You Kutztown kids did a fine job of imitating us for this poster photoshoot, we must say. Despite all the time that Doug & I spend crafting our ~*~signature looks~*~, apparently we can each be simplified for parody purposes:

Doug — a mustache.
Me — glasses & a scarf.

Above: side-by-side comparisons of a couple of our favorite student impersonators vs. THE REAL THING. (We couldn’t do a real-time comparison because Doug shaved off his mustache last week. THANKS, DOUG.)

Thank YOU, Kutztown! Hope to see your internship applications filling up our inbox ASAP.

When we realized we hadn’t yet gotten around to hosting an event at our office in Newport Beach, California, we seized the opportunity to host a party/fundraiser to spread the word. Tuesday evening, staff, clients, and friends both old and new joined us for our “160overNine-Nine-Ninety Whiplash Bash.” The punch was flowing, and so were the $$$s. Thanks for the contributions, and for helping us open up our new digs in style. And thanks to the locals for welcoming us and not busting up our boards. Next stop, White House!

Check out some of these hot pics:

Upstairs view of the office, located in the amazing Cannery Village of Newport Beach:

These garage doors really let in a lot of bugs. Who comes up with this stuff?

The piles of magazines prove that we’re for real:

Despite some of the world’s freshest seafood being literally steps from our door, we imported these oysters all the way from Nova Scotia! Take that, carbon footprint! And the flowers are edible (I had five, but they didn’t really taste like anything). Decadent!

Doubly decadent!:

Meanwhile, just down the street, Wednesday morning. If this beach was at the Jersey Shore, there’d be like a billion people on it:

Fast Forward: it’s now 2011. It was a late Monday afternoon when the call from Quiksilver came into our west coast office. They needed help with a last minute project and asked if we could come in the following morning to discuss. We have a long standing relationship with Quik, so we knew it must of been important. We showed up to the office not knowing exactly what was going to be needed. Nothing like last minute, but we were up for whatever curveball tossed our way. Cutting to the chase, apparently Pirate Surf had been shelved in the mid 90’s; the product design and POV had been folded into Quiksilver’s line as a whole. The brand was “shelved” meaning the brand stopped producing product, and ceased distribution, and was basically put away for another day. Well, Quik wanted to bring it back. We were charged with re-animating the brand in preparation for some large meetings the following week. Tic Toc, time’s a ticking, we have one week.

A few additional twists:

1. We needed to make sure the brand could speak year round, a four season offering.
2. We needed to expand beyond just “Surf” – it needed to apply to the culture as a whole, and be accepted in the moto, music, surf, skate, and snow arenas as well.
3. The brand needed to speak to male and female audience
4. At a glance, the brand needed to represent the mainstream general perception of action sport culture and it MUST come across as authentic
5. And finally, it must be a modern day version of Pirate Surf as the days of typical grunge are long gone. So, what does Pirate look like and stand for, both now and for the next 5 plus years?

Before heading back to the office we made a run to the local Trader Joes to pick up some PIRATE’s Booty. We knew that with this time frame, we’d need to maximize our eating efficiencies for the next several days.

We rolled up our sleeves and got right to work. We ran it through our traditional process but modified for speed. We did our homework, both on the history of the brand, its competition, and current market trends given how Quik thought it should be positioned. We developed a very poignant creative brief in one days time, defining target audiences, unique positioning, values, personality, etc.

We launched into full creative mode pulling swipe and inspiration from wherever we could in that short time frame. It was actually quite liberating to work on such a stringent timeline. It was almost like a mini escape and everyone in the office was leaving the team alone for the most part. They were respecting “the code.” The biggest inspiration we had in our arsenal was a book called “Fucked Up and Photocopied” which showcases the “instant art of the punk rock movement.”

We really gravitated to these gems:

We wanted the look and feel to capture the life of this youth culture and energy, with a subtle nod to a Pirate’s life (Pirate to us represented unbridled freedom). We wanted a weathered feel, bold use of color, but a zerox monochromatic look which lent itself to high contrast black and white imagery, almost disheveled but not. Once we honed in on this certain look and had our overarching concept developed, too many sleepless nights began to set in.

Somehow we got a little “Captain” in us. We found ourselves talking like pirates, quoting pirates, discussing the hottest pirate actresses, and best pirate jokes, all the while playing surf videos in the background and skating the hallways late at night. We even earned nicknames along the way, for example, senior designer Justin was known as: “Captain Calico J-Beard”, and senior copywriter Kyle became: “Black Long Dolphin” for which reasons we wont get into (but lets just say it had to do with too much rum and a tattoo parlor).

Ultimately we solved the puzzle and delivered one kick ass brand. We not only delivered a presentation, we took it one step further and fully developed the brand. It was complete with all the trimmings, brand guidelines, packaging, instore, outdoor, gorilla strategies, web templates, and an ad campaign to boot. Quiksilver was set, and Pirate was well Tee’d up for re-launch.

Check out the full case study here and relish in the Pirate life: http://www.160over90.com/
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…and wasn’ really going to post these but what the hell.

