Good friends of mine at Pushplay Productions asked me to update their identity this past summer. Specializing in interview-style testimonials and focusing on telling personal stories, Pushplay has a fairly upscale and mature client base. They wanted to reflect their target demographic, while maintaining a contemporary feel and clear concept.

After loads of thumbnails I hit on the notion of the video viewfinder and using two letter P's from their name. Here, one P stands as the subject, and the second is a shadow-as-graphic-element to help root the subject in space. Below is a spread of early comps I developed to further discuss direction.

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

I hate this shit. It annoys the hell out of me that the entertainment industry is behind it. The amount of positive contribution the major entertainment companies have on society (other than jobs and film as an art form) is pretty small compared to what the internet contributes as a culture. Sign the petition here.

I won't try to explain this. Couldn't. Don't need to. Just watch.

Pretty excited about the upcoming Squarespace 6 coming soon. This site is built on their platform and I've loved every bit of it. I'm not a coder so it's made my life a lot easier and I've always found it to be solid and worth every penny. Read about it on their blog.

Music by Nicholas Morera (aka a.d.l.r.). Video by Kim Asendorf for Non Projects.

Just stumbled across this video. As a kid I had space shuttle blueprint wallpaper in my room and I'm still facinated by launch footage. The glitch video distortion points out that my experience with NASA and the various space shuttle launches I've witnessed were 100% mediated experience and those images only really exist in my mind as pixels.

About the artist from Non Projects site bio:

As a.d.l.r., Morera takes his progressive compocollage, minimal techno, ambience, tape music and microsound to create a highly listenable lush and coherent whole of audio ephemera that fits right in line with the immersive sounds of the Non Projects catalog.

If you dig the artist you can get downloads from Bleep. Also check out the sweet, raw html website of Kim Asendorf. It's bonkers.

Occupy Design is one of the better things to come out of the current Occupy movement going on all over the damn place.

Occupy Design is a grassroots project connecting designers with on-the-ground demonstrators in the Occupy Together movement. The project’s goal is to create freely available visual tools around a common graphic language to unite the 99%. The project places an emphasis on producing infographics and icons to improve the communication of the movement’s messages and the data surrounding them across the world.

This isn't a political blog, but I think it's safe to say that much of the coverage of the protests has been abysmal, focusing on the dirt bag hippies and emphasizing the worst parts of the movement. This group seeks to do assist media coverage and the protests by helping offering clear info graphics and signage. You can even get involved and submit work for the cause. I dig it. Design works.

via GOOD

via @postymcp

The new Tom Waits record Bad As Me comes out Oct. 24th and you can stream it ahead of time (must request an invite) at BadAsMe.com. I've been listening to it the last couple of days and it's a good one. I've gone through pretty huge Tom Waits phases. I've got my favorites and ignored a few. This one really grabs me. It's enough of what you expect, but has some great swagger and gritty production. Read about it from his site.

Pre-order the download on Amazon or get the vinyl from the Tom Waits store

Speaking of Tom... this post from last year seems to get a lot of hits so you may be interested in his List of Scary Things. Classic Waits humor.

Letters for your EYES. One of my favorite discoveries in recent months is Fonts In Use. The title spells it out as plain as day. I've been using it regularly for either regular pleasure-reading, or as a place to look for inspiration and ideas for projects. I'll admit, typography is something I love but have a hard time working outside of my comfort zone. I tend to stick to a handful of favorites. That is not necessarily a bad practice, but some projects require something outside of the old reliables.

From their mission:

Much of design critique is focused on photography and other graphics. It’s time to shed light on the most basic element of communication: the type. At Fonts In Use we’ll catalog and examine real-world typography wherever it appears — branding, advertising, signage, packaging, publications, in print and online — with an emphasis on the typefaces used.

Agreed. Type takes a back seat a lot and it's nice to see the subtlties and intracacies of good type discussed. And in case you were wondering, the site itself is set in Relay Condensed and Benton Sans RE from Font Bureau.