Last week, San Jose graffiti artist David Choe graced Denver with his presence for the annual street art convention of the Terminal Kings.  In his time in here, he gave us several public murals that you can find in the art district, specifically off of 13th and Champa.

What brings me to talk about Choe, besides my grandiose excitement that Denver’s art culture is rapidly growing in a tasteful fashion, is the hype surrounding the rumors and anticipation of Facebook’s stock going public and Choe’s relationship with Facebook that will soon bring him to residency in America’s top 1%. 

Choe was asked to provide the art for Facebook’s first headquarters building, adorning the walls with his dirty style of infamous characterizations of gorgeously morphed creatures resembling human figures.  As a payment, Choe took what many would argue to be a risky bet, to be paid in stock options as opposed to simply cash for his art.

Choe, himself, said that he thought Facebook “was ridiculous at first,” which I think part of all of us did at some point or another in the concept of connecting with friends online; however, as a tactile artist, you can see where Choe would think so. His medium is tangible in every facet and ties into the organic world that we live in. Yet, the times are changing and trans-disciplinary connections in networking are crucial to getting your work out there in today’s digital times of the inorganic.  Even if you’re still an artisan, hands on with your craft, promotion across social networks is imperative, even for the old school, technological anarchists.

In response to his expected earnings, Choe stated on Tuesday on his blog, “[H]ave you had the dream where you ARE this guy?!? And then some kind of happy accident happens , and as you’re in the middle of this glorious car crash, you stop to realize, that there is actually no such thing as an accident, and no chance encounters, and that everything has a direct purpose? am I the only one that has this dream? You never had that dream?”

Whether directly or not, this is proof that social media can pay off.  Facebook’s literal payout to Choe is just the start of his wealth– think about the future reach of his fan base through social networking.

It’ll be interesting to see where he takes all of this, especially his rankings as such a powerful stockholder.  This could be the start of a shift in something really awesome in slowly transforming the demographic of that daunting 1%.  Check out the rest of Choe’s Denver street art and take a look into the artist’s mind in the recent documentary, Dirty Hands. Or, hey, in the spirit of social media, subscribe to his Facebook.

Not to geek out with techie stuff, but this is really awesome.

Yesterday at the studio, a couple of us found ourselves distracted in a conversation about Mashable’s recent blog post on 3D printing– something that actually ties into one of our clients and their work at Render Plus Systems.  This conversation eventually led to open mouths watching videos of 3D printers in action in anticipation for the year 2030.

The Pirate Bay recently opened a new category on their site– called “Physibles”– which consists of files that can be downloaded and materialized through 3D printing.  Last week, TPB finally spoke about their mission on their blog, stating, “Today most data is born digitally. It’s not about the transition from analog to digital anymore.  We don’t talk about how to rip anything without losing quality since we make perfect 1 to 1 digital copies of things.  Music, movies, books, all come from the digital sphere.  But we’re physical people and we need objects to touch sometimes as well! We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects.” How cool is this?

With the rate of evolution for current trends, we’re willing to bet that the cost of printers will lower much sooner than two decades out, and 3D printing will be available to people like you or me. Researchers are predicting that the near future will hold printing of “personal scale applications” like sneakers, home items, or even car parts.  What we were held up by, (held up in amazement and wishing we were still in middle school using these awesome programs.

The above photo is an awesome example of real-world application, where designer Pauline Van Dongen produced her own collection of high fashion footwear made of laser sintered nylon.  Art meets technology, meets time efficiency, meets outsourcing costs.  Think about where this could take us– production costs could be lowered, and hopefully, child labor could be eliminated entirely at some point.  It’s like stem cell research for consumerism.  My only question is how replications of organic objects will happen– how will leather, meat, or produce be reproduced? Just a little food for thought.

After 5 years with Hero, our powerhouse illustrator, designer, and code-wizard Shaw Nielsen is hitting the road to pursue freelance projects.  We wish him the absolute best of luck in all of his endeavors, knowing very well he’ll come nothing short of just that, the best.  We know he’ll be doing nothing but the snazziest of things in his future work and can’t wait to see where the projects unfold.  Though we’re sad for him to leave us, we can’t be more excited for Shaw, who has acquired a mighty client base that reaches to the UK and all the way down-under, to Aussieland.

Cheers to the next chapter!

“Today’s all-access mediascape has flattened out many areas of expertise, casting shadows of doubt upon the future of journalism, graphic design, book publishing, and other specialized practices.” -Ellen Lupton

In Richard Poynor’s article, “Read All That? You Must Be Kidding Me”, recently published on The Design Observer, he analyzes Cooper-Hewitt curator Ellen Lupton and her articulated essay on today’s design culture, entitled “Reading and Writing,” a featured text in Graphic Design: Now in Production (a current survey on American design culture) that questions the role of written work in relation to visual or graphic design. After much analysis, Poynor arrives at the conclusive statement that though not always read by everyone, long-form writing does still possess a great value in curating visual projects, and it’s absence would be an absolute “impoverishment.”

This article made me curious, as a writer in a sea of designers and a primarily visual, digital culture, and makes me question, again, how much our culture is actually reading, or at that, actually wants to read. We’re given so much awesome, innovative, and interesting content to look at online each day, and our RSS feeders are exploding with new posts each day.  As creatives, with our eyes and minds on creative work 100% of the time, how much time will we devote to reading the entirety of a text when there’s something else we want to read? We’re busy hustling to get our work out there, to be seen and heard for our creative visions. Further, from the perspective of the writer, how do we find readers– advocates– who will dedicate their time to reading something we scribe in long-form text? Is the essay, as Lupton states, a lost cause?

In studying Lupton’s essay, Poynor (after admitting to only skimming the text at first) relays to us her accusation: “If you are reading this text now (and you started perusing it from the beginning, some three thousand words ago), you are a stalwart slogger indeed. The super sad truth is, this essay is a last-ditch effort at so-called ‘long-form writing.”‘; he goes on to call her bold statement, “an amazing amount of trouble to go to as a curator, editor and writer if you doubt that many people will make the effort to read [your text in its entirety].” Yet, by the end of the article, Poyner calls himself a “slogger”, which I stand to argue that we all are, genre-depending.

Digital design is a field that is beyond cross-disciplinary, and requires an impeccable eye for analysis, as well as a well-studied and well-read mind. To arrive at our our finished projects, we each read an extensive amount about those who inspire us,  their design process, and the about the methods and tools that we need to create our own.

As Lupton comments, the writing surrounding our work– or even our written comments and opinions towards the work of others– may just be a means of deriving pleasure from our experience of a piece of work, or, as she says, a means of “disseminating the self.” However, without language, there wouldn’t be any purpose behind design, as, really, the design industry is one in which we each create work that is expressive of some form of opinion, and how else do we thoroughly finalize and give detail to that opinion other than through written text? Though we often think in images, we still form thoughts and conceptualize those images with what we were built upon– the written word.

A great post from Jim Carroll, Chairman of BBH London, reminded me of one of my core beliefs—a designer’s most powerful tool is their empathy. In Jim’s post, I Feel For You, he reminded me that empathy also applies to the whole sphere of marketing and communications.

We, Hero Design, are an Inbound Marketing Agency. We work very hard to measure and qualify the results we produce for our clients. Everything we do has some type of analytic attached. We use those analytics to make decisions on what’s working, what needs improvement and what tactics should be killed. Even with all of this data-based clarity, I sometimes feel, in my gut, that we need to zig, even though the data shows a zag is the next logical step. My designerly self just can’t shake what my empathy is telling me.

I always rely on my empathy when concepting, designing and writing. If something doesn’t feel right, I try a different approach. Jim’s post reminds me not to leave my empathy, my feelings, out of the on-going marketing choices we make throughout a campaign. Even though the creative is done, empathy is still needed. We often try to analyze our way to success, but maybe we should feel our way instead.

Read Jim Carroll’s post here: I Feel For You.

If it’s not responsive, it’s crap!

(Say it with a Scottish accent)

A great site put together by James Mellers of THISMANSLIFE.COM solves a problem we’ve already run into, how to explain responsive design to your client.

“Resize your browser to reveal just a handful of the kind of devices you should expect web pages to be viewed on. Each device illustration is rendered using the same basic HTML which adapts its appearance to the changing viewport size, representing different devices accordingly. This is achieved using media queries to apply different CSS rules for different sizes. This experiment is intended to illustrate the basic premise of responsive web design and the power of CSS to tackle it.”

We’ve got several responsive sites in the works (launching this month) but nothing of our own to show-off just yet. Responsive Design, Responsively Illustrated is a handy, brand-neutral demo. I particularly like the breakpoints added in the display. Enjoy.

go see it for yourself: Responsive Design, Responsively Illustrated

A pin-board to “pin” your “interests.” It’s as simple as that.

Getting your business on Pinterest, even if you aren’t selling a product that caters to the crafty people on Etsy, is something to think about if you are curious about new ways to share your business interests (more specifically, the curation interests of your staff) with others in your industry. Being a design firm, we’ve decided to get on Pinterest to share our work and inspirations.

Pinterest is comprised of digital pinboards that allow users to collect, organize and share inspirations, and users are then able to forward their pins, as well as those of others, in the same way that Twitter lets us “re-tweet” posts. The site is essentially a digital corkboard, one that can mirror the one in your home or office. When used with purpose, users can create lists of to-do’s, themed inspirations for a campaign or project or even folders of their own work. Users have to remember, however, that the concept behind the site is the role of community, so posting only their own work is a no-go.  Creativity roots from inspiration and collaboration, so why not extend your network and re-pin the awesome work you see by others?

All Pinterest posts are easy to link to their original source, so no matter how long the game of telephone lasts, the original creator can be referenced in a “re-pin.” Linchpin SEO  has created this great infographic for the site, showing the different ways that a small business, whether targeting women or men, can grasp a different corner of the market other than the powerhouse trifecta that Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have occupied.

Pinterest surfaced this past year, and, with the growing number of active users, we assume that their business will multiply in 2012. “Not only has the company received $27 million in venture funds, but the site’s popularity has exploded from 1.2 million users in August to over 4 million today,” states Rob Lammie of Mashable. We’re excited to see where this machine goes, as it speaks through the visual. Working like a Tumblr, Pinterest users will be attracted through images, so great graphic design can really play a role in a user’s popularity.

