Design from Brooklyn with Love

Our friend Jessi Arrington from Workshop is out in Denver volunteering for the Obama campaign. She has been kind enough to sneak over to the Manifest Hope Gallery and snap some more pics for us. Thanks Jessi!

You can download and print your own copy of our Obama poster for free here.

I found the first picture on Flickr today featuring our Obama poster (upper right) at Manifest Hope in Denver.

It seems the poster is also getting a little love in Seattle.

Never before was there such a rich resource of what can only described as high-art on the internet, if you don’t count the latest postings of web genius, spaghetti cat. Try and control yourself as you peruse such hotness as the low-tech lazer light backdrop or the innapropriately posed cousins/boy scout troup shoot. Oh, and don’t snicker. We all know there’s a big-christmas-sweater/rose-holding mall portrait of you somewhere. Behold, the best of the best of glamour-shot goodness.

Check it.

Man, all this red white and blue business on all the election graphics is getting a little old. This latest batch of tees throws the visual language of politics out the window. You can pick one up at the Hypermarket.

Jerry Levitan, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic armed with a tape recorder, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto in 1969. He managed to get John to agree to an interview about peace. This a video made from the interview with super groovy graphics placed around it.

Last night Hyperakt kicked off the first in what poses to be a regular event on the New York graphic design circuit. On our cozy patio behind the studio, we shared an intimate night with friends and colleagues and screened the movie Helvetica.

Of course the film was enjoyable. But a special part in the evening was the pre-show event, learning what some of our colleagues are up to in their own day-to-day. Last night we partook in the curiously disparate stories of a web developer and a painter.

Steven Baughman
First up was Steve, an old friend of mine from my days in Seattle, and now one of Hyperakt’s trusted go-to developers. Steve’s background professes a route from graphic design to interaction design, awards from the likes of Adobe, and clients such as The Director’s Label, ESPN and Michel Gondry. He is one part of the social network development operation Famouser, and is currently employed full-time at the branding and interactive agency Tender, in Manhattan. Steve shared with us his latest baby. Inspired in part by the internet release of Radiohead’s 2008 album In Rainbows, which at first had no official artwork as part of the sale package, Steve and two partners concepted and developed Album tArt, a social portal for the lovers of both music and art. For those who dislike the empty covers in your iTunes collection, this site is for you.

Album tArt interior profile page

Album tArt’s Facebook application

Jake Messing
Jake is an affiliate of the Hyperakt family by way of an illustration class he took under the tutelage of Deroy. That was a few years back, and since then we have worked with him on a couple projects and have had the joy of watching him flourish as a painter and illustrator in the New York art scene. To observe him, one could pin him as the type of person who has the ability to pick up any artform and a week later to already have mastered it. Jake crosses mediums like a weathered seaman crosses a puddle. His paintings are thick with emotive layers that capture people and places in all their raw beauty. But on the flip side, he is also one of the most sincere and amiable people you could hope to meet. Last night he shared with us a collection of his paintings and ink drawings. Your eyes are sure to be happy.

“Jade”, detail: oil, from a series of tattoo-themed paintings.

“Queensboro”, pastel.

I was a little dubious to find this link in my IM window. But The Girl Effect is not the latest dating service. Better.

I had one of those New York moments last night. We were on our way home at around midnight on the last F train of the night (its one of those lovely closed for construction weekends). The train was crowded with tired people, many of whom had fallen asleep with their heads tilted in every which way. One very Wall Street looking dude was contorted and laying face down on the seat with his face in the magazine he was now reading by osmosis apparently. Typical NYC Subway experience. There really wasn’t much to do but stare at the ads. NYC subway ads tend to fall into 2 categories. There’s the big brand campaigns, often for liquor companies, with their close ups of cold sweaty bottles or with the unbelievably hot multi-culti girls that magically appear and hug a massive cold sweaty bottle. Then there’s the low brow “designed-on-Typestyler-by-my-nephew-who’s-a-freshman-in-high-school-but-is-on-his-way-to-art-school” ads for such interesting services as pimple treatments Dr. Zizmor is classic), bunion surgery, or accident law. These tend to be much more entertaining to look at due to their sheer ridiculousness and their extremely difficult to achieve levels of atrociousness. Well, last night I found a hybrid.

Image by Larry Splorch

I looked up at this ad and immediately thought, man, here’s another uber-cheesy one. Let’s see what it’s all about. And then I realized, Kanye West was the star of the ad. Huh??. The ad features the magical transformation of some unfortunate loser dude into the coolness of Kanye. A phone number, 1-877-BeKANYE is prominently displayed, dropped out of an emergency red stripe in extra-bold type. A small detail box of the fizzy little tablets with KW engraved in them give the ad the required scientific action shot. Kanye’s silly smile, holding a condom-wrapper-like package, nails the satisfied customer testimonial portrait. This is brilliant stuff! Best of all, there’s just one litle clue on the whole ad that indicates who it’s for. The first item in a list of features squeezed into a corner of the ad reads: “For a few hours or a lifetime, now anytime can be Kanye time in an absolut world.” And there it is. Absolut is missing its “e”. It’s a liquor ad! Sweet. The perfect hybrid. The ad is further paid off on the campaign’s mini-site with a hilarious video of pseudo Kanyes at a club.

It was 10 years ago when I took Mark Smith’s class “Mixed Media Materials” in Parsons School of Design. His colorful work impressed me then and I am not surprised to see him become the official Illustrator for Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Way to go, Mark! This interview by Steven Heller with Mark Smith tells it all. Read on.

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo.