Anyway, here are some images from our pool shoot for a local pool lift manufacturing company. We had some nice Diva lights to try and compensate for the fact that the once side of the building was all windows and we knew we wouldn’t be able to alter the daylight as much as we’d like too. I always get nervous working around electricity and water…even more so when there are innocent by standers using the pool. Extra weights and tape were used on this shoot and whenever I wasn’t doing something, I sat by the lights or camera to make sure it didn’t go in. No close calls, phew!

In one of these images you can see Mike from MGV Photography in the pool to get a unique angle to surprise the client. He is always going above and beyond. The video turned out well, you can see the first part of it here. I did the editing.

Back when I was in school at the Art Institute, we had an assignment that was to find 3 to 5 studios that you’d like to work for and research them. One of my original 5, so long ago, was Sockeye Creative. I didn’t even live in Portland at the time. The main reason I wanted to work there is because I had seen some of their work and I really enjoyed their mantra. It was the type of studio lifestyle I wanted to live. The whole, work hard, think hard, play hard ideology.

It was cool to get to actually see that they walk the walk that they talk. Upon walking in I saw a ping-pong table, which I would LOVE to play…I haven’t played ping pong since my last studio gig. There was a great view overlooking the Broadway Bridge looking towards downtown and Sockeye offered us beer, wings and tater tots. I swear they knew I was coming because those are my 3 favorite foods…just check my credit card statement…

Anyway, I enjoyed meeting the co-founders, seeing some of their work and I especially loved all of the great questions the AIGA attendees were asking. Everyone had something to ask, so much so, we ran out of time My favorite part would have to be the edit suite. I’m just a nerd that way though…it totally looked like a place I could work for 20 hours, then sleep on the couch…

I have to give a shout out to Ryan, the Executive Producer, for hooking me up with some links to help me cultivate my Grip and PA work load. Thanks Ryan! We’ll be in touch soon.

So after filling my belly with the sweet nectar of beer and wings, I headed down stairs for the monthly dMob that AIGA puts on. But that is a story for another day.

Thanks Sockeye for being so generous and having us over.

If you’d like to know more about Sockeye, hit up their website. They are really nice and always looking for awesome talent, so who knows, that could be you!

We were out shooting the Galleria building in downtown Portland and it just so happened that we were sharing some of the space with the Leverage crew. It is amazing how much production equipment that they have. I’d love to get my hands on some of their stuff…

The bonus to all this was that, for us, we blended right in. So when we setup our cones and ladder on the corner of the street, no one stopped to see what was going on…

5 Things I Learned In Thailand

In no particular order.

1. When you don’t speak/read a language pictures and symbols are saviors. 

I was reminded that a picture is worth a 1,000 words. Keep that in mind if you have a business or presentation or something. We all learned to communicate with pictures first…and when we can’t communicate as 30 something adults, we start drawing pictures.

2. USA A.O.K

I gripe about the USA my fair share. I’m not happy with my gov’t, our political process, our foreign policy or our monetary policy. Regardless, I can count on things here. The train shows up at its scheduled time, usually. We have traffic laws, I can drink the water.

3. Nothing lasts forever

When planning for Thailand, everyone told me that things would be dirt cheap and you could live like a king on $50 a day. So I thought having $100 a day would make me royalty. Well, Thailand figured out they can make more money off of tourists, and they are now. Sure you can find a $3 hostel and eat street food for a few bucks, but if you have the means, why not go bigger? Looking back, the $3 hostel might not have been that bad of value for it’s cost. Or, find a local, become their friend and have them take you around…

4. I’ve come a long ways

I am reminded of the first time I traveled out of the country. I was a nervous reck. Airplanes, language barriers, sickness, getting lost…all these things scared the shit out of me. I’m a seasoned pro now. As up tight as I can be, when I travel, I let it all go and I’ve noticed that spilling into my regular life as well. It has made me a more out going person, which is great for networking and just taking the bull by the horns and just doing something.

5. I am just an ant

When you are standing in front of a 45 ft high, 129 ft long reclining gold Buddha in the middle of the Grand Palace Complex in which Buddha himself was believed to have lived, you get a sense of how small and insignificant you really are.

It is always good to stay humble and hungry.

Instead, I’m looking at packaging. I haven’t done a lot of packaging design in my day, yet, but I still find myself trying to figure out why certain choices are made and why others are not made.

For example, the nutrition section. You know, where you find all the energy bars. I was standing there, staring the other night and this was what I saw. HOLY SOLAR FLARE! I felt like I was on the sun. Ninety percent of the designs were of these energetic colors, which makes sense if you’re looking to get energy from these things, but then there was a crazy amount of reflective materials, beaming little bits of light and color from their neighbors package back at me. I felt like I was in a psychedelic, coke trance back in the 70′s or something.

I only ask…is there another way to show energetic effects without screaming at people? Type? Subtle colors…This would be truly a challenging problem to solve, one that intrigues me.

PS – I really don’t get the purple…

Photo taken from Pentagram.com

I’ll admit, there are some ramblings in this book that I don’t get. I’m either not experienced enough or educated enough in Visual Communications to understand what Bierut is talking about. However, there are a lot of things he says that either made me literally ‘LOL’ or just had me shaking my head going, “Yea, you’re right!”

The real treasure of this book is the Appendix. Each chapter is listed, what type it was set in and references any of the source materials Bierut was referring to in his writings. I love this because you can see type, in action, and dig out the design annual or poster or whatever it may be that Bierut was discussing.

