07.02.12

Changethethought News

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We just wanted to post a brief message regarding some internal news at the Changethethought studio. We are planning on releasing a lot of screen printed posters over the coming months and will be stocking our store pretty heavily over this next year. We will be sending invites out to selected illustrators and designers that have been posted to the blog to participate in themed group poster shows and releases soon.

So we are currently looking for a reliable US-based screen printer or screen printing company to handle our upcoming projects. We prefer someone who has access to a mechanical screen press since we will be doing a lot of larger format prints (24×36 inches) and the illustrations we plan on printing will be extremely detailed. So we need ultra-tight screens and consistent quality throughout the run. We hope to foster an ongoing relationship with the printer we select since we will be doing a lot of printing from here on out.

Please contact me personally at chris(at)changethethought.com if you are interested in referring a screen printer.

Also we have one more brief note to mention. We recently joined Instagram and you can follow us @changethethought.

We are also again accepting and actively seeking projects for the Changethethought production studio in branding, identity, graphic design, illustration and motion. We recently paired the studio down to a smaller boutique and can once again accept smaller budgeted projects. Contact us if you have a project you would like to discuss with our studio.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

06.25.12

Changethethought & Friends of Mine Part

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After a nearly 4 month engagement with the emerging Denver motion design and FX studio Friends of Mine, Changethethought has decided to part ways and return to it’s operations as an independent multi-disciplinary creative studio and creative brand. The decision for Changethethought to leave it’s partnership with Friends of Mine was a result of a desire to continue to push CTT further as it’s own creative brand that can live outside the scope of an entirely project-driven studio. As a result Changethethought will be moving it’s emphasis more towards freelance art direction and consulting for advertising agencies, branding, graphic design, package design, illustration, animation and motion. Projects will soon be underway to generate several new items in the Changethethought storefront to help inspire opportunities for artists, designers, typographers and illustrators that have been featured on the CTT blog to sell goods developed in direct collaboration with CTT.

Friends of Mine is quickly developing into a powerful production studio in Denver and will continue to do so. We wish FOM all the success they deserve and will continue to support their efforts.

Currently Changethethought is seeking projects, collaborations and ideas for print, branding, graphic design, illustration, motion, art direction, advertising on the blog and the development of content for the blog. Please contact us at hire(at)changethethought to discuss your next project or desired collaboration with CTT.

Thank you as always for your support of both the blog and the studio.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

04.19.11

CTT Site Down

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We are currently experiencing intermittent disruptions to our server because of a problem with our hosting. Apparently the problem is being addressed and should be corrected by tomorrow morning at the latest. We will finally be moving Changethethought to a dedicated server after this issue is resolved. On behalf of both myself and my studio, I am very sorry to both the readers and our clients. There is currently nothing we can do other than wait for our host at Onewebhosting to fix the issue. Apologies again and we should be back online and in full effect shortly with more content funneling into your RSS.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

02.25.11

Changethethought – Flickrfolio

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We have been getting pretty crazy about updating our studio Flickrfolio lately. In the past 2-3 weeks we’ve posted a grip of new work on almost a daily basis. I have personally been working on several new ongoing self-initiated illustration projects just to stretch my legs a little. I’ve been diving deep into psychedelic art lately and some of the work definitely reflects that. So keep an eye out because we are using Flickr as our place to just dump whatever it is we might be up to for the hell of it.

written by Christopher | tags: , , , ,

12.23.10

Merry Xmas Licorice Stick-Style

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Licorice Stick from Comedy Centrals Chocolate News – watch more funny videos

We just wanted to say thank you for visiting our blog and continuing to support us. This next year will no doubt be one for us to remember. My wife and I are having our son in February so I’ll only be a month into 2011 before my life will change in a gigantic way. I have been joined by two amazing partners this year to embark upon launching the Changethethought studio and we have already worked on some exciting projects for some big brands this past year. We are looking forward to what is coming next in 2011. My Partner and Executive Creative Director and I have to share our favorite studio lightening video from the past few months. Anytime we are stressed, tired or frustrated we play this brilliant skit from David Alan Grier as pornstar ‘Licorice Stick’ Mayfield sharing all of the famous porn sex positions that he invented over his ‘long’ illustrious pornstar career.

