It has been an exciting first quarter of the year at the agency. There has been a wave of new biz (press releases to come). To keep pace with all the opportunities coming our way we’ve made a bunch of new hires.
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.
Shortly after the picture was taken, the Phanatic had to give Mr. Met the heimlich. Unfortunately, he couldn't stop him from choking... again.
I am a Philadelphia Phillies fan. That means I love the Mets (I mean I love how much in shambles they are), love October, and love having the best 5-man rotation in the baseball. Yes, that’s right; I said 5-man rotation, not 4. With all the hoopla and hype surrounding our big 4, I thought I’d take a stand for the best 5th starter in baseball – the one and only Joe Blanton.
You see, as somewhat of a baseball purist, and one king-hell of a cynic, I’ve always hated these little nicknames given to our pitching staff. H2O was bad enough, but with the return of the prodigal lefty, Clifford Phifer Lee, it opened to floodgates to a whole new level of cutesy. And let me tell you, there’s no room for crying or cute in baseball. (Ask the coach of the Rockford Peaches, Jimmy Dugan).
When you miss the cut-off man, you deserved to get yelled at.
But what I hated even more about names like the Phantastic Phour or the Phearsome Phoursome or R2C2 was that it left out the all important 5th starter, Joe Blanton. See, Doc and Cliff only take the mound once every 5 days and Ryan Howard only gets to bat 4 or 5 times a game. (And plus, Cliff and Doc never hit a dinger in the World Series). In the meantime, you need not only good players to fill-in those gaps, but quality clubhouse guys who don’t have egos, who don’t complain, and who play ball the right way.
And that’s exactly what Joe Blanton is. He may not be the most dominant pitcher (except maybe when playing Edward Fortyhands), but he’s amazingly durable, having started at least 30 games each year from 2005 up until last year, where he missed the mark by a single start. He has a respectable career ERA in the low 4’s and will give you close to 200 innings pitched every year. And I imagine he’s what Babe Ruth used to look like when he pitched. And that’s the kind of guy Philadelphia should be able to get behind.
Back in the day, plump was beautiful in art.
That’s why I don’t support anything having to do with the Phillies staff that doesn’t include Joe Blanton. It’s also why there is only one name for the Phil’s staff that I find acceptable: Fat Joe and the Terror Squad. Not only does the name include our jolly Heavy B, but it’s also a beautifully random hip hop reference. I choose to stand by Joe because he doesn’t complain about being overlooked, because he was was a vital cog in our ’08 championship run, and because I’m pretty sure I saw him on The Biggest Loser the other week.
So for all the fans of the Phightins who overlook our portly 5th starter, and especially for Ryan Lawrence (the Phils beat-writer from the Delco Times who asked Cole Hamels what it felt like being the only starter with a World Series ring when Joey B was sitting a couple seats down on the panel,pictured below), this is a reminder that baseball is a team game. And with Heavy B taking on the back-end starters of most teams, he may end up being the difference maker down the stretch.
I wouldn't be laughing either if I was the Rodney Dangerfield of this staff.
So here’s to Fat Joe and the Terror Squad and another dangerous October riot through the streets of Philadelphia.
Well, it’s finally happening. The biggest restroom in Center City Borders downstairs is closing. And, unless you really really need 800 copies of “Wuthering Bites” at 40% off (it’s exactly what you think it is), this is a sad day. Nowhere will I be able to get books AND paper airplane kits in the same place. Nor will I have access to a mind-boggling assortment of quilting magazines, or The Office-themed calendars in, like, July. But that’s not the worst part. Nope, the worst part of this whole mess is the giant gaping, empty storefront that will now reside directly downstairs*.
But! Instead of harping on the awful, depressing shell of a storefront blighting Center City’s busiest intersection, I choose to dream. Dream about what the future holds for downstairs. Which is why I have painstakingly, for the next four minutes or so, crafted a list of some completely solid business ideas for one broad street’s anchor store space:
World’s largest KFC
Trampoline land
“Not Just Pizza”, Philadelphia branch
Giant patio suitable for summer drinking
Forever 38
Elephant Cakewalk
Amazon.com, but like, in physical form (how amazing would that be!)
Hat Depot, a depot for hats
Seriously guys, where can I drink outside in Philly this summer?
Dave & Busters Franchise
Lizard Museum, tentatively titled “House of ‘Zard”
Chuck E Cheese Franchise
Jon Hamm’s summer loft**
I’d be ok with two floors of skee-ball
Puppies
This was going to be the point in the blog entry where I suggest we all pool our tax returns and collectively make one of these failsafe businesses happen for realsies, (I was even going to leave a funny fake address where you could send the checks) but let’s face it. I’m pretty busy. I’d buy all the hats and then they’d just sit in the corner for a few months.
*and, you know. What it means for the future of publishing, blah blah blah jobs, etc.
After getting injured a few times and not being able to snowboard anymore Curt Morgan, then snowboarder now director and producer, moved on combining his passion with a new pursuit, filming action sports. In 2008, together with Red Bull and Quiksilver, his production house Brain Farm produced “That’s it. That’s all.”, a 60 minute snowboard movie. In a more recent cooperation with both Red Bull and Quiksilver Brain Farm produced “The Art of Flight“, also a snowboard movie that will air in fall 2011.
The first video below is part of “the creators project”, a docu series done by VBS. It gives some interesting insight into Brain Farm’s camera and technical equipment that allows them to capture their amazing footage. The second one is their general reel which has just more of those action and nature moments like the footage of the avalanche in the beginning.
Tibor Kalman was undoubtedly one of the greatest designers of all time. I was looking through my bookmarks today and came across this old interview that really inspired me when I was in school. It was conducted by Charlie Rose one year before Tibor’s death in 99 to cancer. Everyone should definitely check it out when they have some time to spare.
On a recent weekend trip to Baltimore, a friend introduced me to my new favorite place in the entire city —The Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc.
Open Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 6pm, The Book Thing is a space you can visit to pick up used books. For free! From the F.A.Q. section on the website,
Are the books really free?
Yup. Really?
Yes. Absolutely free?
Yes. What’s the catch?
All the books you take have to be stamped “not for resale”. That’s it. What is the suggested donation?
A smile.
The building never seems to end as you turn a corner and discover yet another room with densely populated bookshelves lining the walls. The books are organized by subject, but this experience will still appeal to the treasure-hunting book finder as there are additional bins along the floor to dig through to find that classic novel you’ve been wanting to read. And if you’re a graphic designer like myself, you may gravitate towards certain aesthetics of more unfamiliar books for their moments of design ingenuity:
Bring a tote bag and be sure to pick up some books (or donate books!) the next time you’re in B’More:
The Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc.
3001 Vineyard Lane
Baltimore, MD 21218
