Six entries in "Events"

Don’t say Athletics never did anything to support the troops.

Tonight (10/24 8pm) MTV will air “A Night for Vets” a concert in NYC as as an event to mobilize support for the Bill of Rights for American Veterans (BRAVE), a petition organized by MTV and several veterans’ organizations.

Athletics’ David Ahuja and Matt Owens completed all of the branding and show packaging for the broadcast. The taping was last night at Nokia Theatre:

A bunch of people that the kids listen to nowadays are performing. You can find out more here:

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/brave/series.jhtml#bio

Tune in if you get a chance.

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.

Matt, Jason and I will be speaking at Smart/Models, a one-day AIGA/NY conference, on Saturday May 17th. In our presentation, Creativity and the Collective, we will be discussing the Athletics business model.

We will be joined by principals from four other unconventional organizations: Jason Fried from 37signals, Joe Duffy and Eric Block from Duffy & Partners, Sylvia Harris from Sylvia Harris, LLC, and Douglas Riccardi from Memo Productions.

For more details:
http://smartmodels.aigany.org

I had the good fortune of playing Layer Tennis a few days ago courtesy of Coudal Partners. The basics of the game: two designers spar back and forth over 15 minute intervals, adding to or modifying a graphic composition of their choosing. With each “volley”, files are passed back and forth and a commentator (Joshua Allen) writes about each post. Throughout the match viewers can vote on their favorite and give their opinion of the work.

My partner was Jason Gnewikow, a colleague in the studio and long time friend. Jason had just returned from tour with his band House & Parish. The Layer Tennis invitation came to us a bit last minute, with the match taking place the day after Jason’s return to New York. We didn’t have much time to plan, but we were eager to come up with an idea that we thought would be fun to do.

Looking through the previous matches Jason and I noticed that the majority of the work consisted of layered Photoshop files that were assembled using pre-existing assets. Jason and I chatted at length about an unconventional approach that would be more “graphic” as opposed to assembling “graphics.” We felt that this approach might not gain the approval of all of the viewers, but by embracing the idea of a graphic feel as opposed to the standard photo-montage approach, we could come up with a match that was entertaining for us and also a departure from previous matches.

We all know Layer Tennis is sponsored by Abode, and as a participant, we relinquish our rights to the work created and Adobe can utilize it in whatever manner they desire. As a committed user of Adobe products, it was my desire to utilize their products in an unconventional manner and to do something using functionality that designers may not use on a day to day basis.

When I considered the term “Layer Tennis” the first thing that came to mind was the old school video game Pong. Indeed Pong is the first tennis of the digital era. What better way to make a nod to Pong as well as the “vintage” internet than to make all of our pieces animated gifs. ImageReady rules! Jason and I suspected that the tennis = pong = old school = animate gif logic would be lost on the majority of kids that wanted us to create “sick visuals” based on our already existing tool kit of graphics, illustrations and client work we have developed over the years. This was an exercise to be executed in 15 minute intervals. It was not a client project, nor has there ever been a client project that followed such a process. Layer tennis is supposed to be fun for the people doing the work and in the end it should reflect our perspective.

The question I asked myself the moment I heard of Layer Tennis was if I thought that it was my role to show the world that one can create a sophisticated design composition in 15 minutes. I determined that that was not something I thought wise to communicate. Secondly, my impulse was to ask, what does this say about our discipline? our profession? What does a potential client assume if they see great design composed in minutes for an undisclosed sum? I determined that given the quick and dirty nature of Layer Tennis, the pieces should not be about creating perfect things at the drop of a hat (lord knows it takes me forever to come up with something cool) but to come up with a process that talked about the tools we use everyday, and at the same time have fun with them in a manner that client work rarely allows. In the end Jason and I thought that Layer Tennis was an opportunity to lighten up, try not to sweat the small stuff, have fun and maybe just maybe make people think. A few minutes before we started, a cold chill came over me and I asked myself – “Would Herb Lubalin be comfortable with the idea of Layer Tennis? Paul Rand? Neville Brody even.” In the end, I threw care to the wind and let the pixels fly.

After the match was completed I felt both elated and a little uneasy. Would we be confronted with a deluge of haters? Would folks get the joke? I spoke to a few friends and colleagues. Those that know Jason and I and are familiar with our work gave us a pat on the back and a little chuckle. It was not so much a “job well done” moment as much as it was a “good luck explaining this one” kind of comforting. I think we were both prepared for the aftermath and were prepared to have some explaining to do. For me, I took the high road. I love making things. I love the opportunity to explore and share visual ideas. If through a strange stroke of events I find myself convincing one of my studio mates to stand perfectly still and slowly apply a pair of 80’s sunglasses while I photograph each step, all so that I might compose an animated GIF, isn’t that more fun that just moving around something you already made in Photoshop, or giving away something you know everyone already wants?

Don’t get me wrong, if someone were to give me a decent amount of money, a coherent brief and a clear articulation of the needs of a project, you can be sure I would unleash my personal arsenal of visual, motion and interactive skills to develop the best idea possible. This is what is done for client projects and is something I enjoy. On the other hand, the challenge of making multiple large scale animated gifs is not something that is terribly easy or fun to do on a daily basis…unless you have a Layer Tennis game to bust out! In the end, if Adobe starts a “Project Runway” style contest called “Designer Warfare” and gives us the budget and time to pitch killer ideas to be judged by our peers, you can rest assured I would be on board and would come out with guns blazing.

I would like to give shouts out to Steven Harrington, Chuck Anderson, Aaron Draplin, Jason Koxvold, James Hutchinson and everyone else that kicked out the jams on Layer Tennis. I totally appreciate the work and their approach to the project. Thanks again to Coudal and Adobe for giving us the opportunity.

Athletics’ Jason Gnewikow and Matt Owens to compete in tomorrow’s Layer Tennis challenge. Commentary will be provided by Joshua Allen.

For those unfamiliar, Layer Tennis is a series of live design events held on Friday afternoons. Two designers face-off, swapping a file back and forth, riffing off one another, sorta like dueling solos at a Guitar Center drum clinic, except on the internet. A new “volley” is posted every 15 minutes.

The folks at Coudal are behind it all.

TIGER IN A TROPICAL STORM
Featuring Richard Colman, Matt Leines, Taylor McKimens and more

Opening reception: Thursday July 12, 2007. 6-11PM
Exhibition dates: Thursday July 12 – Sunday August 5, 2007

Riviera Gallery, located in the thriving arts community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, announces today the exhibition Tiger in a Tropical Storm which will open Thursday, July 12, 2007. The gallery is located at 103 Metropolitan Ave. The show will remain on view through Saturday, August 4, 2007. The gallery will host an opening reception on July 12 from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m.

More info:
http://seeyouattheriviera.com