SlowClouds

We have been doing the whole blog thing for eight months now. It’s fun and it gives us a way to communicate about some of our projects that are not work related. During this time we have slowly watched our visitors grow, thanks to Google Analytics and the number of WordPress analytic plugins. We have also received some good feedback from friends and family and surprisingly a dabble of visitors from oversees. The one remark that keeps recurring during discussion that escapes me is, “Your blog is very professional.”

Huh?

First off, we don’t update our site regularly—the number one sin for a blogger—we’re also using a standard WordPress theme and we don’t have a logo. The only contender left standing that could possibly be considered “very professional” would be our content.

This is actually a highly rewarding compliment considering we decided to get started with the simplest means. This was a conscious effort to enable us to talk about things that excited us now, instead of later. We do feel that creating presence is important, but it’s second to identifying who or what you are. At this moment, we’re not sure, though we’re hoping this discovery will be made naturally over the next year. Then, all those little things such as a logo, a business plan and website will be developed. Hell, we might even add navigation.

Very Prefessional, the video above was from a recent website photo shoot I did with my friend, Bob Schwenkler. Bob is an audio engineer who has been working really hard in our community since the day I met him. He has a different approach to life than most and that is one of the reasons I like him. He can be very serious and very silly. For his website, I decided it would be interesting to juxtapose the “very professional” with the ridiculous and use imagery that pokes fun at traditional business stock photography.

Rideoregonride.com is one of my favorite sites right now. I feel that everything was done right from the type, color scheme, Google Maps integration, user-interface and of course the content. I think this might be the most sophisticated Google Maps integration I have seen to date.

The site was conceived by the Portland, Oregon design and development firm called Substance in collaboration with the agency Travel Oregon. The Learn More About this Site states it best;

“The need for a site like this was identified years ago, but in 2008 the #1 recreation and tourism strategy targeted at the Summit was to develop an online epicenter for information on cycling in Oregon, to continue progress toward making our state the best place in America to ride a bike.”

After spending hours reviewing the suggested rides, we determined a loop starting and ending in our hometown of Olympia, Washington made the most sense. Originally we were going to ride from Olympia to Eureka, California, but time constraints made this ride too grueling. View our ride below.

View 2010 Bike Trip in a larger map

I modified the route that I suggested to RideOregonRide.com in an effort to cater to Oregonians and titled it the Oregon-Washington Loop. They approved the ride and you can now find it when searching coastal road routes. Check it out. Go for the ride and let us know what you think.

**UPDATED: Sept. 11, 2010
I just realized the Day One route on our Google Map bike trip was impossible to ride. I somehow drew part of the route with the normal line tool instead of the road line tool, leading the rider through the Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve. Whoops. I’m sure it’s a beautiful ride, although it would significantly increase your ride time.

Talk to someone with a record collection who still buys and plays vinyl and they often take on a nostalgic air when it comes to their turntable. My own technics was a gift from my father at 15 and I have been playing it for almost 20 years now. I think I’ve only replaced the needle once. Unfortunately, it isn’t much to look at now that the cover is all scratched up. But with a little ingenuity you can create a new custom cover that will make your turntable look fresh again.

I made this dustcover for a vintage turntable as a gift for my cousin Katrina for her graduation. She had smashed up the original acrylic cover pretty badly but she loves her record player, so I decided to try and craft a replacement. The design on top is etched into the acrylic with a laser cutter and then white paint was rubbed into the etching so that it would stand out against the black turntable. The frame I cut on a table saw from fir with a rabbet for the acrylic panel so that it is inset and secure. I used the original hinges so the cover functions just like it did before.

As Mother’s Day approaches, I was pressed for time so I did a quick digital collage, where I googled three words I associated with my Mother and then instinctively picked from the results; layering, cutting and pasting as I went. The three phrases I chose were dogwood, horse, and woman in the woods- they just popped into my head. The whole point was not to obsess too much over the images or their meaning. The card was done in about 20 min. About the time you would spend walking to the hallmark store and throwing down $4 on a cheesy greeting card. A good exercise for anyone who needs to loosen up their graphic composition skills.

-Roussa

My approach was the same, but I had a specific vision in mind. Besides being raised in the desert, my mother also spent the early days of her marriage galavanting through the brush and the arid basins of the Nevada desert with my father. They navigated by map and trust as my father prospected the endless ranges in a 60′s Jeep much like the one pictured below.

