Make It Happen

The good folks at Advertising Age have an awesome piece of advice for all the professionals out there:

Stop being hired by clients and start hiring them. Stop waiting to receive an RFP or mailing hundreds of clients four to six times a year to stay “top of mind.” Instead, pick the folks you really want to work with, regardless of how big they are or what agency they currently work with.

As Sophia Lucero aptly puts it "This is just another facet of what seems to be terribly wrong with business, which shapes our cynicism and despair over what we are getting paid to do. I hope that for you, it started out as a job you would have loved to do for free."

Bingo.

Don't Just Sit Around Waiting for Opportunity to Knock.

That's Right,

HMK

Muchas Gracias to Tom Martin at Ad Age and Sophia Lucero over at Wisdump and Lisa Yarost for the cool bingo shot.

Living The Good Life

Living the good life means different things to different people.

The good life is about appreciating all your time, not just your leisure time. Far too many people get caught up in the mad rush of a corporate lifestyle and grow completely numb to the little moments, the simple building blocks of time that make life magical. Time, after all, is the single greatest element of life.

Slow Down – Urgency and haste instantly diminish accuracy, awareness and happiness. There is a big difference between getting things done and getting things done effectively.

Appreciate Life’s Simple Pleasures – The best things in life are free. From a quiet lakeside sunset to sleeping in on a rainy day, life’s greatest simple pleasures can only be purchased with mindful awareness.

Foster and Nurture Relationships – A happy, fulfilling life is a life shared with family and friends.

Be Self Sufficient – Freedom is the greatest gift. Self sufficiency is the greatest freedom.

Learn About Different Things – In life, a jack of all trades is far more equipped than a master of only one. Combining the two is the key.

Concentrate on Your Passions – True wealth comes naturally to those who are passionate about their endeavors.

Talk to Strangers – Quite simply, this is how you will meet great people.

Exercise Your 5 Senses – Sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Each provides a gateway to rewarding personal experiences.

Use What You Have – Success is not the byproduct of limitless resources. Success happens when you stretch the limits of the available resources.

Be Clear on Your Goals – You will never get where you want to go if you don’t know what you want.

Make a Decision – Indecision is the leading cause of missed opportunity and wasted time.

And my favorite: Assist Others – What goes around comes around.

Good stuff! These are just a few of my favorites, dig the full list via the smart folks over at: Marc & Angel Hack Life.

That's Right,

HMK

Gorge Grown Farmers Market

Really digging this homegrown street campaign for
Gorge Grown Farmers Market in Portland, Oregon.

Agency: Owen Jones & Partners, Portland, Art Director: Craig Skinner, Copywriter: Nick Hughes, Fabricator: Bart Popenoe

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks again Freddy.

Liverpool Letterpool News

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!

Letterpool is a community art project showcasing examples of glorious typography in and around Liverpool from modern day, dating back to the eighteenth century and beyond. We are calling for entries from the people of Liverpool to send in photographs of your favourite examples of type, ranging from funky and artistic to commercial and industrial.

Many of the photos will be shown on the Letterpool web site and 100 of the best will make it into a hardback book to be published at the end of this year.

Dig it: Letterpool.

And speaking of liverpool... For 44 years a canister of film had been stored in a damp garage in South London; unopened, unloved and almost thrown away.
But, finally, somebody took a look inside - and realised they had unearthed a piece of pop history.

This is the story of a lost Beatles interview, produced by Howard Shannon - which is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday for the first time since it was originally recorded.

The nine-minute interview took place in the studios of Scottish Television on Thursday, 30 April, 1964 and airs at on Tuesday 1 July, and again at on Saturday 5 July, check out BBC for more info.

And who knows, you might just might find it here over at Necessito La Music...

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Digital Thread.

RIP Dan Cook

Good Taste + Time = Quality

Ira Glass, host and brian child of Chicago Public Radio and NPR's This American Life waxes on the work and creativity behind great story telling.

Ideas are funny things. They don't work until you do. Don't quit, keep working, keep making mistakes and keep learning!

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Design Notes.

Adobe Makes it Happen

Number 9... Number 9...

Wow. Just yesterday Adobe released the first Reader application to bake movies and animation into PDFs. With Adobe Reader 9, users can play Flash movies, Shockwave animation, and other rich media content without needing to open a third-party player. Sweet! More from Elsa Wenzel's piece over at WebWare.

And dig this - until now, Flash has been anything but easily searchable. According to CNET, Adobe Systems is working with leading search engines Google and Yahoo to solve the problem. CNET News.com Editor in Chief Dan Farber and reporter Elinor Mills discuss the impact of making Flash pages more visible to search engines.