Good book Michael!

Over the past 3 years I have taken a very large interest in typography and when I saw that a local educational center, the Independent Publishing Resource Center, was putting on a class called “Intro to Letterpress”, I had to join.

The class consisted of an overview of the letterpress process, an introduction to presses, cutting paper, setting type, preparing the chase for printing, inking and finally, printing!!! It was a very fun class that took us step by step through how the process works, focusing on the rules and limitation of the resource center. (Once you complete the intro class you can go in whenever you want and keep on printing as long as you are a member.)

There was a lot to learn but the thing that really stuck with me is having a much more intimate relationship with things that I take for granted on my computer. Setting justification, leading, line spacing and font choices is much more thought provoking when you are touching physical pieces.

We broke off into groups, came up with sayings and set our type. I was more curious about the process than actually making anything that I could use, so the girl I was paired up with had a phrase that she wanted to put on a postcard. We worked together, taking turns putting lines of type into our composition stick, placing the quoins and furniture in the chase for a tight fit, inking the press and finally pressing out some prints.

I really enjoyed getting my hands dirty, smelling ink and, believe it or not, standing and working. I am often stuck behind my desk or sitting on my couch to much to realize how much I enjoy physical labor.

Now that I’ve completed the class and have a membership, I may have to think up a few things I’d like to print up and go back and practice. Who knows, maybe I’ll setup a store someday. Regardless, it was fun to learn the process, play with sorts of type and print. I highly recommend giving it a go, or something like it, if you have an opportunity.

For example, this year I want to read more, exercise more, draw/sketch more, take more photos, eat better and do anything that can help me become a better designer. Obviously that is to much to focus on, but I don’t want to pigeon hole myself

So in the end, I’ve decided to try and take a page out of The Book of Tetsuo, my cat.

I really don’t know how to sum up my cat unless I just said, he is lazy and loving. He sleeps…about 22 hours a day, which is where the lazy comes from. But he also is the most loving cat I have ever met in my life. This, again is hard to explain, but he always wants to lay with you, sit by you, be pet by you and is always purring. He will literally do anything to get next to you or in your face to hug, hold, pet or kiss him. He may look like a grumpy man, but he is a ball of love.

There are often times that my wife, myself and the cat are laying on the couch watching a movie and I look over at him and he seems SO happy to be there, in that moment, not wanting anything else. Utter bliss.

This is the lesson I want to try and take from him. Personally, I have a lot of drive and want to continue to grow as a designer, take on more projects, meet new people…I mean, just look at my previous list at the top of the page? But I want to start taking Tetsuo’s lead and enjoying my moments with my loved ones more. To stop wanting something that I don’t even know if it exists and just enjoy my life, my work and the people around me more.

So, in the end, you could say one of my New Year’s Resolutions is to be more like my cat…

There are many reasons why I decided to become a graphic designer. They range from the fact that I won a coloring contest in kindergarten to this professional idealistic viewpoint that I have towards the fact that, even though graphic design has been around for some time now…there is still a world filled with crummy design.

One of those reasons in between is this feeling that I get when I see my work, out in public. It is hard to explain. I spend a lot of time behind my desk… That feeling of accomplishment, that feeling that people are at least seeing my work, the feeling of pride.

To spare you all of the needless details, it took me a long time to get where I am and I am still no where near where I’d like to be, but I keep inching towards my goal. So, when I see my work out in the public eye I feel a small sense of pride that I am still moving along my path. I have been doing a little bit of graphic design work for Migration Brewing here in Portland. The guys that run this brewery are great and we have worked out a partnership that benefits both of us. One of my favorite aspects of doing work for them is that they allow me a lot of creative freedom. Which is good and bad. It’s good because it allows me to explore new ideas, techniques and colors I don’t normally use and it’s bad because I just can’t stop playing.

Recently, I did their New Year’s Eve Bash poster. I don’t ever get to put type on a different axis other than horizontal so I really wanted to explore it. I drew a little inspiration from all the Swiss design that continues to drive me and came up with this design. I was over at Migration for their New Year’s Eve Bash and as I wandered around the bar, I passed their Christmas tree, and what did I see as an ornament on the tree? My design.

I’m sure they put it there for marketing reasons. People will walk past it and look at the tree and probably see the advertisement for the holiday party…but there is a small part of me that likes to believe the idea that they thought it was so beautiful that it could decorate their tree. Like I said, pride…

Anyway, I just finished off Layout Essentials: 100 Design Principles for Using Grids (Essential Design Handbooks). This book was a fantastic read and I found it more inspirational than informative. What I mean is, a good 85 of these were things I already knew, but if your anything like me, you only retain about 10% of anything you read. So that meant that even though 85 of these principles were familiar, I probably only knew 10 of them off the top of my head.

So the strength of this book comes for the quick refresher that it affords me. A lot of times when I sit down to layout information I generally look for ways to organize it to make sense. You know, put like things together, lead the reader to pertinent information, draw attention to important pieces of info and keep them engaged using effective design, just to name a couple. However, sometimes the information doesn’t just tell me how it wants to be laid out. Sometimes, I have to work with it a little bit, organize it, understand it before I can start to see how it would best be presented to the viewer. That is where this book comes in. I don’t always see the solution and sometimes immersing myself in the information, then scanning a book like this will spark the idea that best serves the content.

If you haven’t read it, I’d suggest it. As soon as I have a few extra bucks, I’ll be putting this one on my shelf.