Design Observer will celebrate five years with a party in New York City on Wednesday, November 5. The party will take place at Element (the beautiful 19th century bank building that became the Jasper Johns studio), located at 225 East Houston Street. Details here.
See you there?
Carl and I are thrilled to announce our next ‘Creative Mornings‘ which will be Friday November 14th hosted by VII, a 11 member photo agency specializing in conflict photography.
Stephen Mayes, MD of VII Photo will give us a 10minute lecture on “Finding new value in photography“: Today’s culture puts a low price on intellectual property: photos, music, movies, etc are all getting cheaper (and even free). Authors and creatives of all types need to be inventive about finding new value in their work, and about monetizing that value.
The location is at VII’s fantastic storefront space at 28 Jay Street, Brooklyn NY 11201 in DUMBO. Closest subway would be the York Street F Stop. Event opens up at 8:30am with the topic discussion starting at 9:00am. Make sure to r.s.v.p via email as there is only limited space available. Please tell us your name and what industry you’re in.
Breakfast will be sponsored by Iridesco, the creators of Harvest, a web-based time-tracking and invoicing application and Co-op, a casual communication tool to help small teams work together better. Both of these apps have played a key role in helping creative businesses stay organized and work efficiently.
(image by Christian Hartman)
I was approached by Time Out New York to be part of one of their guided shopping tours titled ‘rummaging for…” . Excited to share some of my favorite Brooklyn neighborhood stores, I met up with Senior Associate Editor Lisa Freedman and Photographer Christian Hartman last monday. I enjoyed showing them around as both of them weren’t familiar with Boerum Hill/Cobble Hill at all. Maybe I should put on my ‘neighborhood spokes-person hat’ more often?
Here are the stores we’ve visited: Abitare Shop, Blue Ribbon General Store, A cooks companion, City Foundry Vintage Industrial and Vintage Signage.
Thank you Lisa! Thank you Christian! I had a lot of fun and can’t wait to see the feature in the November 13th issue!
Check this out, New Yorkers! This Friday at 7pm, at the New York Halloween parade, a secret group of friends are planning to recreate that fabulous Ferris Bueller scene, where Ferris inspires a Chicago parade to sing Twist & Shout. They already have 1,000 volunteers, balloons, sound equipment and an entire marching band!!! You can join them here. This is fantastic!
(via joanna)
Tap’dNY is a New York City bottled water company with a local twist, a knack for honesty and a beautifully designed bottle. They work with NYC’s public water system to source the world’s best tasting tap water, purify it through reverse osmosis and bottle it locally, leaving out ludicrous transportation miles. They offer an honest and local alternative to thirsty New Yorkers, giving them a smarter choice: to drink their own (award winning) water.
Read their manifesto to see what they stand for.
The next Spark Event on Tuesday October 28th sounds promising: Ed Abel’s 30+ years of entrepreneurialism and business ownership brings a huge amount of value to business owners trying to grow and improve their own companies. He will speak to us on how to bring your business to the next level.
(Spark is a group of independent designers who meet monthly to enlighten each other on the business and creative issues that are relevant to small design studios. Members come to share their experiences, gain knowledge and ignite inspiration. Spark is a valuable support system for all who strive for excellence in business and design practices.)
I am thrilled to be attending tomorrow’s The Feast Conference. Some of the speakers include Dickson Despommier, of the vertical farming project, Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance, and Dale Jones, CEO of Play Pumps International. Jerri Chou the organizer told me that there are 13 tickets left. Join me?
All New Yorkers develop tricks that allow them to stay ahead of the pack in daily life. These are generally tightly guarded secrets, but now that I don’t live in New York, I have generously decided to share some of mine. What follows are a few handy charts that will, I hope, help readers to improve their lives.
Our building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn had no buzzer, and I would have to run downstairs to let friends in, accept deliveries, etc. After some training — and thanks to my 6’4” height — I perfected a maneuver I like to refer to as “the Northside Eagle”: Place your left foot in the middle of the vestibule, lower your upper body to precisely 90 degrees until you reach the front door, while sticking out your right foot to keep the vestibule door from closing shut.
Things that keep me awake in NYC by Greg Hathaway. I could have added one more last night: Reading an article about the state of the economy at 2am. Bad idea.
I’ll be attending the Future of Webdesign Conference on November 4th here in Manhattan. The line up of speakers is fantastic! Daniel Burka, Hillman Curtis, Nicholas Felton, lovely Liz Danzico, Khoi Vinh, Armin Vitt … just to name a few. Thinking of going? swissmiss readers receive 15% off by using the FOWD/SM promo code (for 50 conference only passes)
During the month of October 2008, the fourth annual Art in Odd Places will present Pedestrian on 14th Street, Manhattan – the great divider between uptown/downtown and highbrow/lowbrow. From the East River to the Hudson River, artists of all mediums will encourage the masses of daily pedestrians to rediscover this corridor of diverse commerce, including Union Square, historical site of social and political activism. Projects will explore connections between public spaces, pedestrian traffic, and ephemeral transient disruptions. Like a scavenger hunt, New Yorkers will use a map to discover art in unexpected places along this amazing street.
