Discipline Skateboards Website

The gents over at the newly formed Discipline Skateboards asked me to do a site for them, and on friday the thirteenth she was unleashed upon the world. Click here to check it out.

Obviously, the next day a Discipline team road trip was on the books, so we left London behind in a big old black ambulance destined for the newly laid Saffron Walden Skatepark in Essex.
The Dreamland built park is only a few weeks old and has three amazing bowls including a gorgeous kidney bowl lined with pool coping.
What a great ride it was, we’ll be back soon enough….

Adobe Live!

Last week it was once again time for the annual ‘Adobe Live!’ event. The Business Design Centre in Angel was this year’s venue, and in my opinion it was a step up from last year’s location at the Olympia in Earls Court.

There were lots of impressive presentations showcasing the new CS3 line, but the highlight for me was Neville Brody’s keynote speech. He took us through his youth, studying in the late 70’s punk era, and how it affected the attitudes of a generation, igniting the DIY – ‘anything is possible’ mentality. ‘Wake up’ was the theme and ’shake up’ was the message.
Later in the presentation he spoke about our obligations to the public. More than ever designers are responsible for the aesthetics and styling of the public space and we are morally obliged to tailor designs with them in mind.

My other favourite was the Computer Arts Magazine design session. They ran through the history of their different cover layouts and logos before getting down to an interesting panel discussion with three illustration collectives, who are working on the 3 covers to be printed for their next issue.

Adobe pulled off a great day that I would recommend to anyone who uses their products. There was a plethora of interesting sessions and tutorials, and I even bumped into an old friend from my uni days which was a nice twist. See you again next year!

Crossfire, Almost……a Gap Jam

On Saturday 5th May Crossfire organised a gap jam and game of S.K.A.T.E. at the world renowned ‘Gonz gap’ in Royal Oak, London. A few Almost team members were in attendance, including Greg Lutzka and Chris Haslam (not skating due to a broken toe). It was a good day for skating in London, the guys at Crossfire certainly know how to organise a good jam.-You can see my footage edit here.

Adobe Post Production User Group

With Adobe’s new CS3 family being released, I attended Adobe’s CS3 post production presentation at the Curzon Cinema in Soho for a quick look at the new features. After a few beers in the foyer we were ushered into the screening area where Adobe’s video man, Michael O’Neill, gave a lively presentation.
As a package it’s looking very nice, with lots of interesting features and improved integration between the different tools. My personal favourite is the the puppet tool for After Effects, greatly simplifying shape layer animation and overlapping.
I’m a regular at the Flash User Group Meeting but I’m sure this will be on my list of monthly events from now on.
For a better look at the new CS3 visit the Adobe site

The Future of Web Design Conference (FOWD)

Yesterday saw the Kensington Town Hall fill to capacity with ‘dedicated followers of web design’. I was looking forward to coming away with some downright visionary insights.

Brendan Dawes’ ‘finding your creative vein’ was a nice start, with a play-doh video interface and a tale of mysterious train commuters leaving him little origami swans.
In the ‘designing for web apps’ session Ryan Singer (37signals) gave tips on user interfaces and George Oates (Flickr) ran through the strengths of her favourite web community driven sites. Denise Wilton, responsible for the delightful moo.com, shared her views on finding site character and voice.

Mike Downey (Adobe) gave a short presentation on their new dynamic desktop app builder Apollo.
William Rosen’s presentation was one of my personal favourites, with some great stuff on combining online/offline consumer engagement, such as Cadillac’s Xbox campaign and the innovative VERB yellowball campaign in the US.

The mid conference sessions consisted of Joshua Hirsch (Bigspaceship) and Rei Inamoto (AKQA) showing some of their work and Andy Clarke doing a ‘web wall of cool’ like the one on Top Gear.
Florian Schmitt and Jeff Croft’s pc vs. mac style debate on Flash and CSS/XHTML was entertaining but could have done with a bit more tongue-in-cheek fire and venom (Florian’s ‘retro tech’ site for MTV was certainly a crowd pleaser).
Jon Harris (Microsoft) tried to get us excited about their new Silverlight technology, but the crowd seemed somewhat subdued.
Lastly there was a fun ‘15 things in 15 minutes’ stream of consciousness style presentation by Steve Pearce, and a panel discussion that came closest to tackling the conference’s theme, they could have done with some more time for that one.
The most memorable quote of the day came right at the end “I’m for abolishing institutionalised education” which got quite a few cheers.

The speakers did their best to tackle the theme of the conference, but as the final curtain fell I was half expecting Johnny Rotten to burst on stage – “ever had the feeling you’ve been cheated?”.
That said there was definitely a lot of good stuff going on, but they might want to come up with a more fitting name next year.

Tony Blair Hangs With Arnold Schwarzenegger

I saw this on TV last night and just had to take a picture of it, as it could have come straight out of a movie. Tony Blair standing next to a video link of a ‘larger than life’ Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Check out Tony’s smile – classic.

Click picture to zoom.

Shane Cross (1986-2007) RIP

This morning I heard the sad news that Flip, Globe and Volcom teamrider, Shane Cross, has been killed in a motorcycle accident in Australia.
Ali Boulala was at the helm, he lost control hit a wall. Ali is in hospital and his condition is critical.
Shane’s pop-shuvits were butter, he will be missed.

Click here for the police media release, and here for some old footage.

—- EDIT 28/04/08 —-
Ali Boulala has been sentenced to 4 years in prison with a minimum of 2 years. More info here.

Gonzo (3 Feb – 10 March)

Over the weekend I went to the South Kensington to see the new Michael Hoppen Gallery’s photographic exhibition ‘GONZO’.

Although not exactly packed with photographs, it was most definitely packed with people, and in true Hunter S. Thompson style things were getting smashed.

This is a rare glimpse into Hunter’s private world of Hell’s Angels, handguns and a particularly unsettling image of a naked, toilet dwelling female; wearing the famous Nixon mask.
It is the first time that these private photographs, of and by Hunter, have been displayed in Europe.

The exhibition coincides with the release of a retrospective book, ‘imaginatively’ dubbed “GONZO” and published by Ammo books. Hunter’s widow Anita Thompson keeps a blog here

“We go out like this all the time”

A little while back I did some t-shirts, for a Glaswegian band called The Dykeenies. I spotted these two wearing a couple on valentines day, at Camden’s very own Koko. Apparently they “go out like this all the time…..”

Inklings

Meet my latest ink drawings.