I don’t remember much of Las Vegas, aside from stories and photographs, but my mom always seemed ready to move back even though our family spent the last 30 years on the West side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I thought I would try and give her a some desert for Mother’s Day. Googled photos, Photoshop filters and a simple message was all I needed to bring my mom back to the heat and open expanses of Nevada desert. I printed mine out on a laser printer, glued it to a thicker card stock and popped it in the mail. Done!

-peaker

I love the Bicycle Commuter Contest.  I love seeing people out on the road, riding in groups, wearing neon orange and yellow jackets, zipping around town in blur of caution and warning.  I like the fact that the bike shops always seem slightly under staffed in April as flocks people come and go with either smiles, or looks of uncertainty as they prepare themselves for a month of riding.

For those unfamiliar with the Thurston County Bicycle Commuter Contest, the BCC is a Intercity Transit sponsored event that takes place during the month of May and is designed to encourage area residents to commute by bicycle to work or on errands. Cyclists record their miles as individuals and as a team in an effort to earn prizes, but more importantly, the data is compiled to demonstrate the positive effects on the environment, individual health and traffic reduction. If you’re interested, read more about the Bicycle Commuter Contest.

This is my third year participating in the BCC and with Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters’ Chain Gang team. Generally, each team that participates in the BCC creates a team shirt and since I’m designing our team’s shirt this year, I thought I would try and lay it out by hand.  Below is a draft of the design I decided to stick with.

The design is heavily influenced by one of my favorite designers, Jay Ryan and his 2000 poster titled Everlasting The Way. (View the original design here.) Obviously, I modified my design to represent a cyclist and I tried working with two different hand drawn type styles. The first is my own take on a uppercase italicized Helvetica, with noticeable alterations done to the characters C and G. The bottom text is my version of the architype Tschichold, which was designed by Jan Tschichold in 1929 though never put into production.

After a few iterations, I finally ditched the hand drawn type for “CHAIN GANG” in exchange for digital type (Trade Gothic Standard). I wanted the hand drawn version to work, but it wasn’t and after redrawing it three or four times, it still looked forced and unskilled. Not everyone can be like Mr. Jay Ryan.  

I will post photos of the screen printed version in a week or so when they are finished. In the meantime, go ride your bike because it’s fun and it’s good for you and your fellow Olympians.

I recently went to the open house for a single-family residence named the Harpoon House, designed by Matt Kirkpatrick. I’d been riding my bike by the site for weeks and watching their progress and the emergence of a three story wood rainscreen-clad building. There was a well-designed sign in front that gave some basic information about the project and the website address where I have since learned a lot more about the house; including the process they have gone through with the bank,  project costs (less than $200k), and all the ups and downs of the construction.

Located on an urban infill lot in the inner Southeast Portland neighborhood of Buckman, the Harpoon House is 16 by 28 by 28 feet tall (1152 square feet) and built of structurally insulated panels, with the exception of the unconditioned basement, which is concrete and stick framing. The siding is a ventilated rainscreen made from unfinished cedar 1×4′s, held off the sheathing with 4×4 posts. Waste pipes and other utilities are hidden behind the screen to reduce thermal bridging that would occur by carving up the panel insulation. The house has beautiful triple pane wood windows, the single most expensive part of the project, and in my opinion, worth every penny. The construction is 100% green roof coverage, thanks in part to a grant received through the city of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) to cover the cost difference between doing standard roof construction and green roofs (estimated at an additional $5/ sq. ft.).

The interiors are tastefully restrained, I’m sure in large part a need for economy, but they put their money where it matters; in the beautiful wood floors, a combination toilet/ sink fixture for graywater reuse and some nice built-in cabinetry. Most impressive, however was that the landscape was not an afterthought or cut from the budget towards the end, as it so often is. They had already put in a gabion rock retaining wall and several fruit trees and planted beds well before the construction was completed! The green roof is entirely planted out and the street trees stand ready to go in the ground. Oh, and they even have a very nice root cellar in the basement to put all their fruits and veggies in at the end of the season!

Wisdom Teeth Wisdom Teef EP

I’ve been playing in a band called Wisdom Teeth for three years now.  We recorded eleven new songs in January 2009, of which five of the songs were released March 2010. After one whole year of hee-haaing around about how we would pay for this one package or that one design, we finally we were at a point where we had shows, but nothing physically new in hand to promote. Instead of showing up empty handed, I asked the other members if they were cool with me designing the package by hand, sans computer, so we could have something to sell.