A couple of side notes, incase you were wondering:

1. Everybody wants to be a Pirate. Even my 2 year old son. Argh! (he does a great impression, i’m still getting the image)
2. the top pirate quote at least in the office during the time: “… you are without doubt the worst pirate I have ever heard of … Ahhh, but you have heard of me…”
3. the top pirate joke: There was a pirate who wore a steering wheel on his belt buckle. One day, a landlubber asked him why. The pirated replied “I don’t know, but it’s drivin’ me nuts.”
4. hottest pirate actress: Penelope Cruz

In the video below you can see on the left hand side what the test person watched. The video on the right was reconstructed purely based on the measured brain activity. Obviously it has ways to go until you’d be able to clearly see what someone else saw or thought about but it’s a pretty radical breakthrough in regards to reading someone’s mind eventually. Good or bad? Probably both.

All we had to do was capture the essence of this insanely awesome experience, which resulted in the work you can view here.

At the risk of humble bragging here (or is it old fashioned bragging?), this was the easily the greatest day of work any of us had ever had. The kicker? Our hotel was the site of the third most famous event in human history, the place where Grape Stomp Lady punctured her esophagus:

Unable to resist, our crew of highly trained thespians created the following re-enactment:

Once we arrived at the track, we got much, much, more serious about approaching these finely tuned, hand-built German marvels of engineering. Our automotive muse for this excursion could only be one person.

Compare!

Steve McQueen: A ruggedly handsome, danger-tempting iconoclast who was irresistible to women and a swashbuckling bon vivant that men aspired to be.

Contrast!

Justin LaFontaine: Everything McQueen is, but with a better understanding of kerning.

Our squad of Justin and (from left to right) Kyle Arango, Corey Levin, myself, and Megan Pomplas were ready. Well, most of us were ready; Kyle was equally intent on making his Facebook friends jealous of his jet-setting lifestyle.

Our fleet of vehicles:




Oh wait, that last one is the shitbox that I drive every day.

After a few minutes of instruction, some quality pastries and strong coffee, we hit the road. Kyle and I were partnered up, and we got behind the wheel of the SLS AMG, the gullwinged super car that costs upwards of $200K and has 563 horses sitting under its meticulously sculpted hood. Kyle and I had not been this excited since Bacon Salt was invented. What followed was inspiration for a headline.

Anatomy of a Headline:
Now, we thought we had an understanding of what these cars were, and what driving fast was like, but then you step behind the wheel and are instructed to hit the gas as hard as you can. Within nanoseconds, your heart gets pinned to the back of the leather bucket seat, your head kicks back from the G Forces, and an uncontrollable smile hits your face and laughter takes over. In fact, here’s a ghetto video I took of Kyle’s first run with the SLS (I get too excited and curse in it, so beware):

The resulting headline and spread:

There’s a whole lot of work over at our main site that I’d encourage you to check out. It aims to capture the essence of fun and excitement from the event, where normal folks get to channel their inner Steve McQueen and become as giddy as children on a sugar rush. We hope you enjoy it, cause we sure had a blast making it.

And we can’t thank the people at Mercedes enough for the experience. They were generous and unbelievably accommodating during the trip, and they’ve been a pleasure to work with through our relationship. And with clients like that, you always go the extra mile (per hour?) for them.

It’s over half-way through August. Not exactly sure how it happened, but it did. Summer is coming to a close and so is 160over90′s “Summer Internship Extravaganza!” (or whatever the official title is).

Way back in May, Mr. James Snyder and myself wandered into 160over90 as the creative interns for the summer. We were like toddlers lost in the grocery store, crying for our mothers and occasionally wetting our pants. Safe to say it made our receptionist uncomfortable.

Three months later, much as changed. “Accidents” are few and far between, we’ve learned that there is no crying in branding, and James moved from humble intern to humble junior designer. Those who know him will tell you, James is a very humble guy.

As for me? I will say that I couldn’t have imagined what was coming my way over the next three months when I first walked through the doors of 160over90. I didn’t really have any expectations coming in, but even if I had, they would have been far exceeded. To put it in words without getting all sentimental and whatnot, I’ve learned so much in my summer at 160. As if just being around the staff here wasn’t enough, I was given the opportunity to get my hands dirty, do some real work, and get loads of valuable experience. It’s been incredible.

The knowledge and relationships I’m going to take away from these short few months promise to be invaluable and I’m extremely grateful for it.

As a side note, apart from doing work for the company, I was also working on a weekly visual journal under the watchful eye of Senior Designer, Dan Blackman. It’s pictured below and can be seen in detail over at my website.
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Thanks again to the entire 160 crew. It’s been amazing.

-Ryan

The weather in Philly is perfect right now. 12 hours out my window(which is a little dirty on the outside,sorry).

Summer is here, and so are 160over90′s creative interns. For the next few months, James Alex Snyder and Ryan Hubbard will call One South Broad Street home. And call home only to speak to their mothers.

