I recently worked on a new site for ESPN’s Wide World of Sports with the good people over at The Concept Farm. The sports complex which use to be known as Disney’s WWOS was recently overhauled and completely re-branded into ESPN WWOS.  Along with the new re-branding they needed an updated web presence to match the brand and style. The conclusion was a clean and slick website with a bit of an edge.  The site that allows users to register / view upcoming events, explore the complex and browse through an extensive collection of videos and photos. 

Everyone’s favorite online award website, The FWA, has recently relaunched with a completely new look. The site reminds me a little bit of the new agency websites that every company has been hauling out in the past couple of months but none the less it’s a refreshing look.  A couple new features have been thrown into the mix as well including the Dock, which allows you to sign in and save some of your favorite sites.  Public Vote has also been added and as the name sounds it allows people to vote on recent submissions.  Of course, there is the social networking aspect as well that allows you to tweet and facebook the winning sites. 

I was going through some files and came across these unused pieces I did earlier this year for a client. Getting in the holiday spirit, these are up for a free download for anyone that can find use of them.  Not sure where they would fit in but perhaps some sports related work or icons.  These are completely customizable .ai files (illustrator). Download here. 

A friend of mine recently came across an interesting photo shoot for Empire Online’s 20th Birthday Portfolio.  The one image that grabbed his attention was the shot of Gerard Butler (Right) dressed in business casual attire holding a spartan shield.  I had a similar idea that I created last year for a Cinemax campaign (Left) that featured the movie 300 as well.  The concept was an everyday person imaging themselves as a spartan in a modern world.  Anyway I think it’s kind of cool seeing a illustrated version and a closely related photograph.

A little late on this but the Underworld Rise of The Lycans, the last project that I worked on while at Big Spaceship has recently won a Pixel Award under the movie category. 

Jing’an Temple

Escalator in the middle of nowhere, part of my walk to work

Drop coins down this for good luck?

Well, where to begin.... My first week of work here in Shanghai has wrapped up and it’s been a very interesting experience thus far to say the least.  Adapting to the whole culture and trying to learn as much about it in a short period of time with a limited amount of Mandarin vocabulary is really something.  I am very surprised at how many Foreigners I have seen so far, they are really all over the place.  For the most part the first few days have been pretty routine, not that it has to be but mainly because of my lack of transition into the new time zone. So far my days have looked a bit like this.

6:50 - 7:30 am : Wake up pretty much on my own which is surprising considering how much I sleep in, in NY.
8:45 - 9:30 am : Grab a coffee at the local cafe (Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf) and people watch a little bit before taking the short 10 - 15 stroll to work.
10:00 - 12:00 pm: The usual work stuff.
1:00 - 2:00 pm: Go out and eat with a group of people from the office, they normally tend to hit up the very local places which has no English on the menu.  The food is always good but since I can’t read I normally just get whatever somebody else gets, but again the food is great.
3:00 - 7:30 pm: Return to and finish up work.
9:00 pm: At this time my body tends to crash on me and that is when I go to bed haha.

I haven’t had too much time to explore yet except for today and just a little bit last night, but so far so good.  I’m looking forward to seeing more around this place and I will try to post more often than once a week.  Check out my Flickr for more photos of Shanghai. 

In just a couple of days I will be departing U.S. soil across the world to Shanghai, China for a couple weeks to do some work.  This will be my first time working out of the country and I am not sure what to expect, except that it should be very interesting.  Working in another country I’m sure will have its challenges but I am excited to see what comes of it.  First will be the language barrier, I’m expecting most things to be written in Chinese so I hope with the help of the iphone, internet, and some apps, I will be able to some how navigate my way around the city. Then, with the contribution of not understanding foreign currency, eating food that is not seen in the U.S, visiting unusual places and working in a all Chinese environment, all these should help make for one hell of a trip. In between a busy work schedule and trying to adjust to the time change (13 hrs) I will try to post as many photos / news as possible.

If anyone has any advice about anything they would like to share that would be great.

