POINTS OF ENTRY


The Payola Chronicles

What do you do when a music marketing company out of Brooklyn asks if they can put you on their promo list and send you music and concert tickets in exchange for you writing reviews on your blog? You start a new series called The Payola Chronicles.

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Redesigning the Towers and Turrets*

For the past few months I have been posting a series called Great Counterculture Logos and getting feedback from the likes of Paul Pascarella of Gonzo lore, PD at Skull Skates and Jordan Cooper at Revelation Records on how their respective marks came to be...

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It's All Around You...

Some of the best artistic inspiration that crosses my path on a daily basis is not in the galleries (although I post on that here as well) but on the walls and back alleys I pass through on my way to work. The best of these pieces are posted in the aptly titled ongoing series Art I Pass By On My Way to Work. Cooler still, they are all geotagged.

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WORK WORTH DOING

An Interview with Lorraine Gauthier and Alex Quinto
as featured on blog.industrialbrand.com and eco.psfk.com

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Greenland is melting!"

This was how Lorraine Gauthier and Alex Quinto introduced themselves at this year's ICOGRADA in Seattle. It was early in the conference and the first statement that truly made us sit up and take notice. We would learn that the pair had worked on Bruce Mau's exhibit Massive Change, a massive undertaking unto itself tackling the world's most critical problems from a designer's perspective. They then went on to create Work Worth Doing, a design studio "working at the intersection of the business, cultural and philanthropy sectors bringing design thinking and design processes to a host of social and environmental challenges".

Yes, Greenland is melting. This can interpreted as a catastrophic event, threatening ocean circulation patterns and Europe's climate. But from a different perspective, it also stands as an untapped economic resource for Greenland and a potential water supply for Africa. From this latter view, the Greenland issue no longer becomes a problem, but a solution. It is all in how you approach the challenge.

We recently interviewed Lorraine and Alex to further discuss the potential of design in creating positive change in the world.

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ICOGRADA 2006

Defining Design on a Changing Planet
(the writer's cut)

I have just returned home and begun an intensive recovery that is befitting of the work hard / play hard ethic with which our team tackled these past four days at ICOGRADA’s Design Week in Seattle. The news has been on the television all evening: looping footage of the escalating tension between Israel and the Hezbollah; of blown out Lebanese neighbourhoods and clips of Anderson Cooper chasing after the next ground zero.

After dinner, we rent Syriana, remembering its scenes of a claustophobic and heavily armed Hezbollah-occupied Beirut; trying to make some sense of it all; but, of course, it only serves to underline the point that there are no simple answers, no defined lines that clearly separate right from wrong, the good guy from the bad guy; and a harsh reminder of what we are up against as we return from this conference back to reality with our heads full of optimism and ideals.

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DESIGN

A Sensitive Dependence: The Search for a Canadian Identity in Graphic Design

This past summer, on the balmy shores of Lake Huron, I took part in a wine tasting where the libations in question were all by the same wine maker, they were all from the same grape and all bottled in the same year. The defining difference between the three bottles was one of a very specific geography. The first bottle had been cultivated from the grapes on the southern hillside of the winery; the second bottle's fruit had matured in the valley while the last bottle had its roots in the acreage just across the highway. Within these controlled settings, the differences in taste seemed ever more apparent and strangely, more relevant. By reducing the variables to a matter of a few square kilometres, we had derived from the wine its true essence.

This experiment came to mind as I listened to the debate at the launch of the GDC's Graphex 2006 National Design Competition. The panel of international and highly qualified judges consisted of Rick Poynor, Min Wang, Debbie Millman, Robert Sarner and Tan Le. The topic was "Is there a definitive Canadian style in our graphic design?"

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IDEAS

Music for the 21st Century

"The most beautiful chord is made from dischord"
-Heraclitus


On May 29, 1913, 'The Rite of Spring', performed by Diaghiler's inimitable Ballet Russes made its world premiere at Paris' Théatre des Champs Elysées. The physically unnatural choreography accompanied by the atonal, rhythmically ambiguous music of Igor Stravinsky was too much for the audience's sensibilities. Hissing and booing grew to such a volume that the dancers were unable to hear their cues and the performance eventually dissolved into a state of chaos and rioting in the theatre. It was in this fashion that Modernism in music was born and in this sense did Stravinsky foreshadow all that would follow in the tumultuous 20th century.

