Our Living Room

I saw a post on Apartment Therapy where someone was asking what they thought about the color kelly green. We absolutely love it and painted an accent wall in our living room that color. Check out the photos at my flickr.

Happy Easter

Easter came really really early this year. I found an artist who made a portrait of Jesus out of Peeps to mark the occasion. It took 494 Peeps to make it happen but I think it looks pretty sweet. No pun intended. It took Janet, the artist, 3 years to collect enough Peeps to bring her idea to life. For more on it check her site out here.

Ace Hotel | Portland, Oregon

My wife and I have a new obsession. It is with Portland, Oregon. We have been suffering from nesting syndrome lately and buying a house in Santa Monica is a hard reality to grasp on to. The houses in our current renting neighborhood start at about a million easy. We were watching a show on HGTV called House Hunters and they just happened to have a Portland week. After falling in love with it on tv we did a crapload of research and discovered that it is voted the city most like Austin, Texas (which is our other favorite city in the US). We’re roughly planning a trip there asap to do some recon work and to check out areas like Lake Oswego and the Pearl District. I am thinking we’ll stay at the swank Ace Hotel because it has custom rooms and great prices. It reminds me of the Hotel San Jose on Congress in Austin. I’ll keep you posted with our new obsession and how our plans on moving there progress. Currently we have a 3 year plan to move there in 2010/2011 or so. I just hope the houses stay at the prices they are now. It seems like a steal.

Matt Morgan | Demo Team “Growl”

In more music video news my good friend Matt just informed me about the music video he directed for Demo Team entitled “Growl.” Matt is a young prodigy who was working as a graphic designer while barely out of high school.  The song is a really melancholic and beautiful folk song and the video fits it perfectly. It is filled with earthy textures and a very minimal palette that looks like how the song feels. I personally love both the song and the video and can’t wait to hear more from Demo Team.

Gnarls Barkley Run

Max recently informed me he contributed to the new Gnarls Barkley video “Run” which unfortunately failed the Harding Test for the epileptic seizure inducing graphics towards the middle of the video. The video was directed by Happy and also included an intro graphics treatment done by Radical Friends who I had never heard of until now. I am a huge fan of Gnarls Barkley so it is a treat to see a friend get to jam on something like this. Max also makes a cameo in the new Apple iPod touch commercial too which I thought was hilarious. I also will be making a cameo in an upcoming commercial so I will let you guys know more about that later. Kudos once again Max, ‘08 is looking to be a prosperous year for a lot of my friends.

Electronic Poet

I just stumbled upon a few dope little labels that have some really nice and simple clothes. Electronic Poet is one of those. I found their line pretty limited but the selection is right up my minimalist alley. I love the quilted and crosshatched pieces. They remind me of Artysm, a label I blogged on last year. I also dig a couple of the t-shirt designs. They are bold, colorful, retro, and eye-catchingly graphic. Go check their stuff out and see if you can track down where to actually buy it. I am still looking for that.

Pantone Eyewear

Famous color swatch company Pantone has decided to market eyeglasses to us designer geeks. What better way to show the world how truly dorky you are than to rock some Pantone DS 36-1 swatch aviators. They come in a few different styles with interchangeable colored arms. Head over the spanking new site to see what’s in store.

Home Studio Revamp

I have been sort of planning (obsessing, to a point that Ash is getting annoyed) out a revamp on my home studio. As of now it feels incomplete. It’s hard for me to get going sometimes because I don’t feel comfortable or inspired. As it is now it feels like the start of a perfect thing. As for the walls, I have one accent wall painted orange (my favorite color) where I have a huge piece of art I bought from my friend Matt Morgan hanging. I also have my Rome snowboard that I designed hanging on a small wall by the closet door. I have a crappy dry erase calendar to the right of my window where I track my freelance work. Other than that the walls are naked. The walls are about half way there. I want to add a uten.silo in white on the wall behind my computer. I found a pretty decent framed first edition reprint of my favorite book of all time The Catcher in the Rye to replace the crap dry erase board. And to balance the black & white art hanging on the opposite wall I want a Massimo Vignelli Stendig calendar. I want to replace the cheap Target desk with the Travola Desk from dwr in white with frosted glass. I want either a Panton chair in white or a Nelson Swag Chair in white. I have always dug the IKEA PS Cabinet in white to place my printer/scanner on and to store supplies inside. I could also score a Specktone iPod player to put on top of the cabinet. I want to get rid of the old futon that’s looking beat and put a Nelson-Style Bench in all black under Matt’s art. I could stack some of my book collection on it. And for the desk top, I found a cool orange lamp at CB2. Finally, I am in desperate need of a new computer. My old faithful G5 is starting to chug, so first on my list is a new Mac Pro. Once I tidy up the office in it’s current position I will take some photos to document the transformation process. If anyone has any ideas, suggestions, or deals they find feel free to share.

Upper Playground Pillows

There are many great items at the Upper Playground store. I particularly liked the pillows. They span a good range of styles from many different artists like Sam Flores, Herbert Baglione, and Morning Breath to name a few. They are all priced at $40 so that’s quite a steal for functional art. I am sure these won’t last too long so go cop one quick before Kanye hears about them and buys the entire stock.

NEUARMY

Ryan Katrina aka NEUARMY (an online buddy of mine) just updated his site with some really beautiful new work. Drop by and check it out. I particularly like the letterpress typography he’s been working with lately. Great work homie.