Jimmy Slade...Put on the Star Trunks and go for 10!

Slats is just setting up the biggest come back ever...

More Letters...Phil Yamada.

Keeping with this weekend's tradition of hand done letters, I was turned onto Phil Yamada yesterday from FFFFOUND! You should tune into his site for the full alphabet - www.philyamada.com. The following letters were my favorites - D-H-L-M & Y...

Date Night!

I'm no food critic, but last night was a meal not to be forgotten. In fact, I had been looking forward to eating at Restaurant 'As' in Amsterdam for a few days since Roman had recommended this spot as "bohemian, candle lit, and existing in an old church." Ah yeah, exactly. Sounds like my kind of spot.

So 15 minutes before I left for dinner, Chris (my hot date), flaked on me for some excel sheets and I just couldn't say no to a night out with yours truly. So I grabbed the latest issue of RUSSH (pretty good, by the way), put on a new shirt and headed out to dinner solo. Amsterdam was particularly beautiful yesterday, and a good dinner made perfect sense. One of those days where every detail I saw could inspire next season's collection, every song lyric I hear is a tee-shirt graphic and I want to put everyone around me in a look book (young and old!)...

Anyway, I got to 'As' and instead of sitting inside the beautiful architecture, they had the garden patio open with communal wood tables (of course). So I found myself a tucked away little corner (dreamed of Hannah sitting across from me) and sat out to enjoy my three courses of the chef's selection - all organic farmers market fair - nothing fancy, just incredibly fresh and cleaned my plate on all three courses. Even left room for strawberry rhubarb (or something of the sort???)...When the sun began to lower around 9:30, the hostess wrapped me up in a folksy sort of woolen blanket (of course), the kind you would love to have during any good sunset at the best restaurant around, but never saw before (100% original). Anyway, as you can gather, dinner was pretty good. To top is all off, they called me a taxi and the driver looked like Rutger Hauer from Turkish Delight (1973 - good year). When I jumped in, he was listening to 2HB by Roxy Music...the soundtrack to my night.

Letman's Letters.

So as you know, I love a good hand drawn letter and if you read my previous post, I discovered Letman on a party flyer today. When I dug into his website I was blown away...more beautiful hand drawn letters than I could handle in one sitting. I am adding him to the bonfire list so I'll come back and visit often The first image below,'undercover', is what caught my eye today. And the text proceeding the second A-B-C-D-E-F-H-G image on his site said "Schetches, doodles, tryouts, proposals, and experiments." Easy to understand why I dig this stuff...

I didn't have any ideas where to start, so I thought I would just post what was on the site...

A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF LETMAN
He is cuckoo about letters, he loves them, so far is certain. He is also one of those fellows who can read a chunky novel in a couple of hours, but that's a different story. His designs are transparent, leaving room to breathe. Them letters got things to say, they are so clear it tickles your eye and make you blink. What is this colourful craft ? Letman's letters are curious. His handmade style fits the boundries of typography like a universe on itself by lashing out to illustration, grafitti and graphic design. Letters are free entities to him. They are clear and cunning. Together they stand strong.

YS.

Go to www.letman.com now

Undercover.

I have no idea if this party (or these parties) are any good??? All I know is I walked into one of my favorite stores in Amsterdam today called SPRMRKT, and this "party flier" was sitting near the door. I picked it up 'cause I liked the cover which I will post next and opened it up to find one of the illustrations below. The illustration is signed 'Letman & Sprey Antwerp' so I did a little research and was pretty inspired by the artwork I found. The "flier" I picked up only had one of the illustrations below. I was stoked to find four more at their site http://www.letman.com/...

artificial.

No Theory, Just Color.

Beautiful color...It's the little things that make you happy on a long Friday after a long week.

Shark Attack...

Upwards from the depths to a seaward death...
(images collected from my daily walk around the fire)

The Big Day!!!

Until Mark and Eileen give us access to the three thousand photos taken in the desert last week for their beautiful wedding at the Ace Hotel, these images will have to stand as my favorites...and believe me, this doesn't even begin to tell the story!!!