So it seemed darkly fitting that tonight, nearly a century later, with the world's eyes once again focused on Paris as the major themes of our time play out against the fiery backdrop of its poorest districts, that Stravinsky would feature on the roster as symphony-goers in Vancouver Canada were treated to an evening of new sounds and new ideas which also included Michio Kitazume's Ei-Sho and John Adam's 'The Dharma at Big Sur', a piece that was inspired by Beat writer Jack Kerouac's novel 'Big Sur'.

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OPINION

Build Your Homes in Factories

Two years ago, while in Ontario visiting with friends and family, I was kindly invited to my cousin's new home for Thanksgiving dinner. Getting there required taking the subway out to Kipling, its westernmost stop and then driving another 40 minutes until we arrived literally on the edge of the GTA sprawl. Only a block away lay acres of razed land, once the fertile soil of farms and orchards, now reallocated to the purposes of souless and sterile suburbia. Is this what we were all striving for? I asked myself. Working our lives away for a carving of these spoils?

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JOURNEYS

The Beijing Dispatch

There are people wandering along the side of the freeway. This is my first impression upon our arrival in Beijing. It strikes a deep set horror in me. Caught in the headlights, choked on the edge of the 10 lanes that spew out an air that you wear like another layer of skin, they look displaced, lost, left behind.

My god, I think to myself, 1.3 billion is too many; China's population is supersaturated; the levee has broken; people are spilling out everywhere.

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MARKETING

Digging in the right yard: The viral marketing of It's All Gone Pete Tong
As featured on if.psfk.com, ihaveanidea.org and blog.industrialbrand.com

There was little coverage to be found in the mainstream media upon the release of the independent mockumentary "It's All Gone Pete Tong". Not that it deserved to be overlooked. The movie, about an Ibiza deejay, Frankie Wilde, who has to deal with going deaf, is not your average party flick. Picking up awards at a number of festivals, it is beautifully filmed and touches on a far deeper level than just spinning records and snorting lines. There is redemption in this movie. And everyone likes a little of that in their lives once in a while.

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CATALYSTS

Friday, October 02, 2009

a photography that is 'unfinished'
Photography portfolio of Paolo Pellegrin
"I'm more interested in a photography that is 'unfinished' - a photography that is suggestive and can trigger a conversation or dialogue. There are pictures that are closed, finished, to which there is no way in."

—Paolo Pellegrin

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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Hive Photos

"We worked together like bees -- each doing our little bit, apart from the others, but producing something greater and, ultimately, understood by none of us individually"

(via @GreatDismal)

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

DK's True Blood Titles
DK's True Blood Titles
Just started getting into True Blood, Alan Ball's latest HBO series about a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, Louisiana who falls in love with a vampire. Like Ball's previous project, Six Feet Under, the title sequence was created by the talented team over at Digital Kitchen and presents a perverse montage of imagery that perfectly captures the juxtaposition of sinister and spiritual underlying the American South. Better still is the "True Blood Featurette" that links from the same page which I can only assume is a director's cut of the more twisted material that was collected for the project.

UPDATE: I was showing these clips to my friend Doug today and he directed me to some additional "disturbing deep south fun" from the documentaries Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus (which we both concluded was a primary influence for the DK title sequence, some footage seeming to be directly lifted from this film) and The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia of which I can find very little in terms of footage online but did find a gallery of the photographs on which the film was based. Disturbing fun indeed.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

.謀
.謀
Started following .謀's photostream on Flickr when he started following me but I have been obsessed with his work ever since with its strange bleached out nostalgia-like feel. Enjoy.

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Field Research: Hot Rods
Funny Cars
I've been working on a project for the past two weeks that has found me immersed in the graphic language of rockabilly, burlesque, punk rock, chopper bikes and hot rod cultures. I can't reveal much more than this at the moment but thought I would share with you two of the more unapologetically cooler websites that have crossed my path in the course of my research, both of them harkening back to a simpler time when a woman's place was on the pinup calendar and men were measured by the muscle under their hoods: 60's & 70's Funny Cars.

(Now if I only knew where my old Hot Wheels collection got to...)

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Beggars to Exiles
Rolling Stones - Beggars to Exiles
Currently showing at the San Francisco Art Exchange is Beggars to Exiles: The Photography of Michael Cooper and Dominique Tarle, that documents the Rolling Stones between 1967 and 1971, a period during which the band singlehandedly defined the archetype of the rock n roll star --the fashion, the drug busts, the groupies, the villa in the south of France -- for all who followed.

