Hip Hip Hooray

Three cheers for August Fridays at J H I. We're free to go early every Friday this month, and that makes me a happy kid.

Introducing the Ray-Bandits

Kid Zeppelin

This kid is insane.

Current

Also added a Currently Enjoying section. Just cause i can.

Some cool sites

Hey, more cool design sites. Check 'em out:

Emil Kozak
Justin Thomas Kay

It sure is big

So tonight was the first night of Bible School at Ephesus. I showed up to help, eat cupcakes, and take pictures. So, I walk in with my Sony Cybershot DSC-P71 ready to go. I'm barely in the building, and this 8 year old says "What's that?" So I reply, "A camera." Kid replies, "It sure is big." Ouch. Here's a picture of me mustering enough energy to raise the behemoth eye-level:


I'm not super high maintenance when it comes to the latest technology, but when 8 year olds can't even recognize what device I'm carrying, I draw the line. So yeah, time to get a new camera. Preferably one that takes sweet video with audio. Suggestions welcome.

Enchanted Typography

Amanda and I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last weekend and enjoyed it. I was going to blog about the amazing typographic sequences that use the Daily Prophet to help progress the story but somebody else has already done it, and done it far better than I could have. Check out the article, then check out the movie. Or whatever.

GL07 Shirts

Well party people, the GL07 shirts are finally headed to production. Full art here. And, yeah, I updated the date on the design. I just pray I don't lose too much money printing these shirts. Now the question is do I do something fresh for GL08 or recycle?

Loves

Oh it is so on.

Sooner or Later

I was cruising Threadless and saw this. Those guys are so clever.

Awesome Email Response

Read from down up. You know how emails work.

X-Rays, Splinters & Elections

I hope everybody is well. I haven’t posted anything since Wednesday so I thought, I’d recap a little of last week and the weekend. I’ll try not to blab too much.

Thursday
Mostly uneventful. Can’t remember much from work, other than David seems to bring a couple of new $80 design books in to work every day for me to drool over. Thanks, brother. The real fun came after work when Amanda and I met up with Becca at Blackfinn for a JMU Alumni party. Did we socialize? No. Do we care? No. We’re cool like that. Blackfinn was pretty sick, too. TV’s in front of the urinals. Yeah, I’m easily impressed.

Friday
Dentist appointment, first thing. That could have gone better. A few years back, I had to get a root canal due to an abscessed tooth. No fun. Then last year, my new dentist found out that there was some problem with that procedure and had to cap that tooth. It sucked but I got to sport a rad blinging cap for a few days:



Then Friday morning I found the tooth was re-abscessed or something. So, now I’m off to a specialist so they can do it right. Here’s the x-ray from the appointment Friday:



Oddly enough, Dr. Bass didn’t seem to care much about the tooth I chipped making Amanda’s book:




Saturday
The plan for Saturday was simple; wake up, help assemble new play set at church, movie, then cookout with my boy Cameron at the lake. So, we wake up and pull in to the church lot at 7:30. The sight that greeted us was daunting. A huge pile of lumber, tools spread everywhere and three guys ready to build. So, what we thought would take a couple of hours turned into a 10-hour job for 5 people.

So, Saturday was shot. Sorry Cameron. I’m just glad Amanda was there to keep us 4 guys straight or the Lord only knows what we would have ended up with or how long it would have taken. But, it was pretty cool to see this thing take form and I’m sure the kid’s at Ephesus Baptist will thoroughly enjoy it. Here’s what my and Amanda's Saturday was spent making:





Sunday
I was a couple of votes away from being made a Deacon of Ephesus Baptist Church. Surprisingly, I think I’m relieved. I think the Lord knows I’m not ready, despite my hasty acceptance of my nomination, and everybody’s support at Ephesus. Plus, Amanda and I didn’t vote for me either, so I can’t be too bummed.

Then we went to an 11-year-old's birthday pool party (waddup John Cranford!). Cake, PS2, & water balloons? Yeah, we’re so there.

Now, I’m here at home recapping it all like somebody cares. Well, I hope you all had a good weekend cause I did. Amanda and #1 (her moms, I’ll explain the #1 thing later) are going to be in Philly til Wednesday. Wish them safe travel and speedy return. Cheerios and PB&J’s are gonna get REAL old after 3 days.

