Changethethought added a new editor this week. Justin Blyth joins us from Amsterdam and will be dropping in from time to time to load the syringe for an injection of creative inspiration. His work was featured earlier this week and wrote to express an interest in contributing to the blog. Thank you so much justin. You can read all about Justin here.
If you are interested in contributing to Changethethought, just send 3 links to something you think would fit into Ctt’s content along with a link to your own site. Send your emails to hire(at)changethethought.com
Comments Off on Changethethought – Vision QuestCtt News
I am working on a new digital collage project I am calling Vision Quest. It is based on nature, spirit animals, the quest for identity and the balance between technology and living in harmony with the natural world.
That was a mouthful. Anyway, don’t expect them to be complete for a couple weeks, but the first installment is pictured above. I think when these are done, I will finally be printing a new round of posters. I will most likely be doing 3 of these but I may end up doing 4. You can see more detailed images in the PRINT section.
I am also currently seeking a new hosting sponsor for my website. I would also really like to do another project for music. So if you or someone you know is in a band and needs a poster design or album art send me an email. You can email me about hosting the site or hiring me for your music project at hire(at)changethethought.com
Comments Off on Changethethought for Omega CodeCtt News
I finished my Omega Code poster today and sent it off to their open call for submissions. I was super impressed with what people were creating and really wanted to be a part of it. I designed the poster to specs, sized at B1 (close to 24 x 36 inches) at 300 dpi. There were close to 80 layers in and it weighed in at almost 7 gigs. Photoshop wouldn’t even allow me to save it at one point so I had to go back through and crunch everything just to be able to save it.
I actually really like their music and wanted to create something a little darker that suggested mysticism. I felt like something like that was really appropriate for their sound. A lot of my work used to slant to the darkside, and I have lightened up a lot in the last few years. Mellowing with age I guess but I still remember my rock days of lore. So when called upon I can bring the heavy metal thunder.
Comments Off on Changethethought Print: UpdatesCtt News
I have been working hard on some new prints for this year and there are a couple new bits and pieces in my print portfolio. I am still working on several new prints and should be printing some new posters for 2009 sometime in the next few weeks. I will also be printing some larger format posters (18 x 24 inches) including the poster shown above. I am also working on a very large format print (A1) for the DATA (Designers Against Tibetan Abuse) show that will take place this summer. If I am not mistaken the show will be in London but don’t quote me on that. I may even try to attend since I have yet to visit London and desperately want to do so.
Thank you for your readership. There has been a big upsurge in traffic which has been great to see. I promise to keep this thing rolling as long as you are out there rocking. Thank you.
Comments Off on Changethethought News BriefCtt News
Well, 2008 was an insane year. So much happened that I did not expect. I set out, very deliberately, at the beginning of last year to start a whole new version of the site and really push myself both personally in my own work, and also strive to hunt down as much content as humanely possible to create a legitimate blog that can serve as a real source of daily inspiration for the modern designer. It wasn’t easy since I work full time as an Art Director at an advertising agency, and it has been straining many times, but it has been worth it. The site has come so far, and I have plans to keep pushing it further.
Just before the holiday I got word that Uptown Magazine will be publishing a special double issue (2 covers) for the inauguration of Obama that feature two of my illustrations. Currently I am also working on a new television spot for the Colorado Lottery . I also re-concepted and art directed along with all of my hard working friends at Cactus, the new version of the Own Your C campaign along with a new version of the website for which I am still pushing for further development. Thank you to my new writing partner Lee for all of his work on the new campaign. The OYC work included 5 new T.V. spots created with the amazingly talented people at Lifelongfrienshipsociety. I had more fun working with them this year than probably any other project I have worked on. NYC is amazing. I cannot wait to go back. I was also asked to contribute a small piece and make some predictions for trends in 2009 by Computer Arts Magazine. You can see and read this in the current issue (also pictured above). I also appeared in the 50 covers/50th issue of Advanced Photoshop Magazine U.K. this month. I am currently working on printing a new series of A3 posters and continue (outside of my day job) working on creating new posters and work (a recent poster is pictured above).