Though somewhat of a pain to navigate, the online version of the exhibit is quite comprehensive and includes such insights as:

To record "Exile on Main Street" Keith Richards rented Villa Nellcôte, the "Gestapo headquarters during the Second World War," complete with swastikas on the floor vents. The basic band for these sessions is believed to have consisted of Richards, Bobby Keys, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts, Jimmy Miller, and Jagger when he was available. Bassist Bill Wyman did not like the ambiance of the Richards' villa and sat out many of the French sessions.


Brilliant.

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Monday, February 11, 2008

"..life with the dull bits cut out.."
Vanity Fair does Hitchcock
This month's Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair features modern day actors, including Seth Rogan and Charlize Theron, photographically recreating classic moments from the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Note the Saul Bass influence on the typography. Super cool.

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Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Google Earth vs. The Bible
In the beginning, there was google earth
In one of the most blatant epoch incongruities since Spartacus's Rolex-wearing Roman, Australian artists, The Glue Society have rendered satellite photographs of various Biblical events as though seen via Google Earth. Awesome.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Separated at Birth?


Wow. Today's post at daily dose of imagery bares an incredibly uncanny resemblance to Jeroen Witvliet's Structures series!

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Keep Your Eyes Open
The Fugazi Photographs of Glen E. Friedman
Glen E. Friedman got his start in photography shooting images of the legendary Z-boys skating backyard pools. From there he would go on to take some of the most definitive portraits of early hip hop and hardcore punk pioneers including the Beastie Boys, RunDMC and Black Flag and as a result is considered to be one of the most important photographers of his generation.

Just released this past month, Friedman's new book, Keep Your Eyes Open, chronicles his pictorial relationship with the band Fugazi, possibly one of the most important bands to have ever entered this writer's eardrums.

Says the website:

"KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN: The Fugazi Photographs of Glen E. Friedman was released by Burning Flags Press exactly 20 years [after Fugazi's first concert on September 3, 1987]. The 112-page, 9 x11 hardcover book presents the best of Friedman's unparalleled photographic documentation of Fugazi's members in almost 200 color and black & white images captured by Friedman onstage and off between 1986 and Fugazi's last U.S. concert in 2002. As Fugazi's Ian MacKaye explains, 'While most photographers were taking photos of Fugazi, Glen was making photos with us.'"

As a final note, while surfing the web on this topic, I also came across this footage of Fugazi performing Turnover outside of the White House in 1991 at a protest against the first Gulf War. Incredible.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The Hyena Men
Pieter Hugo Photos of the Hyena Men
I stumbled upon the above image while researching a project that I am currently working on for a youth organization based out of Rwanda (Note: the above image is not in the least related to or suggestive of the direction that I am going on that project. Think complete 180°). I guess Boing Boing threw this photo into the blog feedpen a couple of years back causing a bit of a frenzy and inciting a number of very wrongly assumed explanations for why this man is standing in the middle of the street with a chained up hyena for a pet (a particular favourite caption was that he is a debt collector; another alluded to undisputed "badassitude").

The photograph is one in a series by Pieter Hugo called The Hyena Men of Nigeria. Turns out that the subject is a member of a group of entertainers from Nigeria, who travel across the country with three hyenas, two pythons and four monkeys. As innocent as that sounds (well, more innocent than the debt collector scenario at any rate) I can't get over the apocalyptic vision that is composed in these shots. Totally surreal.

Other work by Hugo can be found here.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

A Field Guide to Military Urbanism
a field guide to military urbanism
A current favourite online visit, Bryan Finoki's Subtopia is a discourse on military urbanism, the architecture of occupation and oppression, and the overarching question of why we, as humans, have it in our nature to build walls between ourselves.

To give you an idea of the subject matter, a recent entry features Jonathan Olley's stark, haunting photos of Northern Ireland's police stations, barracks and watchtowers; structures from a troubled past that are quickly disappearing to progress; to be too readily forgotten rather than stand as a reminder/memorial of how very wrong the world can sometimes turn.

Finoki writes:

"While [these] photos are evidence of a distinctly terrorized Irish landscape the more frightening truth about them for me is that they could almost be, in so many regards, the filmic traces of any number of places around the world today.
If we were just to focus on the brutish walls and violent features of defensive accouterment, it wouldn't be that inconceivable to mistake N. Ireland for, say, parts of Jerusalem or Gaza, or even Johannesburg, maybe downtown Manilla for that matter - possibly a neighborhood in central Egypt or Lebanon; conflicted places which are facing some of their own most cruel histories with political walls and entangled battle urbanism still today."

