Nearly two years have soared past since I shot this Super 8 footage at the Carson Ianson Memorial Jam in 2007 and I've finally pulled this footage from the dusty archives for this short cut. The snowboard jam was held on the ridge of a tall mountain outside of Cascade, Idaho.



Music accompaniment by Air - Kelly Watch the Stars.

We've seen more rebranding in the last few months than we can shake a stick at. Without a doubt, this rebranding epidemic was caused by the economic situation and the positive notion of change. This is great for some who try it, but not so great for others; Tropicana, Mountain Dew, Sprite, and Blimpie are some of which just aren't that great. On to the good branding...

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Corbis is a creative stock photo agency with their headquarters based out of Seattle. Their first logo was...well...interesting to say the least; have a look at it here. In 2004, Segura Inc redesigned the logo what we are familiar with today. The new design was a success and later in 2007 when Corbis acquired Veer, Segura began redesigning the logo once more with a softer touch. The letterforms are rid of the hard angles in place for more rounded and welcoming curves.



High five to Segura for doing it right. This has been a positive rebrand or evolution if you will. Softening the curves has evolved it to a more friendly logo.

Tonpress was a polish label from 1980's. Belonging to KAW - Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza (The National Publishing Agency), their catalog consisted of foreign albums, singles, audiobooks and Polish records.

Tonpress was shutdown in 1990, due to the Polish government discontinuing most of the state-controlled publishing houses and agencies. Much of Tonpress' collection was lost when it was split between two privately owned music labels. Tonpress records are still available at on-line auctions. Below are several amazing pieces of the artwork from albums.



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Source here.

Simplicity in design often speaks louder than complexity in design. This is very much the case with these inspirational design pieces. After browsing Ffffound for an hour I found a whole series of artworks with this old yet modern style. Each are from the 60's to the 80's with the exception of the 'Reap' piece which is current.

More Images after the jump.













Source Images from Ffffound.

In the spirit of the new year I'd like to post a series of black and white photos taken over the holidays in both Seattle and Northern Idaho.


























Check out more b&w photos from the trip here.

I've spent the last few weeks brainstorming on how to blog effectively. This if one of the two parts that I'm going to be talking about in this post and you're probably thinking that this is my excuse for not posting anything in those last few weeks and you're right. But in order to achieve the goals that I've set for this blog, I needed to have a brainstorm session.

But Before I get into talking, let me define what I feel blogging effectively is. Blogging effectively means that you've set a goal for blog whether it's a short-term or long-term goal and at each blog post you're making a step towards that goal. Blogging effectively also has a lot to do with knowing your audience and knowing your content. If you're just regurgitating press releases you may be falling short of being effective but once again it depends on what your blog and content are about. Responding to your blogs community and giving to it without taking away is also very important.

So what exactly am I trying to say with this? Well nothing just yet but watch the video so we can move on.



The first time I watched this talk by Malcolm Gladwell at the 2008 AIGA Business Design Conference was from the CJ blog. The first few minutes of the video pulled me in as Josh Liberson speaks of how Malcolm knows nothing of design. Malcolm then comes to the stage and starts speaking about Fleetwood Mac–I'd never heard of them at this point–and I started to wonder where he was going with the topic.

It's not until the second and third time watching the video that you'll start to soak in what Malcolm is really trying to say. So lets back up and reiterate his point but keep in mind that I'm going to let Malcolm do the speaking, as he knows a lot about that, and I'm going to stick to my brief overview and my design. The second part of what I'm talking about in this post is this:

Dedicate at least 10,000 hours to whatever it is you're looking to master.

Only 10,000 hours? Well, yes. If you look at the time it takes to master something, it takes about 10,000 hours–that's roughly four hours a day for ten years. It's not to say that creativity and mastership of that profession can't be had overnight, but it most likely won't happen because creativity requires time.

He then goes to say that the choice of profession is not trivial–I agree. The example that Malcolm uses is that if you decide to be a teacher, being a great teacher is not something that simply happens. It is something that comes out of an investment of your time (10,000 hours) and the things you're a part of. You can't just walk in and become a teacher and be great at it, it simply doesn't work like that. The same goes for being a designer, photographer, or a profession in any other field.

So I've gone from blogging effectively to mastering creativity. They relate, but why do they relate? If I were to start off by talking about how to shoot photos effectively or design effectively, it would be the same relationship because I'm talking about trying to master something and/or effective at it. But lets let Malcolm do those odd but enlightened comparisons.

Here is the link to the video again as well as a transcript of it word-for-word so you can gather more information from his enlightening talk.

This election has been one of the largest elections in history with a huge turnout in both the youth and middle-age groups. Leading up to the election there was a lot of skepticism to which candidate would be the best choice to lead and be the president.



With Obama having 338 Electoral votes to McCain's 156, this election was nearly a landslide. You can still see the voting polls at Cnn.com.

Two speeches were made tonight, one from McCain and one from Obama. McCain's speech came before Obama's and was, in my opinion, one of his strongest and best speeches that he has done in all of his campaigning this year. It was straight forward and supportive of Obama's election despite the booing of his very own supporters. Here is a quote of what McCain said:

"Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and his country..." and continued on to call Obama a "good man." I do really think that this was an outstanding gesture to not only Obama, but to the McCain's supporters. It hopefully gives them faith to support Obama through McCain's support for him.

After McCain's speech, Obama spoke at Grant Park in Chicago where he spoke a great and welcoming speech that included this:

"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America–I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you–we as a people will get there."

Congratulations to our new President, Barack Obama. We will all be supporting and awaiting the new changes to come.

Shot lots of photos this weekend at the LG Action Sports Tour Championships. Lighting was rough and angles were tough but overall it was a good time. There was bmx, inline skating, skateboarding, shows from The Game, MXPX, Pennywise and Hoobastank.

Check the event standings at the official website.

When I first purchased a set of Pocket Wizards, I thought that the 1600-foot range was a lot, but now that I've seen this new trigger I'm starting to see a bunch of new possibilities.

Robert Benson a Californian photographer, has come up with a brilliant trigger by using any normal hand held Radio plugged into a cameras shutter release plugin. The radio trigger can work up to 20 miles from the camera but it depends on what kind of radio you're using and the objects/buildings line-of-sight from the camera.






Keep in mind that this device is probably illegal considering the FCC prohibits you from using two-way radios to trigger another device. The device is patent pending and can be purchased here.




Make sure to check out the comments on Robert's blog post about the triggers. There is some talk of using a cell phone to trigger the camera from possibly...around the world. Think its possible? Feel free to start a conversation in the comments–I'd like to see where this one goes.

For the past two years Krush Kulesza from Snowboy Productions has been putting on a rail jam on the steps of Qwest Field. This year the Snowboy crew put on a great show again with riders Jed Anderson, Nick Dirks, Jarad Hadi, Scott Stevens, Austin Sweetin, Jonas Michilot, Austin Hironaka and a few others. The judges were Darrell Mathes, Jon Kooley and Austin Smith.

If you tell anyone in North America that you live in or are going to visit Seattle, Washington it will most likely evoke stories of endless rain and the sweet sweet sounds of grunge rock circa 1994.

It didn't rain, but there was a few grunge rock songs that played. Here are a few photos from the night.












To see more photos check out YoBeat's Article and Jared Souney's Blog Post.