Motivation. How to get yourself up to do what needs to be done?! I find music to be a great motivator (deadlines, fear, and insecurity are others…) and Oddisee’s single, “That’s Love” more than fits the bill.
The Maryland native, Brooklyn-based artist’s new album The Good Fight “acknowledges the stacked odds, but refuses to submit”.
Stream and purchase the new album on Bandcamp, support a great artist, put your cape on, and create your own!
Respect.
I loved the movie Whiplash and I think the kinetic energy and jazz subject matter makes it a great springboard to launch into a new illustrative poster project using Adobe Draw CC mobile application (in conjunction with Adobe Illustrator and InDesign). My goal of the poster is to use modern technology to create an homage to classic cinema posters and record albums of the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Despite learning the functions of Adobe Draw CC, using a digital stylus as opposed to pen and ink, and grappling with capturing the detail, color, and movement of BOTH the subject and style; Version 2.2 is progressing well.
Keep posted as the project develops.
Over the course of my career, I’ve read a lot of books on productivity and organization and Extreme Productivity by Robert Pozen is one of the best. I first read it several years ago, and return to it again and again.
Many of the theories, techniques, and tools employed by Mr. Pozen aren’t new, but they are organized and reasoned through a lifetime of experience and success.
We are all busy and there is no substitute for hard work, but we can all learn to work a little smarter and be more productive.
The term game changer tends to be overused, but De La Soul’s Kickstarter campaign may inspire more artists to work through unconventional channels to finance and distribute their work.
In less than a month, more than 9,000 backers have contributed over 500,000.00 USD—obliterating the band’s crowdfunding goal of $110,000.00 in ONE DAY!
This method of crowdsourcing and unconventional financing sends a powerful message to established and emerging artists as well as media companies and distributors that technology is a great tool for creatives to send their art directly to market.
The Red Bull Music Academy releases a mini-documentary on the history of New York’s underground music scene entitled: Revolutions On Air: The Golden Era of New York Radio 1980 – 1988; a seventeen-minute overview of New York City’s urban music explosion, its architects, and the reverberations still being felt today.
First person accounts by underground music luminaries (such as DJ Marley Marl, Kool DJ Red Alert, Tony Humphries, and Stretch Armstrong) interspersed with vintage audio, photos, and video drops you in the moment when the underground broke above ground via New York radio and germinated throughout the world by cassette tape (I fondly have college recollections of students collecting,trading, and dubbing tapes from New York to Baltimore to Philly to Detroit to Chicago to Oakland to LA).
For those who choose to delve deeper into the subject, read Vivian Host’s feature on the New York radio scene.
Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Joni Mitchell, The Doors, and the Eagles, and Paul McCartney. Photographer Henry Diltz captured them all in the iconic imagery we all recognize today.
Listen to Henry Diltz’s interview with Here and Now’s Robin Young.
This is what the preceding image did for me early Sunday morning as I fetched my paper off the front porch (yes, I still read actual newspapers). Large as life and in glorious color: a green, one-eyed alien in a metallic spacesuit holding a decorative ceramic dish of what appears to be pork and beans!
I saved the section and made a mental note to read the artist credit— this was my formal (but not the first) introduction to the work of designer Oliver Munday. After visiting Mr. Munday’s archive site and current work on Tumblr, I began to quickly recognize book covers, posters, infographics, and the 826DC design work for the Museum of Unnatural History: the breadth, diversity, and high quality of work is overwhelming and impressive.
Great graphic design should also create envy, jealousy, and above all inspiration.
Mission accomplished.
I had the privilege of participating in a martial arts seminar and instructor training with Kyoshi Dave Kovar (an elite martial artist with black belts in 10 Martial Arts styles) and many of the lessons learned in the dojo can be applied to the office.
In Mr. Kovar’s blog “In Martial Arts, You Are the Product”, he lists four elements essential to individual, team, and business success:
My seven years of martial arts training and study have been a great resource for maintaining my physical and mental health and I would encourage everyone to engage in a physical activity or sport as a tool to maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
Last week on vacation I made time to read Austin Kleon’s, Share Your Work and it inspired me to revisit his previous book Steal Like An Artist one year later.
Mr. Kleon’s intelligent, humorous and straightforward observation of the creative process builds a persuasive case for starting work NOW and sharing it with others (one of my professional mentors refers to it as a “bias towards action”). These books are essential reading for any creative professional or aspiring creative. Happy Reading!
Unknown Mortal Orchestra has shared their new video for the title track of their new album “Multi-Love” online and invites you to create your own version via an interactive application.
As interviewed by Pitchfork, Video Designer and Director Lionel Williams was quoted with the following:
“[The video] is meant to represent the vacuum of space by impressing upon inter-dimensional unfolding, immaterial objects, and time-driven reverberation of events.”
The video is available for Mac, PC, or the Source Code for remixing and experimentation.