Read it all: Searching for Flash Files.

Go Adobe!

That's Right,

HMK

Legalize Golf Carts!

Folks in Lockhart, Texas want to put golf carts on the road.

Genius.

News 8 Austin has details.

That's Right,

HMK

Viva La Collobrières!

I miss buying gilders with francs...

I've still got at least 100 francs in both change and bills - as of today worth about 24.00 US or 15.23 Euro...

The franc, as we know was replaced as the national currency by the euro in 2002.

Now Collobrières, a village deep in Provence revives the Franc, and hopes to bring back the good old days: Viva La Collobrières!

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to the New York Times and John McConnico for the cool shot.

Type Tester

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Typetester lacus felis, euismod at, pulvinar sit amet, dapibus eu, eros. Etiam tellus. Nam vestibulum porttitor urna. Phasellus aliquet pretium quam. Proin pharetra, wisi nec tristique accumsan, magna sapien pulvinar purus, vel hendrerit ipsum tellus at ante.

Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen, specifically designed to make the life of any web designer easier.

So, if you have anything to do with designing for the web you'll appreciate Typetester.

That's Right,

HMK

Retro Eye Candy

You can thank Pop Kulture for this smattering of pulp fiction, mapbacks, sleaze and sci-fi... among other things. The cover art in this cool flickr set ranges from the ambitious to the pulpish, from the surreal and photomontage, all the way to the simply absurd!: Vintage Paperbacks.

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Pop Kulture.

Hey! Ho! Let's Vote!

This just in, it appears that Barack Obama is officially a Ramones Fan!

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) – Presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama sat down in Chicago Friday morning to discuss the economy with visiting Democratic governors, but all eyes were on the Illinois senator’s podium bearing, what might be described as, a quasi-presidential seal – a new Obama campaign logo.

The seal includes the same bald eagle as the actual presidential seal clutching an olive branch and arrows in its talons, but instead of a shield covering the center of the eagle’s body, the Obama version displays the campaign’s trademark “O.” Unlike the Presidential seal, which includes the words “Seal of the President of the United States” around the circumference, “Obama for America” and “www.barackobama.com” grace the top and bottom of Obama's.

Finally, just above the eagle, in Latin, are the words – “vero possumus” – which translates to “yes we can,” the oft-heard chant at Obama rallies.

"Do you remember lying bed
With your covers pulled up over your head?

Radio playin' so no one can see
We need change, we need it fast

Before rock's just part of the past
'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me"

That's Right,

HMK

Moving Titles

I'm always a sucker for smart and visually interesting title design. Equally fascinating to me is the process and thinking behind the creation of these opening and closing sequences. If you're as easily sucked in as I am then you'll dig this amazing source of inspiration for motion graphics and title sequences: Art Of The Title.

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Design Notes.

Juan, Pablo, Jorge & Gringo!

Viva Los Beatles!

Just in time for Summer! Back by popular demand, the reprint of the original 1992 Los Beatles shirts are here! I've got a limited number of Large and XL @ $15US each. Add $5US for shipping within the United States.

More info: Viva Los Beatles!

That's Right,

HMK

Radio Island Poolside Vibes!

It's On! Grab a towel, a cold one and tune in!

HMK Mystery Stream: Irregular Frequency Episode 142: Radio Island.

Some material might not be appropriate for the young ones...

Click Hear: hmk.podomatic.com

Make It Louder!

HMK

New Stamps! Charles and Ray Eames

The U.S. Postal Service has just issued 42–cent Charles and Ray Eames stamps in a commemorative sheet featuring 16 different designs.

In recognition of their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, manufacturing and photographic arts, designers Charles and Ray Eames will be honored this summer with a pane of 16 stamps designed by Derry Noyes of Washington, DC.

If you’ve ever sat in a stackable molded chair, you’ve experienced their creativity. Perhaps best known for their furniture, the Eameses were husband and wife as well as design partners. Their extraordinary body of creative work — which reflected the nation’s youthful and inventive outlook after World War II — also included architecture, films and exhibits. Without abandoning tradition, Charles and Ray Eames used new materials and technology to create high-quality products that addressed everyday problems and made modern design available to the American public.

Go get yoursover at The U.S. Postal Service.

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HMK

Thanks to Swiss Miss.

700 Palms

Wow. This is really a sweet casa!

The stunning 700 Palms Residence is a prime example of some wicked nice green and site-specific architecture.

Designed by Steven Ehrlich Architects, the striking structure mixes raw industrial materials with a polished modern aesthetic, making it a monument to eponymous SoCal style and a sustainable marvel in its own right. Its breezy construction seamlessly integrates outdoor spaces with a flowing interior floor plan that was carefully considered to address the freedoms and constraints of residential design in Venice, Los Angeles.

