment). The Idea is that Delicious tracks your bookmarks and stores them on a server where you can categorize them as things like inspiration, fonts and reference, used in tandem with Stumble you fill up your stuff very quickly and have an unequivocal source of inspiration. Using my two power programs I’ve come upon some of the greatest things ever. Design blogs I never knew about, websites of artists’ whose work is frightening and awesome at the same time and a lot of architecture related resources. I’m becoming enamored with modern European design as far as architecture goes. Them Europeans dream up all these crazy ways for Minimal space to be maximized for comfort and efficiency. Like this guy:

this place is sick.

august 10

been a while. Not much to report.

Band’s back in a rhythm of sorts. it;’s a weird one though. With school and such coming up soon it’s kind of a wash to get started and be able to play maybe 2 times a month tops.

Applied to UMKC.

Fell in love with like 3 girls in the last 2 months. haha. I got an easy heart. I always thought there was a certain kind of lady I was way into… I was wrong… as usual.

gonna have a blast on the birthday again this year i think. we’ll see.

once I had a casual acquaintance with my impending doom?whatever.

lets go

where

over here

why

cause I said so

ok?

I think this blog is much less exciting than I though it would be. New BHOC song, I will leak the first lines here. now.

she got eyes like a storm on a day too cold to rain

snow blankets houses like your clay over wire frame

we were wholly desperate humans but we knew what we were doing

we crossed wicker gas and matches and the things made for the flame

this is tentative. there are a ton of changes to be made. we’re working on the songs in tandem, nathan and I. This whole writing together thing is new for the both of us so it’s an experience and it’s turning out to be fun really.

Art Feeds Warped Tour – Texas

This is what my schdule looks like for the next few days.

FUUUUUUUCK.

just how socially unacceptable am I?

I was sitting at a stoplight about 5 minutes ago and I was thinking to myself… man my head hurts. I just got done with lunch and the smell of cooking makes me sick sometimes. Just then a woman stepped off the curb and into the intersection.  She stepped off the curb in slow motion and into my head. Covered in red and white polka dots, her blouse inflicted even more pain on my aching head. She looked supremely pissed, as a lot of women in their 50’s do. All I could thing as she walked was “Man she looks pissed… I bet she’s a mean mean bitch.” Then I had convinced myself that she was in fact a horrid-evil-bitch. Almost instantly upon making my decision I got the bubble guts… Bad. So I flatulated and upon doing so I wished the horrid-bitch lady had super hearing so she could have heard my flatulence and been completely offended by it. A replay rolled in my head where when in front of my car she stopped and turned to me as if to say “You sir, are disgusting and I am highly offended!” At which point I would hacve given her the finger and screamed (almost falsetto) something to the tune of “Serves you right you horrid-evil-bitch-lady!!” Then the light was green. I let out a little chuckle anddrove home eager to tell the world about my flatulence.

San Francisco – Food

Hank the Dungeness Crab

I’ll have further talks on Modern art and my experiences at the SFMoMA soon. for now I want to talk a little bit about a new friend I made. This new friend is a Dungeness Crab. This little fellow marks my first forree’ into the consumption of “Prime Rib.” There is a restaurant in the Bay Area called The Dead Fish that my family decided to venture out to for dinner. I must say hat this dinner was by far one of my favorites on the trip. Although this one was one of my favorites the absolute best thing about this trip time after time has been Bay Area cuisine of all types.

Another one of the places we dined while in California was a very small asian restaurant strangely named Cordon Bleu. This place had by far the best Thai food I have ever consumed and could seat no more than 10 people. Tops. The cooking surface is close enought that the temperature would surely become uncomfortable were this place not nestled in the most odd climate I’ve had the pleasure/pain of residing in for any amount of time. As far as Asian food goes the amount of fresh fish and sushi available in the bay area is staggering. We dined at a place called Kyoto with a sizeable saki collection and a considerably more complex and consequently satisfying menu than what any midwesterner is accustomed to when chooseing sushi rolls.

A lot of talk has been seafood and/or Asian centric so far but there was absolutely no scarcity of american, latin and italian foods in the area. We were positioned n a district strangely named “The Tenderloin” which is

Cordon Bleu

apparently pretty bad and because of its ghetto appearance and living situations has quickly become a hotspot for young hipsters needing cheap places to live. The Hipster culture has a past of taking working class symbols and trends and turning them into kitschy trends, apparently not even the Tenderloin is immune to the onslaught of hipster culture being brought to the masses. One of the eateries in out neighborhood that I wish we had found sooner was Tommy’s Joynt, a bar and eatery serving up a vast menu of drunk food, ethnic fare and delicious faux southern  dishes. The beer selection at Tommy’s is second to none and the staff is friendly, helpful and willing to chit chat about how the Lakers are c-cksuckers well into the witching hour. We had a couple of great sandwiches using meats smoket at Tommy’s. I passed on the sweet and sour ribs and corned beef and cabbage that was offered among other dishes but they both looked fantastic.

The bay area offers up a lot of locally owned restaurants with a greasy spoon hole in the wall feel (because they are in fact hole in the wall joints) with food that is without a doubt some of the best we’d had in any city. The amount of things to do in the city is endless. The bar selection in our area alone was impressive to say the least with more dives in a square block than joplin houses in an entire city. The main difference between the dives in SF and the ones at home is that the young hip rocker crowd has taken over all but ones dotting the deep reaches of the Tenderloin (where people will offer you “some rock” without flinching.).Despite the area we stayed in, Frisco is a beautiful city with genuinely nice people and I can honestly say I will be back without a doubt.