Grumpy Squared

After a long great weekend with friends...when the energy wears down, this is what happens...

Babe, Can we do this now???

It's been a long day, and Palm Springs feels like a year ago...

The Freshman

LISA JACK
BARACK OBAMA: THE FRESHMAN
28 May - 18 Jul 2009



M+B is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition BARACK OBAMA: THE FRESHMAN, black and white photographs by Lisa Jack. First featured in Time Magazine’s 2008 “Person of the Year” Issue, which chose then President-elect Barack Obama for his “rare ability to . . . organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity,” these photographs offer a window back in time before the posters and before the campaign, when a 20-year-old young man was caught up in just such a change that Time Magazine would later describe. Lisa Jack, then a student of photography at Occidental College, sought a striking subject for a portrait project and was tipped off about a charismatic freshman named “Barry” Obama who would make an ideal subject. After the shoot, these images would remain locked away for the next 28 years, until a dare from a friend triggered Lisa Jack to seek them out. At first worried these images could be used against President Obama, Jack realized they were not incriminating of anything other than being young and self-conscious, and that they offered a unique glimpse into how the man who made history went from being “Barry” to Barack. This exhibition marks the first time these rare photographs have ever been printed and on display.

As described in his memoir Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama’s time at “Oxy” (Occidental College) was one of confusion and self-searching. He was chided by his mother for being friends with someone who was arrested on a drug possession charge, having so-so grades and, worst of all, being undeclared. Having recently moved from his grandparents’ home in Honolulu, he searched for his place in his new environment and eventually translated a situation of uncertainty into opportunity. These images from 1980 offer a view of that young man grappling with issues that would shape him to become the 44th President of the United States. During this year at Oxy, Obama vigorously sought out peers who were politically active and would transfer a year later to Columbia in order to be part of a larger community. These photographs evidence the shift from what he described as “going through the motions” to finding a sense of self and, subsequently, purpose.

Of this session, Lisa Jack described it as initially awkward. “Barry” showed up to the shoot with a bomber jacket, flared jeans, a pack of cigarettes and a Panama hat he thought would look “cool.” Initially, he posed self-consciously, but as the shoot progressed, the personality and charisma we would all later bear witness to emerged. He began asking questions, which was unusual since normally the photographer asks questions in an effort to draw out the sitter’s personality. According to Jack, the key to Obama’s personality was his desire to understand where one comes from and how that determines one’s sense of self. Being herself a young undergrad, her interests did not lie at the time with questions of identity and selfhood, but rather she secretly hoped that “Barry” would ask her out afterward. He did not, and although pleased with the photographs, they did not maintain contact afterwards, until a random chance encounter 28 years later in Washington DC. Lisa Jack ceased photographing and went on to pursue psychology and is currently a professor of Counseling Psychology at Augsburg College. After having her one roll of film from that day sit neglected for almost thirty years, Jack now offers up these images “so that others may see a side to him [she has] yet to observe captured in the maelstrom of contemporary media”.

The Ace Photo Booth

We just got back from five days in the desert hanging out at the ACE hotel with friends and family for Weisy & Eileen's wedding. Great times and more photos to come, but couldn't resist this Photo Booth shoot minutes before we hit the road yesterday!

Simplicity...

I love http://ffffound.com/ like most of my peers, and I just popped on quickly to find some inspiration, and BOOM, there it was! I love the simplicity of these graphics. The forth "Gunfighters" image is actually a scan of the cover of a book I bought at the Long Beach flea market a few years back. I just like these all together...they feel right. I think three of the other four were designed by the Draplin Design Co. http://www.draplin.com/

I've been super slack...

My only excuse for not paying BFBK more attention is that I have been swimming in work deadlines. I used to think that when I wasn't posting, I wasn't inspired and that may be true part of the time, but right now it's just due to one deadline after another. Anyway, Yusuke is working hard on posting our weekly inspiration meetings on a Pop Studio Picture blog coming soon to www.thepopstudio.com