bozarth,evan

We had a great time at the first annual Tortuga Music Fest in Ft. Lauderdale. It was cool to see our designs all over the festival grounds – the stage scrims, the signage, the fest merch… a culmination of a few months of hard work.  Thanks to our buds at Huka Entertainment and congratulations on an excellent festival experience.. more photos after the jump.

Effectively, CISPA is a blank check for the U.S. Federal Government to perform search and seizure without a warrant, without individuals ever knowing their data was taken and then, well, passed around.

-ZDnet’s “How to join today’s April 22 CISPA protest” Article

Change.org Petition: Stop CISPA. | Electronic Frontier Foundation’s CISPA FaQ’s

Thought i’d post a shot of my office bulletin board to shed some light on our recent work…As you can tell, we’ve been really busy lately.

In no particular order- you’ll see branding for J.Wesley Haynes Trio, in-progress branding for a new iOS app called Campus Quad, more branding for Treaty Oak’s new Starlite Vodka, a charity t-shirt design for National Public Lands Day, various t-shirt designs for our new Austin clothing line ATXTEES, and tons more stuff.  My dad’s rock’n'roll button collection from the late 70′s, a memento from our trip to Gasparilla Island in Florida, my ticket stub from a Phish show in Oklahoma, Munchichi- an old stuffed animal rescued from grandma’s house in Atlanta, TX, some doodles for a survival blog, a sweet Flatstock poster by Bang! Media, among other things…

So that’s what we’ve been up to…What chu been doin??

We recently had the honor of being selected to submit designs for TYPEFIGHT! – a sort of celebrity deathmatch for design geeks.  We were both asked to design a number 4 in honor of independence day – our designs were then pitted against each other in the octagon of public opinion.. The voting was neck and neck – but ultimately, it was my ’4 Dollar Bill’ design that took the title over Evan’s ‘Stars N Stripes’ entry..  I must come clean and admit that I did get plenty of photoshop help from Evan with my design, so suppose I owe him a beer (or ten) and a bag of frozen peas (for his bruised ego).  Special thanks goes to Drew Roper for being the ‘Don King’ of this story.

Dboz & I were talking about this concept last night: Creating an open market and currency for music downloads – free of middlemen.  He mentioned BitCoin and possibly Flattr as ways to take payments more directly…I searched and immediately found CoinDL - The so-called “iTunes of the BitCoin World”. This is pretty much the right concept..maybe just lacking visually and marketing-wise…

Backing up a bit…for a bigger picture, you’ve gotta read this article when you have a chance:  A Letter To Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered by The Trichordist‘s David Lowery.  It’s the most clear-headed and convincing argument against illegal music downloading that I’ve seen (take notes, Lars).  It also attempts to explain the reality of the situation, why our consumers have been misinformed by the “Free Culture Monvement”, and how the corporate machine is profiting from our music habit while the artist continues to suffer…It’s apparent now that the Artist Community’s “99%” have more or less been wiped-out:

• Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.
• Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!
• The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.
• Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Without going into details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.

So, l started to ponder how WE could be a part of a global revolution – move to supporting independent artists directly.  Here’s my premise:

What would it be like if independent artists possessed the technology and reach of iTunes or Spotify? What If they had total control over the profits earned from people buying and listening to their music with no middle man whatsoever?  Could a platform be built and maintained by a non-profit tech company?

This could be part of the overall revolution in the mindset of music fans too…It would come from the grass roots, NOT from passing new laws or copy-protection…and it would feel much like the local/sustainable/unprocessed food revolution.  People realizing that they can do better, vote with their dollars…Local music and art is the purest form of creativity.  made by people you know and live with…Somehow on the internet though, music has been completely devalued…quality is certainly recognized to some extent in Austin, but the dots need to be connected from recorded music to downloads and social media.

Spotify definitely is NOT the answer – We’re already seeing the shift from illegal downloading to Spotify or iTunes as a means to “clear the conscience” for music fans…the problem is that these mega-corporations are the only ones making any money – the artists still get the shaft…One specific beef- the article blames the Free Culture movement for devaluing the music—but i’d say It’s time for a free and open technology that can work for the creators…make it free from corporate or gov’t control…free from greedy middlemen, fat cat record companies, and even shady digital-distributors.