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Thursday, May 03, 2007

An Intolerable Beauty
Chris Jordan
Chris Jordan's photographic essays seem to always be preoccupied with uncovering beauty in the spoils of our society. Discarded circuit boards take on a patchwork air, while a rack of waterlogged dresses hints at a rainbow in the otherwise twisted wake of a post-Katrina New Orleans. In his series Running the Numbers, he uses statistics as his subject, producing compelling large scale photographic collages that serve as visual representations of societal numbers that are often too collosally abstract to even try to comprehend.

As Jordan states: "I am appalled by these scenes, and yet also drawn into them with awe and fascination. The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity."

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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Art I Pass By On My Way to Work - #1
Art I Pass By On My Way to Work - #1

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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Look Again
One World
As a follow up to last week's post on the Whole Earth Campaign it seems that at this rather crucial juncture in the relationship between ourselves and our planet, we are again being encouraged to observe, contemplate and allow ourselves to be overcome by the profound image of the Earth from outer space.

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Sunday, January 14, 2007

Coaxing Light To Caress
The Photography of Jim Marshall, Michael Zagaris and Baron Wolman
(Pictured above: Robbie Robertson, Michael McClure, Bob Dylan & Alan Ginsberg) Regardless of whether the Sixties revolution changed the world, the dirt and the details have long since blurred into myth, once again allowing the ideals of the time to appear untarnished (though perhaps a little too naive), and its characters to rise to the realm of legend. No where is this more evidant than in the work of the era's great cultural photographers: Jim Marshall (above), Gene Anthony, Baron Wolman and others are featured over at Wolfgang's Vault.

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

No Ritual Can Heal
Robert Polidori's After the Flood
Currently showing at the Met and corresponding with a book of the same name, Robert Polidori's New Orleans After the Flood: Photographs hauntingly documents the post-Katrina devastation of the once Big Easy. With the same passion that affected his photographic essay on Chernobyl in 2001, Polidori once again succeeds in capturing the magnitude of loss and human folly in each frame.

For more info check out John Updike's review of After the Flood in the New York Times Review of Books.

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Friday, October 20, 2006

Dr. Strangelove / Dr. Strangelove
Dr. Strangelove
After taking a crack at Viking's Stationery Movies Contest (scored 18/20 while playing fair), I was reminded of Kristan Horton's Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove photo project in which he ingeniously replicates stills from the film using everyday objects from around his studio.

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Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Link Trolling: Brazil
brazil links
From Diplo's Mad Decent Worldwide Radio: "its crazy here in Rio.. guns go missing and police go to war with poor people and then i get kicked out of my apt and i got no internet access.. but heres a random mix."

It was Diplo's show with Brazilian acts, Cansei de Ser Sexy (who win the title of Dance Hit of the Summer with the brilliant "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death From Above") and Bonde do Role a few weeks ago at Celebrities here in Vancouver that first made me take notice and begin to wonder "what the heck is going on in Brazil?" The energy from both of these bands was raw and unrefined. These were acts that would never have seen the outside of the Brazilian club scene if it weren't for MySpace.com and the endorsement of a worldclass dj like Diplo who, it seems has made Rio his second home.

Another discovery via Diplo that churned up while surfing the net this evening: the work of Leandro HBL, a director, photographer, designer etc. who did some time at Fabrica. Great, great work.

The next stop on my journey, an old favorite: the fantastic art of Alexandre Orion, which combines street art and photography to create often comic and poignant stories. This led me to consult a source who knows far better than me of other instances of Brazilian street art which ultimately brought an end to my surf as I settled in with this enchanting video entitled "Brilliant Tyger".

Whew! So the answer to "What the heck is going on in Brazil?", it would seem a whole heck of a lot!

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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

The Return of Fotologue.jp
Los Angeles
Just over a year ago I posted an entry about my experience acquiring a fotologue.jp account for Industrial Brand Creative. As I reported, at that time there was no English whatsoever on the site and one required an invitation in order to join. Almost immediately after our success with acquiring an account, I began receiving emails from people from all over the world asking me how I had done it and could I help them in securing one of their own. Unfortunately, I could not offer them an easy answer.

Recently however, fotologue has launched a new site that is open to the public and has been translated (with typical Japanese accuracy) into English. There are still a few bugs but it also has a number of new features that should make it even more user friendly. At the very least, it offers an aesthetically pleasing alternative to flickr.com of which I have never really been a fan.

And so to commemorate my own new fotologue account, I have posted a few photos from my recent trip to Los Angeles. Enjoy.