More: 700 Palms via Inhabitat.

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HMK

Thanks to Mike Chinco

Get Schooled

As the Learnlist website states: We're a simple resource for graphic designers, illustrators, web designers, developers, basically anyone creative! It lists the best websites and books available to help you learn something new!

Far from being super comprehensive, the LearnList is a nice resourse and not a bad place to start/contiune one's quest for knowledge.

Get schooled: The LearnList.

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HMK

Thanks to The LearnList.

Price War!

Really digging the art direction and especially the illustrations for these ads.

Copy: "As our competitors bombard you with explosive offers, our only weapon is building materials at constantly low prices."

Nice work for ByggMax from art directors Ole Henrik Stubberud and Björn Andreassen from an agency called Kitchen in Norway. Illustrator: Björn Nordberg.

Click the ads to check out the detail!

That's Right,

HMK

Thanks to Ads Of The World

Professional Amateurs

I'm totally digging Tim Leberecht's take on the mystique of Big Branding and the concept of shrinking and fragmenting a brand.

It is acknowledged that brands have to deal with what John Moore, the author of “Brand Autopsy,” dubs “the Growth Paradox”: “The smaller you are, the bigger you must look. The bigger you are, the smaller you must get.” And yet, the bewildering disruptions in the realm of social media, in conjunction with significant changes in consumer behavior, raise many new questions for marketers that go beyond sporadic, anecdotal smallness.

Q: What are the strategic implications for brands and branding? And what are the vehicles in the micro-marketer’s arsenal?

A: Read the rest from the smart folks over at Frog Design's Act Like An Amateur.

The piece closes with what I believe is the most sound approach: Be eye-to-eye with your customers instead of bigger than life. Make your brand the water and not the rock. Be around your customers, at all stages of the customer life cycle, and surround them with meaningful conversations. Every interaction with the customer is a referendum on the brand. Re-create your brand every day and make it the fabric that embeds your customers’ micro-verses. Do everything as if you did it the first time.

In other words: Act like an amateur!

That's Right

HMK

Thanks again to Frog Design.

Crisps For Snobs

I say! If you're a crisp aficionado and you like your crisps to taste scrummy... you've jolly well come to the right place!

My mouth is watering over the Paul Baker illustrations used for the cheeky packaging and web design of Johnathan Crisp, the Crisps For Snobs.

Wicked nice!

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HMK

Mitch Webb & The Swindles CD Release Shindig!

Finally! Ok, it's official! This Friday, June 13th at Casbeers down here in San Antonio is the spot for the official release shindig celebrating the brand new and highly anticipated Mitch Webb & The Swindles "Lonely Kind" CD!

6 Bux gets you in the door and 15 gets you in + your very own copy of "Lonely Kind" CD!

Don't miss this last historic show at the old Casbeers at 1719 Blanco Rd.

More Info: Mitch Webb & The Swindles.

That' Right,

HMK

Hennie Haworth

Focusing on the every day objects of this thing we call life, do yourself a favor and check out the awesomely fresh and stylish sketches of London based illustrator Hennie Haworth.

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HMK

Thanks to Another Company.

Enough Already!

"Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline may be a cause for outrage. But it pales next to the righteous fury provoked by five-dollar-a-pint beer.

Beer prices at bars and restaurants have risen over the past few months, as prices of hops and barley have skyrocketed and retail business has slowed alongside the economy.

Some restaurants have replaced 16-ounce pint glasses with 14 ouncers -- a type of glassware one bartender called a "falsie."

And customers are complaining that bartenders are increasingly putting less than 16 ounces of beer in a pint glass, filling up the extra space with foam."

Outrageous!

Read the rest of Nancy Keates' piece over at The Wall Street Journal.

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HMK

I forget who shot these beers, sorry!

Hip To Be Square

Behold the Minox DCC Rolleiflex AF 5.0.

I used to shoot with a similar twin reflex, a Yashica-D to be specific, back in high school in the late 70's. I loved the big, upside-down preview window as well as the large square format negatives.

As one of the most recognized cameras in the world, the Rolleiflex now returns with modern digital technology.

With this fully functioning, high precision replica of the world famous Rolleiflex 6x6 camera (scale 1:2) Minox presents yet another exclusive design and technical highlight in an outstanding pocket camera.

Many functions and details reproduced to scale create that true Rolleiflex feeling when shooting photos. Just like the square negatives produced using the original Rolleiflex, with the Minox Rolleiflex AF 5.0 the photographer has square format digital photos with a resolution of up to 5 million pixels.

More info at Let's Go Digital.

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HMK