Something worth working on, i’d say…hoping to start a dialogue from here.  Holler.

Terri Timely is a film-making duo from Oakland, CA.  Corey Creasey and Ian Kibbey mix a quirky visual style with great music and “pop-goes-the-weasel” timed delivery of a witty message.  I’d call it a mix between Wes Anderson, Tim & Eric and Norman Rockwell.  Not surprisingly, these dudes are scoring some big time commercials now for major brands like MTV and Nissan…But the real gold is their short films.  Be sure to check out Cecil and Children Are Gift on their website, but first, watch the inspiring Synesthesia below…

syn·es·the·sia syn·aes·the·sia (sĭn’ĭs-thē’zhə)

n.

A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.

A sensation felt in one part of the body as a result of stimulus applied to another, as in referred pain.

The description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another.

Having an interesting video is a HUGE part of running a successful Kickstarter campaign.  AIRSHP was honored to produce this one for our buddy Chris Dye, a great songwriter with a powerful story to tell…watch below and then visit his Kickstarter campaign page:

Let us know if we can help you get YOUR project funded with a killer video piece.

dig it

Thanks to El Boz for the dose of inspiration below…behold the stunning architecture and structural engineering of Santiago Calatrava.

So…we’ve been kicking around this idea for a while, as one of our internal projects, as an outlet for our product design and branding skills. We all know online shopping in general is bigger than ever, but we are also aware of the insane competition in the industry, and we don’t wanna be just like everyone else…So the obvious question is, “How will our shop be different?”

Here’s some notes on the topic we scribbled over Gyro’s at Zorba’s.

• Branded Mini-Shops
• Containing collections of products
• Each under the umbrella of AIRSH(O)P
• New Sales Model : Kickstarter meets Online shop
• Pre-order functionality
• generate interest and critical mass before production.
• Scarcity, limited availability tactics
• Early-adopter pricing
• discounts for sharing
• 3 Product Types
• traditional products: selling/fulfilling stocked items
• Affiliate products: curated items related to the mini-shop’s brand, style (mailbox money!)
• Pre-order product: see above–also see Groupon, United Pixel Workers, threadless
• Using The Shopify Platform
• how do we work within Shopify’s constraints to build this model?
• can we spin off custom-designed Shopify themes? REVENUE!

So, we’ve already started production on a Shopify theme, and there’s no shortage of good product ideas.  Add that to our trial by fire (literally) experience creating the Central Texas Wildfire Relief T-Shirt campaign, and we feel this is a great concept and worthy experiment to try.  Got any advice? Product ideas? We’d love to hear from you.

Funny Computer Generated Transcription:
Hi this is Joey how are you … up it’s Steve you … coming to get the phone on the phone line to the Block to your space and … just calling to wish everyone a happy new year their ship is officially 1 year old and … we couldn’t be happier about the … things it transcribes since we just company doesn’t opened up shop we … just wanna give a shout out to our friends and family inclined to the Mae this year possible we’ve got some big things on the horizon and … can’t wait to share with you so … quick shout out to some of our clients in the past year Chet casey James tarmac milk shake media time to Fly needs it rail road revival tour Gram Wilson single vendor hey still trying get tickets municipal taste purple be crew door gate plaster … J. and J. landon marine costing days or some major Sean Nelson none you Perry got another Kelly Dead … or line samples on hey anyway … anyone else we failed to mention is we really appreciate you guys so … keep checking the website and face book twitter yeah you Yet … we can’t wait to … wrap with you in 32 page … they just

Note:
this voicemail->blog post was made possible by the fine folks at If This Then That..  its a sweet service that allows you to integrate tons of different web services by creating a simple recipe of events -> for instance, we have a recipe that says, “If there is a new post on the @airshp twitter feed, then post the same message to the airshp facebook fan page“.. pretty cool eh? the possibilities are endless.. and its just one of the many tools that we use to establish brands across the social web.

I have been loving YQL ever since I figured out how to use it to scrape webpages and return the data as JSON – allowing you to turn any standard web-page into a simple API ..opening up endless possibilities for data mash-ups.. IMO, its the best thing Yahoo has ever produced!  