It’s a strange little gift from us to you, but we really do wish you all happy holidays and are excited to see where we will go in 2011.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

03.05.10

Changethethought Seeking Developer

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We are currently ready for the next phase of Changethethought and are seeking to partner with a developer for relaunch of our website. We have a reasonable budget for the project but want to put a new and different kind of blog on the web as well as extending the look and reach of our creative portfolio. We will be contacting potential developers to work with privately as well. However, we feel there is a unique opportunity here to ask our audience, who are comprised of some of the brightest minds in the creative industry if they would like to work with us on the new site. We can guarantee a high level of exposure as well as the promise of producing something that will be noticed for years to come. We intend to continue running the website on the WordPress platform but are seeking to work with someone who can integrate key commands and jQuery into our new design. We will help drive the design but see this relationship as a creative partnership. You will have insight into the creative process and design as well as developing the final site. This is a chance to try something new that you haven’t had the chance to do for your corporate clients. Our website is the single most important aspect of our growth and is of the utmost importance to us. If you or someone you know might be right for this project please email us through our contact section. Please note, we are not asking for free work here. This is a paying project.

written by Christopher | tags: , , , , ,

12.15.09

Changethethought Business Cards

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My letterpressed holographic foil stamped on black Plike card stock business cards are now up for viewing in the print section. I apologize, I am not a photographer but you have to trust me when I say they look much better in person. So far everyone I have handed one too has been excited to receive it. They were printed by local Denver vintage letterpress studio Foils and Dies. Thank you to Rob for helping me achieve the colors from the Changethethought website in physical reality. The holographic foil has a long wavelength so when held up to a light source you can really see an amazing array of color.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

10.14.09

Changethethought On Holiday

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Well, it’s time for my first vacation in something like two years. I will be traveling to Sunderland on Friday evening to attend the Think Tank show at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art. I will be in Newcastle for a couple days after that and then on to Barcelona for 5 days, then Berlin for a few days and maybe Hamburg or provincial Northern Germany. I will be traveling with my wife. I hope to rekindle some romantic fires and find some new inspiration. I have some big plans upon my return. I will be redesigning then hiring someone to redevelop and then relaunch the blog. I have an account now with Media Temple as well, who will be sponsoring the hosting for Changethethought now. I will be moving over to their servers when I return from my Holiday.

I want to say thank you for all of the sincerely amazing submissions that have been rolling in lately. I have seen some amazing things and beg you to keep them coming. Many more of the posts now are coming from user submissions and I hope that number continues to rise. I also wanted to apologize for any unanswered emails or forgotten posts. I have been overwhelmingly busy this year between my work for Cactus, my new house and Changethethought. I am doing things I love right now though and that is all that matters. I work with some really wonderful people who make me laugh everyday, and I have been surrounded by and speaking with some truely talented and inspiring people this year. All of this is a real blessing.

I have added some new Editors to the site in the last few days and hopefully there will be a few posts while I am away. It is a full time job posting as many things to this site as I do, so I don’t expect that from my Editors. That is my job. Expect that job to resume full throttle upon my return and thank you so much for your support. Keep those submissions coming and stay tuned for more.

You can download a wallpaper for your iPhone of the above logo treatment (minus the type at the bottom) right here. Just click and hold on your iPhone and save the image. See and speak with you again in two weeks.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

07.13.09

Changethethought – New Work

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I am still trying to work out some new ideas for illustration. I have been drawing up a storm lately and finishing the coloring of the graphite drawings in Photoshop. I have gotten some interesting results lately and you can check them out in the illustration section.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

06.17.09

Ctt Technical Difficulties

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I want to personally apologize for the site misbehaving periodically for the last couple of weeks. The current traffic numbers have become to high for my host to handle under my current plan and consequently they have been shutting me down until I upgrade. Unfortunately the cost is now about 5 times higher now than when I started the site and I am looking for a better host. Currently the site is averaging around 200GB of exchange/bandwidth a month and growing each and every month. My current plan allowed for 20GB.

So the conundrum arises. I am now on the market for a new host. Changethethought has grown enormously over the last year and is now reaching a very large audience. So I need a host who can handle a growing site and would be interested in potentially marketing their services through the site. I have tried hard to keep the site ‘ad free’ but the expense of running it is starting to worry my wife and I. I didn’t really realize just how crazy this was going to get. Good problem to have I guess but now I have to find a new way to handle it. Any and all suggestions welcome and thank you for visiting. New and better things are on the horizon.

I am currently considering Media Temple but am still not sure.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

06.06.09

Reinvention

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I was browsing through some of my older work today and for some reason it struck me just how much my work bears influence from things I have seen. I spend so much time looking at other creative work that sometimes I feel over saturated by it. You start to pick and choose and push and pull the elements that you think people want to see and what you think will gain favor. Unfortunately, without even realizing it, the end result is that I end up producing work that resembles things I have seen and like much too closely.

A lot of times I will kick off working on something by gathering inspiration and then starting out. After I have started on something, I cast aside the inspirational resources and work until I feel I am done. After that, I usually never look to the inspirational sources again and trash them. Its not until much later that I will sometimes stumble across something on the net or in print, that I realize just how close some of my work turns out looking like whatever I looked at before I started working. I have always had a powerful memory and I used that memory to get through classes as a pre-med/chiropractic major for the first couple years in college. I switched over to design later in my studies. It’s a great thing to have, but sometimes I think it hurts me because I take a mental note of something and am able to recreate something I have seen very quickly and easily (just from memory).