I’m going to sign off with a few sites that have been consuming most of my time lately. WARNING: Only visit these sites if you have a ton of time on your hands because they’re addictive!

How to Be Creative
Download the PDF. Dave Swain IMed this link to me along with some really kind words Saturday morning. I’m still working on reading through the PDF, but it’s a good read. Thanks Swain. You’re the man.

Jake and Amir
These guys are so pimp. So f’n pimp.

Okay Dave
Maya at work told me about this guy. I think there are two reactions to Dave Werner’s work; depression or inspiration. I had both. His talent, and dedication initially depressed me. I couldn’t dream of me being in his situation doing this kind of work. But I quickly got over it, and this weekend I could barely sleep because of the electric creativity energy that sparked from his sites. Yeah, sites with an ‘S’, like plural.‘Check out Okay Samurai too.

Alright, thanks for tuning in.
Aaron

Cool Spot

I saw this on another blog site and thought it was worth sharing.

Light Years Ahead

Thanks to David for the heads up on these. Very cool stuff.

0015

This is awesome. Check it out.

Business Cards!

Today at work, John sent around this enormous business card gallery that somebody put together. It's really quite nice. Be careful though, it's easy to get sucked in and click through almost all of them.

Check 'em out: Business Cards!

Also, we went to the lake twice this weekend and it rocked. That's all.

Aaron

Interesting little coincidence

So, I get into work and peel off the past couple of days on my Onion desktop calendar and I'm totally surprised to find this as today's article:





Pretty cool, huh? This calendar knows what's going on.

Happy 4th, everybody!

Hey world. Happy Independence Day! It’s that time of year again where we celebrate everything that makes our country great. Some of those things being: grilled food, beer, fireworks, friends, family & BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES!

There have been tons of great movies that have opened on the 4th of July. Airplane, Back to the Future, Terminator 2, Independence Day, Armageddon, Spider-Man 2, War of the Worlds, Superman Returns, and now Transformers.



We just got back from seeing this movie. I totally went for the geek factor. I wanted to see my childhood toys come to life and kick real live arse on the big screen. Amanda went cause she’s a good sport. So how does one make Transformers, a story about alien DNA-based robots that morph into cars and wage ware against other alien DNA-based morphing robots over a giant alien rubik’s cube, not feel entirely ridiculous? The answer is: Don’t take yourself seriously.

I think Edgar Wright (of Hot Fuzz, good movie, check it out) said it best when he said, “I do like an occasion to just switch my brain off and enjoy some mindless carnage.” He calls them popcorn movies. You just go and sit and take in a mediocre film that’s a blast to watch. No multi-layered plots or deep symbolism, just cinematic cheese. And that’s what I expected Transformers to be. But from the get go, it promised to be a little more. There were so many points where the movie practically makes fun of itself, that you’re totally caught off guard and you can’t help but have fun.

Then there are other scenes that are just funny on any level and in any situation. In my personal opinion, Anthony Anderson (who plays a video gaming code hacker that lives with his Grandma) is hard not to laugh at. I think he’s one of those guys that has a unique delivery. Much like Chris Tucker and Dave Chappelle, he can say anything and make it funny.

Anyway, this is way longer than it needs to be. The point is, go see Transformers. Even Amanda, who was incredibly skeptical before the movie, thought it rocked. That’s saying something.

Peace and Happy 4th,
Aaron

The iPhone Madness

According to research firm M:Metrics, nineteen million Americans say they want the iPhone sight unseen. That's unreal. So many people that have never even held a product and say they must have it. Well, I'm here today to proudly and loudly tell you that I am not one of those nineteen million Americans.



I'm not some mindless goob that is clamoring for a piece of the iPhone action without even seeing it in person. You won't catch me blindly following the pack of cows to feed at Farmer Steve's iPhone trough. (What? Just go with it.)

No, I am not one of the 19,000,000 Americans that want an iPhone sight unseen. I want one because I have seen it. I have fondled that sweet mistress of a touch screen. I've watched YouTube videos, scrolled through images, browsed the web, played movies, and watched as voicemail was checked and calls were taken with grace and beauty that make your head spin.

