NEW BIZ CARDS

Our new cards arrived the other day.


Two color print on 16 point uncoated stock.


Spot UV over our logo on both sides.



Happy 2010.

HENNESSEY + INGALLS

Drove out to Hollywood the other day.

Met up with a bunch of kids from Film school for a little informal reunion.


Couple cool vacant retail spaces on Sunset.



Afterwards I walked over to the new Hennessey + Ingalls on Cahuenga.



I'm not featured in this book. I checked.



Picked up a couple things.





This one is interesting - whole book is a Q+A with Charles Saatchi. Besides starting the largest ad agency on the planet, Saatchi & Saatchi, Chuck is also one of the single largest art collectors in history. He owns The Saatchi Gallery for Contemporary Art in London and is one of the most influential people the art world has ever seen. He can walk into an opening of an unknown up-and-comer, buy every piece on display and make someone's career in an instant.

From what I've read so far, that is roughly what happened at Jeff Koons' first exhibition in '85 and his is just one of the careers significantly impacted by Saatchi's support. Apparently Saatchi is also a notorious recluse who largely refuses to be interviewed, so this book is something art geeks have been looking forward to for awhile.

HOLIDAY SNEAKER NEWS

Wednesday Nike re-released these Space Jam Jordans.

Kids all over America started camping out Monday or Tuesday.



Except in Atlanta where they got a bit anxious and smashed up a couple Foot Lockers. But don't worry because according to the local news -

"...robbers did not make away with any of their allotment of “Space Jams” and their stock was sold to waiting customers this morning."


No Space Jam Jordans were harmed in these robberies. A true Christmas miracle.

Then on Friday Kobe came out wearing these things.


The new Zoom Kobe V's

When I was 19 and considering designing sneakers for a living, I used to trade emails with Aaron Cooper one of Nike Basketball's design directors. I'm going to have to have a talk with that guy - Whose idea it was to give Kobe these magenta and lime green spotted low tops? How is he supposed to beat the Cavs with these on?


It's OK Kobe. Well get them in Cleveland.

UP IN THE AIR

Up in the Air is legit.

I saw it a couple weeks back. Very well done. Jason Reitman knows what's up. In addition to the solid screenplay and arguably the performance of Clooney's career, Reitman sprinkles in a few creative filmmaking flourishes which I really enjoyed. I liked the story but what really impressed me were the production details; the rapid little travel montage sequences, the title cards, and the way the pacing adjusted to fit the current tone of the narrative.

I'll put it this way - of all the kids I went to Film school with, I own, by far, the fewest DVDs. (I have about 9 total; 5 were gifts and 4 are about basketball) When Up in the Air comes out on DVD, I'm going to buy it, watch it a couple more times and take notes. For real.

Even though I liked Thank You for Smoking and Juno, Reitman's style for Up in the Air is much more refined and deliberately transparent. His creative choices help tell the story and engage the viewer, without really calling attention to themselves.

Anyway, I'm not trying to get super Roger Ebert on you guys or anything. My point is: Please put down the 3-D glasses, get out of line for Avatar and go see Up in the Air. Who spends $300 mil on a film about blue CGI people with cat faces?

GOOGLE GOGGLES

Matt and I each spend about 12 hours a day on Gmail. Sometimes more.

Our work accounts are filled, so we both pay for an extra 75GB of storage. I also have a personal Gmail account and then there's a 3rd account, the 'junk' email account, that I use when I have to give an email address to companies, or sign up forms or Federal authorities or whoever.

Anyway, the point is, since Matt and I are such frequent users of Gmail, we have ideas all the time on ways to make it better. And usually, somehow, Google manages to also think of these ideas on their own and a lot of times they launch them a few months after we come up with them. I always tell Matt that I think Google is secretly spying on us and taping our conversations through the microphones built into our laptops, but he says that I'm a moron and that I sound like those losers in the Windows 7 commercials.

The point is, about 6 months ago, my brother had this idea for an iPhone app which could take pictures of business cards and import the information into your phone's contacts using optical character recognition. We initially thought of developing it, but at the time, the iPhone camera was so crappy, it couldn't take a clear enough photo in order for the app to work.

Anyway, Google and their magic Android phones have now made that idea possible and put it inside something called Google Goggles. To be fair to Google, Goggles also does about 90 other really cool things, none of which I, or Matt, or my brother thought of - those Google came up with on their own. Check it out...



