A cool cake pattern I found on this great illustration blog: http://helloauki.blogspot.com

Well, looking back I realized that it was August 18, 2009 that was my first post on this blog. That means the blog is one year old, and my journey as a creative visualist is one year further along. This year has been full of un-forseen hiccups (Shane moving, some staff moving on to rock stardom, business moving, astronomical accounting bills) and some very pleasant things (The Reconciliation Sculpture, working the letterpress, some painting time, holidays, and a trip to see Albert Paley speak in Colorado).

Overall, I’ve found this blog to be a good exercise, and a good way to keep myself accountable for moving forward by flexing my creative muscles. I do hope that it has been valuable for my readers also.

In this next year there are a couple of things I’d like to work on:

1. to post more regularly.
2. to integrate other people’s work into the blog, to help spread the love.
3. to seek, and seize, more opportunities to invest in the life-giving creative stuff like painting, letterpress work, and sculpture.

You are all free to keep me accountable for this stuff. Thanks for being loyal readers.

Peace in the East. Happy Birthday to me.

michael

It turns out that the host town of Salida is a great little artsy town with a vision for preserving their heritage buildings, creating usable public spaces for people, and thinking progressively about re-working relic buildings into resources, as well as more cruiser bikes than anywhere I’ve ever been. There were so many good buildings I didn’t have time to draw even a fraction of them, but I did take a few photos for later revisiting, and below are three sketches I did get down in my moleskine.

This first sketch is an old brick building called the ‘Steam Plant’ which gives us a not-so-subtle clue about it’s heritage. The building was converted into a community theatre and conference centre and this is where our conference was held. The plaza in front of the building was bordered by large natural stones stepping down to the creek where a kayak course was set up.

The second is a quick sketch of a really interesting window dressing on the second story of one of the old brick buildings. The trim was painted in bright blues and yellows which contrasted nicely with the deep red of the brick, giving a very cheerful feel to this building. The theme was repeated throughout downtown so the old brick buildings didn’t look run-down and monochrome. There were splashes of colour all over that lent the whole scene a vitality.

The final one was a cool alley view that opened up off one of the main streets of downtown. There must have been a brick plant nearby in the heyday of this mining town (mostly gold and silver, i think) because nearly every building in the downtown core was built with this same colour brick. The brick layers appeared to be given some latitude because the edges, windows, and roof peaks all had simple but effective patterns, accents, and motifs made out of brick that set them apart from repeating brick boxes. This alley had a great ‘bridge’ that went from one side to the other on the second story.

Acrylic on Canvas - 24" x 24" - $650 unframed

]]> http://www.michaelhepher.com/?feed=rss2&p=361 0 http://www.michaelhepher.com/?p=353 http://www.michaelhepher.com/?p=353#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:35:23 +0000 michael http://www.michaelhepher.com/?p=353

Saturday morning a bunch of us went hoofed it down to the first Farmer’s Market of the season to busk. We had a rotation of 8 or 9 people so it was a great little song circle that let everyone had a chance. At the end of the market we had collected $120 which we took to the grocery, bought a bunch of steaks, prawns, chickens, salads and had a great barbeque and jam at the Jones’  gazebo (Steve Jones on upright bass). Good times where had by all, that’s me rockin’ out the mandolin in the pic above. Photos courtesy of Sally Passey.

Our family has a rustic cabin in Gray Creek, BC that has the basics (electrical, fridge, stove, etc.) but excludes the comforts (tv, internet, even cell service is patchy in the area). This makes for a great relaxing time so we decided to head there for the weekend. The catch: We decided to transform the little cabin into a studio with our computers and recording software to spend an unprecedented 4 days experimenting with electronic tools. The following mp3s are some snippits of the tracks that were laid down in our ad hoc studio.

» EVAPORATE (mp3) At first I had trouble with inspiration. The whole ‘staring at a blank canvas not sure what to paint’ thing. On the morning of day two I decided to dig up song I had written a few years ago but never recorded. I always liked the melody and thought it would be a good fit to some of the digital tools set before me. For the record this recording still has what I would consider a scratch vocal, but I like the textures, just need some punch in/outs to fix up some spots.

» LAKESIDE REMIX (mp3) I have always liked some of the hip-hop artists that use beats that at first sound like they’re tripping and stumbling, but somehow they work them into a groove. I spent quite a bit of time just working this beat to get that effect, then added some melodic hooks and sounds for interest. It became clear that I also needed some lyrics, which I’ve never really written before for hip-hop, but after a bit I came up with something that could be considered placeholder for some real lyrics. I’ll have to get one of my hippidy-hop friends to write some like my pal Jesse from Paramedic could whip some up on the spot.

» UNTITLED (mp3) This is the song Rob spent the last two days of his weekend working on. It’s an incredibly catchy electro-pop song complete with vocoder vocals. I keep catching myself humming the hook in my head. Download at your own risk. I love the way he has blended percussive electronic sounds with some real guitar and cymbal sounds. It is a rich textural experience that comes off very ‘up’ unlike my dirge-like emotional dredges.

Also of note that we had a pretty good side-by-side comparison of Ableton Live and Logic 9 Studio. They both had their strengths, but both were definitely extremely competent platforms for recording. Ableton naturally leans towards putting together electronic music, storing loops and hooks for easy recall to put together in live situations. The Ableton interface comes off very utilitarian, but well organized and full of useful features. The Logic software is fancy, and polished, and everything has a beautiful skin. The guts are just as powerful as Ableton, but the interface seems to lend itself to more traditional recording environments. It makes it easy to automate your mix, add any number of software instruments from the library, or record your own and add effects from built in or external sources. Logic had a great drum sequencer that allowed for the creation of very complex beats, and everything could be run through a comprehensive synthesizer for processing one or all of the tones included. For those of you used to using GarageBand, this is a very worthwhile upgrade. Think of GarageBand but 100 times deeper and more powerful. For most people, either of these will be more software than anyone could need. This was not a paid advertisement for either… though we are open to sponsorship from Apple or Ableton

I’ll see if we can get a few more snippets together to post. Rock on!