I am still looking for new partnerships both for the site and for new creative projects. I am still seeking a art/design rep to help me secure more design/illustration work and am always looking for new freelance projects. My work at Cactus is going very well though and I feel blessed everyday to be working for such a tremendous agency and be surrounded by so many talented and kind people. I plan on staying there with people I truly care about for some time.
I am just perpetually interested in growing as a creative and a person and that means taking on as much as I can handle. I will also be pursuing my acting career more aggressively this year and will be getting my first head shots soon. Basically, I refuse to sleep until I pass out.
I am also currently shopping for a house and have decided to hunker down for a while in Denver. Its beautiful here. Its an up-and-coming city and I want to be a part of making it a better place to be a creative.
2009 is going to be a big year and don’t let the media get you down. We can make the world better and turn things around. We have before and we can do it again. Stay positive and keep creating. Thank you so much for the support and keep your eye out because Changethethought is going to charge on.
Happy New Year everyone. 2009 is going to be a big year, I can feel it. It will be a big year for me personally but I also hope it will be a turning point for America and hopefully the rest of the world. Playtime is over and now we have to own up and start kicking in to make this world a better place for future generations. Lets get started in a big new way this year.
Thanks for seeing Changethethought through 2,063 posts. I promise much much more this year. Thank you and have a safe and happy new year.
Well it is that time of year again, believe it or not. This year flew by and what a crazy year it was. Who could have predicted our current state of affairs.
I will be heading into the very heart of the American midwest today where I will not have a connection to the internet until Sunday. So, I will be signing off for a few days and wishing all of you a happy holiday. Thank you so very much for your support this year and for visiting the blog and subscribing to the RSS feed. I promise to keep beating the cyber-pavement this next year to find anything and everything I can relating to design and all things creative to keep your inspiration tank full.
Happy Holidays everyone. I’ll be back in front of the screen this Sunday and from then on will continue to flood your feed with news and links.
So I was working on this psychedelic triptych, just for the hell of it, and finally finished it last night. I threw it in my personal section because I wasn’t really sure where else to file it. I hope you dig it. I think for my next round of posters I may print these up. If anything, just because I want to hang them in my own home to freak people out a little bit. Most people aren’t accosted by introspective art every day and I like to put some in my home especially in private places like bedrooms or bathrooms to force people into that zone where they have to confront themselves a little bit and think. We may take that for granted because so many of us spend so much time plugged into the current of digital art and culture but most people have yet to enter that space. So, it is easy to take them off guard and I love to see how they react to work like this.
I want to do a few things this next go round with my posters that are a little less direct and more open to interpretation. I hope you dig it. If not, that is fine too. Its art you know. You can’t please everyone. These were digitally-collaged using found imagery.
They are loosely based on the concept of identity, memory and the infinite nature of the space-time continuum.
2009 is going to be a good year. I can feel it. Expect a lot of new work and a better website (if I can find the money to upgrade it). I am going to bust my ass this year like there is no tomorrow. And there may not be a tomorrow with 2012 around the corner. You never know.
Comments Off on Changethethought on FacebookCtt News
Alright this isn’t exactly the most important news I have posted recently, but I have finally turned to the Facebook darkside. It is even more addictive than everyone warned me it would be.
Needless to say at this point, I have started a Facebook group for Changethethought where you are welcome to suggest topics or discuss things related to graphic design or anything else you might be interested in that effects your life as a creative. And thank you so much for reading the blog up until this point and also for all of you have been so kind as to send me news about your work or something you have found that you would like to share with others. It has been a rewarding experience thus far and it has only just begun. I hope to learn even more about you on Facebook.
Outside of Changethethought and trying to be a decent husband to a very supportive wife, I also work full time as an Art Director for an advertising agency in Denver called Cactus.