The other waking hours of the day, in which I'm not checking one of my 16 Gmail accounts or busy inventing new ways for Google to make money, I'm usually on Yahoo Fantasy Basketball. There are about a billion ways I could make that thing work better, but, unfortunately, Yahoo never really makes improvements to it. So I, and everyone else in my league, complain about the same poor features year after year. And then it dawned on me the other day, 'What if Google made a Fantasy Basketball system?' The very thought almost made my mind explode just imagining the possibilities.

I writing a letter with this request now and sending it out tomorrow. If Santa doesn't respond to me in a timely manner then I will write to Google Headquarters myself.

DEJA VU

Kobe did this today. Again.

SETH AND WAYNE

Found a couple things online yesterday that I thought you guys might like.

The first is an e-book called What Matters Now. Conceived by Seth Godin, the book is a compilation of short essays from 70 prominent authors and cultural figures. Each entry focuses on an idea to think about for the new year.

Download the 80 page PDF here. It's free. Merry Christmas.

The second is a new song from Lil Wayne's forthcoming album Rebirth (which Amazon apparently released by accident on Monday). Drop the World isn't my favorite song from Weezy F. Baby, but the Eminem cameo is superb.

Download the MP3 here. Happy Hanukkah.

Speaking of Em, the tracks he released this week from Relapse:Refill were solid as well - so glad that guy put down the Ambien and got back in the recording studio.

Anyway, I figured most of you kids would be interested in at least one of the two. Enjoy.

SAN FRANCISCO PANORAMA

I just bought a $16 newspaper.

Well, actually I picked up 4 copies so I could give a few to family members for Christmas. (Don't panic - there's no risk of spoiling any holiday surprises because, despite my best efforts, my family doesn't read this blog)

Getting back to the discussion about extraordinarily expensive periodicals... I bought 4 copies of the San Francisco Panorama which, as I'm sure no one has ever heard of, is the 33rd issue of McSweeney's Quarterly Literary Journal.

A brief background:
- Dave Eggers is a former graphic designer turned novelist turned philanthropist turned screenwriter who founded McSweeney's in the late 90's. He wrote the screenplay for the recent Where the Wild Things Are movie and a bunch of cool books and magazines which I'm sure you've somehow never seen before.

Anyway, as the inevitable demise of print newspapers as we know them draws closer, Eggers has compiled an incredible list of authors and cartoonists to contribute to a one time special edition 320 page broad sheet newspaper called the San Francisco Panorama.



And it has everything in it; new stuff from Stephen King, Chip Kidd, Junot Diaz, Chris Ware and about 150 other writers and designers. In fact, our boy, and client, Jonah Lehrer even contributed a piece he wrote about the cognitive benefits of travel.


NASA's Space Weather Research Program illustrated and explained

The Panorama could be a glimpse into the future of print journalism where only those publications offering unique and extraordinary content can survive.

Or it might be one of the last epic literary compendiums to be printed on newsprint and distributed through local independent book stores.


A guide to the perfect bowl of ramen by Momofuku's David Chang

We'll have to wait and see. The good news is that the first run was released in the Bay Area last week and sold out immediately. But, as luck would have it, they're printing more as we speak and you can buy yourself a copy here.

WEB DESIGN HELL

Our boy Spellman emailed me a link to this little cartoon today.

If you have a couple minutes to kill, check it out. It's pretty funny and it shows what happens behind the scenes on about half the projects we work on.

GOOGLE WAVE

This what the future of the internet looks like (supposedly).

A few years back, Lars and Jens Rasmussen, brothers from Denmark, were broke and unknown before they sold an idea to Google and helped develop a little application called Google Maps.

Google Wave is Lars and Jens' second project. There's been a ton of hype about Wave. Some people say it's 'the future'. Lars and Jens' say it will 'kill e-mail'. From what I understand, it's a more advanced form of e-mail that basically combines traditional e-mail, chats, e-vites, and project collaboration software all into one.

Anyway, Google recently started to preview and test Wave on an invite-only basis. Matt and I snagged invites fairly early - I've been meaning to post this for a couple months - but we've been sort of busy recently and haven't had too much time to dig into Wave and mess with it ourselves.

One problem is that when we first signed up, no one else that we knew had Wave yet, so Matt and I could only correspond with each other. However a few people are starting to trickle in and we now have a few dozen invitations to give away. So, if you have some time on your hands (and I think we can all agree that anyone reading this blog surely has plenty of free time) and want to test out Google Wave yourself, let us know and we'll send you an invitation.

