Today my first big website that I designed as a freelancer went live! It is for Raleigh based video production company, Myriad Media. Planning and managing such a big project on my own was such a huge learning experience. Luckily, the folks at Myriad Media are fantastic and we were completely open with each other throughout the process. And the programmer I worked with, Nick Coates from ForeverHeavy.com, was also wonderful about coming up with web friendly ideas.
With my background being strongly based in print design, I sometimes get frustrated with the limitations of web design. However, for this project I was quite pleased with the ideas that we came up with to give the site the same detail and friendliness as is in the culture book I designed for Myriad Media last year.
If you want to see more of the new site, you can check out my behance page or visit the real deal: www.myriadmedia.net.
David Baldwin of Baldwin& got in touch again recently to share some of his latest work. As I’ve come to expect, it’s another example of the type of creative thinking that will inevitably leave you smiling.
The client: BMW. The target: PGA golfers.
The challenge was to get PGA pros behind the wheels of BMW’s new M cars. These pro golfers are always inundated with invitations to promotional events every time they go on tour, so it was imperative that the BMW invites stood out. Here is Baldwin&’s solution, right from the horses mouth:
“In this case, we created a motor oil scented cologne called “15W – 50″ that evokes the essence of the race track. The cologne was then placed in the player’s lockers. A week later when the players check into their hotel rooms, they’re greeted by skid marks coming out from beneath their sinks with another message inviting them to sign up for the event.”
Awesome.
There’s a lot going on over at cityfabric these days. You guys may remember when I posted about them back in November. Well, now they have a new logo and an awesome new kickstarter project with lots of new collateral—if they raise $13,000 by August 31, you will be able to get their signature figureground maps on pillows, totes, canvases, prints and limited edition t-shirts. Watch the video above to learn more about their project and support your local business!
Last weekend I went to Raleigh for the First Friday gallery crawl and I came across the work Thomas Swanston at Flanders Gallery. Swanston’s work is peaceful and understated, featuring muted colors and precious metal leaf. You can check out more of his work on his website.
Nava Lubelski is a multi-medium artist based in Asheville, NC. While she dabbles with a variety of materials, I think it’s her work with thread & canvas that really stands out. Throughout the series an amazing sense of biology is captured in the interplay between the cellular stitching and the webbed rips in the canvas. Nava says her work explores the relationshiop between ‘impulse to destroy and the compulsion to mend.” Conceptual prodding aside, her mastery over thread & her ability to make it look like paint is pretty damn rad. Her thread & canvas work is currently on display at Artspace in Raleigh.
Remember Physical Fiction? Well, they just updated their shop with some awesome new LEGO/letterpress prints just in time for Christmas Go check it out!
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Two design and planning graduates from NC State recently started a line of city inspired t-shirts called CityFabric. The screen-printed shirts feature figure-ground diagrams of cities ranging from Durham, NC to San Francisco. They currently have 17 cities to choose from. Go check out their website and support local business! Now I only need to decide whether I want the shirt for where I live or where I wish I lived…
John W Fesken is a painter, illustrator, scrawler, video artist, musician, installation artist, dioramist, poet, and all around Renaissance Madman. He weaves fairy tails on window panes and in boxes using found objects and other ephemera, painting, burning, and scratching his stories from junk. His pieces all tell a story, and his characters have histories and feelings of despair and hope.
I met John at the Artsplosure a few weeks back. If you are a Triangle native, you are probably familiar with Artsplosure – an outdoor art market in Raleigh, mostly filled with run of the mill nature photography, paintings, and jewelry. So naturally, I was drawn to the sore thumb of the event (I mean this in the most admiring / endearing way). His booth was full of dark scenes of creepy characters in dingy settings and a table full of hilarious / gross / dirty magnets (I got one with Han Solo and caption “Self-described asshole”).
But his real passion are his characters – like the doctor, who employs morbid tactics to save his love, or the woman waiting for the pink moon. Not content to let the characters live statically, he pseudo-animates and films their actions and struggles into shorts, giving them life beyond their wooden box settings.
Someone get this man a real website so he can get off Myspace.
I recently had the pleasure of attending the Blackarm Bespoke launch party held at the Labour Love Gallery in Durham. Blackarm Bespoke, if you remember, is the custom footwear brand started by good friend of OK Great, Kieran Ionescu. The party also featured a presentation from the good people of Raleigh Denim, Victor & Sarah. Raleigh Denim had been a strong supporter of Kieran from the outset, so it was nice to see everyone together celebrating the launch. John Pelphrey, owner of Labour Love, spent all day prior to the party building a custom presentation wall for his guests. Super-friggin-nice-guy.
See more pictures from the launch & read about Raleigh Denim + Blackarm Bespoke after the jump.
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