If you're a Virginia resident please consider making this your new license plate. It's just $25, with a proceeds going to support the Building Healthy Futures fund. They need to get 450 orders by the end of the month or the plate won't get made at all, so you can really make a difference by signing up now.
We want you to be inspired in 2012! So, we have invited a diverse group of the most creative performers we know to entertain you with their talents and answer your questions about how they do it...
Join us in New York City on Wednesday January 18th for
Variety Pack
an evening of inspired creativity featuring our panel of experts:
The project initially ran for nine months here in Richmond, Virginia and then took on another life online and eventually ended up in galleries acrossthe globe.
Then earlier this year I was contacted by a designer who was working in the UK on a new book about guerrilla gardening she asked if she could use a version of the logo on the cover.
Since the original image wasn't made for commercial purposes I decided to update it and also create it as a spray paint stencil to go with the aesthetic of the book cover as already designed.
More information about the book Radical Gardening can be found HERE.
It features 52 creativity boosting projects, that are arranged by time commitment from 30 seconds to several hours, and is designed to be used by anyone, regardless of age, profession, or level of skill.
The book also features interviews with a dozen of my favorite inspiring people and how they deal with their own roadblocks to creativity.
In addition there are sidebars with even more projects to get your creative wheels turning.
And it includes plenty of blank space to use as you see fit!
I was delighted to get this photo from my friend Phoebe of an unnamed protestor holding a custom made sign for the NYC General Assembly featuring my 99% design at Zuccotti Park where Occupy Wall Street is taking place!
I recently designed this package for the new Florent Ghys album Baroque Tardif from Cantaloupe Music...
Florent specifically asked for something that was minimalist and had a rich feel to it.
The title on the cover is reflective gold foil. The image, an illustration by Romain Cadillhon, is printed in gloss varnish on a matte varnish background on the outside of the package and in gold ink on the interior and disc.
For more about the CD including audio samples check out its page on the Cantaloupe site HERE.
I'm at a loss for what a company (and ostensibly the designer behind it) is thinking when they create a campaign like this. "Hey, let's co-opt the hip aesthetics of social activism to sell cheap processed meat products!" Seriously?! I just can't imagine the audience for either has much overlap. But maybe I'm wrong. Ug.
I recently designed these wedding invitations made from vintage books...
I decided it would be fun to create a bit of a mystery for people who were invited, so they were just sent what looked like a normal book, with a ribbon bookmark that was tied to a small wooden key.
Inside they discovered a heart shaped lock fit snugly into a hole inside the book.
The lock had to be removed and turned over to discover a URL which led to a website that explained the details of this destination event.
The wooden pieces are laser etched bamboo and the books were laser cut (all by my friend Jason at Big Secret) and then the entire thing was hand assembled and delivered in a large sturdy envelope.
You are what you eat. It's a phrase we hear all the time and yet, it seems that most people don't take it to heart. I think of it when I hear people complaining about how expensive it is to buy local/organic food and I think of it when I hear people bragging about the bargains they got on large quantities of mass-produced, highly processed food, at national chain-stores. We live in a culture in the US that has made food consumption about cost and quantity rather than taste and quality. And it's killing us, literally from the inside out.
And it's not just about your personal health, there are many reasons that it's important to make conscious choices about the food you eat. Here's just a sampling:
The health and well-being of the workers that grow, pick, & process food.
The lack of access to healthy food by people all over the world (even in the US).
I made a choice several years ago that I would eat lower on the food chain (i.e. be vegetarian), support local food producers/sellers as much as possible, and that I would avoid non-organic and GM (Genetically Modified) foods at all costs. It turns out that once you stop seeing those other options as actual food, it's really not that hard to do.
As for the cost? Americans currently spend a smaller percentage of their income on food than ever before (in 1949 it was 22%, in 2009 it was just 10% via). So where is the rest of our money going? Obviously we've been convinced that the consumer products we buy are more important than the things we ingest and ultimately incorporate into our bodies!
So where do you start? Luckily there are tons of excellent resources out there for people interested in starting to think about their food differently. Here are just a few great ways to begin...
Watch the documentary Food, Inc. it does a good job of covering the gamut of issues that surround what's on your plate.
Artist Marcos Zotes shared his intriguing video installation from this year's Nuit Blanche in Greenpoint, Brooklyn which happened on October 1st. I'm a big fan of large-scale public art installations, especially when they question the increasing amount of control private concerns have over public spaces. He explains,
"CCTV/Creative Control seeks to question the oppressive mechanisms and discourses implemented in the city through the temporary appropriation of public space. The intervention consists of a video projection displaying an over-sized eye onto the lower surface of the 10-storey-hight Milton Street water tower in Brooklyn, New York. Still the highest point in the area, until it is dwarfed by new gentrification plans, the water tower exists as a relic of the neighbourhood’s industrial past. The intervention temporarily transforms this iconic landmark into a discernible CCTV tower, raising questions of private control over public space in the urban context. By intervening in the everyday order of contemporary urban life, CCTV/Creative Control aims at both producing moments of antagonism –however transitory, fragmentary or ephemeral– and finding new ways to practice the city, not simply as consumers but as creators."
Here is a nice web site called owni.fr, with some photos and visuals concerning the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. A Lot of links too if you want to follow the movement on the net or if you want to take it to the street. Nice analyses.
The website is in French but all the links are in English though.
Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protestors I've created a few posters that are free to download and use as you please. Click on the images for giant files or use the links below them for PDFs.
I recently got a copy of Swedish edition of my book 365: A Daily Creativity Journal! It's called: Kreativitetskalendern: 365 sätt att förändra ditt liv...
This is the first time I've seen one of my books translated to another language and it's a delightfully odd experience! Hopefully I make sense in Swedish.
If you happen to be a Swedish speaker I hope you'll pick up a copy, it appears you can find it in manyonlinebookstores and I'm sure your local bookstores can order it for you as well.
