cool hunters or makers of cool???

i came upon this link some days ago, to a pbs frontline show about marketing media and its desire to capture all that disposable $$$$$ in the pockets of the teenage demographic. One phenomenon it describes, is the seemingly endless loop of influence and interpretation that goes on between the media and its target audience wherein the dinstinction between who is actually driving the youth culture is blurred. It is an interesting parallel to design, do designers interpret culture or play an active role in creating it? part of a designers tasks is to create a product that fits what its end user needs/wants but also hopefully that product can spawn its own place in culture where it changes the way we do/look/think about things...

it is also funny to read the comments of the group of teens who were asked to watch it, who saw it as something ominous (which is sort the tone of the show anyway) as it were something to be feared. while the approach may be new in its cultural pervasiveness, it does not appear to be new in its goal: alleviating anyone who has money to spend of that income...

tagline for the show: They are the merchants of cool: creators and sellers of popular culture who have made teenagers the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts--and wallets--of America's youth?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/#rest

sh-ek it out...

in case you did not know, dave chappelle is officially THAT dude!!!...

i admire the fact that he was willing to take a loss (i know he ain't starving but 50 mil, ouch son!!!) for an ideal, (some even note more sinister reasons) no matter how crazy i think the rationaliation of it was, i wish he would come back and do his show. he is a really talented, intelligent, and super-humanly funny brother. he took risks with his comedy, skits about a blind black klansman, a racial draft, and a junkie named tyrone, were classic! it worked on not only on a superficial level but also as social commentary, it was not just offensive just for shock value (ok maybe some stuff was but it was hilarious regardless)

come back dave...

i did these sketchees when i was thinking of making the "wrap it box" from a skit on the chappelle show into a product project, i think it could be fun to do...



i wrote this post, a long time ago, a real long time ago...












and it the dopest post i ever wrote...













...in 94'

job hunting sucks...

job hunting sucks...

i can really do is keep my fingers crossed and hope that someone sees something worth giving me a chance. all things considered, if i was not such a lazy bum i might have a job (or at least some contacts to get interviews) lined up after graduation. i have pretty much been straight loungin'. i do not really have a clear vision of what i want to do for next few of years of my life...all i know is i would like to design stuff, preferably athletic shoes because i have a passion for it but i would be checking for anything that would allow for a fun, learning, stimulating place to work


i have divergent interests a not enough time to pursue them all. then there is the portfolio i need to finish, making things worse, right now i am firmly entrenched in the BBC (Broke Brothers Club) have no funds! i would like to be able to help out my fam more with bills and such, but i can not even get a part time gig at local walmart!!!

hopefully things will look up though, i have a few opportunities that might turn into something good, for know i sit in front of the computer and try to paint stuff...

my version of hellgirl

chillin' like a villan

ok so lately i have been dragging my feet, most of my time being split between playing basketball, random periods of sleep, occasional attemps to organize my work into a website, and too much time on the internet...(notice finishing my portfolio is conspicuously missing from that list, but that is another topic...) however my time on the net has not been a total waste of bandwith, in my travels i managed to stumble across wikipedia.org. the site is amazing!!!

i am sure i have used it before but maybe i just did not take note? it is basically a site where anyone (it supports over a 200 different languages) can create/edit information on any topic, it is not always completely accurate. some stuff is incomplete or from biased viewpoints (and it is usually noted if the article is sans references or incomplete) but from sports to astrophysics it is all there, likely every subject you could ever think of...

anyway i was reading a wiki about some comic books and i saw the work of alex ross, which prompted me to get a couple of his graphic novels...amazing stuff! so for the past couple weeks i have been going to library checking out other comics and related books, i have always had an affinity for comics but it got lost in the shuffle of my carousel of interests ,and reading and seeing all the content from the wiki just rekindled that previous attraction.


so with that as inspiration, lately i have been trying to mess around with painting, but not only is traditional painting messy, it is also a fairly expensive hobby, so photoshop and a wacom tablet are my tools of choice, trying to do stuff i do not usually do so i figured i try my hand at digital painting, this was the result...

reference pic