I kid you not, at one point yesterday 2 of the 6 people present in my office building were proud iPhone owners. Which isn't hard to believe since they sold, what, 500,000 the first weekend. Insanity.

But alas, work had to go on, the drool dried, and reality sunk in. As I realize the $500 phone, with a more expensive plan, on a network with horrible Southside Virginia coverage probably isn't for me, I can always phone vicariously through the hundreds of thousands of people currently iPhoning across the nation.

One of those people, of course, being David the J H I Intern. More power to you bro.

As always, thanks for checking in.
Aaron

Inaugural Entry

Hey all. Thanks as always for checking in. I feel like the last couple of months have been pretty busy and somewhat interesting. So, since this is the first post of the new SlickPixel blog, I’m going to cover a lot of ground. Let’s get to it.

Defining Moments
Amanda and I celebrated our four-year wedding anniversary May 17th. We have a little book that lists what each anniversary gift is. Last year, the book told us that the third year anniversary gift is leather. Now, I had wanted to do something special for Amanda for a long time because she is really an amazing person, exceptional friend and the perfect wife. So I decided “Hey, I’ll write and make her a book and bound it in leather.” I decided it would be a collection of memories and inside jokes that we’ve shared. I’d list words alphabetically, dictionary style, and tell how she’s changed what each word or item means to me, and call the book Defining Moments. I’ll even leave blanks so we can fill it in and it can grow along with our relationship.

That turned out to be a lot of work. I started writing the book and May 17 got nearer and nearer, until I had to cop out and get her some lame gift because the book wasn’t even written, let alone done. But I decided to stick with it. Maybe I’ll get it done by her birthday. Nope. Christmas? Nope. But progress was being made and by this year I had finished by our anniversary. I had to change my plans a little since the fourth year anniversary was linen according to our little book.

So, the finished product was roughly 200 pages, bound in a screen-printed black cover. For protection I also screen printed a book jacket. Don’t worry, I got the linen in there. The book starts and ends with black linen finished stock and the inside layer of the book jacket is a black linen stock as well.


So, I’m really happy with the finished result, and I think Amanda is too. I look forward to filling it in in the years to come. It wasn’t all sugar drops and rainbows along the way though. I chipped my tooth making it, which is a completely different story for another day. It was worth it in the end, since I was able to give Amanda a collection of our most personal memories.

Download the full PDF here.

No, not really.



HOW Design Conference
The HOW Conference in Atlanta was pretty cool to say the least. This was my first HOW Conference, but it won’t be my last. I learned a lot from some very interesting people. Here are some images of the event:


So it begins. I anxiously await to hear Chip Kidd deliver the first profanity laced words of wisdom. I later realize that I prefer the back row seating.


The Hyatt was pretty big inside. I’ll never ever ride those elevators either, by the way.


Plenty of interesting stuff in the Resource Center. This chick’s getup is completely paper (even the fruit hat in the bottom right corner of the photo). From watching Amanda make a paper men’s dress shirt first hand, I can appreciate the skill involved here.


Decender’s Ball closing party at the Georgia Aquarium.


Designers love aquatic life.


I met Chip Kidd at the end of this tunnel. He was very nice.


Decender’s Ball. Typography theme. So, of course, this guy was there. Check out those gnarly spider crabs too. Yikes.


Hey, it’s Beckie. I only made one real contact and friend at the Conference, and it was Beckie. But that’s cool cause she’s the bee’s knees. I’ve always been a quality not quantity person anyway. Also, this is the last known documentation of the nasty mop that used to reside on top of my head.






Dad Bash
Well, the Second Annual Dad Bash went off without too many hitches. This year’s Father’s Day celebration doubled in size from last year as the attendee list just kept growing. This proved interesting since this was about the third time in my life I’d grilled, and I was now grilling for about 20 folks. The more the merrier, though, as good times and edible food were had by all.


Eat and be merry!



The happy hosts. Things to notice in this photo:
1) Amanda is just so dern cute.
2) The sweet free Veer shirt I got at the HOW Conference.
3) Nobody manning the grills.



Alrighty, I’m gonna wrap this up because it’s way too long to begin with. Thanks for checking and let me know what you think of the new SlickPixel temporary setup.