We have been working over 2 years on what I would now call a ‘health awareness’ campaign called Own Your C. The campaign was originally aimed at teen smokers, but we wanted to keep the message broad and empowering versus fear-mongering, polarizing and condescending. We thought if we could make it cool and rebellious to be intelligent and responsible versus being dumb and reckless, we might be able to make a difference in helping young people make healthy choices. We are still knee deep in it, and so far it has been an amazing ride.
This year we wanted to turn a corner and start trying to utilize the campaign to get young people both in Colorado and out of Colorado to start engaging one another and talking about the things that are important to them. We are still in the throes of rolling out that idea and the hub of the campaign is the newly launched ownyourC website. We saw the internet taking a pretty hard shift since the campaign started. The internet is finally emerging as a communication tool that has real power to be something young people can use to communicate and proliferate their own culture right under the nose of babyboom generation. So as opposed to fighting it we decided to go there with them and start steering the campaign in that same direction.
We worked with Lifelongfriendshipsociety to help create some quick 15 second spots that would speak to younger viewers about what they could do at the new website and ‘announce’ that the campaign had evolved. We felt it was also important to do something dramatic to attract new people to the campaign. We decided to transform the old ‘destination’ website into a ‘platform’ where users could create their own space on the site and defend their ideas by sharing their choices with their peers. Agencynet was responsible for building the website and they really poured themselves all the way into the project, as did LFS, and we were so happy to get the chance to work with them both. Amazing talent was represented throughout in terms of the creative.
Like I said the campaign is under constant development and as it evolves we are learning more and more about our audience, their ideas and needs. So far it has been a very rewarding experience and I have been really excited to be a part of it.
Comments Off on Changethethought: New PostersCtt News
I have been working hard lately on several new poster ideas. I have put some of the results up in the work section of the site. I have a new Obama poster that I want to get ready for the inauguration. The poster measures in at 18×24 inches and is 4 screens. I actually want it screen printed this time and I am looking for a good screen printer (preferably one here in Denver, Colorado). If you know of one please drop me a line. I am also working on another series of smaller A3 posters as well. Two of those you can see in the Print Section of the site. One of which is a revised version of an older poster I did a few months back. I am working on 2-3 more of those as well and then I will be doing another run of A3 posters. Probably sometime within the next month. The other posters are just a personal experiment I have been working on lately collaging found imagery together to create psychedelic landscapes. You can see two of those in the Personal Section. More of those to come as I get to them. I probably won’t print those but who knows.
Also, I am still seeking artistic representation (an art rep) to help me find new projects. I am also still planning on rebuilding the site sometime in early 09 and I will be looking for relevant sponsors and advertising. If you would like to take a look at the traffic numbers and are considering advertising please send an email to hire(at)changethethought.com.
Basically between Changethethought and my 9-5 job as Art Director at Cactus, I am busting it pretty hard right now. I love what I do though and that is why I do it. I will also be working on a new television commercial right after Christmas and we just released our new series of commercials for the Own Your C campaign also. Lifelongfriendshipsociety did an amazing job on the spots and I will be getting them up on the site, along with a full right up on the new direction we chose for the OYC campaign this year in the very near future. You can actually see the spots at Motionographer right now.
Thank you for all of the emails and support. Full steam ahead.
Comments Off on MCA Denver: Applied Ideas 3Ctt News
I will be speaking tomorrow night or today (November 21) depending on when you are reading this at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art as part of the 3rd installment of the Applied Ideas discussions. I will be speaking alongside some highly respected peers in the local art and design scene including:
I would especially like to thank Ian Coyle for inviting me. I will be speaking in an open discussion forum about style in a post internet design environment, overexposure to the perpetual internet design community, design for designers (or designers as an evolving consumer group), and possibly design in the emerging global economy (depending on time).
Please do stop by if you are in town and check it out. I apologize for not writing about it earlier but this week at work almost killed me and I have just not had the time to sit down and compose.