I wrote a little jQuery plugin that uses YQL to convert an RSS feed into a handy JSON object – this tiny extension makes its easy to work on rss feed mashups and widgets.. just check out this instagram tag search or this gimmebar user feed that i made in a matter of minutes..  

download from GIT-HUB

Ok.  This is really just a sketch or rough-draft of what’s to come…but…I made a quick montage of Chris Dye laying down basic tracks at Jimmy George’s new Roostudios in Manchaca, TX.  This footage will eventually be used in a finished music video or “brand film” for Dye4…enjoy!

• shot on Canon T2i – monochrome profile.
• lenses: 18-55mm kit lens & 55-250mm EFS
• edited with Final Cut Pro 7.
• plugins: Digieffects Aged Film

Amazing hand-drawn lettering by 23 year old Hyper Island student Simon Alander.  Check out more of his stuff at CoffeeMadeMeDoIt

Snapped this pic from a Blackberry at a gas station in Spicewood, TX.  Gotta love those natural drop shadows on the blinds!

OK, first off – What is user experience?  Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:

User experience (UX) is about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience highlights the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership, but it also includes a person’s perceptions of the practical aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency of the system. User experience is subjective in nature, because it is about an individual’s feelings and thoughts about the system. User experience is dynamic, because it changes over time as the circumstances change.

In short: UX reaches beyond the superficial facades of design and technology.  It taps into the psychology of interaction.

A great UX should be baked into all modern web-designs from their inception, which, of course, requires additional time/resources/money to achieve.

So, why should we invest in better UX? What’s the ROI?

Dr. Susan Weinschenk breaks it all down for you in this nifty little stop-motion video below.

Also, be sure to check out Dr. Weinschenk’s video on the 7 Principles that make websites more engaging.

We hope this message finds you well, the following is a primer for the uninitiated…

We’ve been around.
Although AIRSHP is new, as a 2-man team, we’ve been around the block a few times. We have a 12-plus year background doing quality design and development for the entertainment industry. We’ve spent most of our careers working for other firms and we’ve learned a ton along the way, but the day has finally come to set out on our own – to forge a company that is built from the ground up around us – our collective skills – our creative ideas – we’ve got something to say!

Who does what?
Dustin handles most of the development work and Evan handles the graphic design.. we share duties when it comes to creative and strategic services..

What kind of projects would you like to take on?
We prefer to take on projects that utilize our broad skill set – web design, logo, branding, internet marketing, social media strategy, user interface design, email newsletters, etc.. allowing the end result to communicate our clients’ message consistently and effectively across all mediums. Ya Dig? If so, we are actively seeking new projects to sink our teeth into.. holla.

via http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_liouwf7Gop1qdux5go1_500.jpg

via http://www.debutart.com/artist/yehrin-tong/work/maharishi-owl-print

via http://allanpeters.com/blog/?p=1152

via http://page2rss.com/p/9fc3ae12a1465446684506f7461b9129_5512316_5519005

Here is yet another gem from the guys at Mama’s Sauce: their brand-spanking-new business cards. They’ve used a process they’ve recently perfected, a heavy, full color wash that creates a pillowy emboss effect in the negative space. They’ve also duplexed Lettra with Black Muscletone, resulting in a graphic, black and white edge. Check out this post on their blog to learn more about how you could create something like this for yourself.

via http://mattlehmanstudio.com/#1107195/Esquire-Eat-Like-A-Man

via http://www.dzinestudio.com/artwork-detail.php?id=69&position=2

A commemorative t-shirt design after a weekend at the beach with some funny-as-hell people and a video that we just couldn't stop watching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy9UlIwMHb4

via http://www.shillpages.com/movies/bb.shtml

I’m loving these snippets of lettering and logo designs from Brandon Rike’s typography portfolio.

Check out this simple but effective labels for The Good Stuff salsa, an all natural company. 

the light paintings are created by the long exposure photography of roomba vacuum cleaner robots, who have  been outfitted with coloured LEDs and set free to roam.

Designed by Kathryn Brylinsky | Country: United States

Mail order redesign of the Beck album The Information.

via http://www.behance.net/gallery/STAR-GRID-POSTERS-SANTAMONICA-1011/686340

via http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/typographic-town-logos-in-hiragana-katakana/

Maybe it’s the color palette, maybe it’s the musical lobster; but something about this image (with artwork by Charles Kuhn) feels very 4th of July appropriate.

via David George Pearson

via http://blog.signalnoise.com/