I am off to Europe for a couple days for a much needed vacation (kind of). This is my first time there and I will be stopping by Paris, London and Amsterdam.  The blog will be taking a break as well and will resume when I get back…

A quick summary of this story is basically that a freelancer working out in LA agreed to do some work for a studio and after both sides agreed on a deal memo the agency decided not to honor the contract and to throw a wrench into the situation by trying to stiff the freelancer out of the total agreed upon amount.

I first came across this article on Motionographer and later decided to read further into it on the freelancers blog post here.  What makes this story interesting is not the fact that a freelancer gets jipped out of pay because I’m sure this happens alot, but because of the way the freelancer deals with the situation and how he stands up against the sometimes intimidating agency and fights the company in court. 

As a freelancer myself, luckily I have not had to deal with this situation to this severity but I can totally see how this can be a huge issue. 

I finally got a chance to test out my 5D Mark II last weekend and so far so good.  The quality and speed of the camera is a huge improvement from my old 10D.  I took this photo of a homeless man outside of an abandon building that I’ve seen plenty of times around Lower East Side.  I always thought it was just an abandoned building covered in graffiti but come to find out this building is pretty popular and has quite a history and is better known as 190 Bowery. Click here to read more about the building and also see photos of the interior which are amazing. Also I have a larger photo of the image above on my Flickr that’s not cropped. 

What a crazy, busy New Year it has been so far. I just finished moving this past weekend and I’m glad to finally get that out of the way.  Work as been going well and again sorry for the lack of update on my projects, I have been waiting for projects to get completely finished and therefore haven’t been able to upload any work but there are definitely things in the pipeline. 

Also, I finally purchased a new camera after having my Canon 10D for over 6 years. I have been eyeballing the 5D Mark II like like a kid in a candy store for the past year and a half and I’m glad I decided to finally get one.  I haven’t had a chance to really test it yet but hopefully sometime this week I can make time to do that. I also picked up the 16-35 L lens for this camera which I have seen some awesome photos produced by it. 

Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is quite a strange and bizarre concept but some how it’s kind of fascinating.  Basically, and I’m not sure who would do this but it deletes all your social networks in a very short amount of time as oppose to doing it yourself manually.  The design itself is very 2.0ish and trendy which makes the whole site a bit gimmicky. Nonetheless, if anyone is tired of being stalked, harassed or spammed to death on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and some reason LinkedIn this is your chance to erase yourself from all the social networks. 

I hope everybody had a great New Year’s, I don’t have too much to say at the moment as I am still trying to settle down and get the hang of things again; it’s been quite some time. I will be a pretty busy the first couple of months in 2010, I have some projects that are kicking off and I have to find a new place by next month.  For those not living in NYC, locating a new place is pretty hectic and can be quite stressful.  But beyond that I am hoping to get a couple of personal projects completed this year, a new blog, site, personal work, etc. as well as continuing to work for major brands and expanding and meeting new clients. 

I just wanted to wish everyone a safe and Happy Holidays this year. What a crazy year it has been despite the slow economy.  I would like thank everyone that I had a chance to work with this year and I look forward to seeing what 2010 brings. Have a good X-Mas and New Years.

Adam

I just got back from Shanghai the other day and I’m trying to adjust to the time difference, jet lag, minimum sleep, weather, you name it and most likely I’m trying to get use to it again. I know I have failed to keep this blog fresh while I was away but now that I am back things will change.  Anyways, for those in the design or creative industry we all come across creative blocks at some point or another.  What we do to get out of this situation is completely up to the individual but for those we may need some extra help, check out Creative Block part of the Monomoda Network.  This slick and clean site offers design ideas (words of wisdom) to help you get pass those long moments of blank. 

First of all I apologize for not updating as much as normal these past couple of weeks.  I know since my last post I said I was going to updating more but obviously that has not happened.  I’ve been pulling in long hours at work this whole week and I think next week will be more of the same.  However, I have been able to go out and explore other parts of the city a little more on the weekends.

Like New York, Shanghai has a huge pallet of cuisine and food that is quite cheap and really good.  The local places may look dingy and dirty but don’t let that fool you from tasting what they have.  The night life so far has reminded me more of Meat Packing District spread across China. Every place seems to be very clubbish with hip hop / techno (house, drum&bass, whatever) dominating the music scene even at so called dive bars. Some places are more laid back than others and the crowd is different as well but you can always be sure that the music is pretty much the same, in a scary way you almost start to get use to it.

Shark tanks are apparently pretty popular here as well, I saw 2 giant ones at 2 different clubs and one in the subway.  Unfortunately, there was one dead baby shark lying upside down on the bottom and I overheard someone say it was taking a nap and I don’t think they were kidding around either.  This upcoming week should be quite interesting as Thanksgiving is approaching and this will be my first time celebrating it outside the U.S (I’m sure the Roast Duck will be replacing the Turkey this year).  I have more photos uploaded as well, either click the ones above or view them on my Flickr here. 

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. 

I recently noticed a couple places have started to develop circus crossings which are cross walks at 4 way intersections that allows pedestrians to cross the road in any direction (straight, right, left, diagonal).  The way it works is that all traffic will come to complete stop for a couple of minutes allowing people to quickly maneuver across the intersection.  I think this is a great idea and I’m sure soon enough it will be adapted to other major cities such as New York.  I’m not sure if you are like me but waiting to cross the street can be a pain sometimes, especially if you have to cross one way wait for traffic to stop and then cross another direction. This will definitely speed up the waiting game.

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.

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. 

Where The Wild Things Are will probably be one of the biggest films of the year and I can’t wait to see it as I am sure many others are highly awaiting the anticipation as well.  There has been so much hype about this film already that I will not get into how great the story is, or that it is one of the best children’s book of all time, both of which is true but I’m sure everyone already knows or heard.  Instead, I am linking to a site where you can stream the soundtrack for free and listen to the soft mellow tunes of Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and the Kids; including band mates, Brain Chase, Nick Zinner and two members of the Raconteurs, along with a children’s choir of course.  I know some people were expecting Arcade Fire to be included in this, since they were the original band you heard in the first trailer of this film but to my knowledge they are not part of this soundtrack but could possibly be included in a e.p. 

A while back I posted a video about the vendor client relationship, this one is along the lines of that one but slightly different.  I definitely can relate to this video and have been through much too familiar situations as I am sure many of you have.