I apologize for not posting anything recently. We’ve been busy wrapping several projects that keeping up on our posts just didn’t quite fall into the “high priority” category. That being said, we have had the pleasure of working diligently whilst our ears have been massaged by the Velcro Fastener “deep : inside” compilation. It’s amazing how hard it is to find a decent compilation that is conducive to creativity, especially nowadays, where everyone is so ADD. It seems that people are more interested in releasing a lot of mediocre records, instead of releasing a few REALLY GOOD ones. Anyway, it’s hard to pinpoint one particular artist from this compilation that really stands out. I mean, just look at what you have to choose from:
• Authecre
• Fujiya & Miyagi
• Mr. Velcro Fastener
• Mouse On Mars
and many others. This whole compilation is brilliant from start to finish. Fortunately, Mouse On Mars (above all else) really seems to stick with me personally when I’m plugging away. Their music just seems so appropriate that I had to post their track, “Pinwheel Herman.” It’s so quirky, and yet I can relate so easily. Well, I hope you enjoy these listening pleasures. In the interim, we’ll be sure to prep our finished works and post them here for preview if anyone is interested.
So we just finished branding a new client of ours under the name Solid Gold Bomb. We thought it would be neat to preview the conceptual sketches along with the finished piece. Although Adobe Illustrator is a great tool to use, when it comes to branding, Christy and I tend to embrace a more traditional approach by utilizing a pencil, graph paper, compass, protractor, and a lot of erasing. This way we’re not limited to our knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, only our imagination. Besides, sometimes we just have an idea, and we need to get it out before we lose it.
Took this shot about a week ago atop a smart park in downtown PDX. Finally got some time to work with it to produce an HDR effect. We took a lot more, unfortunately we haven’t had the time to work with the rest of them. As soon as we do though, we’ll be sure to post the results.
The works of Madeleine Peyroux have really stuck out to us recently. One piece in particular is a cover she did of Elliott Smith’s song “Between the Bars.” The original is a very beautiful piece, but this cover takes the original to the cleaners, and then some. If you can appreciate good, classical jazz, with an emotional mix of melancholy, we think you’ll appreciate this cover as much as we do, especially the breakdown with the piano, nylon guitar, upright bass, and beautiful sounding brushes over the snare drum. PARFAIT!!!!
Alright, so we finally sent off our submissions to Communication Arts yesterday. Now we wait, and hopefully at least one of our submissions will make it in. I was going to post which submissions we went with, but I think I’ll wait until we hear whether or not we got in.
On another note, we’ve just recently been invited to join the Behance network. When it comes to social networking sites, Behance definitely takes the cake. If you haven’t been there yet, it’s a pretty dope network of multidisciplinary media professionals, and everyone is super responsive, and very friendly, so I would highly recommend checking it out. Unfortunately you can’t just sign up and get a profile. You have to be invited to get in. Either way, if you get in, take advantage of the tools you have at your disposal. It’s truly a great way to make new connections in various creative fields.
We just recently (about 4 weeks ago) purchased a Canon 40D digital SLR. We’re still familiarizing ourselves with it, (as there is somewhat of a learning curve initially). We did, however, take a little road trip over to marine drive by the Portland Airport to have a little photo shoot adventure. It seems that most of the shots we took were pretty right on, although I suppose that’s the result of several weeks of tampering with settings just to get the initial shots the way we want them to turn out. Anyway, we thought it would be fun to share the results. These shots were taken with the stock EF28-135mm lens that comes with the 40D. I must say, we’re pretty satisfied with the results so far. Anyway, hope you enjoy.
This was a pretty fun piece to work on. Bang-On (a pop culture, lifestyle t-shirt company, originating from Vancouver B.C., Canada) commissioned us to design a postcard for their grand opening in Frankston, Australia. Looks like we’ll be handling all of Bang-On’s Frankston collateral print projects as well. The grand opening is supposed to be amazing. Wish we could be there to experience the swag. They did promise to take loads of pictures, so we’ll try to snag some and post them here.
Today a friend referred me to the Andre Perry website, and I must say, I’m ashamed to admit that I had no idea who Andre Perry was until today. Better late than never I suppose. Anyway, I don’t even know where to begin. This is such an amazing studio, and the Le Studio (I apologize for redundancy) brand is super duper.
Apparently this studio was one of the first sophisticated, wold-class, environmentally friendly, audio / visual studios started by Andre Perry in 1974 (a 1962 Grand Prix du Disque award winning studio musician). Anyway, click here for more information on Andre Perry, as the history of Le Studio is really fascinating.
Yet again, another track that we featured on our “Colorcubic Helios Office Mix.” This track was produced by Thomas Fehlmann, titled: “Du Fehlst Mir.” Not exactly sure what that means, but it’s a beautiful track, and an even more beautiful album which it’s featured on, titled: “Visions of Blah.” I’m also pretty fond of the packaging as well. The type looks like Futura [medium], but the A, V, M, and N throw me off a bit. Usually the A, V, M, and N are sharp at the cross section in Futura [medium], but here on the cover they’re flat at the cross section. Oh well, maybe it’s some extended family. Anyway, beautiful album, beautiful song, and worth picking up.
This piece is actually a remix of an event poster that we made for my Electronic Music Moniker, Masmöd. I have to say, I prefer this piece to the original. Christy and I are still deciding whether or not we want to include this along with our other submissions to the CA competition. We have to make up our minds by tonight, because the deadline is tomorrow. Either way, this was really fun to mess with.
I apologize in advance if the title of this post comes off sounding arrogant in anyway. On the contrary, we’re just really excited about the coming of the new year. Although we’re a bit early, we’re always thinking about how we can improve Colorcubic. We’ve really been on each others cases about nailing down our design and development skills, and never getting comfortable with where we are as far as design goes in general. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re never really satisfied with the work we produce. Instead, we’re always trying to raise the bar in some way or another. Anyway, this “2009″ print is our final submission to the Communication Arts competition. We’re keeping our fingers crossed in hopes that they’ll choose some of our work. Whatever the case, all of it was fun to work on, and if we don’t wind up in this publication, then we’ll shoot for something else.
Okay, so we’ve narrowed down the selection of brand identity work that we want to submit to the communication arts competition to these two pages. Unfortunately we are only submitting five identity pieces, so as you can see we’re in a bit of a pickle. Any help deciding would be greatly appreciated. We have until Monday (June 9th) to make our final decision. Feel free to leave us a comment, or send us a message to help us decide.
