All entries from May 2008

This past Saturday Jason, Matt and I had the pleasure of speaking at AIGA/NY’s Smart/Models one-day business conference here in New York. Our presentation, “Creativity and the Collective”, focused on our studio-as-collective business model.

The bulk of our presentation examined the differences between a traditional business structure and our collective model. As we’re so often questioned about the nature of our organization, we wanted to provide examples of how members of the collective form teams on a per-project basis to tackle work involving a variety of a creative disciplines — from graphic design, illustration, print and motion/broadcast/directorial, to web design and development.

To illustrate various points, we prepared a series of infographics designed to be part informative, part humorous, and part inside jokes for both designers and fellow aging hardcore kids/former edgers.

For the design nerds, we reinterpreted the classic 1969 Eames diagram.

(Click to enlarge)

And we were so pleased with the following graphics that we opted to include them in our presentation, despite the risk of having our cleverness lost on portions of the audience.

(Click to enlarge)

(Didn’t catch these? See here and here.)

Some thoughts

45 minutes goes fast; we had to blaze through the last five minutes.

Speaking early in the day is the way to go. With our talk out of the way we were able to relax and enjoy the other speakers.

Apple’s Keynote is a breeze. Give it a look if you’re putting a presentation together. Copy/paste vectors no problem, drag-n-drop Quicktimes, export to PDF, whatever you want. Near-zero learning curve.

TheTimesCenter is an amazing event space. Totally pro-form. The building’s interior nature/garden zone: blockbuster.

Michael Surtees of DesignNotes posted a review of the event, including some photos:

Update: Armin from Under Consideration published a very nice review as well.

Unanswered questions

We did a 45-minute presentation with no Q&A, as the organizers asked that we save questions for the end of day panel discussion. We were able to address some audience questions during the panel, and it was certainly interesting, but given the number of questions we received during the reception, and later via email, it appears that a few attendees left with questions unanswered.

The most common point of confusion regarded distribution of revenue. It seems some misinterpret the term “collective” to indicate a form of communism. Others simply wanted to know how we structured proposals, paid taxes, or formed LLCs.

We're happy to pull back the curtain for those with questions. Just get in touch:

Thanks

We’d like to extend a big thank you to the Smart/Models event committee – Tina Chang, Liz Danzico, Kent Hunter, Bobby C. Martin Jr., and Sam Potts – for the hard work of organizing the event, and for making us a part of it. And, of course, thanks to everyone for coming out on a Saturday.

Last week we launched a new project. We’ll get around to writing more about it, but for now, the teen-machine that is the Nylon Summer Music Tour is still getting going. Designers should find the zine-maker entertaining, particularly the ExtraJamz ZIP.

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Stopped by last night’s Riviera opening, Fellow Traveler. I particularly enjoyed Funderburgh’s work. Show will be running through May 31st.

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Cut/Copy In Ghost Colours is the new summer record. Theirspace.

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After consistently releasing records for years and years, career musicians sometimes go for legendary status. Tom Petty appears to have made the jump. You could certainly argue that he had already achieved this status; the Wilburys were, after all, a super-group. But with the recent release of Highway Companion, the Runnin’ Down a Dream documentary, the Heartbreakers’ Superbowl halftime show, and now the surprising resurrection of the Mudcrutch band and brand, it seems pretty well wrapped up. In case you missed that last one, check out the heartwarming NYTimes scoop. The record is good.

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Speaking of NYT, be sure to catch this week’s piece on the McKibbin lofts. This photo in particular made me laugh. Takes me back to when I first arrived in Williamsburg at 19, and living just down the street from the McKibbin lofts. I don’t miss being mugged at 8pm.

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Our pals at Empowering Media launched a new blog. Make no mistake, this is nerd biz. If you’re building websites, you need friends like Larry Ludwig.

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Lately we’ve been working on an internal re-brand exercise dubbed “Adobe CS4: Spirit-Breaker”. Still working out the details, might work better as a Flash-specific campaign.

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Not sure if this is real, but it doesn’t matter. Jealous of my famousness. Update: Defs not real, but again, doesn’t matter.

We are looking to fill a very specific position. We are in the process of generating a significant number of graphic assets, primarily vector. And we need some help. We’re looking for someone with serious illustration and Adobe Illustrator skills.

We may, for example, call on this person to render a crackpot JFK genie head. We would expect a detailed vector rendering on the level of:

Or, if we asked for a heavy line-art style rendering of a rockabilly hotrod, we would expect:

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve got a long list of needs: a juicy cheeseburger, scary wolf-man, 80’s keytar, gun-toting toddler, laser-tag-inspired weaponry (reference), etc.

We’re looking for someone comfortable moving between styles. Also, given the volume of assets we need generated, we’re looking for an illustrator capable of moving quickly. Each of the above graphics should require no more than a day or so to complete.

We’re flexible on location. This isn’t the type of work where we necessarily need someone here in Brooklyn, but it wouldn’t hurt.

If this is you or someone you know, please get in touch. We’ll give you the full scoop, talk turkey, etc.

Email us here:
illustrationwork@athleticsnyc.com

Tell us about yourself and include links to examples of work. No attachments please. And to weed out those unable to pay attention, please provide mention of David Bowie’s 1976 release, Station to Station.