So I end up being a junk man, a collector of influences and images with no real original or individually recognizable feature. I am growing as a creative and a designer just by continually working, but in order to reach something that is really my own, I need to push away from my current process and do something completely different. One of my greatest influences in the past was Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant). Although I still have a lot of respect for Shepard and always will, I am not sure anymore if I agree with appropriating imagery and inspiration. I think the real objective of an artist and a designer (creative not commercial), is to reach something that truely represents you as an individual and carve out your own space.

As a result of this questioning and searching, I will be cleaning house. I am going to be slowly casting out things in my portfolio that I think too closely resemble things I have seen. I will no longer be appropriating imagery or collaging appropriated imagery into my work. I will still be blogging like a mad man, but I am pushing away from the computer when I start working on my personal art and design work. I am picking back up the pencil and starting there. Hopefully, a change will begin to emerge in my work that I have been seeking and my real identity as a creative will begin to finally emerge. That is my end goal. This won’t happen overnight. It will be a slow process but in time I think my creative work will take on a completely different aesthetic that belongs entirely to me.

I have never hidden myself from public scrutiny on this blog. I wanted it to be something different. I wanted it to be something that helped me grow as an individual, artist and designer, but also share that growth and inspiration with my peers and the world. I think of it like a conversation I am having with a very large audience. It helps me to state my intentions and bear my flaws and mistakes. I just want to hit the reset button on some of the things I have done and turn over a new leaf.

As a result of this epiphany, I will be culling down my print and design work and casting out the things I think don’t represent my new ethos. And eventually, I will most likely pull my work from the site, and continue Changethethought as a source of creative inspiration while housing my studio work elsewhere (Changethethought studio, if you will). I am no where near what I hope to achieve as a designer and artist and I hope committing to this new model will push me where I want to go faster.

Again, thank you for visiting the blog and being a part (even if it’s just spectating) of my growth and journey as an artist and designer. I won’t bore you with my inner-struggles anymore. Back to design porn.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

04.13.09

Artcrank Denver Recap

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Artcrank went amazingly well this weekend in Denver. There was a massive turnout and the posters sold like crazy. They were priced very reasonably, I think the most expensive being $30 and the least $10. You can see some photos from the event here and the Minneapolis event here. I think I came close to selling out my poster (pictured below in red, white and blue).

You can still visit and buy posters from the Denver show until May 2nd. Don’t miss your chance if you really want one because a lot of them are almost gone.

You can see some images of the posters created from the Minneapolis event here and the Denver posters should be uploaded sometime in the next couple of weeks. As soon as they are I will let you know. The image above my poster is the poster that was created by the almighty poster Gods, Aesthetic Apparatus for the Minneapolis show.

I am considering reprinting my poster in a different color to sell through my store but haven’t made up my mind yet. So until then, stop by Artcrank here in Denver if you really want one. Word is the show will be traveling to a new location featuring local artists again from that specific location.

Stay tuned for more.

written by Christopher | tags: , , , , , ,

04.03.09

Going Dark

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Changethethought will be a little slow for the next week. I am moving into a new house and will not have internet on my property the following week. I will still be posting during the day though. So think more 3-5 posts a day as opposed to the normal 8-10. I will be back in full swing the week after, once I have established a connection.

Don’t worry though, I will still be doing all I can to bring the news next week. This weekend will however be slower than usual. Thank you so much for all the support lately. The blog has been receiving a huge volume of traffic the past few weeks and that has been great thing to watch happen. I promise once I am settled that I will come back stronger than ever and keep trowling the internet to find every scrap of interesting material I can find.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

Artcrank – Denver

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ARTCRANK is a new art exhibition hitting the Denver scene that will be showcasing bicycle-inspired original poster artwork that you can enjoy looking at and actually afford to take home. The show rolls out in Minneapolis this Saturday, April 4, and in Denver next Saturday, April 11.

A good friend of mine here in Denver is helping host the show at 8pm this next Saturday. You can see my poster above (the red, white and blue one). I screenprinted them here in Denver. I did a little overprinting and was pretty pleased with how it came out. It is one of those posters that reads different up close and at a distance. I suggest standing back about 10 feet. I printed 39 (kept one for myself) and the rest will be available signed and numbered at the exhibition for $30. I did a really large print (18×24 inches) so it will take up a nice chunk of wallspace. I decided to go old school on this one and toss out my sometimes heavy digital style. I am the worst Colorado resident ever gracing the mountains only a few times a year so when I ride my bike, it is usually almost always in the city. But that is kind of the way I like it (haven’t ridden hardly at all this year though).

