Ruqus

The Great thing about being a Designer is the diversity of the work that I get to touch. One of our latest projects is Risqi, our client Dawn Griffith came to Skybend looking to start an apparel company from scratch. Dawn like every client had a lot of great ideas but the reason Dawn has been great to work with is that she communicates her ideas and then lets me use my imagination to create.

The nice thing about the relationship is that Dawn trusts me, the designer, to produce her concepts into visual representations. Dawn also comes to us regularly with “half baked” (in a good way) ideas where we then brainstorm and develop her concepts into realistic and visually rich solutions. So far it has been an awesome collaboration with a lot of great results and a lot of fun, it has also been very artistic where Dawn encourages the use of imagination and values the collaboration and serendipitous nature of the process, rather than viewing the designer as merely a production tool.

Here is the Dawn’s Logo for RISQI and an initial tee design concept, The best part is Dawn is Happy. Dawn said “I am Beyond lovin it! Lovin it x 3!!!”
My logo sketches can be found below.

risqi sketches

I consider myself an artist. Creativity just happens. The funny thing is that my creativity is all over the map. My Hammock under my desk My Desks, My life, My T-shirt Designs, and My sketch books are filled with ideas in creative solutions for all kinds of things.

The engine of creativity:
I have a Ribs recipe that I worked on for nearly a decade until the ribs were the flavor I had imagined at the onset of the process. Now I am not an experienced cook by any stretch of the imagination but the exploration was an enjoyable education. Once the Ribs were done I set out on a quest for the perfect BBQ sauce. I could not find one, so the creative process started again. The process has setbacks and complete failures for that matter but success is a wonderful reward to the imagination.

Latest Creative Outlet
Artisan pizza. I purchased a ceramic BBQ pit knowing I needed to get a true smokey wood fired flavor. I chose the Big Green Egg. I am a complete novice in artisan pizza but the exploration and experimentation has been creative fuel and the results are pretty tasty. I make a couple of safe best that I know will taste classic. Then I flip the mad scientist switch and create the FRANKEN PIZZAS.





This is my BBQ Chicken Pizza, not so original, but my BBQ Sauce Recipe contains Chipotle so the pizza really takes on a life of its own and becomes unique.





This is my Blue Wing Pizza, Inspired by a burger joint that I frequent. It is a Buffalo wing pizza with a spicy hot sauce and blue cheese which work great together for an awesome flavor punch.

The key to a happy soul: Strive to be creative in whatever it is you do. Sharing the results with family and friends makes it even better.

So this idea is about a year or two old and Designed up about a year ago and I am just now getting around to it. So I now put a stake in the ground for Kockadoodle. The Early Bird Creative Network.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Traction kockadoodle

Here is my progression in Sketches:

On Friday Feb. 12th I went to a a StartupPrincess event featuring Seth Godin.  He was promoting his latest book, Linchpin, Are You Indispensible?

Though I have never read any of his books or seen him speak I have on occasion read his blog. So I thought it might be a good to see him speak – Seth started out with the Question, “Are you a genus“?
His talk used images that were off the wall yet relevant to his train of thought like Lunch lady photos, and baseball bats hitting spectators. Linchpins are people who create new solutions, take risks, passionate about their “thing”, make themselves indispensible, makes a difference. Using these attributes Seth redefines the word “Artist”. An “Artist” is no longer just someone that can draw.

A friend of mine Denise Lee Yohn commented on her blog “Seth was more inspirational than substantive”. I totally agree, he was very motivational in a half time get up and get going sort of way but all in all there were no new concepts, ideas, or thoughts. Don’t get me wrong it was all good but not so groundbreaking.

To be a Linchpin:
•Make Art
•Give Gifts
•Do work that matters
•Connect
•Lead
•Ship
•Make a difference
•Do the work

The Answer to the Question, “Are you a genus“? is YES!

So I am walking to my office this morning and I see what looks like a Banksy graffiti project. I think Nahhh this is Salt Lake City, Utah. No Way does Banksy visit #SLC. Well he is here and there are other sightings of his work popping up.

Park CIty Banksy

These pics are taken with my iphone. I will try to get better shots tomorrow with a real camera.

UPDATE: The city of Salt Lake removed the Banksy art installation on 3rd south and West Temple. The good news is they left up the trashy blue spray painted tag that looks like ass that is actually the EYESORE. Well done guys!

A while back we did some work for a skate company called kockeyed. We did some Skate Deck Designs and in this process I needed a realistic rendering of the final product for mock ups. So I created a PSD file that would accommodate the original deck designs and give them a realistic look. So here is a preview and a .zip file with the PSD.

PSD Preview

I have a higher resolution version if you need it contact me to work out pricing.

DOWNLOAD This file is 35Mb.

Title Image

Today I heard a story about the immediate impact of Twitter, or Twitimpact (that’s right you read it here first, Twitimpact). The story goes like this:

1. Celebrity eats out at a favorite Hollywood spot.
2. Celebrity skips out on bill. Claims wallet was in car and never returns.
3. Server at the eatery tweets (sent a Twitter message) about it.
4. Celebrity sees tweet and gets angry.
5. Celebrity then has her assistant pay the bill but not the tip.
6. Server tweets “NO TIP.”
7. Celebrity returns to the scene of the crime and slaps three dollars on the table in front of server.
8. Server tweets “Thank You” to the celebrity.
9. Server gets fired. Presumably at the celebrities request.
10. Server continues to happily tweet saying “thank you” to the celebrity for days off with family.
11. People feel bad for the server and add their own tweets.
12. Celebrity looks even worse.

This silly incident has forever affected the celebrity’s Brand. It could have a very real, and immediate, impact on the viewership of the celebrity’s TV show. Which in turn effects advertising dollars for the network. All because she chose not to pay for the daily lunch special. What is the ultimate cost of that lunch?

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• A minor slip-up in Brand awareness is like peeing in the pool, no amount of chlorine can get the pee out.

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A while back I posted I needed to build a bed under my desk like Costanza frin Seinfeld for afternoon naps. Here is my version.

Article: For NFL Mascots, Meaner Is Better

Why is “meaner” better? The look of the updated logos in this article all tell a story. The story of we are here to kick your ass! If  you read the comments I think Stephen Rustad wrote a brilliant comment.

The Detroit Lions have the dubious distinction of owning the NFL record. 0 wins 13 losses for the 08′ Season.

The lions in the past have had, arguably one of the worst logos in professional sports.

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The Red X factor:

During the Dot Com era there was a Legend and the legend starts with IBM having a Mainframe computer, one of the worlds most resourced machines and suddenly went offline. No one, current engineers, mainframe experts, etc. could figure out how to solve this mainframe’s issues and get it back online. So IBM set out on a search to find a team member of the original team that designed and built this mainframe. Digging through the past all the engineers who were involved had passed away. Then IBM located one guy from the team, he had retired in the early 80s which meant 20 years of technological inactivity. They flew this sole surviving engineer from his home in Iowa to Seattle to work on the problem. They put him up in a swank Hotel where they had a suite reserved for several weeks. The first day he walked into the mainframe spent an hour or so reviewing diagnostics that he was supplied then calmly walked over to a circuit and drew a RED X, he then walked over to the rest of the team and told them that was where they would find the problem. This expert then went to the hotel, picked up his things, got on a plane and returned home.
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