IRON HORSE FW11 CATALOGS

The new Iron Horse Jeans Fall/Winter 2011 catalogs came back from the printer a couple weeks ago.



Thought I'd take a moment and outline where we stole borrowed some of the ideas for the visual elements of this book.

LINEN TEXTURE WITH CANCELED POSTAGE MARKS

I saw these pillows in a Restoration Hardware catalog recently. I sent these images to Matt and we talked about adapting the look for the page background texture.

He went on iStockPhoto and grabbed a linen swatch image which we re-colored and patterned and a bunch of these old foreign postage marks which we repurposed.



CONSTRUCTION DETAILS ICONS
We designed these 4 icons to help showcase some of the features of their jeans. Tried to sort of base the style off of animal icons I'd seen recently on the Chipotle menu. Couldn't find a picture online to illustrate the comparison but you can also see the inspiration in that we used the Chipotle font (Xband Rough) next to each icon as well.


STITCHED FABRIC TAG PAGE HEADERS
Not sure the exact source where we lifted this from but I know we're far from being the first ones to think of it.

ORNATE METAL PICTURE FRAME

For awhile, Kanye posted everything on his blog in these unique antique frames.

Seemed like it could be a good look for what we were trying to do. We grabbed some of these frame images from iStock and changed the colors and proportions as needed.


Anyway, you don't have to have too many original ideas, but you do have to know where to look. And it helps to bring it all together if you know what you're doing in Photoshop (which I don't, but thankfully Matt does).

GETAWAY

When you do your own thing, it can be hard to get a real vacation in.

But sometimes you have to leave your laptop at home, turn your phone off and zone out for a couple days. Believe me, everything can wait until Monday. Here are some other pointers:


Leave the state. Bring your boys with you. Grab a top floor suite - no one stays in regular sized hotel rooms anymore.




If you know what you're doing (as lucky as a motherf#cker) the trip should pay for itself.


Leave the casino once in awhile - if only for a brief time. Bring enough guys for 5-on-5 (plus subs and don't forget to stretch, we're not 18 anymore).




Forget a bunch of cabs, get the stretch Hummer.


If successful you'll come home with a bunch of photos that are either incriminating, unbloggable or barely discernible.

LAKERS/KNICKS

Matt and I went to the Knicks/Lakers game the other day.



Our boy Victor from The ID Agency hit us up awhile back and offered us tickets to thank us for the extra 'acting' we did as racecar drivers in that Recaro video a couple months ago. Vic is heavily connected so he ended up getting us some seats from Nike's season ticket account. Not bad at all.





Everybody comes out for the Knicks. Dr. Dre, Adam Sandler, Spike of course and even Lindsey Lohan was there taking a break from rehab.



Anyway, good game. Lakers pulled off the win (For as good of a season as he's had - and I know, because he's on my Fantasy team - Amare struggled that night, seems like he never plays well in LA).



Thanks to Victor and Nike for the great seats. Obviously Matt and I are never above embarrassing ourselves on camera in exchange for legit NBA tickets.

TYPE CAL

The new Pentagram/Studio Hinrichs Typography Calendar just showed up in the mail.



Just in time too, because apparently 2011 is already well underway.



Anyway, on another note, had to turn down a killer gig the other day. Here's what happened...



This dude David from Make It Happen Productions hits me up out of the blue the other day - his company was in charge of shooting and editing the Pilot Episode of Hit Music Central. So David tells me that his boss saw the little behind-the-scenes video we made about the shoot and that even though their company had a big crew and all these fancy real cameras, he liked our footage so much that he wanted to use some of it in the actual edit of the finished Pilot.

Anyway, they asked for our footage - Matt and I found it flattering - so I tell him to come by whenever. Guy shows up at my door first thing the next morning with hard drive in hand. While the footage is being copied, David offers us this plush gig shooting behind-the-scenes footage at an event this upcoming weekend in Hollywood where the casts of every Warner Brothers produced TV show (The Mentalist, One Tree Hill, Vampire Diaries etc. - all Matt's favorite shows) will be appearing and taping promo spots.

The problem is that it's the same dates as our boy Daniel's Bachelor Party in Vegas so Matt and I can't make it. Then I figure we'll send Ryan. I hit Ryan on Skype, tell him about the shoot and let him know the dates and he tells me he's going to a separate Bachelor Party also in Las Vegas the same weekend. So we turned it down. Fail.