My good friend and occasional CTT blogger, Aaron Ray of Legwork Studio also did two really nice prints that you can see above as well. Great work Aaron.

If you would like to come out and have a beer with us next Saturday we would love to see you and meet you at the show. Below are the details. Plan on a party. Oh and ride your bike. I will do another post next week to remind those of you who might forget.

ARTCRANK Denver

written by Christopher | tags: , , , , , ,

03.19.09

Changethethought: Poster Show

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Alright, this is a little something different. Let’s face it, it’s a tough time right now and a lot of us are hurting. That’s just an unfortunate fact. So maybe there is a way I can help and we could all work on something together.

This is probably a big announcement to make to the amount of people that read this blog, but I am currently about to purchase a home here in Denver, Colorado that actually has a small private art gallery separate from the house in the backyard. The deal isn’t completely done yet, but if it goes through I will have that space to start doing some exciting new things with through Changethethought.

I have been watching the Omega Code project evolve and have really just been amazed by how many people have contributed. It’s insane really, and I think it shows there are just a lot of people out there who want to collectively contribute to a project to have the opportunity to just be totally creative and get there work out there in front of a larger audience. I also think the small parameter of having to only use the  Omega Code logo gave everyone a subject to start with but still express their own individual brand of creativity through that subject.

So, I am not officially kicking this off yet until I finish buying my home, but I was thinking… How would you out there feel about creating A3 sized posters using a template with the Changethethought logo (pictured above only in a simpler black and white version) in whatever way you choose?

I would be curating the poster selection and featuring the work permanently on a Flickr page similar to the Omega Code. At the end of the submission segment of the project, I would choose 100 posters to show at the Changethethought gallery at my new house. This might not all take place until the end of this summer or early next fall but each artist could then ship me up to 50 of their posters (25 minimum) that they could then sell  at the gallery. The gallery would keep 30 percent of the sales for tubes, entertainment and shipping so the profits could be mailed back to the artists in the show.

I think it might be a really cool project that would bring some art from all over the world to Denver and offer some people who may not have had the chance to sell some of their work. You could print your poster however you wanted. Digitally or screenprint, it would be totally up to you. The poster would need to use the Changethethought logo, but that would be it. The rest would be up to you. The 70% profit made from the sale of your poster would then be shipped directly back to you as soon as the show was over. I would keep the show running for several weeks to a month giving as many people the chance to purchase your work as possible. I might also be able to put the posters up for sale via the Flickr page for a limited time so people could purchase them via Paypal. The point being, that as much money as possible would go back to the artist.

I am just throwing this out there because I may or may not be able to do it yet, but I would really like to know what you think about the idea. Leave a comment after this post or send an email via the contact section and let us know. Best wishes to all of you out there in these difficult times. Keep your heads up and keep creating. I appreciate your support of this blog very much and thank you for reading. I hope to do more for you in the future.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

03.12.09

Changethethought Illustration

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I am still working hard, bit by bit at building my illustration portfolio. I was really obsessed with deep sea creatures last year and spent some time doing some very detailed graphite drawings of squids. I have always found them fascinating. This was created using one of those graphite sketches. More to come. You can see a closeup in the Work/Illustration section of the site.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

02.19.09

Ctt: New Work Posted

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I posted a couple new bit of work to my print portfolio last week. The first poster was a personal project based on a drawing I did last week. The second, which involves a set of 3 posters that you can view in the print section as well were for my friend and fellow Ctt blogger Aaron Ray and his band Peña. Aaron will be selecting one of the posters to screen print for his upcoming venue on April 11th at the Larimer Lounge. If you are in Denver plan on stopping by to have your socks rocked off. Posters will be available for sale at the show.

Right now I am beginning work on a new illustration style combining pencil drawings with digital finishes. I want to build up an illustration portfolio this year and see if I can start getting some illustration work under my belt.

I am currently seeking freelance work to keep growing as a creative and polishing mys skills so please email me at hire(at)changethethought.com if you are looking for someone for your next project. I am also still looking for someone to represent me for both my illustration and design work. Any help on that would also be greatly appreciate and as always thank you for reading Ctt.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,

02.09.09

Yay! Thank You!

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Just wanted to say thank you to Yay Everyday and Yay Monday for the links on their websites, both of which I check often and consider fantastic sources of information. Someone over there picked up on what I have been laying down last week and linked me up on both sites. I usually try to check Yay Monday out at the first of the work week every week and was really excited to see my work posted there this week. Thanks guys.

By the way if you are looking for my work on this site you can find it by clicking any of the following: Print, Illustration, Personal, Apparel, Typography.

written by Christopher | tags: , , ,