I’ll be playing a show in Portland, OR next Friday (Dec. 4, 2009) at The Crown Room. I’ll be playing some new music and visuals on the new system I used in Toronto last week. Fellow San Franciscan Welder (aka Eskmo) will be playing as well so it should be an interesting night. Hope to see you out, all the info is here.
On a technical note, I switched from a Native Instruments Audio Kontrol1 interface to my MOTU 828MKII for live work and it’s made a huge difference. The NI box had all sorts of latency and drop-out issues, which can obviously be a nightmare in a live setting. I had tracked down most of the bugs and things were running relatively smoothly, but the specter of a crash looming over you during the whole set can put a damper on things. The MOTU is so smooth I’ve stopped even considering the possibility that something could go wrong and it’s cleared things up so I can concentrate on the set. Unfortunately it’s a beast made for a 19″ rack. It just fits in my flight case though so it’s ok for now, just a bit wasteful on the weight side. I’m going to get a MOTU Ultralight MK3 which is basically the same thing but, at less than half the size, it’s a more practical form factor for live applications. Luckily I had the 828MK2 laying around because I switched it out of studio duty for an RME Fireface800 a while back. I had meant to sell it but I’m glad I gave this setup a shot first.
Friday, December 4, 2009 – Portland, OR
TYCHO Live A/V Set (Ghostly International SF)
WELDER (Ancestor Media, Surefire SF)
Dj Devon (Abstract Earth PDX)
Coyote Beat (Feat. PlumbLyne & Ana G PDX)
A little while ago, I wrote about my current class assignment to reinvigorate a brand that is “dead, dying or defunct”. As we are nearing the semester’s end next month, I thought it would be a good time to begin describing the process of this project. The final deliverable is a book, in which we describe the history of our chosen brand (and why it’s time for a update), outline the new identity guidelines (visual standards manuals, usage considerations etc), and show potential extensions (mock ups of storefronts, products, etc). For this process post I’ll describe my brand choice and eventual logo development.
(project permalink on my site)
When I wrote the first article, I was considering No Fear as my primary option. With such a versatile name, I figured I could take the brand in a number of different directions. However, as much fun as it would have been to revisit the dominant clothing of my middle school years (along with LA Lights), I was concerned that the project would not really extend anywhere beyond a basic brand overhaul (new logo, visuals, products, etc). I saw little opportunity for humor or much conceptual work, and I opted to move in a different direction.
I decided to rebrand Playboy — a brand that many might say is arguably not dead, dying or defunct. Like many magazines, they actually are “dying” (financially), but for my project I focused on the decay of the overall perception of the brand. The graph below displays how I feel the brand has progressed in a more abstract fashion. Basically, these days, I would say most people would be embarrassed to say they read Playboy. A baseless assumption perhaps, but when was the last time you saw someone reading Playboy in public?
To keep up with the increasing trashiness of the American Men’s magazine, Playboy has been forced to reposition itself as “one of the boys” as it were, and is now indistinguishable from the Maxim’s of the world. Rather than hold on to the sophisticated standards of their early years, Playboy has come to embrace its unfortunately crude place in the magazine world. This evolution (rather, devolution) is tragic and the original soul of the brand has been lost. Maybe not “dead, dying or defunct”, but Playboy has certainly lost something along the way. I saw an opportunity to bring some of the original classiness and sophistication back with a drastic repositioning…
I’m doing a solo exhibition at Function 13 Gallery in Toronto next Friday where I’ll be showing some new work and large format stuff. I’m still working on the main poster for the event so I’ll be posting that on Monday probably. For now, here’s all the details:
Mrs. Eaves is one of my favorite typefaces. Especially when it comes to serifs — which admittedly, I use infrequently — Mrs. Eaves has long been a go-to. I agree with designer Zuzana Licko’s description that “Mrs Eaves was a mix of just enough tradition with an updated twist. It’s familiar enough to be friendly, yet different enough to be interesting.”
After much anticipation, the sans-serif companion Mr. Eaves is complete. It comes in two varieties; Mr. Eaves Modern and Mr. Eaves Sans (character map pictured above). Like Mrs. Eaves, both variations were designed by Zuzana Licko for Emigre. I’m excited to use this — especially the lowercase ‘a’ variant pictured at the bottom.
Mr Eaves was based on the proportions of Mrs Eaves, but Licko took some liberty with its design. One of the main concerns was to avoid creating a typeface that looked like it simply had its serifs cut off. And while it matches Mrs Eaves in weight, color, and armature, Mr Eaves stands as its own typeface with many unique characteristics. [ Purchase ]
Broadcast is back with a collaborative mini album with The Focus Group. Its a pretty psychedelic piece of work, this one song doesn’t give it justice, you might want to hear the whole thing. Look for them to put out the CD/LP on the October US tour with Atlas Sound.