Anyway, say what you want about other small creative agencies but nobody goes to more Bachelor Parties, Weddings and Quinceañeras than we do.

RECARO SHOOT PART II

Few more images and another video from the Recaro shoot we did with The ID Agency.






So, we shot behind the scenes stuff all day and helped out with production. That bomb detonator looking box in my hands is actually the controller for the giant turntable that the car was on.


So, I laughed at Matt when they made him dress as a racecar driver but an hour later they made me suit up too. Karma, right? (I realize this photo appears a bit odd out of context; between shots we were having an in depth conversation about haircuts)




With our boy Tim who runs Barton Perreira in his free time and directed the spot below.

So, here's one of the official spots that launched on all the big pregnancy magazine websites (which I'm sure you guys all read regularly). Besides our compelling performances as racecar guys, we also designed the ProSERIES logo that pops up at the 0:25 mark. Enjoy.

0484 MAIL

Bunch of things showed up the other day.


This dude Hillman Curtis is like a Godfather in the online video/computer software/web design game. He used to work with Macromedia before Adobe bought them out and was one of the first people to experiment with Flash. And in terms of web design, one of his former clients is a little site called Yahoo.com - you might've heard of it. Anyway, he wrote this book a few years ago about creating video content specifically for the web and I've been meaning to check it out.

Just knowing who to really learn from and copy off of is half the battle. Started reading it on the plane home this weekend - he does a lot of stuff with minimal equipment. Super quick/cheap shoots. We're all about it.


Few million cookies via 2nd Day Air from Cheryl's. Matt and I can never decide what to get the clients as a Holiday gift - figured we couldn't go wrong with cookies. A few people who think they're clever have mentioned that they find the first 2 weeks in January a bit late for "Holiday" gifts. Not sure who they think is going to be upset to open a box full of fresh cookies? Pretty sure everyone I know would take that any day of the year, so I'm not too worried about it.

In fact I still have a couple dozen Christmas cards and 3 postcards from Minnesota to mail out, but that's sort of another story.




Personal assistant had the week off so I packaged and shipped all these myself.




Some gear from American Apparel came in.


Not even sure whose all this stuff is? Opened an email chain to a few friends awhile back and asked everyone if they wanted anything. Matt never even replied and I think I ordered like 2 things but it's easy to make friends when you get a Wholesale Crate Discount from AA. Thanks Veronica.



Anyway, also, few new songs...

THE GAME / I'M THE KING. Not really anything notable lyrically or otherwise but still a decent song. Typical Game.

LUPE FIASCO / SHOW GOES ON. Songs not bad. Sort of an uplifting/hopeful message - if you're into that type of thing. The video's good too.

JAY-Z & KANYE WEST / H.A.M. First single from their forthcoming joint album Watch The Throne. Can't say this song made a huge first impression on me but I mean come on, it's Jay and Kanye, it'll still probably end up being my favorite album of the year.

Overall, nothing really groundbreaking but don't blame me, I don't make the songs I just bootleg them.

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WIND CHILL FACTOR

Me and the crew went to the Arctic tundra Minneapolis over the weekend for a wedding.

The day after I wrote that post last week about the pace of our current workload, things blew up - so luckily our schedule is back to being completely ridiculous. You know how it is; mobile offices everywhere, all day.


We actually ran into Ruchir randomly at the Denver airport while we were all on layovers. He was on his way to another Residency interview at a hospital in Houston. So crazy to run into someone like that in another state. We all sat around and talked shit about Fantasy Basketball for 20 minutes and then got on separate planes and kept it moving.




Minnesota was frozen the whole time. Mostly single digit temps and conditions that we were not cut out for.


Probably the only time we've all been in suits together since Senior Prom. You know it was a serious event because I packed both of my ties.


Nice wedding. They had a great video slideshow at the reception. We've been friends with Jeff since we were about 12. He's now an assistant coach for the Creighton Men's Soccer Team and Matt and I have this blog where we post pictures of food and stuff, so, we've all come a long way.


Breakfast at dawn at The Machine Shed on Saturday.


Stopped by Mall of America before the flight home.




Anyway, good couple days with the guys - even if it was in sub-zero temperatures.

BTW, this was the 200th blog post. Still no readers. Don't worry, I'm not going to let that stop me. NoBizPlan forever :)