One of the listed art pieces that had me chuckle:
FREE BOOKS by Eric Doeringer: A box of books labeled “Free Books” is deposited at various 14th Street locations. A seeming act of generosity, the artist has removed the last few pages from each book. The alteration will only become apparent to the reader after he or she has nearly finished the book, converting the cast-off into a statement of art.
Michael Lebowitz, off Big Spaceship started of saying he’s not going to show any client work but talking more about things he’s learned running his company. (YAY!)
Michael stressed that Big Spaceship is not a ‘web design shop”, not a full service interactive agency, not an ad agency and not a production company. Michael defines Big Spaceship as a digital creative agency, that creates engaging experiences for brands.
Some of Michael’s philosophies in running his company:
– everyone’s creative! He despise the term ‘the creatives’.
– small is good. (but it’s hard not to grow) scale can be the enemy of quality. creative is about culture.
– don’t hire assholes! No amount of talent can compensate for the negativity that a Ass* brings to a work environment.
– stay flat.
– hire to be the dumbest person in the room. surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. somebody who is of excellence and passion.
– experiment constantly
– focus on culture
– give autonomy. manage by exception. They are in a team system and they exist as autonomous units within the company. This creates ownership of the work they’re doing. Their teams names such as : “cheapie’s playhaus’, flash ‘merica, cobra kai and the special bears.
What I absolutely loved is when Michael spoke about how he set up his office, physically. They have these huge tables where he places teams in aisles, so that when they need to discuss something, all they have to do is turn 180 degrees and they have an instant team meeting. This makes conference room meetings unecessary. Fantastic! (BS’s teams consist usually of 7 people: 2 producers, 2 designers, 3 developers.)
This presentation was my definite highlight so far. This is why I come to conferences: To hear people passionately speak about their personal experiences in our industry, to hear them talk about what they’ve learned. I am so incredibly tired of looking at slideshows of work that people have done. Thank you Michael, this was inspiring!
Founder and creative director of Poke New York, Tom Ajello, started his presentation broadcasting us, the audience via qik. Watch us here. He runs a popular blog called madewithcomputers.com and twitters here. He talked passionately about how we have to be out there and experience all new media services, to fully understand what is happening and being able to sell new ideas that will succeed in the digital space to your clients. Boy, this man has some energy. I am out of breath just listening to him.
Tom pointed us to all the many websites he’s running, one of them being his son’s site: enzoajello.com. I gasped and crinched. I am guilty of posting pictures of our little Ella on the web, but I would *never* advertise her personal site (at a conference). I belive that we, the parents of children of this digital new age, have to be very careful on the digital footprint we create for our kids. Right now, Ella is still too small to tell me if she’s ok with what I put out there. But one day, she might voice her opinion and disapprove. But it might be too late, thanks to sites like Wayback Machine they’ll be publicly accessible forever.
from left to right: Michael Lebowitz (CEO/Founder Big Spaceship), Richart C.Lent (CEO/Founder, AgencyNet), Jay Wolff (President Odopod)
Michael, Jay and Richard introduced their newly founded industry non-profit organization called SoDA, Society of Digital Agencies. SoDA is the voice of digital marketing pofessionals with a mission to advance the industry through best practices, education, and advocacy.
Their motto: Share a little, gain a lot. Connect with your competition, put down the walls and discuss everyday challenges. SoDA Is all about sharing key insights of this new industry and was formally announced in March at SXSW to provide a voice for digital marketing professionals worldwide.
SoDA Objectives are
– Provide a clear, common, focused set of guidelines, methodologies, and working standards in the digital space.
– Facilitating knowledge-sharing among members, clients, staff, associated partners and agencies, and future professionals in the field.
– Clarify common unique issues and positions, and facilitating dialogue between members and all key players in the industry.
Their first instinct was to open up this up to everyone interested. But this would ask for a major infrastructure, which is what they are focusing on right now. Their first open enrollment will come in january 2009. I am excited to see what will come of SoDA, definitely something our industry needs. Hat tip to these passionate three man, for all the effort and time they are putting into getting this new organisation of the ground.
Here’s what they want to hear from you:
How can we advance the industry?
What are your biggest issues?
How can we enable success?
Feel free to answer their questions as a comment below. I’d be interested to hear your thougths. Or email them at [email protected].
