Brian Baldwin

Iconic TV Posters - Exergian

Iconic TV Posters

I came across these posters while goofing off on the internet, and I want a lot of them. They are so simple and so perfect. I am a fan of many of the shows that got the poster treatment. 

Some of the images chosen to describe the show didn’t make sense at first, but after thinking about it for a second the choices were genius. 

Christmas is around the corner, so if anyone feels like ordering me some posters please do. The Dexter poster, the Wire poster, the Simpsons poster, the Miami Vice poster, the Mad Men poster, the Weeds poster, the Six Feet Under poster……the list goes on and on. 

Jennifer Daniel

Jennifer Daniels - Best. Domain. Name. Ever!

http://httpcolonforwardslashforwardslashwwwdotjenniferdanieldotcom.com/

So I was goofing around the internet, and came across Jennifer Daniels website. Her design work was what caught my eye first, since her page is full of it. Very simple. Very easy to look at. A sense of humor to it. Knowing that her work is used quite often in major news magazines makes me happy in a weird way.

On a side note, Newsweek has gotten a lot better looking lately. It is designed a lot better. Better layout, better graphic design, just all around easier to read. Not that the subject matter has changed, but the way everything is laid out makes it an easier read.

Anyway, back to Jennifer’s website. She has a lot of great work to show. I was going to see what her portfolio was all about until I saw her domain name. When i looked at the top of the page, i saw a very long domain. I normally hate long domain names. So junk to type it out, and to try and remember. Jennifer however has found a way to not only have a long domain name, but an amazing domain. Apparently jenniferdaniels.com was taken, so she went with the next best, albeit longer, domain name.

Liam Finn

So it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. I wish i could say I had been busy, but that’s not the case. Lazy? Maybe so. But one of the reasons was because I was out at the Hawaii Theater seeing  Eddie Vedder play 2 solo shows. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect seeing Ed Ved by himself. Of course I expected great things, and great things are what we got. More than great really. Couldn’t have asked for more.

One of the great revelations was seeing the opening act for both nights. A guy called Liam Finn.

Who is Liam Finn? I knew he was the son of one of the guys in Crowded House, and that he and Ed Ved were friends. What I didn’t know was that Liam Finn is a completely amazing musician, and basically a 1 man band. He does get help from a friend named Eliza Jane, but he’s pretty much in charge when it comes to the instruments.

He came on to a stage that had a guitar flanked by a bunch of pedals, and a full drum set. I wasn’t expecting a band, so the drum set had me confused. After 4 minutes it all made sense. Liam simply plays everything. Liam simply loops everything. In the program he is called a Loopman, and that is perfectly accurate. Loopman might be hard to describe in type, but I’ll give it a go.

Liam normally starts a song by singing and playing guitar. Using one of his many guitar pedals, he will record what he is playing on guitar, and then loop it so we can hear what he recorded. While the recording is being looped he will play another guitar part on top of that. Since that isn’t enough, he’ll record the second guitar part. Soon he’ll add a third guitar part, and of course record it and play it back. Once he’s got all the sounds he wants from his guitar, he puts it down and moves on. So as the audience hears the sounds of 3 (or more) guitars, Liam has moved on to the drums. He’ll drum on top of his guitar part. Drum really well. It shouldn’t come as a shock that he records the drumming as well. That way he can stand back up, and move back over to the guitar, but we still get to hear a drum track. Incredibly confusing to read, but incredibly amazing to watch.

It was so fun to watch. The songs were great, and it was exciting the whole time. One of the reasons Ed Ved was so good was because he had to make sure he was better than Liam Finn. Instead of just filling time, the opening band had raised the stakes.

I figured I’d check things out the first night, and then on the second night I’d stay home and stroll down to the show just to see Eddie. After the first Liam Finn song on the first night, I knew I’d be back down early to have the privilege to see Liam Finn again.

http://www.myspace.com/theliamfinn —  Go there and look down the left side for more videos.

Business Cards

50  Creative Business Cards — http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/50-awesome-and-creative-business-cards/

I love a well designed business card. I like that people see a business card as their introduction to someone, and they want to make the best impression. If there were a living to be made out of just designing business cards, I would totally do it. I know it is part of doing brand design (my dream job in 11 years time), but I’d love to be the business card guy.

The design above is my personal favorite. I thought of making my wedding invitation look like a boarding pass, or a luggage tag. Thankfully I hadn’t seen that business card above, or I might have kept thinking about it.

I don’t know how hard it was to make some of these cards, or how hard it was to find someone print them, but it was worth it.

Eric Koston Signature Shoe

You could probably make the claim that Eric Koston is the best skater ever. Tough to say, but the dude has certainly got a claim on the best ever spot. When it comes to skate shoes however, no one can even come close. Eric Koston has always had the best signature shoe. No matter if it was on éS, or Lakai, his shoes were amazing.

Being a huge shoe guy at one point in my life (from 15 to about 22) I owned a couple of them. Some of them I have even bought a few times.

The Koston 1 is going to go down in history as my all time favorite shoe. This was easily the most comfortable shoe I have ever owned. So comfortable in fact that I’ve owned about 6 pairs of this shoe in various color combinations. I never had the above colors, as i didn’t like the Lakers color scheme, but I had the gray/blue, the white/gum rubber, the all black with yellow eyelets, the navy/gray, the all black with gray eyelets (2 times). These shoes were so good that when Koston went to Lakai, they re-released it. I wish I had bought a pair.

The Koston 2 was a very different look, but still a great shoe. It took me a while to decide if I liked it. Since I was such a fan of the Koston 1, and they were still selling the Koston 1, I didn’t give this shoe a shot for a while. When I did, it was great. Super comfortable. Felt like a running shoe. I wish I could find a brand new pair right now for tennis.

The Koston 5 was a favorite as well. As comfortable as all the rest, and a nice looking shoe as well. When this shoe was out I wasn’t skating as much. It could be said that when all of these shoes were out I wasn’t skating much since I was so terrible, but when the Koston 5 was out, I bought it just to have a nice looking shoe.

I can’t say all of his shoes were winners.

The Koston 4 was just plain ugly. I bet it was comfy, but I just couldn’t bring myself to even try it on. Looked like a rejected basketball shoe.

I’m anxious to see what shoes come out now that Eric Koston has signed for Nike. I can’t imagine they’ll be bad. If anything they can just re-re-release the Koston 1 in the gray/blue color scheme and that can bring me full circle.

http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/06/11/a-history-of-eric-kostons-signature-shoes/

That is a complete history of the Koston signature shoe.