I figured this was appropriate for the Valentinesers out there.

I had been meaning to go on the A Love Letter for You tour for close to a year now. I even won tickets from Phrequency to see the movie but I never got around to just getting up and getting out there, I guess I just didn’t know exactly where they were. Last weekend, I said fuck it and paid to go on the tour. Bad Idea. The tour itself is not worth the money you drop on it, you whiz by most of the murals and miss a majority of them. SO, what I did, is I went back out there on my own, got off the El and walked it. These murals are AMAZING to see in person and every single one is somehow tied to the building that it is on. Everything is super considered and has a little story. They are starting to fade a bit which is nice in a way because you can feel how personal the pieces are, they aren’t painted on some primer-ed wall with paint that will last longer than our life time. It’s just spray paint on a wall just like any other artist out there.

Anyway, like I said I walked out there on my own and really enjoyed it. See Me Like Beautiful I See You is one of my all time favorites and it was something else seeing it in person, you can look at pictures online all day, but you’ll never get the real experience until you see on the side of a wall towering over you. I would HIGHLY recommend doing it to anyone visiting or just anyone that is interested. You pay 2 bucks to get out there on the Market-Frankford line, take it to 52nd street, get off and walk towards the city, cross the street turn around go back to the station, pay 2 bucks to go home. $4 to see some truly inspiring pieces, from a truly inspiring person. Get out there sooner rather than later before they fade too much.

If you live in Northern Liberties you’ve definitely seen this wall on 2nd and Laurel. Shepard Fairey pasted a giant Andre there about 2 years ago, after that it became “The Place to Paste” everyone and their brother was getting up on there including myself. Over time, it got more and more cluttered and eventually just got to be too much. I would drive by and just get so sad to see all of these tiny 8.5 x 11 posters haphazardly placed all over every thing with no “real” purpose. So after awhile I decided I was going to put up something huge to give the wall some breathing room again.

I was fortunate enough to have my friends Pat Furey, Chris Loupos, and Rebecca come along for the ride and document some of the process so these pictures are from them. Amazing amounts of talent coming out of those individuals, it was super inspiring spending the day with them talking about photo stuff that I barely understand. Thanks so much guys! Couldn’t have almost got caught without you.

Check out their sites here (Pat) and here (Chris)

Christ, well I’ve been insanely busy for the past few months and now I’m back with this little treat. A little while ago Meg Lewis emailed me and asked if I would like to be a contributing writer for Studio Sweet Studio and I was more than pumped to take on this great opportunity. But I had to come up with an idea, a purpose, a method to the madness and I had NO IDEA what to do. I tinkered around with the thought of interviewing designers strictly on their inspiration and/or color palettes but I felt it didn’t have enough substance. I wanted to write something that people looked forward to reading or contributing to. I brainstormed with Matt Goold for a bit coming up with a bunch of concepts and possible names and we came up with Honor Roll. The whole premise is to focus on undergraduate designers and really give them a chance to get their work out into the design community. Here’s a brief elevator pitch I wrote in the very beginning:

This Honor Roll section was made to shine the light on the younger talent out there in the design community. When I was in school, I was reading blogs every day and stalking the shit out of all the heavy hitter designers never thinking that anyone would ever want to write about me because I was just some kid in school. But now that I am out, I look around at some of the portfolio sites that kids are putting up and I am just blown away by the work coming out of these undergrads. So I wanted to start this for those kids that are working their asses off and give them some recognition for the blood and tears that they are putting in.

I want it to be a great place for other younger designers to see work that their peers are putting out. A place where they could get inspired and connect with other amazing students. And also a place where people looking to hire bright and fresh designers right out of school could go to see the cream of the crop. So if you think that you or someone you know would be a great candidate? Send me an e-mail!!

Click here to see the first post about my pal Ray Ureña!!

So I have two random little bits here that don’t really fall into any particular place, so here they are in their own post.

First, I got this awesome stamp in last weekend BUT I forgot to order an ink pad with it so I had to wait an extra week till I could start stamping everything and anything. A few people had asked me where I ordered it from, and so the answer to that is Rubberstamps.net. Their site kind of sucks and seems a little shady but their prices are cheap, their turn around is unbelievably fast, their upload process was almost too easy and I was highly impressed with the quality. I would totally recommend these guys to anyone looking to get a stamp made.

Second, is an iPhone App that I helped design. My friend, Jake Chusid, had designed this app almost 2 years ago; he got the basic gist down then but he asked me to step in and kind of revamp the graphics from there. Over the Summer, we worked together to get this thing up and running, and now it’s finally available to download in the app store! So if you’re looking for a dentist in your area, give this app a whirl.

I was excited to give this a shot because it was completely new to me and, design-wise, what they were looking for was a little out of my comfort zone. Overall, I think it turned out pretty well. The type gets a little small in some places but it still works. Above are two screen shots of my favorite little snippets of it. I had so much fun making that tooth diagram, so it was cool to see it on my phone in real life moving and interacting with the other teeth diagrams. It’s no Catball, but it was pretty neat to work in this different format.

