Pioneers of Prime Time TV
My old roomate Thomas has an awesome acoustic band down in New Mexico that had an awful myspace page. So Thomas gave the the go-ahead to kick it’s butt, in good old-fashioned design style. Since I had just managed to do the same thing with my page, it was as easy as busting out the ole’ template and fixxin’ her up.
The tunes are good, and they put them all up for free to download, so check’em out!
Ded Bundee
I recently started working on an album cover a band called Ded Bundee, a band that is going to take over the world due to its awesomeness.
Here are the cover ideas so far. I’ve used my photography for raw material.
New Myspace Music Page
So, I’ve finally gotten my music page 95% completed. Laying those things out is a giant turd, I tell ya what. And remember, I am NOT a web programmer, so I’ve had learn all of it off of the sweat off my brow.
Anyway, check out the tunes, and let me know what you think.
My take on an In Rainbows cover
For those of us using iTunes’ coverflow, it’s a bummer that Radiohead didn’t provide any official (yet) cover art to go with the download. But the good news is that means we can all design our own official covers.
That’s what they’ve been doing over at Hick’s Design, so I had to chip in with my version to go along with everyone else’s. (Looks like Grant Hutchinson chipped in also. The world is a small place. I just emailed him this morning.)
NOT back at the Ebbtide
Well, apparently I spoke too soon. Right as I agreed to work on the Ebbtide again, but who do I get a call from? The Seattle Times.
Wahoo!
So instead of the Ebbtide, which is an opportunity that I’m seriously going to be missing out on, I’m working temporarily for the region’s biggest daily newspaper. The job is for about two months long, but it’s a foot in the door for sure.
Basically what I’m doing is repackaging some of their stories for contest submissions such as the Pulitzer. For instance, what I’m working on right now is a series called “Miracle Machines” that ran for three issues last November. I have to take all of the text and all of the images and graphics and re-format them to fit into tabloid and letter size packages, which is no small feat considering that it’s all originally broadside size.
It’s pretty cool. I have my own desk, my own Seattletimes.com email address, my own phone, etc. I’m right there in the midst of all of the Features designers, which is a great perspective to see what goes on at a big paper like the Times.
It’s too bad that I can’t do both, but as it is I’m already stretching my time way thin. I already have a regular job, so taking on two other part-time jobs alongside all of my other responsibilities would be the death of me.
Back at the Ebbtide
There have been two different Design Directors at the Ebbtide since I left that position two years ago. I never thought that I’d do it again, but apparently I’ve been tagged to do just that.
Unfortunately Bill, the DD starting this year, has scheduling issues that prevent him from getting the publication done on deadline. It’s too bad. It’s a great experience for anyone looking to get into editorial design.
But his loss is my gain. I get a second chance to re-design the paper, and this time I’m gonna make the most of it. When I designed it the last time, my prime directive was to make it into a literary and arts magazine in tabloid format. That’s exactly what I designed.
But when it came time for writing, our entire staff wanted a news newspaper; a directive that my design did not fit at all. Instead of re-designing again, like I should have, I tried to shoe-horn everything into my design.
Bad idea.
But now I get a chance to do it right, the way I should have to begin with.
Because I’m not “officially” hired as the DD of the Ebbtide, I can’t implement a wholesale re-design for the last paper of Fall Quarter. What if someone else gets hired *instead* of me? A redesign of one paper would suck, and it does the campus and the readers no good.
So what I’m doing is using this opportunity to bridge the gap. I’m not changing the masthead. I’m sticking, mostly, with the same headlines. The body copy will stay the same. Some other visual aspects will stay the same.
But 90% of what I’m doing now will be carried over to the new design. The standing heads. The formatting. Mostly the visual cues and hierarchy will be changed into my new design.
It’s a good opportunity to get some actual clip sheets this time for my portfolio.
Sorry Bill. But it’s my turn again.
Hilarious Sigur Ros Interview
This has to be one of the funniest interviews ever. It is so bad, it is good. NPR interviewed Sigur Ros two weeks ago, and the results are outstandingly ugly.
In the comments, the interviewer wonders if it was a language thing, and yes, it was. I don’t remember where I remember it from, but Jonsi has a hard time speaking English.
So although the interview was bad, you gotta cut them some slack. But it is still hilarious.
The Radiohead debate continues
MTV just posted a retarded news article about the supposed low quality of Radiohead’s new release that is only available as a download from their website.
People, whiners mostly, are complaining about the low bit rate, 160 kpbs, of the .mp3 downloads, saying that Radiohead “duped” them into buying an album with poor sound quality.
They have one commenter saying the dumbest thing in the whole article:
“Radiohead has such delicate music that requires detail and depth of sound. …I for one CAN tell the difference between 160 and 192. [With] 160 you can’t hear the finer details that make Radiohead so great. I have lost a bit of respect for Radiohead for this. I would never make people pay for 160. They may as well just stream stuff off MySpace.” (Empasis mine)
GET BEHIND ME SATAN!
“I would never make people pay for 160.”
How can you have such vehemence against a band that is not forcing you to pay a single red cent (or pence) to download their hard work?!
Ridiculous.
I don’t hear anyone whining like this about the entire iTunes library, which as Jonny Greenwood noted in the Rolling Stone article, is lower than what Radiohead subsequently released.
If you don’t like 160 kbps, then DON’T BUY IT.
Or download it for free, for that matter, you ungrateful whiners.
Radiohead’s In Rainbows worth the hype
(Second part to the unedited Radiohead section that I wrote for my school’s newspaper, the Ebbtide.)
With all of the noise concerning the manner in which Radiohead’s new album In Rainbows has been released, it’s easy to forget that there’s a new Radiohead album to listen to, and boy am I excited.
I downloaded In Rainbows yesterday, and according to iTunes, I’ve listened to it at least five times through. (In answer to the other question, I paid £5, whatever that works out to in American Dollars.)
So I’m going to come right out and say it: This is Radiohead’s best album since OK Computer back in 1997. It’s been 10 years and three albums since that classic came out, and it’s almost possible that the wait was worth it.
So far, it’s one of those albums that is definitely getting better with each successive listen. They’re finally starting to play the music that we as Radiohead fans have been wanting them to play for a long time.
In Rainbows is clearly a combination of their Grammy Award winning OK Computer and the best parts of their last album, Hail to the Thief. Toss in a little bit of the sonic experimentation of Kid A, and you might be able to grasp the concept.
To the great relief of many of their fans, Radiohead have scaled back the digital blips and bleeps of their recent albums in favor of a more guitar and piano oriented production, not to mention the emphasis on Thom Yorke’s haunting vocalisms that have no peer in the music world.
The best song is a slow, ballady number called Nude. To highlight the similarities between In Rainbows and OK Computer, it should be noted that this song was originally written during that era and has been kicking around in live versions for quite a while.
The other songs alternate between high energy rockers such as Bodysnatchers and 15 Step to the more pensive and delicate songs such as All I need and Videotape. There’s not a stinker in the whole bunch, a phrase that perhaps could not be applied to Hail to the Thief, Amnesiac, Kid A, or, GASP! the Bends.
Overall, In Rainbows is the most consistently good album that Radiohead has put out in a long, long time and is worth whatever it is you decide to pay for it.