Ryan was born and raised in central Iowa, sharing a hometown with Cleveland Indians great, Bob Feller. Ryan is entering his senior year at Iowa State University, studying graphic design. He enjoys baseball, music, High Life, food (though you wouldn’t know it looking at him), and good company.  One day he plans on growing a gnarly beard.

Check out his work here.

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James Alex is a graphic designer who lives in Philadelphia. He lives in a one-room apartment with the girl he loves. They play in a band together. When he’s not thinking of things, he’s making them. He is smitten with the books of Charles Bukowski, the music of The Pixies, and the challenge of keeping his shoes tied. He has a wonderful habit of hugging strangers.

He lives online at printsandtheresolution.co.

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We asked James and Ryan a few questions about life and design. They gave us answers about Ray Romano and Marvin Gaye.

1. The biography of your life, what would it be titled?
Ryan: The Art of Being Awkward

James: I Saved Latin. What Did You Ever Do?

2. If you could trade places with any other person (real or fiction, living or dead, past or present, etc.) who would it be and why?
R: Frodo Baggins, Post-Mt Doom. Being a hobbit and living in middle earth would be
awesome, I just wouldn’t want to deal with orcs & giant flaming eyes.

J: Whoever Francoise Hardy was kissing in 1966.

3. If you could have any one superpower, what would it be?
R: The ability to stop time.

J: To sing like Stephin Merritt or Marvin Gaye.

4. What is the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
R: Don’t sweat the small things, and always do what makes you happy.

J: You really only need to know three chords.

5. If you could put together your dream rock and roll band, who would you pick to play what?
R: Ray Romano would play everything. At once.

J: The Pixies. Without revision. Well, maybe with Keith Moon sometimes.

6. What art movement(s) are you most influenced by?
R: Post-Modernism and Art Deco probably influence my work the most. But they
don’t dictate my work by any means.
I try to pull from a variety of sources pending on the needs of the project.

J: International Typographic Style, Pop Art, and Dada.

7. If you’re house is on fire, what is the very first non-living thing you’d save?
R: If my computer were in better shape, I’d take it. Since it’s gonna need replaced in
less than a year, I choose my bass.

J: My sketchbooks/love letters (really, they’re the same thing).

8. Last movie you watched?
R: I watch Roadhouse before bed every night.
(but in actuality, I took my girlfriend to see Water for Elephants. That was probably the
last movie I’ve seen.)

J: Exit Through the Gift Shop and Fast Times at Ridgemont High double feature.

9. Last book you read?
R: Design as Art by Bruno Munari

J: Over The Anvil We Stretch by Anis Mojgani

10. A quote that best describes you?

R: “If I were a real werewolf I’d wear baggy clothes so my nice clothes
wouldn’t get all torn up.” – Tracy Jordan of 30 Rock

J: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” – Oscar Wilde

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Assuming they don’t run off together to start their own agency in the Caribbean, James and Ryan will be contributing to the blog as well as posting a final project later this summer. Stay tuned!

Timothy O’Donnell (no, not this one) was hired as Creative Director. Tim’s career includes five years spent in London at Vaughan Oliver’s v23 studio. Since moving back to the states, Tim has worked for MTV Networks, Razorfish, and New York Magazine. He’s consulted for clients such as HBO, Conde Nast, and Penguin Books, and most recently was a Design Director at Johnson & Johnson. Tim also authored the book ‘Sketchbook: Conceptual Drawings from the World’s Most Influential Designers’. Check it out here.

Hailing from the twin cities comes uno champion Chelsea Brink. Chelsea was a designer at branding agency FAME and worked on projects for a variety of clients including Time Warner Cable and Minnesota RollerGirls. Prior to FAME, Chelsea spent time at other Minneapolis shops including Periscope and Sussner Design, and was a letterpress apprentice at Blinc Publishing. Chelsea has joint custody of 2 letterpresses as well as an autographed Donovan McNabb jersey that she won in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City – unfortunately they all still reside in Minnesota.

Konstantinos Psimaris aka shortrib aka Coast was born in Athens but raised right here in the City of Brotherly Love. Konstantinos joins our crew as a ‘designer’ but also functions as an interactive swiss army knife. He brings with him the chops he honed working on brands like LL Bean, Hyatt and the NFL.

Newly minted Notre Dame graduate Bobby McKenna also joined the agency as a designer. Bobby won best in Show at the 2010 ND Deign Show and before joining the agency was working on various projects with Supernice, a British design agency. He also recently participated in the 50 and 50 project creating an illustration for his state of Virgina. Bobby has a collection of over 100 Cal Ripken baseball cards and will trade you one for tips on where to get the best deals on boating shoes.

Rounding out the spring additions is designer Chris Muccioli. Chris is finishing up his senior year at Maryland Institute College of Art. He has been interning at Post Typography as well as working at the Center for Design Practice at MICA. Chris also attended a Project M design blitz at PieLab in Alabama and has continued to head south with his band Secret Mountains. Chris is a self-admitted terrible shopper. Hopefully his judgement will change apartment hunting.