Unfortunately this is no joke…

The wife of my financial planner & friend, Stan Jacobs, has been missing for a few days now. I don’t know how else to help but to spread the word around as fast as possible and have everyone keep an eye out.

Stan is just one of these super nice guys. In the short time I’ve known him, he’s just one of those folks who would extend his help out to anyone.  And now it sounds like he’s in need of help himself.

Having a loved one go missing is a terrible experience. You have a little bit of hope, a little bit of dread, and a little bit of denial mixed in altogether. I had this same experience when my dad went missing overnight on his hiking experience back in 2001.  If you guys can….please spread the word and let’s make this a happy ending.

http://www.khnl.com/global/story.asp?s=8906215

http://kgmb9.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9318&Itemid=40

Flier for Kimberly Jacobs

Toxel.com has a listing of their 20 most famous logos.  Or should I say “IN-famous” logos?

What does that mean, in-famous?….In-famous is when you’re MORE then famous - Three Amigos

I’m not sure I agree with this list. Some of these are downright ugly in my opinion but they’re well known simply by popularity.  Nintendo?  Google?  Are you kidding me?

But nobody will argue that some of these are iconic. “Coca-Cola”, “IBM”, “Nike”, “FedEx”  These are almost always repeated every time someone writes about logos!

While there, they had a list of some pretty interesting lights.  I really need to find a desk light of my own soon. I got this Japanese-inspired paper lamp in my office that turns all my colored prints into a nice shade of doo-doo brown at night. Who would have thought when I actually need to find a good light for print work I can’t find them anywhere?

I’m getting to really love the Monster-Munch blog.  There’s a lot of random design tidbits there. Anyway, I caught eye of this Illustrator, Merdanchik from there.  Great stuff!  I’ve made caricatures before in my time but I’m just not this creative.  Try scanning through, there’s some amazing stuff.

I once had a close friend that could whip up crazy art like this just out of nowhere. He could be sitting in a crowded bus and I’d see him do impressive artwork like this.

Until he went crazy…

So I taught my first class today.  Meh…wasn’t too bad.  I had a few rough spots here and there getting the momentum going.  I saw more then a few I-dont-know-WTF-you’re-talking-about stares where I had to back up and retread. But overall I think I got through unscathed.

We assigned homework today. I know….what an ass giving homework on the first day huh?   Nah, comeon, what I gave them was so easy a kid in elementary school could do it.  I wouldn’t even call it homework so much as just helping them get into the creative mode for the class.

A couple of students were struggling trying to come up with concepts and asked me how I came up with ideas for my own projects.  I though, “hey good question”  I told them I sketch, I go look at websites, I go out to the bookstore to peer through magazines, heck, sometimes I even just sit out at the beach for 30 minutes and just chill.  The mind is a strange tool…you just have to find some way to jog it into motion.

Funny that I was just browsing just now and stumbled across this blog post about “How to be more creative”.  Just simple tips but I agree completely. That little diagram even includes a technique that an art instructor once taught me where you just jog down words and symbol relationships.  It seemed really retarded to me then doing the exercise but later in my career I actually understood what it’s for.

I gotta keep this in mind. My students might think I’m retarded now. But one day…ONE DAY….they’ll think I’m half capable of teaching.  Mwahahahah.

After having replaced our drummer, our band Miss Buddha will be slowly getting back out there to play again. Tomorrow night we have our first show in months out at King’s Pub.  There’s a couple more gigs lined up after that as well.  Come check us out

August 23, 2008 :: King’s Pub :: 444 Niu Street (Hawaiian Monarch Hotel) :: Cost: FREE!

So my first teaching experience starts this coming Monday, bright and early.  I’m told to get there at some ungodly hour because both staff and students will converge on campus like mad ants fighting over table scraps.

I have to say I’m freakin’ nervous.  Yeah yeah I know…“you’ll be fine”.  That’s the response I’m getting from everyone.  I’m a freaker when not everything is under my control.  I might open the door to my classroom come Monday morning and set off the alarms.  You’ll have to come bail me out of jail.

I’ve been rehearsing the 1st day of class in my head. I think the last thing I want is to have the students bored to death in an Art class of all things. I remember once when I was going to college taking an elective class in Oceanography.  I was thinking “Alright! This is gonna be SO COOL!  This will be like listening to Jacques Cousteau at every class”

Turned out we had the most BORING lecturer who put everyone to sleep every day. By the 3rd week the lecture hall had maybe a dozen or so seats in attendance out of maybe 200.  Maybe that’s why I’m not out there studying ocean currents or saving dying orca babies right now…this class totally bled it out of me.

So I’m like, “I can’t be like that guy” I’ll dance on my table if I have to. Then it will just be up to the students to be engaged from there.

Shit, why does that class scene in Ferris Bueller come to mind?  *blank stares*  “Bueller….Bueller…..Bueller”

This little clever logo was discovered on Logolog…one of my favorite sites where they spot…err…clever logos.  The best part about these posts is watching the thinking process of the designer and how they arrived at the concept.

I’m not sure if I like the final concept as much as the one of the drafts with the little door markings

Here’s a set of marketing banners and direct marketing pieces I did for Foresight Education a while back. It wasn’t a super challenging task…they had done a lot of in-house designing and had then asked me to step in to try and create a more polished look for their materials. I’m not sure if it’s currently too heavy with the symbolism, I think we’ll be experimenting with that over time with other marketing devices we’ll use for them.

By the way, while my wife and I are still weighing our options, this business has a method for helping you get out of debt & manage your finances that is very intriguing. The method seems almost common sense…they can even cut your traditional 30 year mortgage down to anywhere like 7 to 10 years. It’s worth at least checking out to see if they might help you. I don’t usually do personal endorsements of my clients businesses here on my site, but with the economy the way it is and seeing how some of my friends are in financial struggle…I think companies like this are poised to help.

The project above was done for Imi Hale, an organization that focuses on Cancer Awareness for Native Hawaiians. There was a lot of symbolism in their materials…with the whole “rubba slippa” thing and the black and white Hale Huki pictured in archival photographs. What I did was colorize the photo and then began building their design in a very modular arrangement so that it was easier to see all their different events and activities.  Coloring that photo was the fun part.

You know I’m kinda a big fan of the show for that Charm City Cakes on the Food Network.  Not just because of the cool art that they do with cakes, but because they run their business in this fun atmosphere I’d like to do one day if I ever end up hiring extra designers.

Anyway I stumbled across this other blog today called “Cake Wrecks” that gave me some good chuckles as well.  These are professional cakes that weren’t done quite so well… I guess even cake designers run into problems sometimes.

I’m getting really burnt out on the Olympics. At some point in time, I thought it was a good idea to pick up a new TiVo to record the games…so now it records 2 channels at a time recording just about every Olympic event that’s broadcast on TV.  My wife is loving it…she’s watching everything from beach volleyball to trampoline (that’s a sport?)

Anyone notice how nice the design is for these games? I have to admit that in a lot of cases, I find design in Asia to be rather cheesy sometimes…especially in their public billboards. They just have a different taste to suit their audience. I wouldn’t call their graphic design to be so elegant as it is designed to scream out and get attention as much as possible.

But so far, I’ve been very impressed at how the graphic design has been at these Beijing Olympics. It’s been very elegant and eye-catching. I’m sure they didn’t skimp on finding the best designers to work on these games.

There’s the really high profile architecture for the “Bird’s Nest” and the giant blue Jello bubble cube thingy.  Meh, those are a little too fadish to me. A couple years from now when the Olympic high has calm down over there, those structures will look pretty bad against the rest of the city in my opinion.

What do you think?