Paul Parton, Partner of The Brooklyn Brothers, talked about how it doesn’t matter what medium you’re using to bring your message across as long as approach it with an online state of mind. Consumers buy into a relationship as an interaction, which is entirely media independent.
They have created Fat Pig organic chocolate, which let’s you unleash your inner pig. Hold the packaging in front of your nose, take a picture and upload your piggie image to the fatpigchocolate.com site and join the community. You will then have the chance to become the über-pig. The guilty secret of fat pig chocolate, he says, is that they didn’t have the time to launch it properly, as they simply got too busy. But it was picked up by all the big design blogs and got a huge buzz. They haven’t really done anything with it yet but is already retailing in three stores. The community did the work for them. Inviting the consumer in can start with the most analog medium, which is packaging. Exactly what they’ve done with Fat Pig.
Summing up Paul’s presentation:
– invite the consumer into the process
– the idea is the medium
– advertising is disposable
(On a side note: How odd is the resemblance of The Brooklyn Brother’s B Logo to the one of the Brooklyn Museum?)
Keynote speaker, James Cooper, Creative Director of Another Anomaly talked about some of their campaigns. (Keep A Child Alive, EOS and Converse and Eric Ripert) What stood out to me is his statement about how we’re in the age of “Good Works”. We shifted from “Greed Works”, to “Green Works” to now a time of “Good Works”. James feels strongly about educating students and giving them a good start. He taught and an ad school and instead of teaching them how to design/create an ad, he taught them how to start a business. Interesting!
His final slide, summing up his points niceley:
– test theories (don’t chase awards)
– be on the consumers’ side
– good is different / different is good
– help out the industry
– have partners not clients – you’re less likely to dick them over.
I am excited to be attending CLICK NY here at the Art Director’s Club today. Lovely Liz Danzico, today’s moderator, just kicked off the day! There are quite a few presenters I am excited to hear speak. (Check out the line up in this pdf.) Hopefully more about the conference throughout the day! Happy wednesday everyone!
Jerri Chou, organizer of The Feast Conference (and new studio member here in our office) just informed me that their agenda has been finalized with a series of inspiring, mind-expanding, and innovative talks. “The Feast” will try to showcase a look at social innovation from all angles. Speakers include Dickson Despommier, the mind behind the “vertical farming” concept and Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance who will discuss how to make good ideas happen.
They only have 70 tickets for sale so buy yours today as space will sell out fast! And as a special bonus, use discount code “FIFTY” to receive $50 off your ticket price. To register for The Feast and get more information, please visit thefeastconference.com.
See you there!?
This is going to be a fabulous weekend in DUMBO. The 12th DUMBO art under the bridge festival is happening. Check out all the open studios and the video dumbo program. My friend Elisabeth Smolarz curated sunday’s night video program called “About the City“. Check it out!
I am looking forward to wednesday’s CLICK conference here in NYC. It’s an annual conference on advertising and digital media, a one-day symposium featuring some of the most forward-thinking leaders in the industry: James Cooper/Another Anomaly, Alex Lieu/42 Entertainment, Sergio Gordilho/Africa Propaganda, Alessandra Lariu/McCann/She Says, Michael Lebowitz/Big Spaceship, and Benjamin Palmer/The Barbarian Group, to name just a few. Moderated by Liz Danzico of Happy Cog and the School of Visual Arts. Are you going?
Join Artlog + SoHo Night for an art crawl through SoHo on Wednesday, September 24, 2008. Discover new art spaces, artists and art works as you visit galleries and non-profit art spaces. The event will bring more than a thousand art lovers together to enjoy art, friends and drinks.
UPDATE: swissmiss readers can get tickets at half off by using the ‘swissmiss’ discount code on the ticketing page. Or use this url.
Here’s an update to a site I’ve mentioned before: AirBed&Breakfast. Joe sent me a note saying that they now officially launched. Hooray! I just had a look and am impressed with what I saw! Obviously their community is growing fast, with places to stay in over 350 cities in 56 countries all around the world! The new site allows secure online payments via PayPal or credit card, user profiles, the ability to book a room in 3 clicks. They were recently picked up by CNN, NY Times, WSJ, and PSFK. The first peer-to-peer travel site is doing well even in my own neighborhood – they are about to surpass 100 listings in NYC/Brooklyn. What a fabulous resource! Save money when traveling to NYC or make money as a host when you’re home… Check it out!
Interesting New York: an affordable (!!!) one day conference, taking place tomorrow here in NYC. I am really looking forward to the diverse mix of speakers. See you there?
Interesting NYC looks like a fantastic one day conference. A gathering of diverse and interesting speakers. This saturday, september 13, 2008!