I'm not sure, but you may need to have a Gmail account (which are free and easy to obtain) to sign up for Wave. But it's almost 2010, so if you aren't already using Gmail by now, then you shouldn't bother with Wave because I'd bet that you also probably still pedal your car with your bare feet and your best friend is Barney Rubble, who isn't on Wave either, so what would be the point?

E-mail us at whatsup@0484creative.com to request a Wave invite.
While supplies last :)

REPRESENT KOBE

Matt and I didn't go to the Lakers game tonight.

Two months ago we looked at the schedule and tried to choose all of the teams we wanted to go watch this year. I suggested Miami so we could see Kobe and Wade go at each other. But Matt pointed out that the Heat were 'garbage' and laughed at me.

So instead, we bought tickets to watch a 55-year-old Jewish former sitcom star tell jokes in San Diego tonight (okay, it was Jerry Seinfeld - and yeah, it was hilarious - that's not the point).

This is what we missed.



Luckily I had Matt Tivo the game, which we watched tonight back at his house. Except the recording ran out exactly 1 possession short of the end of the game - so we missed seeing Kobe's buzzer beater in person AND on TV.

I think this is when the kids on Facebook would say 'FML'.

FLICKR

Few random photos from the past week.



Last Wednesday Matt and I stenciled this crate for Wearin' Out The West, a retail client of ours.



They're using this inside their booth at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas this week.





Then I headed out to Vegas for the Holiday. My fam decided to have Thanksgiving at a vacation house in Summerlin. I didn't complain.



Went out to Red Rock Canyon for a little hiking in between craps sessions.


My boy Devin, on the Red Rock scenic drive.





Stopped by Staples Center Tuesday to see the Lakers smash New Orleans.



Chris Paul was out with a bad ankle. Without him the Hornets looked pretty miserable. I thought about suiting up at halftime to try and help their backcourt...


But we left early and grabbed dinner across the street instead.

OREGON TRAIL RAP

My boy Mike Hover is half of a comedy duo named Picard Maneuver.

Mike and I went to Film school together - in fact he helped me produce Eviction Notice back in the day. Anyway, he recently sent me a link to this Oregon Trail inspired rap music video he made. If you have 3 minutes to kill, check it out.

Mike is the slightly less creepy looking one with the glasses.

225 FOREST

Matt and I stopped by the Nike concept store down in Laguna the other day.



Basically they have a mix of Nike, Hurley and Converse stuff and upstairs you can design and print your own shirts, sneakers or boardshorts.


This big 30' tall Dalek painting is sort of the centerpiece of the store. Basically this guy Dalek used to work as a studio assistant to Takashi Murakami before "branching out" on his own a few years back with a bunch of work in a style that completely ripped Murakami off. Now he's graduated to doing a lot of these colorful flat geometric patterns - not sure which motif I like least.


Shirt printer and heat presses inside the upstairs design lab


The store had a lot of clever little decorative details. In an age where you can buy everything for dirt cheap at Wal-Mart or on Amazon, brick and mortar retailers have to innovate and offer people more of an "experience" in order to compete. Basically retailers need to work to turn their stores into destinations that stand out and are worth talking about. It's a simple concept that a puzzlingly large number of business owners tend to completely overlook.

JUXTAPOZ

Our boys at SA Studios helped put on the Juxtapoz 15th Anniversary Art Auction last weekend.



I'd have posted these pictures earlier but I spent most of last week camped out for New Moon. (Just kidding, only Matt does stuff like that)


Really nice Shawn Barber watercolor



The display was really well done; good variety of styles and pieces from quite a few big name artists. And a ton of people came out - very cool event overall.


A piece by Shepard Fairey


And, to cap the night off, they projected the fight and everyone got to watch my Uncle Manny handle his business.

SNEAKER AUCTION

UNDFTD is helping to auction DJ AM's sneaker collection on eBay.

Aside from being the world's best DJ, AM was a sneaker connoisseur. He had around 900 pairs including a bunch of rare and super hard to find stuff.

Anyway, about 150 pairs are currently up on eBay and they're adding more every day until for the next couple weeks. All proceeds go to the DJ AM Memorial Fund.


Unfortunately AM was a size 12 while Matt and I wear 10's. Actually it's probably a good thing seeing as how rare/expensive some of these shoes are.


Last year we designed the print collateral and website for an event in Long Beach that AM headlined.





Oh and speaking of shoes, these showed up in the mail the other day.


Bought them with money I won in Vegas, so thanks to the South Point Casino and 'hard six' in particular.