I JUST stumbled upon a great find! Composition is a local boutique store serving up some fresh stuff for creatives. It looks like they have some great items, the likes of which you’d be able to find at places like veer.com. With items like Pantone Mugs, rePurposed messenger bags, a great design book selection, and some über nice contemporary furniture; this is definitely a place to check out. I love seeing this sort of shop, and local to boot!

A side note, they have a really slick site. Semi-transparent png overlays and expanding horizontal sections make this a treat among eCommerce sites. Seeing how much care they took in their online precence… I can’t wait to drop by the store. Check them out at www.shopcomposition.com.

Well, I’ve done it. I purchased my first home and have relocated myself and Ryu Graphix to the RiNo district of Denver.

RiNo (River North Art District) seems very cool so far. I’ve mostly been dealing with moving and getting everything situated, but I’m hoping to wander around a bit over the weekend. After a look at their site I can see I’m in some good company (I knew I liked the place for some reason!)

Moving myself and my design studio has been a breeze so far (aside from 2 weeks without internet… gotta love forced vacations). I’ll be posting some photos up in the next week or so. Just wanted to say a big hello to the FireClay Lofts and RiNo Art District!

I just wrapped up the layout for the Denver Roller Doll’s 2009 Calendar. Entitled ‘School of Hard Knocks’, the calendar will not only showcase the skaters, but also help to educate people on the rules.

I myself have been to a few bouts, and tried to figure out what these girls are doing?! How do they score, why did it stop, what’s with this Dumptruck guy? Hopefully this calendar will answer some of these questions.

Working with the Denver Roller Dolls, Disco-a-Gogo, and Angela Death, we explained a new penalty or action each month. This was a super fun project and the ladies were a pleasure to work with. I can’t wait to see the printed product!

This 13 month, action packed calendar will be available soon. Contact myself or the Roller Dolls for more information.

Check out my profile here if you’d like to support me and my quest to raise some money to help at-risk youth: http://www.mustache4cash.org/users/386. Every little bit will help, and this is the final week.

To commemorate our journey, we took a group shot today. That, plus about an hour in Photoshop and we have the image below. Hope you enjoy! Write a comment if you dig it, or stop by my profile and share some monetary love! Happy Friday.

(Click for larger size)

For the last month, I had the pleasure of working with the great team at Successful Living; helping them create collateral for their sponsorship of the Susan G. Komen, Race for the Cure.

Successful Living is a company and magazine created to show you how to live the life of your dreams: balanced, inspired and rewarding.

We created event banners, table pyramids and throws, as well as t-shirts (for staff and runners). Check out some images of the awesome staff and booth below. Working with Successful Living for this event was a lot of fun! Thanks guys, and keep up the great work!

You can track my progress here.

IF you want to join this debacle… our team is the HAIR Foundation — we’re up to $120 so far!

Ok, I bit the bullet and bought the Photomatix HDR software. I’ve learned how to do the HDR conversion in photoshop and they turned out really stunning. But, I couldn’t leave well enough alone.

I read countless reviews when first learning about HDR, and found that most people recommended the Photomatix software, but similar results could be achieved with Photoshop. Not wanting to pony up the $99 price tag, I told myself I was content with Photoshop.

That obviously worked.

Here I am, 1:45 am, trying to pry myself away from this damn thing. I usually dislike the über saturated HDR images you see floating around the net… but man, there is something gratifying about doing that to an photo. I can see how this can be used for evil. Enjoy…

“The Rooftop Sessions” 19th and Pennsylvania, Downtown Denver

“4th in Ned” Nederland, Colorado

Ryu Graphix and I are finishing up initial branding of Bright Media Group. Working with them closely we developed their new identity, consulted on interior design of their new office space, and will be wrapping up with branding collateral.

I’m going to briefly go into the creative and initial concepts, as well as the final logo.

The brief stated that they didn’t want to include the colors from their other company’s logo (reds/oranges) and a few keywords that came up were: innovative, cutting edge, trend setting, savvy, approachable, and knowledgeable. Their other brand is very strong, so our challenge was to craft and equally solid concept that would compliment, but live it it’s own vein.

Check out some thumbnails of the initial concepts below, so can see some of the variations. They were all done in black and white so the client wouldn’t be distracted by color schemes just yet.

Then I added some color variations to the 2 concepts that made it through to the second round.

Narrowing those down, we came up with the final pictured here. It works very well reversed and in 1 color. It’s a versatile solution for any future uses.

I’ll be posting an update in the near future when their identity collateral is completed, along with shots of the office and the process and for the interior design.

Just a quick post about some new event sites we just launched. Ryu Graphix and I worked with Breakthrough Management Group International to create some very simple, eye catching sites for events they have coming up. These are based off the same template, and allow for a city skyline images to be used, as well as multiple dates if needed. Take a peek if you’re board and let me know what you think:

BMGI: Recession Proof Your Business
BMGI: Chief Innovation Officer

A quick recap from the Manifest Hope show at the Andenken Gallery and an adjacent warehouse during the Democratic National Convention.

This was truly an inspiring art showing. I genuinely feel moved, more than I have by politics anyway in the past — it was very cool seeing so many younger people getting involved and showing their support. Yes, we can!

The show featured many artists from around the country as well as local ones. Featuring Shepard Fairey’s wildly popular “HOPE” poster of Obama, that has become a grass roots symbol of support for the campaign (I picked up one of the free prints that were available). Also showing were Nike Air Force Ones with Obama’s portrait, embellished by Van Taylor; Ron English’s floor-to-ceiling “Abraham Obama” panels, and work by Mac, Gary Baseman, Sam Flores and Ray Noland.

It was very cool seeing Shepard Fairey there while I was, and hearing about all the other artist and celebrities that stopped in. Check out my Flickr post with much more full sized images, or just see a taste below. I hope you enjoy as I did.