things (Sagmeister has) learned…

Recently I have been smitten by Stefan Sagmeister. I know it’s a little late, I know! And it’s not that I haven’t liked him or his work before (aside from his Rolling Stone’s album cover). I really like most of his work. I guess the thing that I regret is that I didn’t jump on his book, Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far before now. But after seeing it at the MOMA bookstore and at Bardhi’s house this past week, I can’t believe I don’t own it. But—like the shoes below—I hope to own it soon.


Here’s a video that documents a bit about his installation at the Dietch Project, based around the same themes as his book.

brand jordan

This isn’t typically the blog I use to talk about basketball related topics, but this one is less about the sport and more about the design—and specifically the design of brand Jordan.
Recently I’ve been reading Driven From Within—a pretty nice book in terms of photography, typography, and the philosophy that drives both Michael Jordan and his brand (and you can get the book at Borders for like five bucks right now; it’s a good buy). MJ’s story is told first person by Michael himself, with a ton of insights from close friends and family, including Tinker Hatfield, the famed designer at Nike and the genius behind the majority of the Air Jordan shoes.
Excerpts from the book…

“The shoes we created over the years were not contrived from a temporary fad of flavor-of-the-month thing. There is a pure foundation. I am most critical of the design work when I see someone throwing elements onto shoes just to make them look cool. There has to be a soul to the process. There has to be a real story.” — Tinker Hatfield.

“The products, companies and people who stay true to who they are usually end up being around for a long time.… If you are trying to make your way through a maze, and your decisions come from the inside, from your gut, nine times out of ten you won’t find yourself running into a wall.… As long as we stay true, stay honest, stay stylish, stay innovative, stay focused on quality over quantity, then no one will catch us because we’re always going to be leading. Fads are fads; they come and go. That’s not what brand jordan is about. And that’s not who I am.” — Michael Jordan.

This past week in New York, I spent a good chunk of my free time eyeing/drooling over the plethora of beautiful basketball shoes in the midtown athletic shoe stores and the Soho sneaker boutiques. But there’s something magical about the Air Jordans. Something that makes my gut churn and my mind warn me: If you don’t get these now, you’ll regret it. I never got the XXIs and I regret it. I didn’t get them, fyi. Maybe someday…
I think it’s interesting that the same icon that inspired me as a kid on the basketball court is the same one that inspires me today as a designer.



For amazing images of Jordans 1 through 23, click here. Enjoy. But a word of caution: If you’re a shoe person, be careful; you may not come out for quite a while.

Kinda took the day off today, recovering from a few late nights working on the Provo Care brochure and posters. Sam called me up and told me that Jared Benson from Punchut/Typophile was coming to BYU to speak and asked if I wanted to go with. I did. Gladly. Jared talked a lot about starting a studio as a relatively recent grad (3 years) and what he did to lead up to that point. He talked about some of the philosophies that shaped his current studio—Punchcut. He shared so much valuable information, but two things in particular stood out to me:

1) He talked about context. “Context is Key” he said. And then this really got me—He said, instead of thinking of a TV as a “TV” that they call it a “Large Format Display” and just like that the context is altered in a way that allows you to think outside the typical paradigm of the television. Things that one might shy away from doing with a TV may be perfectly suited for the Large Format Display. I thought that was really cool.
2) He said his studio is founded on the concept of “Life Balance.” Isn’t that the Holy Grail that all us designers search for? Obviously that includes going home at night, enjoying weekends, etc. But also he brought that line of thinking into the office by initiating the frequent office party, setting aside half days to carry out office-wide projects or go bowling or hold a Rock Band contest. He said that he strives to make his/their downtime as constructive as their uptime, just like—get this, this is brilliant—positive/negative space in design. Bam!

After all that, the slideshow, the Q&A, and everything, he showed this years Typophile Film Festival. Last year I had the… privilege? obligation? terror? joy? of working on the opening credits to that film festival with my BFA class. I’ve posted about this a fair amount on my other blog, so I’ll cut it short here, but I do want to say this: I am really proud of this project. It is so far from perfect. Parts of it I watch and cringe. I know where we cut corners and I know where we didn’t. And I still watch it and think: If we could have just had another week… But, all in all, I watch it and am very proud. It was a huge project to undertake with a group who had never done anything like it before. We struggled immensely and in the end there were only about 7 of us left out of the original 15 that began working on it. Micah did an incredible job on the music. It took us like 17 tries before we nailed it, but we nailed it. It is perfect. And to bring this full circle and back to Jared Benson, he said today—when he showed the Typophile Film Festival Reel—that this piece was one of the most successful pieces in the four years that the Film Festival had run. He said every time people laugh and cry and applaud and rave about it. There are over 14,000 views of it on youTube (web version) and it’s only been shown publicly 4 times. Not bad.
Anways, here is the film (hi-res, 41mb):


(my roles in the piece: art director, music director, and animator of a few of the scenes)