I put up the original You Can Change Tomorrow on May 22nd of 2010 and it had lasted, for the most part, this whole time! I was semi-blown away that this piece stayed up for that long or at all. But in a years time people tagged on it and wrote things like Fuck My Cock, Legit, and all the other classics. I figured it was time for a revamp. So I thought about it for awhile and I thought about possibly doing a different message, I tinkered around with “Inspire the Tired” but I wasn’t feeling quite………..inspired. I decided that I would just try to update what was already there “You can change tomorrow” it’s a simple and bold personal statement. It’s just a little reminder that if you aren’t too happy with the situation you’re in, then, you’re the only one who can get yourself out of it. No one else is going to come in and save the day, especially not in these times.

For the design I wanted to go mostly black that way people would have a harder time tagging on it. So the average Joe with his black “Fuck my cock” sharpie can simply go write on something else. But mainly, I wanted to make something that felt like an old friendly store front, a barber shop, a bakery or something along those lines. Something Classic feeling. I used to mess around with flourishes back in the day but was never too good at making them look cool/right so I figured I’d give it another shot and this is what I ended up with.

I also made it in a Desktop background format as well as an iPhone Lock and Home screen.

Download the Desktop version here & the iPhone version here & here

Also, big thanks to Mike D. for coming out and helping me scrape down the old jawn and toss up the new guy, couldn’t have done it without ya man. But here’s to this one staying up for another year plus, I really love that spot and hope to continue making it a little more meaningful than just a tagged up glass window. It’s just such a beautiful building and such a prime space I feel like I’d be sad if I walked by it and there was nothing posted there.

Yesterday was an insanely long day for me starting at around 5:45 AM, so I’m going to talk/write you through my adventurous day!

I had been scouting this spot on 11th and Chestnut for quite some time. I felt like it was screaming to have something pasted in the space. For me it’s not about getting up in every nook and crannie in the whole god damn city. It’s about being relevant and making sense in the space that it is occupying, so it takes a little longer for me to pick a spot that I feel actually makes sense. I’m not trying to be one of those dudes that brags about how many pieces they have up. But anyway, I had finally met Damon Landry after about a year of drooling over his street art photos, and he had mentioned to me that he wanted to go out sometime and document the process. I was more than pumped to have him come along, so we met up at 7 AM got this paste up and chatted a bit then went our separate ways. From there I headed directly to 30th Street Station, in which I had never been before. It was a beautiful place and unusually clean which surprised me because I mean….it’s in Philly after all. I hopped on the 8 AM train and was on my way to NYC.

I got to New York, got a bagel, I felt like I had to do New York things while I was in New York, then headed straight to The Highline which was packed but it was still very nice. I wanted to take some photos but I felt I missed it’s prime time, everything was more on the dead side up there and I also didn’t want to be abruptly stopping every two seconds.

I ventured into the Chelsea gallery area and stumbled into an AMAZING Richard Serra exhibit at the Gagosian Gallery. If you have never been able to experience his work in person then you are definitely missing out. The fact that these sculptures are freestanding is just unbelievable and walking through them is another experience in itself. I nabbed a few photos there and then headed over to the MoMA to see the de Kooning show that they had going on, so many pieces and sooooo many people. I, then, came across a tiny typography deal that they had going on there on the 3rd floor, so that was a nice surprise. Hung around there for a bit took some photos of some Gotham letters/words. Good time.

Walking back to Penn Station, there happened to be a free “Celebrating 100 Years” show going on at the free public library  which was filled with unbelievable amounts of historical artifacts and design treasures like Gutenbergs Bible (1st instance of movable type), The original stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear animals that were given to the REAL Christopher Robin, and just so so so so much more. If you’re into history/artifacts/design go to this you won’t regret it! After that I got on my train home and headed straight for the Wheatpaste Your Heart Out Show!!

My train got in at exactly 9PM and I was racing the clock to get there before 10. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden so fast in my life, I think I got from 30th st station to the Vox Gallery on 11th in 10-15 minutes, maybe? I don’t really know. I got there and it was packed which was amazing to see. I was awed by the amount of work on the panels, it was just amazing. It was another reason why I feel like the Philly “art scene” is awesome. So many people/artists/friends/students/kids pulled together to get this to where it was, and it was just great. I got to talk to a bunch of people and meet some new people which is always exciting for me. The Instagram paste that Casey and I made was still intact and looking amazing. I don’t even know what else to say the show looked great! Thanks again Dietrich and Linnea for sticking through to the very end. Great project, great execution, great time. Philly wouldn’t be the artful place it is without people like them willing to fund projects like this. Amazing job everyone.