Recent Pitchfork Media approved Volcano Choir should be a big hit among the bearded folk lovers and for the Bon Iver fans out there, yes that’s him singing. I love the gliding drive this song has, it makes me want to go back to the softer side of Broken Social Scene albums.
I don’t know anything about High Wolf but i’m glad I found them, this song alone could replace that Mum void that has been empty for about 5 years now. I can’t wait to wake up on a cold winter morning and have this be my alarm clock song.
Hemingway has fused 2 more genres that should be together and introduces us to Yacht-Funk, not bad I like the sound of that, loving the synth work, its nice to have someone remapping and adjusting this disco direction.
Broadcast & The Focus Group – One Million Years Ago
Ghostly 10 Year Chicago 8/21/09 - Purchase poster at studio.iso50.com
I’ll be playing the Ghostly 10 Year show at The Empty Bottle in Chicago this Friday, August 21st. Should be a great night and if all goes to plan I might have a special guest join me for some songs.
GHOSTLY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY: CHICAGO
The Empty Bottle
1035 N Western Ave
Chicago, IL United States View Map
Live Performances by:
* Tycho / ISO50
* Kill Memory Crash
* Solvent
* Dark Party
* Mike Servito
August 21, 2009
9 PM 21
$15 ADV / $20 Door
Jackson presents The Ghostly 10-Year in Chicago
As Ghostly International hits the 10-year mark, we’re throwing a series of pretty-big-deal parties in select location across the globe. Having torn the roofs off Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Miami’s Winter Music Conference, and Detroit’s Movement festival, we now aim our music cannons at Chicago. The evening’s bill includes music/design phenomenon Tycho, melodic electro legend Solvent, local industrial legends Kill Memory Crash, and Eliot Lipp’s Dark Party. A DJ set from Mike Servito rounds out a night of truly outstanding music.
Note: I wrote this process post a while ago about a project I completed last November. There has been so much going on these days that I forgot about it in the depths of my terribly cluttered hard drive. As I have transitioned to thesis mode now, there are less of these sorts of projects in the pipeline. This is one of my favorites I have completed at the Academy thus far and it was interesting to revisit. This is the article in its original form, as I wrote it last December.
Assignment
This semester we were asked to immerse ourselves in one topic and research it through a series of week long projects. The content of each project would be the result of our extensive research, and we were expected to pick a topic robust enough to be worthy of 15 weeks of study. Each project encouraged us to explore different design solutions and helped us hone in on a visual style that we could use for the final project, which would synthesize all of our work into one deliverable.
For the last month of the semester, we were tasked with compiling all of our research into a book that we would write, design, and bind ourselves. It was to have a minimum of 48 pages (6″ x 9″), a hardcover, and provide some meaningful insights about our topic which we uncovered during our semester of research. In addition to providing a worthy and refreshing commentary, it was to be a covetable piece of graphic design that felt visually appropriate for our topic.
The topic I chose for the semester was Mega Cities (urban areas with a population over 10 million people). The original focus of the project was an examination of what makes a city successful — what it is about a massive city that makes it unique. It eventually dovetailed into an exploration of the ways these cities are confronting the problems they face and how increasing populations make solving these problems more complicated and time sensitive. These problems are becoming increasingly relevant as the world’s urban population continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. I flirted with numerous other topics, some of which I thought were quite interesting, but I found that Mega Cities would provide me with the most interesting and engaging material.
In response to Jakub’s post on 1970’s shopping malls, I’ve long wished I could travel back in time and visit some of these spots, again or for the first time. Vacated malls and abandoned theme parks sit lodged in the subconscious as Ithaca-like pleasuredomes. The idea of all-inclusive commerce appealed to/terrified great men like J.G. Ballard and George A. Romero (who set his gorefest Dawn Of The Dead uncoincidentally in a vacated mall) and continue to haunt the collective imagination.
One example of a great lost park is Atlanta’s The World Of Sid and Marty Krofft which opened in 1976 and featured attractions based on the characters of their popular shows and rides like the Pinball one seen in the included pics. The place seems unbelievably spooky and surreal and it’s lack of document only increases it’s eeriness. WSMK might was dubbed the first indoor theme park, which was based inside the Omni International Center (now CNN’s news headquarters) and featured the world’s largest freestanding escalator. Surprising little can be found online but this article sheds some light on the idea for the park. WSMK cost $14 milllon to build (Over $50 million in 2009 money) and closed within six months.
