A great interview with one of my favorite artists Jose Parla during the Stages art opening in Paris. Â Love him (and I’ve luckily got a few of his pieces).
Each year, designers and fans anxiously await the start of the Layer Tennis season. 2009 was no different, as Coudal Partners, a Chicago ad and design agency, kicked off a series of live online design events in which professionals trade designs back and forth in real-time, building on top of their opponent’s work. A third party offers commentary which is often whimsical as well as inspiring and unpredictable. The audience can comment during the actual match as well as vote for a winner afterward, all using Twitter. This current season started on February 3 and was held every Friday ending May 29. We are currently in the playoffs in which you can find our featured designer, Sam Potts facing off against Aaron Draplin this Friday, June 12.
In this second season (of its current incarnation), we wanted to get an idea of the impact Layer Tennis has on the participants and the design community at large. Could we find a pattern in the tools or techniques used? What sort of pressures do they face when the ball in in their court and the clock is ticking? Keep reading for the interview…
I just came across a wonderful short new film by Brazilian director Cisma, the result of the latest commission from Adobe’s very inspiring Adobe Artists project. With the strict rule that everything must be produced using only Adobe products—Creative Suite 4, in particular—Le Sens Propre continues successfully in Cisma’s trademark surreal style. We watch a little girl in her room throw dishes into a tidy and unbroken stack, tie her shoes but accidentally knot up her thumbs instead and see bunnies turn into colorful, soft pebbles. It’s a bit Alice in Wonderland meets Candyland; totally charming to the end. Amazingly enough, no 3-D software was employed in the making of the film. According to an interview with Motiongraphics, Cisma wanted “to create strange scenes and weird connections between elements of the story,” giving viewers the chance to be surprised. It’s this aspect that keeps you glued to the computer screen. Check the Adobe Artist site for other gems, including a short by another Brazilian filmmaker, Nando Costa.
Inquiring Mind (INQMND) Magazine delves into the minds of Richard Clarke, Jesse Leyva, and Jarrett Reynolds, three designers that drive the look of Nike Sportswear. They may not have all come from backgrounds typical to their trade, but whatever they’re doing has yielded some of the illest looks yet. We’re particularly partial to the Obsidian Flywire Cortez’s. These are not your traditional George Costanzas.
Countless new hip-hop acts are loved for sounding like they came out 15 years ago — turning modern rap into an ironic party favor. Because ingenuity is rare, those looking for quality in boom-bap dig back. That’s what the Hoarsemen are doing. The sensibility of this four man group from New York-by-way-of-New Brunswick, NJ is not a throwback, or a style shift … or an adherence to a style. It starts from scratch.
With their debut album Snacks and Catastrophes out for about a year now, it’s a cure for the common record. But their live shows are what they stake their reputation on. The goal isn’t simply making interesting music, but to create an engaging performance to go with it. I’d always hoped someone would redefine hip-hop in some form without attempting to redefine it at all, and the Hoarsemen have delivered on this wish.
The producer of this outfit, Sonny Ray, lays down beats on an MPC and supplements sample cutting with his own instrumentation. MC Long Division delivers bars in a clean voice and a rhyme style fortified with hidden metaphors. Loosie, a vocalist with an original voice, grinds out dirty hooks contrasting with Long Div’s orderly flow. Cuts from outer space come courtesy of DJ Dialect. Together, it sounds a little bit like this.
We sat in Sonny Ray’s LES apartment — also home base for production of the band’s tracks — over home brewed beer and pizza, where we talked the story out. READ MORE…
The fashion world is changing. The ethics of where and how clothes of made have become just as important as the color and the shape. Our friends at Apolis Activism have taken a strong approach to making some remarkable clothing while keeping their values of ethically made clothing at hand. Three brothers with a very impressive collection of passport stamps started the Apolis Activism label and have quickly developed it into a very impressive line of men’s clothing.
We caught up with the three brothers that make up Apolis Activism just before the release of their new Spring/Summer line. Have a read after the jump (including some nice new pictures from S/S ‘09).
I sat down next to Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke for more than 10 hours yesterday on a flight from London to L.A. (well, actually, he sat down, I was sitting first). We didn’t speak about his solo career, we didn’t speak about the long four hour delay from the snow in London. We also didn’t talk about Johnny Greenwood’s mission to save the world. We didn’t speak about his upcoming tour, or the sales of his In Rainbows record.
He was close enough to reach out and tap on the shoulder, snap photos of, and be a really annoying press figure. But I behaved myself. Truth is, I kind of felt bad for the guy as he was bombarded earlier on in the flight by a happy-go-lucky fan that recognized him.