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Saturday, March 25, 2006

France through a Pinhole
France through a Pinhole Jane and I checked out Dianne Bos' Verre et Mer exhibit at the Jennifer Kostuik Gallery this afternoon which showcases pinhole photographs from the Southwest of France. Beautiful and haunting imagery with an amazing sense of nostalgia filtering through the light of the photographs. In fact, Bos writes that "Viewers have said that my work evokes the memory-image that remains for them long after they have viewed a familiar location."

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Monday, March 13, 2006

Edward Burtynsky's China
Edward Burtynsky's China
My own personal experience has taught me that China is a force to be reckoned with. As it careens forth into this century - a century that most have already conceded that it will dominate - gaining momentum at every turn, one is left to ponder how anyone is going to keep a hold of the reigns.

Edward's Burtynsky's photographs, recently compiled in the book Burtynsky - China, document the harsher side of this burgeoning rise and provide a rare glimpse into the hefty price of progress.

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Tuesday, March 07, 2006

The Tilt-Shift Phenomenon
tilt shift images
Okay, so "phenomenon" might be a little overstated, but there has been a pronounced trend online lately towards using or replicating a to make a normal photograph look like a miniature. Sam Javanrouh over at has produced some really interesting results with it here, here and, with a slight twist, here. So has his friend Shahin. And this morning, PingMag featured images of a inspired by the work of .

Very cool effect. You can learn how to do this to your own photos from this tutorial over at Receding Hairline. Here are a few of my initial attempts.

Check out the submissions that we received over at the Industrial Brand Blog for more examples and links.

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Monday, February 06, 2006

Pop Cultures Collide
art life art
life art life
art life art
The *ahem* Bradgelina paparazzi angle of this story still has me leery to post this but the whole "life imitating art imitating life" on multiple levels was just too much not to. Plus, the Sonic Youth "Goo" album cover is sweet. The play by play from WFMU:

A paparazzi photo of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the back seat of a car from 2005, artwork for Sonic Youth's album "Goo" from 1990, which is based on a paparazzi photo of David and Maureen Smith (two people named Mr. and Mrs. Smith) driving to the in 1966. Plate of shrimp, anyone?

Be sure to note the boyfriend stealing reference on the SY album. Too perfect.

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Monday, November 28, 2005

The Paranoiac Space
of Modernism
Dave Maisel
I've been searching for a decent link to photographer Dave Maisel's series "Oblivion" —brilliant and terrifying aerial photos of the LA sprawl—ever since I fist saw it featured in the September issue of Dwell Magazine. On his subject, Maisel writes:

"In his book “Warped Space,” the architectural theorist Anthony Vidler speaks of the 'paranoiac space of modernism,' a space which is 'mutated into a realm of panic, where all limits and boundaries become blurred…' These words come to mind when considering the urban aerial images of Los Angeles and its periphery shown here, excerpted from my photographic project called Oblivion."

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Thursday, November 17, 2005

Left Behind
abandoned japan
There is something eerily resounding in the utter silence of abandoned buildings. No longer with purpose, emptied of their human charge, they stand as physical prophecies to the conquest of time and the inevitable reinstatement of nature.

Check out these spectacular images of Abandoned Japan (via the Skinny). And if you are left wanting more there is a very comprehensive listing of similar urban skeletons at Ruins and Urban Exploration.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Portfolio Update — svenboecker.com


Industrial Brand Creative just launched our friend and photographer Sven Boecker's website. It is ultra clean and simple with a slick Flash engine underneath. Not to mention of course: beautiful photography.

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Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Big in Japan
fotologueA couple of months ago, I stumbled upon a photoblog website out of Japan called fotologue.jp. Its clean and dynamic interface far surpassed anything that we had seen in the North American market. It seemed like an excellent B-side for the Industrial Brand Creative website at the very least; a third cornerstone (along with the blog) for our online community at best. So after a number of false starts and emails lost in translation, we were finally invited to register for our own page.

The idea was to create a dynamic online billboard - posting a new photo everyday - that reinforces the IBC brand by using the images that we have made an integral part of the new IBC look but presenting them in a purely aesthetic form. It is soft marketing to be sure, but it introduces us to a new market while at the same time providing an outlet for the artistic side of the company that so often gets lost amidst the case studies and mission statements.

Much thanks to Reiko Nakatsukasa as well as Jennifer Bukloh and Kinya Horikoshi at Photonica and everyone at Amana for getting this launched. Domo arigatou gozaimashita!

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