Archive for April, 2009

Just a quick summary of this case since the details and “facts” have been shifting so much: Designer Jon Engle cried foul and the entire internet rushed to his aid. Engle accused a stock art site of stealing his designs and then billing him $18,000 for them. But as it turns out, he may be the real culprit. Read on and come to your own conclusions. This is an epic tale!

DOUBLE EDIT!: It just keeps looking worse for old Jonny-boy’s case. Jo just linked to a nice summary of this whole disaster which can be found here. Frank also sent in this link to some side-by-side comparisons of Jon’s work and the StockArt stuff. If this turns out to be all wrong, why did this guy do it? Perhaps he didn’t think it would blow up so big? If in fact this is all some elaborate hoax, $18,000 is probably the least of Jon Engle’s worries now. What a mess!

Edit: Wow! This is a saga for the history books. After posting this article, a few astute readers pointed out this thread on Reddit. Pretty interesting information there. I guess it’s up to you to decide who’s at fault here.

The alleged story — in Jon’s words — can be found here. But in light of recent information, you may want to take it all with a grain of salt. Either way, quite an interesting train wreck of a story this will be if it all turns out to be as upside-down as it’s starting to look.

I finally took the time to check out Daft Punk’s latest film, Electroma, tonight and I must say it was pretty impressive. The cinematography and visuals are breathtaking and the sound design and music (which was, sort of ironically, not made by Daft Punk) is incredible. The plot is pretty much an afterthought though; your standard issue vague, arthouse storyline that didn’t really move me in any way. But I didn’t want that out of it, nor was I expecting it, so I can’t knock the film for it. The substance is in the imagery and it’s simply beautiful. When paired with the excellent sound design it achieves a 2001-esque vibe, a sort of retro-future as imagined in the 80’s. You can watch a Vimeo clip from the film below featuring the superb laboratory scene (from which the stills above were taken). It’s out now on DVD and I would have included the cover and title graphics, but they’re pretty bad, which is a shame because a film with imagery like this just begs to be wrapped in quality design.

I couldn’t help myself but these 2 bands are very unrated and deserve 2 songs posted by each group.

One Second Bridge seems to be a Spanish duo that makes lovely faint daydream songs, N°2 really grabbed my attention because around the 1:26 min mark this looped echo comes in and steals your attention and fades out, its what I can only describe as the perfect interruption. Sucio Cielo Azul is a little more slow going but still stunning and at a perfect length.

Don’t mix up Cloudland Canyon with Canyon Country, Canyon Country has plenty of slow post showgaze vocals and definitely a hint of The Doves and/or GOOD Air.

One Second Bridge -N °2

One Second Bridge – Sucio Cielo Azul

Canyon Country – Dead Or Dreaming

Canyon Country – Setting Sun

A while ago I mentioned a project I was working on for class regarding a film festival. The project is about halfway done at this point and I thought I’d post a little (tiny) bit of what I’ve been working on. The project is to create a hypothetical film festival centered around a director of our choice. We are to design all of the collateral that would support the festival; posters, catalogs, tickets, schedules, signage, products, a website, trailer, and DVD packaging to name a few. The style is to be reminiscent of the director, but we are not meant to copy the existing visual branding that surround the films.

As Wes Anderson is my favorite director, I decided to create my fictional film festival surrounding his work. His films are packed with beautiful imagery and all adhere to his very distinctive visual tendencies and style. Of all the directors I was considering (Gondry, Allen, Fincher) his work seemed to have the most exciting/appealing visual possibilities. I started out with a much different approach than what you see above, and was mainly just taking pictures of random objects and curiosities and slapping type over the whole thing. My first directions were really bad, fantastically terrible even. I was pretty much just poorly recreating shots from some of the films and not inserting any additional concept to the look and feel. (I’ll post some of these earlier directions in later process posts).

The direction I eventually landed on, and what you see a piece of above, was a combination of tilt-shift photography and Anderson’s typeface of choice. The use of Futura Bold is a direct tip of the hat to his style. I figured I needed to have at least one direct visual link, given that my image style was much more divergent, and Futura Bold would be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with his work. The concept behind the tilt-shift choice was based on the observation that all of Anderson’s films seem to take place in a parallel social universe where people say what’s on their mind and things unfold in most peculiar ways. Anderson, being the auteur that he is, sort of curates this whole crazy universe. The tilt shift look, in addition to being visually captivating enough to grab attention, is meant to conjure this image of Anderson overseeing this unusual world that exists in his films. I have been tilt-shifting my own photography so far, with fairly successful results, and it’s been a fun technique to learn. I try to use my own photography whenever possible, and find the “Flickr look” (as in people sourcing images on Flickr) that pervades most projects at school exceptionally irritating. It’s hard to generate your own imagery for a project this big, especially if the concept is unusual, but I feel much more proud of the end result when everything is of my own creation.

The centerpiece of the project is meant to be the logo. We spent the first couple weeks coming up with logo treatments and titles for our film festival (Just calling it the “Wes Anderson Film Festival” was not allowed). For my project, I have neither a title or a consistent logo mark. The logo and title unfold throughout my project, and are consistent in their type treatment and ridiculousness of the language. For example, the title of the LP above is “I Should Probably Try Harder to Score Chicks,” a line from Rushmore. The “logo” that appears at the top of the main film poster is “They Were Giving Each Other Handjobs While You Were Taking a Nap by the Pool.” When you see a lot of pieces of the puzzle, the lack one mark is not evident because the consistent type treatment and language tie everything together. It’s also fun to have super random sentences gracing the front of all of the work; makes for a much more humorous project.