99% recently posted a pretty interesting video on renowned graphic designer and partner of Pentagram, Michael Bierut. 

D&AD has launched a new search engine site titled “D&AD | Creative Search” that sends back results from Wikipedia, blogs, Google images, Flickr, YouTube, Amazon and more.  Most of these features are already being used similarly in one way or another on other platforms but D&AD shows the results all on one simple and easy to navigate site. 

If you are in New York today and have some time, the Cut & Paste Global Championship is taking place at theHammerstein Ballroom at 7:00. Ticket prices are $15 online and $20 at the door and please note this is a 21+ event. 

For the first time ever the Andy Awards is looking to the people to help themElect The Jury for the 2010 award show.  You can select up to five nominees that are currently listed or you can suggest a nominee to add them to the already pretty impressive list.

Over the past couple weeks I worked on some new features / changes for mtvmusic.com.  This site is constantly being updated to help enhance the overall experience of the site and I’m glad I get to work on all the additional features that come through.  Some of the changes include the a new more prominent home page marquee, a search drop down menu that makes it easier to find what you are looking for, and also changes to the video page.

Since summer has official ended and change is in the air, I decided it was time to change the look of my site sametomorrow.com as well.  Although the layout is somewhat the same, the color scheme has changed as well as some other small tweaks here and there. I cleaned up the CSS quite a bit, well as far as I could for someone who doesn’t code and also a couple new projects are up. Any comments, suggestions, hates, feel free to let me know. Thanks. 

Things Drunk People Say is a great book that features a bunch of overheard drunk quotes that have been collected and separated into 4 categories: Getting There; Going...Going; Gone; and Morning After.  Each quote is interpreted as an illustration making this colorful and humorous book a great coffee table item or just simple a good read.  This book was published by my friends girlfriend, Kathleen Go and is distributed by Skyhorse Publishing.  I’m glad I got to participate in this project as I was asked to help create a couple of illustrations for this book along with a couple of other people.  The book is now on sale at places such as Urban Outfitters, Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Pick one up today!

I first came across a great blog post the other day on David Airey’s site that highlighted the recent interview Debbie Millman, president of AIGA, did for No! Spec.  After seeing the post on David’s site I decided to read the whole interview of Debbie and her take on spec work “speculative work”. Like many other top talents in this industry she is strongly against it.  The interview is really informative and she states the obvious reasons and her personal take on why people should not do spec work.  Some of the reasoing is other professions such as doctors would never even consider spec work but in the design indusry somone is always willing to work for less or for free in hopes of winning a pitch or bid and in doing so it’s harming the industry standards.

The next day I just happened to come across another topic on spec work and this one was by Eric Karjaluoto and his disgust at Tim Ferriss for his recent book cover contest.  For those who do not have time to read the whole post, in a quick summary Tim who is known mainly for having a well publicized book through his social media efforts recently held a design competition in search of someone to design his next book cover, awarding the winner a holy lump sum of $250.00 for their efforts.  This did not come across well for Eric and in his post he does a great job of breaking down his reasons behind his shredding of Tim. 

After reading these couple of posts on spec work it got me thinking from all point of views on this subject.  For one, I am against spec work as well, it takes most designers a good amount of time and effort when preparing for a project or commissioned proposal or pitch.  Like with any other craft it takes years of practice and experience for a good designer to get where they are and to do something for free in hopes of winning the project makes designers seem pretty disposable and possibly desperate for work. I can see how this not only brings down industry standards but also harms the whole industry.  I have to admit while I am guilty of doing spec work in the past (only 1, in my younger days) I have entered a few competitions or created something for submissions. In the past I never really considered this as spec work, since most of the contest there is no money involved from the beginning and is mainly for exposure.  Also with some of these submissions you can enter work you already created so you are not necessarily spending a great amount of time particularly for the contest. Thinking back on it now, could this possible be another way of spec work just reworded or phrased differently? I’m not sure but I have a feeling it’s leaning in that direction.