Spring Songs

I had some help finding some good music for spring this week and was introduced to the following gems, I hope you enjoy them!


Band of Horses—"Is There a Ghost" (thanks Tiffanie Jurey)


The Civil Wars—"Falling," this one is so sad but so beautiful.


Daylights—"I Hope This Gets to You"—supposedly written for some girl and this guy hopes it will get to her virally and depends on viewers to get it to her. Gimmick to promote the piece? Maybe; doesn't change the fact that it's a great song with imaginative videography.


A Fine Frenzy—"Lost Things," an oldie but goodie (thanks Larka for showing this to me). By the way, she's gorgeous in the video but Alison Sudol is absolutely stunning in person.

Alex & Twitch on So You Think You Can Dance
(sorry, not allowed to embed)
Lil Jon & LM*AO—"Get Outta Your Mind," this video is sick; so much better than subjecting yourself to the original music video. I hope this also proves that I can get out of hipsterville and rough it up a little.

Postcard Project update: 26 postcards sent so far. Doria and Kristen, yours are on the way if they haven't arrived already!

Long-Distance Relationship

Bottle from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

For HMVD

By one of my my favorite stop-motion directors, Kirsten Lepore (she did "Sweet Dreams" too, I'll post it sometime).

Wishing You a Charlie Brown Christmas

Harry recently reminded me of an old Christmas standby and the tree that still makes me tear up.

"All it needed was a little love."




The Gospel according to Luke:8-14 (from the KJV):

"'8And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 10And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. 12And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. 13And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 14Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.'"
"......That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

Sending love and assurance of what Christmas is really all about.

Money Can't Buy Everything

As we're looking into implementing incentives at work for excellent performance objectives I began to wonder if they would actually help me do my job better. I mean, I already have a great job and more money than I need so why should I be paid even more for doing my job extra well? I wondered, would I actually be able to ramp up my performance with the promise of a few extra hundreds on the line? What I learned from this video is that I'm looking at the whole thing wrong; I must measure my motivation by more than dollars and cents. This, I suspected but wasn't able to pinpoint the true three motivators until I saw this brilliant little short film. Hope you enjoy!

Song Steps

Amazing, I wish I could think of something like this to inspire and motivate people to do change one behavior for the better...just give me time.

The Life and Death of a Pumpkin

Poor lil' fella.

Thin Spaghetti Sauce, Pricey Mustard, and Milky Weak Coffee

Malcolm Gladwell is a stud. I have a minor crush on his brilliant mind, ability uncomplicate concepts, and his amazing hair. I read Blink when I was living in San Diego and eagerly embraced Malcolm Gladwell's easily understandable theories on how we, individually and collectively, make our decisions. Also the author of The Tipping Point and Outliers, he revels in explaining why we behave the way we do. If you don't have time to read one of his books right now, at least you can enjoy a short TED Talks presentation he did on the nature of choice and happiness. Enjoy!

By the way, if you don't know about TED Talks, wake up and smell the dark, rich, hearty roast. It's a small non-profit perpetuating ideas worth spreading, most popularly, via short presentations by great minds like Gladwell's. TED stands for technology, entertainment, and design.

Sketchy Blues

Sketchy Guard

Sketchy Duel

Sketchy Ice Creams

StoryCorps

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives.

NPR brings us touching, funny, and often heartwrenching stories and feature them for about five minutes on morning edition weekly. I hardly ever listen to one of these without tearing up so be warned! Now, animators have taken a couple stories to the next level by animating the recordings through illustration. Check out this sweet one below about a mother and a son who has Aspergers:

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

And I will warn you now that this one had me shaking with sobs but personally, it was an important one to watch and I'll admit to you why. I've always been and am still single. Ninety percent of the time these days, I'm really pleased about it and enjoying this time in my life. But 10% I consider that my single friends count is dwindling so I can count them on one hand, my heart swells with happiness as women I've walked through life with say "I Do" and start their own families with little baby bumps. But it's a bit hard not to feel a little like the last one picked in kick ball. So for me, this story along with countless others I've been blessed to witness reminds me that great love exists and how many forms it takes. Watch with a box of Kleenex but leave hopeful in love, single or not:

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Other great stories (they're almost all amazing):
Intertwined Love Story: Twins Who Married Twins
"You're not a fantastic dancer, but you hold me fantastically and I feel it."