Getting Started:

Create a profile, and start “pinning” what you like to your board. It can be your way of curating your business’s outside interests. There’s no better way to engage within your community—nationally or locally—than sharing what you like with your network. More specifically, sharing those things that aren’t all business details, will make your business seem that much more human.  At Hero, we like fine crafted beers, good music, basketball and panda bears, to name a few. If you’re already on Pinterest, or just getting started, find us at Herodesign and let’s share our boards. Great ideas come through collaboration, so let’s get started.

Using data based on the links among 721 million Facebook users, recent information has presented that the once perceived “six degrees of separation” back in 1967–aka the average number of acquaintances separating any two people in the United States– now actually weighs in today at 4.37.  On the global scale, that number is only slightly higher at 4.74. No one can deny that Social Media is to thank for making the world even smaller while simultaneously expanding social connections and widening educational opportunities. Maybe you think Social Media is annoying and redundant,  but we think that the science behind it is pretty cool. Online social behaviors say a lot about who we are as a species, and who knows, maybe in 2012 that 4.37 will be an even smaller number. We dare you to re-post and share this. Let’s see how far it goes.

source: holykaw.alltop.com

Jeff Mason, Hero Design Studio’s Principal and Design Director,
talks about how he came to run
a design studio and how his business experience makes him
a better designer.

Making things and solving problems.

Like many in the creative industries, I’ve taken a winding path to land where I am today—the owner and director of a design studio. I started in music, then move to product design, graphic design, web design and finally, now, some combination of all.

In the current state of design and marketing, I find all my past experiences converging into a skill-set of creative communication. Gone are the mass media days of my youth. They’ve been replaced by connected conversations and branded experiences that rely on a designer’s empathy and a craft-person’s skill.

Design is not fine art, it’s problem solving and I focus on solving the problems of business. Over the years I’ve managed several businesses and have a true appreciation for the determination and effort required to make one successful. My business experience is an integral part of the work Hero does for its clients. I never forget that
our job is to create a positive business result, to help our clients grow and contribute to their success.

In the last year, the way in which all this fits together has become clearer to me and defines the services my studio offers. Design is about making things that communicate with people and help them solve problems. Marketing is about putting design to work to build brands, connect with customers and create business growth.

Why the name Hero?

I’m often asked why I named the studio Hero. The name came from the idea of an everyday hero—someone who sees what needs to be done and does it. We do our fair share of up-front thinking, but we always bring it back to doing. Getting things done, measuring results and making it better is what our work is all about.

What do I love?

I love collaboration, coffee, craft beer and food. Luckily all those thing go well together, so my life has a nice synchronicity.

What causes do I support?

I’m a big supporter of bi-lingual education and international studies. My daughter attends a language immersion school and I see first-hand the power of cross-cultural communication and global awareness. Our children are growing up in a world with far fewer boundaries and infinitely more connections. I think language and culture studies foster empathy and community. And that, I believe, promotes peace, hope and prosperity for all of us.

What’s next for Hero?

Hero has long been a proponent of Design Thinking—using both intuition and analytics to create design solutions. It’s at the core of how we approach our design work. This year we’ve strengthened our marketing services by adopting Inbound Marketing methodologies and partnering with the HubSpot. You’ll see a lot of writing on our blog about these marketing strategies and how they connect to our design work. As we see it, design is about making things, marketing is about putting them to work.

Anyone who wants to know more about me or Hero should connect with me on Linkedin.

Cheers,
Jeff

Connect with me on Linkedin.

This video hit my inbox one day after reading Khoi Vinh’s lament about the absence of illustration in online publications, The Sad Story of Illustration on the Web. The two seem to counter balance each other.

The video was created for We Cut Corners, an Irish duo, for the song Pirates Life. It was produced over two months, hand-drawn frame-by-frame, using just markers and paper. That is rarefied territory. Few illustrators, or digital artists, today will ever experience a commercial project requiring such a sustained creative effort. Not for lack of desire or an absence of craft, but because rarely does the market fund it.

I agree with Vinh’s observation, that the drive of digital media leaves no time and no budget for conceptual, commissioned illustration. I also agree with what he sees as the effect of this reality.

It’s unfortunate, because it means as content consumers we’re deprived of a really valuable mode of communication that has been a longstanding partner of some of the best content that publishing has ever produced.

And so, with my cynical acceptance of illustration’s decline and Vihn’s words still ringing in my ears, I watched Kijek and Adamski’s video and felt renewed. The clarity, the playfulness, the humanity reminded me that illustration is going nowhere. It’s alive and thriving. Just not in its old locales. If digital pubs won’t invest the time needed for illustration, then so be it. That ship has sailed. Readers who want that will go elsewhere or give up. Meanwhile, beautiful illustration is thriving in new places, in new media and is bringing a deeply satisfying touch of hand, manos, to our digital world.

Hero doesn’t do video, yet, but we do a lot of illustration. If you want to bring a hand-quality to your next design project, give us a call.