Above is just one piece of the massive project that I am attempting to put together. It is a soundtrack of songs that are either in some of the films, or feel like they might be, and is still very much a work in progress. Having landed on a image/type style, with about a month to go, my motivation has trickled to a crawl. The hardest thing for me is conceptualizing what the project will look/feel like, and once I have this locked down (and it’s just a matter of applying it to all the different formats), I lose a lot of interest in what I’m doing. I’ll kick back into gear soon, and hopefully will have more pieces to show in the weeks to come.

It’s been a few weeks since we launched the ISO50 Playlist and now a brand new set of tracks is loaded up for your listening pleasure. Just hit play — top of the page, center column (RSS readers must visit site to listen). I am working on the code to allow loading of older playlists which will be archived in the future. Enjoy!

ISO50 Playlist 002 – Compiled by Jakub.

Track Listing:

1. SKALPEL – SCULPTURE
2. CLOUDLAND CANYON – DAMBALA
3. BIBIO – ABERRIW
4. JIM O’ROURKE – FUZZY SUN
5. M83 – YOU APPEARING (ADDLED EDIT)
6. GROUPER – HEAVY WATER/I’D RATHER BE SLEEPING
7. TSTEWART – WHAT’S THIS COLOR
8. AMERICA – AMERICA – TIN MAN
9. MICHNA – DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO
10. RATATAT – MONTANITA
11. STUDIO – LIFE’S A BEACH!
12. PETER BJORN AND JOHN – ERIK’S FISHING TRIP
13. TOM TYLER – DAYLIGHT ROBBED HER
14. CLOSER MUSIK – 1,2,3, NO GRAVITY
15. FARBEN – AS LONG AS THERE’S LOVE AROUND – ORIGINAL MIX
16. PAUL KALKBRENNER – AARON
17. THE CHAP – AUTO WHERE TO
18. MILOSH – COULDN’T SLEEP
19. MOUNTAINS – BLOWN GLASS TYPEWRITER
20. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – VISITING FRIENDS

Hit play on the player at the top of the page (center column) to start.

@McCrothers pointed out the fact that you could find some very interesting vintage items on Etsy. I thought it was all about handmade accessories and trinkets, but the above examples suggest otherwise. They’re from the 26 Olive Street shop where you’ll find a few other interesting odds and ends along with a lot of nicely Poladroid-erized product shots. This comes via a Valet article breaking down the Etsy second-hand market.

This thing’s gonna change everything. The new Operator 1 (OP-1) from Teenage Engineering truly shows how beautiful synthesis can be (though the Buchla 200e definitely has some chips in the pile).

A hybrid digital synthesizer and MIDI controller with enough features to question if this thing is even real.

8 synthesizer models (FM, Virtual Analog, String, +), 8 samplers, on board effects, OLED display, battery powered, built in microphone, FM radio, built in speaker, mp3 export, and a sequencer so cool – it’s still “secret”.

ETA: 10-12 months. Price TBA.

More info here: http://teenageengineering.com/products/op-1/

“TE-10” – Audio Sample

OLED Display Test

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTtXBRCXTKk

Usually every Monday morning I head over to Resident Advisor to check out what weekly dj mix is up. My all time favorite mix on there is this Mark E mix, It was the 112th one up, I think they’re in the 140’s now . This one really kicks off at the 11:30 minute mark and its literally smooth sailing and slow head nodding in your chair(if you’re working and listening) from there on. Some of the highlight tracks are the LTJ Experience and the Marvin Gaye edits but once you get into the meat and potatoes of it I personally lose it, its like watching saltwater taffy, milk chocolate, and crayons being made in front of you on repeat all at the same time, its just this perfect slow tempo and you end up losing track of time.

TRACKLIST
STL – Foggy Beats – Something
Amp Fiddler – You – Genuine
Try to find me VOL 1 – Make Dance – Golf Channel
Cole Medina – Love You Inside Out (Pinches Mix) – House Arrest
Mark E – Untitled – Unreleased
Grace Jones – La Vie En Rose (Mark E edit) – Unreleased
Bogdan Irkuk – Carpice – Rollerboys Recordings
Rondenion – Precious Time – Parker Music Works
Mark E – Get Yourself Together – Unreleased
LTJ Experience – I Love You – Irma
Marvin Gaye – Heavy Love Affair (The Revenge Rework) – Unreleased
Birth Control – Plastic People (Medit) – Unreleased

DOWNLOAD IT HERE

RA112 – Mark E Slow Disco Mix

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3QBcrliFNk

When I was down in LA for the Ghostly show, Jakub, Sam and I were talking and this Schaefer’s Beer ad came up. It’s one of those things that’s so great you want to wait to post it for as long as possible. Well, it’s been years since I first saw it and I guess now is as good a time as any.

This is Ed Kalehoff performing a jingle he wrote on the Moog Modular System for Schaefer’s beer. Even if you don’t know of him, you know his work; he did most of the music and cues for The Price is Right. Nothing tops this though, nothing. How great it would have been to live in a time when a beer slogan like that could fly. Also, was he scratching on that 2″ reel? Awesome.

I love digital technology. I love the convenience, the economy, the permanence, and the instantness (yes, that’s actually a word….who knew). So I’m constantly trying to trick myself into believing that I don’t need film photography because digital can replace it. Then I see pictures like the ones above and remember that it’s never going to happen. There’s something going on here that I’ve yet to see captured in a digital image. Sure, I’ve seen incredibly beautiful digital photographs, and they stand on their own. But that’s all they do. They don’t stand over film and they don’t replace it. Film can never die or we will lose our ability to capture the beauty that hides behind the subtlety and nuance that digital seems to miss. There’s a tone, a separation and depth here that I think can only be produced by an analog chemical reaction. The grain is so beautiful it just begs to be blown up to wall-size.

The pictures are of the band Panic Ensemble and were taken with a Canon AE-1 Program by dirkhaim. AE1-P’s can be had for next to nothing (with glass!) on eBay.