After Just 10 Days, 'Best Years' Of Life Begin
"Even if you stop loving me tomorrow, I could never pay you back for all of the love and affection you have given my baby."

Inspired—Jessica Hische

have been inspired by Jessica Hische's daily drop cap project for a long time but I didn't admire her for more than her art until I heard this interview with her. I was suprised how wise this young designer was and how well she articulated what I love about graphic design.

Art In The Age Presents... Jessica Hische from Art In The Age on Vimeo.

She talks about how she did the art school thing but that she was less into self-expression and more into design because "it was about solving problems and communication" which is exactly why I love design. I don't desire to free form, I desire to beautify and aesthetically improve the world around me. She also talks about how the "death of print" is really just the death of unnecessary print, which is something I can completely get behind as well.
Enjoy this sampling of her brilliant work!






Describe your design in one sentence.
“Jessica Hische’s work combines equal parts design, typography, illustration, brown sugar, and heavy cream.” (Thanks, Jason from the Heads of State, for that one!)

What other designers / illustrators inspire you?
So many its hard to say. I have a major design crush on Marion Bantjes and a brain/concept crush on Christoph Niemann (you should reread the illustrated article he did for Print a few years back (2005? 2006?) on being an illustrator). I have a really talented group of friends that also keep my motivation high. I see work every day on sites like ffffound, the dieline, etc. that makes me seethe with jealousy. Envy can be a big motivator.

(Now I want to buy Marion Bantjes' book, I Wonder.)

My First Crush

I love this little animated interview set about first crushes and I really hope that Steve eventually found Jackie.

"I can still actually feel that smell."

"I just blurted out to her, willyousitwithmeonthebus?"

"I'm still in love with you."




I had my first crush in third grade and I was so enamored with the guy that when his shoelace broke after trying to tie his shoes on the playground, I kept the remnant. When he sat in front of me during a test, I would watch him instead of filling it out and have to rush and do it all quickly at the end (once I was even accused of cheating off his paper even though I was more clever than him though, evidently, not clever enough to focus on my test).

Finally, I decided to kiss him though I knew he would never kiss me. One recess, I ran into the school to get a drink and when I approached the water fountain, he was bent over it and drinking big gasping gulps (he played soccer every recess—I watched). So I looked right and left and seeing no one, I kissed his shoulder and quickly stepped back to see what would happen. He turned around and smiled dazzlingly and said "Oh, sorry, I didn't know anyone was waiting," and he sprinted off outside to get back in the game. I remember feeling really sad because I realized that he had registered the kiss as a tap on the shoulder and had no idea I'd even done it. Then I felt relieved and pleased that, in one way or another, I'd still kissed him. It was enough.

He grew up to play high school soccer and after a series of concussions he's significantly less clever (really, his repeated injuries cost him much of his ability to think) and he's living in a house with some of his elementary school chums and works manual labor somewhere. I still think he's one of the most beautiful men ever.

Monsters and Post-Its

Oh my, I have found a fabulous new blog. Don Kenn Gallery is a blog by a man who draws monster scenes on post-its. Here's his blurb from the blog:
"born in Denmark 1978. I write and direct television shows for kids. I have a set of twins and not much time for anything. But when i have time i draw monsterdrawings on post-it notes... it is a little window into a different world, made on office supplies."
The only thing that makes me sad is that I've been working on a post-it portfolio for ages and ages and not much has come of it. Also, I have no theme to what I draw on my little 3x3 stickies so I'm very jealous.
Don also did a short film and posted it to Vimeo, please enjoy.

Said the Shark - True Love from Iwave records on Vimeo.

One Cute Thing Sunday

One Creepy Thing Friday

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Scintillation

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

A Simple Reminder

things to learn from Matt Edgar on Vimeo.

One Great Thing Friday

If you haven't seen this video yet, it's time. This makes me pretty emotional, and I typically pride myself on being uninfluenced by trend youtube vids. Enjoy, I think this is immensely creative and quite beautiful. It's an interpretation of Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.
Also, not that it would matter who created the sand art, but how outrageously gorgeous is the woman performing too?
Shown to me by my good friend Blake, thanks for always sending me inspiration snacks!



The words at the end mean "always near," as in always remembered/close at heart. (Not that I speak Ukranian, but I looked it up.)