The other reason for this post is that I’ve dusted off the press after a few months of quiet in the printing shop. A client and friend of mine had asked me to print her some wedding invitations for her. It’s a daunting task to take on such an important announcement, but Dana appears to trust my work so this was the input she gave as  a creative brief:

“Our colour are black & white, and we’d like something neo-gothic or damask patterned…”

I worked up a digital design and sent it to them for an idea, they liked it, so off to the presses I went. I had to get film made to burn a polymer plate for the damask print. The invitations were 1 colour (black) but since I was combining a plate as well as some hand-set type I needed to run the product through twice, and I thought matching envelopes would be a nice touch so I printed those with the plate as well. All tolled I spent about 20 hours planning, printing, printing, and printing the envelopes, but with letterpress it’s not about the time, it’s about the love.

I’ve put together a few photos of the process to show you a few key points along the way. For the record, the client cried when I delivered them. It was the first time I’d ever seen Dana speechless. I loved making these… any other takers? It’s not cheap but it’s worth it.

Another view of the lockup on the spider-chase.

Some of my california job cases of type.

Test print of one of the plates

Notice how clear the plates print.

The invitations sans-border in the foregroud, and a few finished ones after the addition of the damask border.

The finished invitations drying.

The finished invitations drying, just need to trim them and deliver.

Regardless of the size of a company, I love to try to maximize the visual impact that they have for their business, and designing a good logo is part of that brand package. Below is a compilation of a number of logos that I have designed over the years.

Some of the logos I've designed over the years.

It is amazing just how much we depend on it for daily communication. I would estimate 90% of our communication with our clients is via email. 50% of our in-office communication is email or IM. And nearly all of our work requires an internet connection. Even when I am designing a website, logo or print piece I am constantly referring to the web for inspiration, research, and confirmation. We kinda felt lost without it.

After two days of sending my staff packing to various coffee shops and partner offices for internet access, I finally decided to make a stand. We cleared out some space in our house and curled up on couches by the fire to work. Three pots of coffee, a round of Plato Combinado lunches from the Cancun, and several pairs of slippers later, we managed to get our first productive day together since Monday, no thanks to Telus.

Our staff congregates in the living room during what we are now referring to as "Black Monday"... the day the internet left us groping for wireless all over town.

I am constantly mystified by the lack of action that Telus shows for it’s clients when something goes wrong. I realize that when we look at the perspective of the greater world, the crisis in Haiti, AIDS in Africa, and even local poverty and homelessness, lacking internet for a few days doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I know it is not a matter of life and death, but when a small business owner bears the responsibility to make sure there is work, space, and resources to make sure that my staff of 4 are busy, efficient, and paid, I do take it very seriously. This year has been a truly challenging one for almost any businesses big or small. Many are holding on by a thread; we have had lots of work, a few hiccups along the way, and we have emerged more or less in the black, but that doesn’t mean it’s been easy.

I guess it is different when you have a monopoly on your market. I spent probably 5 hours on the phone with different divisions and people in the Telus company structure. Many of them were kind, understanding, and concerned sounding. The problem is they still couldn’t get in movement on my problem. Their corporate structure is set up to a) foster adequacy rather than excellence and b) perpetuate a lack of concern for the people that pay their bills month after month. I suspect that over the years I have given more money to Telus than to my bank for my mortgage. Why, then, do they not have systems in place to cope with problems simply and effectively? If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the phrase “I’m very sorry but…” over the last 3 days, I would be a wealthy man. When pressed for some sort of ‘consolation’ prize, I was offered 2 months of internet free. Thanks, Telus, but that’s not much consolation.

If you calculate our billable hour rate of $95/hr., over two days, counting 5 billable hours per employee per day, times 4 employess ($95/hr x 2 x 5 x 4 employees, you get nearly $4000 of lost potential revenues. So a discount of $180 is not even a 5% consolation. In an economic environment like the one we are presently surviving in, that’s a big hit. Corporate taxes are due this week as a special additional prize.

I have, after consideration, decided to create my own consolation prize. I hope it doesn’t come off too much like an embittered whine, but I realize that accountability is essential for all organizations to remain human and understanding. This is true for government, small businesses like mine, and large multi-nationals also. This morning we were watching the video of the musician who’s guitar was wrecked and not replaced by United Airlines, so he wrote a series of negative-publicity songs that went viral on YouTube. In the end, that got the attention of the airline, who ended up deciding it was worth it to ‘make it right’. That is really the only power we consumers have over larger corporations and monopolies.

To that end, I have decided to do what I can to let Telus know that we are not impressed with the ‘upgrade’ and repair process. We are web professionals, and giving people a voice on the web is what we do. As a result of our frustrating experience trying to get Telus to deal with our ‘upgrade’ quickly and professionally, I am interested in doing what I can to give people a voice. As a result, keep your browsers poised at www.deartelus.com where we will be installing a copy of an application called Twessage, built by one of our staff (logo by yours truly) that allows @ replies to be posted to a web page (For samples go to www.dearie6.com and www.deartwilight.com). We’ll see what people really have to say to Telus, maybe if we get enough people they will take notice and make some changes.

As an aside, just hours after posting my frustrations on Twitter and Facebook, and a mere 15 minutes after Telus restored our office internet, I got a phone call from Shaw who offered me a fantastic deal on internet, and likely soon home digital phone. At least I know someone is paying attention! …I think we’ll make the switch.

Cheers, all.