As I mentioned in my Tee Shirt Post, I was lucky enough to be in the Streets Dept show last weekend. It had been awhile since I made some new “street art” stuff so I decided to make some new pieces specifically for this show. I ended up putting a new twist on an old idea, utilizing the “Realize » Create » Beautify” tagline. I wanted to convey each of the words without actually using them, so I made a few simple graphics. The letters in the shields signify which word is being represented and the numbers on the right hand side show where it falls in the series of the 3 words. Plain and simple. Straight to the point.

It was a great show, all of the other work was nothing short of amazing, and I got to meet a few new friends! The show will be up for about two weeks so head on over there to see everything for yourself! For some more photos of the actual event, click here and here (Thanks Damon & Conrad)

Big thanks to Conrad for asking Nom Now to be in this shin dig, I had a great time and it helped motivate me to make some new stuff!.

Keep your “eye” out for some of these around town I have some plans for a few.

I designed this eye as part of a piece that I’m putting together for the Streets Dept Street Art Show coming up on Saturday the 22nd.

Nom Now has the tagline of “Realize » Create » Beautify” and at our TrickGo show last year, Matt Goold and I collaborated on a series of panels for each word of the tagline. I wanted to take that concept and give it a new spin so I started designing a series of symbols that signify each word and this eye was what I created for Realize. I was thinking that I wanted to take this design beyond a wheatpaste on a wall so I screen printed some tee shirts this weekend. They are 1 color on light heather gray guildan tees (It’s all I could get in such short notice). They will be $10 and just as a side note, they are super limited, two of each size small through large, so if you would like one make sure you come out to the show and scoop one for yourself.

Last night I had the amazing opportunity  to be in The Penmanship Show at Vox gallery for the opening night of the DesignPhiladelphia festivities. The collection of extremely talented designers/artists involved was huge and each one had their own creative spin on a somewhat rough theme. The best part about this show was I got to meet most of the people that I “knew” from ”The Internet” (Dribbble, Twitter, Facebook, Porfolio/Blog Stalking). But now I can finally put a face to the little icons they have as their twitter/dribbble pictures.

Like I mentioned before, “Penmanship” was not an easy theme to handle. After sitting on 1,000 bad ideas and scribbles I decided to go with something I knew from a previous project about Baskerville. It’s one of the only old(transitional) style serifs that I love, the others just kinda fall into the same kind of look and feeling to me. Anyway, I did a project on John Baskerville way back and knew a bit about him and his penmanship. After brushing up my knowledge on the Baskerville Wiki I came across this paragraph which stood out to me,

“Baskerville’s typeface was the culmination of a larger series of experiments to improve legibility which also included paper making and ink manufacturing. The result was a typeface that reflected Baskerville’s ideals of perfection, where he chose simplicity and quiet refinement. His background as a writing master is evident in the distinctive swash tail on the uppercase Q and in the cursive serifs in the Baskerville Italic. The refined feeling of the typeface makes it an excellent choice to convey dignity and tradition.”

So I took the Bold Q and dressed it up a bit and tossed a crown on it. The crown atop the Q is there because 1.) Because I wanted to pay respects to one of the “Kings” of typeface design 2.) I Love Crowns, Shields, and Royalty things just like everyone else right now. So, sorry if you were at the show and were like “WTF does this Q mean…I hate this.” Now you know what it means/meant.

Again, it was so great meeting new friends and catching up with old friends we all need to get together again in a room that is not 1,000º and talk about design things and life. I also just wanted to send and extended thanks to Dan, Mikey, & Elysse for even thinking of me for this show, I genuinely appreciate it.

(Please excuse the shitty iPhone photo)

This is an awesome project that I got from Octavius, the man behind B3ARFRUIT. He approached me because of my Sugar Skull that I put up about a year ago and asked if I could take a stab at making one for his brand. I had a ton of fun making the skull last year so I was more than pumped to take this challenge on.

It took a few days to get it to feel right but overall I’m pretty excited with the final piece and can not wait to see it on a tee shirt. WHICH brings me to this fact, if you get out to Part Time Studios tomorrow for first friday my man will be out there with a very limited few of them for you to nab before they go up on his site. So get out there, say hi, and get a tee to rock to your Halloween festivities. Oh, and did I mention they are GLOW IN THE DARK?! Enough said.

If you can’t get out to Part Time and/or can’t nab a tee off the site I will NOT leave you empty handed. The top two photos are iPhone lock screen backgrounds and I tossed a desktop background down below for all of you non iPhoners.

It was really great working with Octavius, he is a super cool dude with a great head on his shoulders, and there’s nothing more I love than doing great work for great people. He let me have at this thing and had zero complaints, was super grateful, and shared my excitement for the project which is an awesome feeling when the client is just as pumped as you are with the final result. Great Stuff, Great Dude, Neat Design. Thanks for the opportunity my man. Enjoy.

You can nab one for yourself here!! (www.B3ARFRUIT.com)