The discussion begins at 7:30 and you can find MCA Denver here:
1485 Delgany Street
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 298-7554 Get directions
I was recently asked by the lead singer of the local Denver band (and a really good band in my humble opinion) to design a two screen poster to announce the release of their latest 7 inch EP. I hadn’t designed a rock poster in a long long time so I jumped at the chance. Although it wasn’t really needed and the budget in no way called for it, I really went to town and kind of went nuts working up different ideas. I rarely get to sink my teeth into something music related so I felt like I had to get as much out of my system as possible. You can see all 7 versions of the poster now in the print section of the site. The band likes the giraffe mandala poster so that is the one which will most likely be printed. I’ll let you know when and where they will be playing if you would like to pick one up.
For more information about the Hot Iqs, you can visit their website.
So a local artist and designer, Josh Holland, was kind enough to bring this to my attention yesterday and I can’t say I was all that happy about it.
Apparently an Illustrator thought it was O.K. to steal one of the posters from my Obama download section and sell it back to Newsweek for the above article. I would never have known about this had it not been for Josh contacting me. So far, I have been unable to get my hands on a copy of this particular issue of Newsweek since this is the prior issue (marked October 20th) to this weeks November 2nd issue.
Yes, the posters are available for free download on the site, but there is clear copy before every download declaring that downloading the images and files does not pass on copyright ownership or distribution for point of sale rights. I can’t believe an illustrator would have the gall to just steal something like that and use it without even annotating where they got the image from. Furthermore, I can’t believe a publication like Newsweek would not even check to see where the image had come from. If you would like to send an email to Newsweek letting them know it’s not alright to use other artist’s and designer’s work without permission you can do so at this email address or just click on the image above this post.
I am trying to contact Newsweek now to let them know I am not o.k. with them using my imagery without permission. I’ll let you all know how it turns out. Yes, I created the posters because I wanted people to have free access to signage and I do realize that I am of course using Obama’s image for this. That goes with the territory, all I am asking from Newsweek is a proper credit.
I put some larger images of some of my more popular apparel designs back into the Apparel section of my work portfolio. I thought people might want to see the designs at a larger scale since they are kind of hard to see on the shirts.
I am also working on a new series of posters for a local Denver band who is releasing a new 7″. There will be some updates on that soon.
Comments Off on Changethethought Election Day SaleCtt News
In light of the recent downturn in the economy along with the upcoming election, I decided to drop the price of the Obama Commemorative posters by 20 dollars. From now until the day of the presidential election the posters will be priced at $30. Also, up until election day, if you order an Obama poster you can choose ANY of the other posters (currently priced at $18) on the website and receive them with your Obama poster for only $10. Again, all of the posters are signed and numbered.
I have just posted several new works in the Print and Illustration sections of the site. I have posted a new poster set titled, ‘Live Fast & Die Young’ as well as the first two in an ongoing 50 part study I have embarked on using nothing other than simple geometric forms, single colors and Helvetica. This study will take some time and doing but I thought it would be a good way to pull me back to the basics of Graphic Design.
I have also a fun illustration I recently created for Cactus about the greatest haircut ever dreamed up by mankind, as well as the small ad campaign I created for the Toofy Film Festival.
I am also considering running a special on Obama Posters starting one month prior to the election. Stay tuned for that.
Comments Off on Obama Commemorative PosterCtt News
The large format 24 x 36 Obama Commemorative Posters are now in the official Changethethought storefront and are available for purchase. These posters were produced with the utmost attention to detail out of respect for Barack Obama and all that he has achieved. This poster was featured and sold at the Manifest Hope show at the DNC in Denver, Colorado.
The posters are produced in bright vivid color and will easily fit a standard American-sized poster frame. They have been printed on extra heavy durable 80lb Mohawk Felt paper which gives the print a canvas like texture while holding true to the color. Every single poster has been signed and numbered. A limited quantity were printed and several have already sold at the Manifest Hope show. The posters are selling for $50 dollars a piece and a percentage of the profit from every sale will go towards the Obama for America campaign.
You can purchase one here. International orders and credit cards are accepted. Posters are shipped in durable heavy .125 inch thick tubes to prevent damage during transit.