Originally we planned on screen printing blank Arigato Packs, which you can buy directly from Stumptown Printers of Portland.  Arigato Packs are thick pieces of cardstock made from 100% recycled chipboard that are pre-cut and scored so that you can easily fold them up into a small box that has the same dimensions as a CD case. Think plastic CD jewel case meets the classic Chinese take-out box. When you buy a case of Arigatos – cases can be as small as twenty –  they arrive flat and unfolded. I have seen the Arigato in only two forms, a greyish color with one side coated white (used below) or natural brown with both sides uncoated. We decided to go with the grey/white option and flip it inside-out. This provided the sterile look we were going for and the grey would also contrast nicely with the black ink and white paint.   The uncoated grey side also provided a better surface for the inks to adhere to.

Add a little ink and acrylic paint.

After designing the outside, we needed to add a few other tidbits to make the release “official”.  This required including the label release number, date of release and minor shout outs. I added these with pen, but we also included a stamp indicating the print series.

Arigato's like to be stamped too.

One final little flourish we added was to emboss one of the label’s logos (Radio is Down) onto the back, which added a very nice, yet subtle touch. You can get an embosser with your own custom designed plates for pretty cheap these days. I would start looking here.

An embossed Arigato Pack.

Now that you are excited about doing your own hand packaging design, please allow us to provide one suggestion, keep it simple, quick and cheap.  Even though this particular design uses four different forms of media, each step can be done very quickly because the detail is minimal.  Each Arigato can be completed in just under ten minutes. Yes, this includes writing Wisdom Teef 43 times on each piece.

Marcel Duchamp

The idea of a gallery in a suitcase is not a new one, as evidenced by Marcel Duchamp’s Box in a Suitcase (1935-1940), a portable miniature monograph including sixty-nine reproductions of the artist’s own work. Over the last few weeks, I have been working on a boite en valise of my own, based on an interpretation of a passage from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. While the initial idea was to curate a series of discrete objects into a box that represents the city; my background in art, with a strong penchant toward visual media has taken over,  and it is morphing into more of a diorama (just much less figurative). Though really, who doesn’t love a good diorama?

But suddenly these curious cabinets are turning up everywhere! Just last week, at the White Box gallery in Portland, there appeared some fantastic shipping crates carefully designed to unfold in marvelous ways. The traveling exhibit is called 4 Salvaged Boxes, designed by wHY Architecture, from materials salvaged during the construction of the Grand Rapids Art Museum.  Upon opening, the boxes unfold to reveal their contents, materials and information about sustainable design.

wHY Architecture

Portland 1st Annual Tweed Ride 2010 from Peaker on Vimeo.

Portland’s 1st Anual Tweed Ride took place January 30th, 2010 was well attended with over 100 cyclists clad in their finest tweed and wool knickers, skirts, vests and caps. The pack caravanned through most of the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast neighborhoods, stopping for tea at Overlook Park, cheering for a fashion show and finally settling down for a picnic.

The best part for me was watching peoples faces as they idled at stoplights or scurried down their front steps to the street. There were lots of smiles, gawking, pointing of fingers, and one woman even happily yelled while carrying a cardboard box to her car, “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” It was a most curious sight I’m sure, but one that made people smile. One gentlemen jumped out of his idling car with camcorder in hand and started filming while waiting for the mob of cyclists to pass. (See video above :30 second mark.)

Overall the ride was really fun and a great promotional tool for encouraging bicycle advocacy within the city. There we’re a few people talking about Portland’s 2030 Bicycle Plan, which was unanimously voted into action by Portland’s City Council on February 11th, 2010.

I hope that Olympia will consider a similar bicycle plan for our little city.

My niece and nephew both have birthdays in the beginning of February. For the last two years it been difficult getting them gifts, so this year I just made them something.  Recently, I have been influenced by Mark Weaver and Making Something Cool Every Day. Choosing to make things by hand, I created the simple pieces below. They took about 1-2 hours each.

Moo-Man Walks On Birthday

The piece above I created for my nephew Nicholas. Acrylic paint, pencil and pen mixed together with scraps of an old 2003 Strength skateboard magazine featuring Russ Pope. The bull is Russ Pope’s work.

Below is another collage piece from a number of different magazines, but the main image of the woman is from a recent Anthropologie catalog. Grid systems and the use of “activators” to enhance negative space interests me. In this piece I am using the light mint circle to create a point of interest between the circle and the two short horizontal bars.

I hope you like the flowers.