At the end of the flight, I did manage to get in a quick interview though, it went like this:
Nine times out of ten, Public Enemy’s advice to not believe the hype rings true. And then there’s Vivian Girls. You can sometimes measure the trendiness rank of a band by how much a CDR of their demo sells for on eBay ($63 in this case). The music of the Brooklyn (by way of NJ) trio isn’t especially new. They hit the scene in 2007 and found a vigilant following that quickly snapped up all 500 copies of their vinyl-only debut. Now available as a CD or a digital download, word has been traveling as quick as the 21:27, ten-song album. And I have to say, I love it.
While Cassie Ramone, Kickball Katy and Ali Koehler cite influences like The Wipers and Nirvana on their MySpace page, I hear echoes of late 80s Oxford band Tallulah Gosh and the C86 scene. What you’ve got here is a terrific mix of 60s girl groups, U.K. shoegaze, post punk, punk, reverb and irony. On that last note, since this isn’t a music blog, I want to point you toward their “uncensored interviews” in which the Girls briefly discuss what superpowers they’d like to have and how Vincent Gallo’s sperm is overrated. Their latest offering, the Surf’s Up Fun Pack, includes a T-shirt, 7-inch, button and postcard. Pick one up here.
Social Revolution. The thought of it has been woven into 2008 like an election campaign narrative. Change, equality, sustainability — all huge ideas in need of huge effort to bring them to life, and even bigger efforts to make them succeed.
Hector Estrada, an established streetwear innovator, head of triko, and the man behind the newly emerging Amivectio, believes in this revolution. According to Hector, it’s a literal revolution, set to change the industry, change the conformity, and most importantly changing the shirt on your back. He might not have the answers yet, but he's trying hard to find it.
We talk a lot about artist on joshspear.com, but when we get to talk with artist its like peaking inside their head full of amazing visions. Sickboy’s Stay Free is full of scary, amazing, funny and just wacky visions. The show is best described as an art playground. He took over a building (not a gallery) and put up paintings but also a sweet factory, weird girls in mask walking around, paintings planted in pots, a house to walk through (check out our exclusive pictures of the opening night for a better idea) and of course his iconic temples. Sickboy’s Stay Free is an entire world and in this interview we walk hand in hand through that world.
You know what we like? When the names of people we love (Jesse Hora) start winding up next to names of artists we worship (Si Scott; Alex Trochut; Hellovon). Not that we would expect any less of the designers, illustrators and artists we brag on so thoroughly. But still, every time it happens we feel like one of our kids just knocked out the class bully (see also: brimming with pride and high-fiving all around).
Jesse Hora (Dot Com), fresh off of the much cooed over Some Type of Wonderful (a project also shaped by the aforementioned Si Scott, etc.), took some time to fill us in on the distance he's traveled since '06.
The first time I met Ray Young Chu he talked a lot of shit about my eyebrows.
This threw me initially, but once the topic of conversation turned to ice cream, then back to eyebrows (a friend's this time), then to PBR, I figured that Chu wasn't really talking shit, he was just full of shit — the really, really weird kind that helps people make amazing art.
It's been just over a year since Ray slammed my facial features, but in that short time he's made some serious headway. Read on as Ray slows down long enough for us to catch up.
Richard Haines is designerman, a fashion designer and blogger whose sketches of NYC style cause as many double takes as the people who inspire them. A brightly talented illustrator with a taste for the streets, Richard strolls New York City with pencils in hand, discovering the trends of today and tomorrow in a way all his own.
After a few embarrassingly emotional fashion experiences on What I Saw Today, Richard's aforementioned, personality-packed blog, we decided that a first hand chat was in order. Read on as we talk style, substance, and the visual ways of keeping those words together.
When Corey Rich was 13, a teacher noticed that he had very capable biceps. This happened during a pull-up contest – one of those middle school battles to trick kids into fitness over fatness- and Corey had knocked out 35 to win first place by a stretch. The teacher was a rock climber, and he thought the kid might enjoy tagging along. He did.
There's a feeling that comes with experiences of psychological and physical significance, and it's best understood as a crazy mix of endorphins, wonder, and an honest appreciation of your insignificance in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't have an official name – just call it “the feeling that feels like exclamation points,†— but it's addictive as hell. When Corey was 13, he experienced that feeling, and he decided to try to capture it on camera.
It's been 20 years since Corey Rich first made friends with nature, and nearly the same amount of time since he began capturing it on film. Now one of the most sought after adventure sports photographers in the world, Corey's remarkable shots have landed in the pages of most publications worth mentioning, and in the advertisements for the world's most famous brands. We caught up with a freshly de-planed Corey to chat life, lenses, and what it takes to make them work so well together.
