Flickr is a great resource of art and photography, with 2-million-plus images just in the “art” tag as of this writing. To help spur creative discussion and get people to look at designs in a critical way, I will post installments under Flickr Reviews on a periodic basis.

Let’s see what we have today:

Posted by sensesmaybenumbed: photo of graffiti artwork, original graffiti work not copyrighted by photographer.

This is genius. What’s the message behind it? “Oh thank heaven for 9/11?” What a morbid thing to claim. Or is it? Did it take a few buildings and lives to make us aware of our own mortality and position in the world’s popularity contest? I hate to think those lives were lost and we did nothing to learn from the situation. Perhaps this is just a clever adaptation to the popular chain’s logo to remind people all the ways 9/11 affected the economy and social attitudes of America, but it’s a great discussion point for extrapolating the residual impact of the nations worst tragedy since Pearl Harbor.

Posted by greglas, “Dave Sleeping”, sketch.

I really like this sketch. At first, I had to click on it to see it wasn’t a fast sketch of a dead person in some horrific accident. The mouth is ambiguously positioned so it looks either like it’s hanging open or the figure has really big lips. The accents of the strokes and angles suggest a very limp, drooping subject, almost blending into the floor in slumber. A framed sketch like this is ideal as a sleep aid in a bedroom; as humans are biologically suggestible, often people will get more tired if there are others around them sleeping.

Posted by Kai_Lvx, “Brisbane art”, photograph, subject is not created or copyrighted by photographer.

This is an obvious addition to a busy downtown economy. Aussies are the fussy Europeans of the Pacific, and art such as this supports the need for environmental persuasion to be happy about shopping. The structure looks like it is made out of a metalic material, most likely polished steel, and is most prominently identified as a walking figure with arm outstretched. Note how the head is looking up and the arm is curved downward, suggesting it is offering a friendly arm-over-your-shoulder. Seeing this reminds me of the hometown feeling some shopping districts offer, welcoming both tourists and residents a comfortable, hospitable experience in each shop. It also suggests that the local economy wants visitors to feel proud and excited to be a part of that area, whether that is as a worker, volunteer or a consumer. Can we put one of those in downtown Portland?

There are plenty of ways for musicians to gain notoriety in the mainstream market, or even to widen their audience. For music labels and critics, there is a standard formula for success, and even if they don’t admit it, the three main ingredients of this formula have to be balanced to ensure a band’s full mainstream potential. Here we discuss those ingredients and how to make them work for your band’s needs. (Note: This is not guaranteed to get you a contract or a new fan, because you still could suck.) Read the rest of this entry »

Most bands who get started with a bang do so through great marketing and addicting talent, and Portland-based Silversafe is no exception. With all sorts of little notes in various small social networking sites, a Google search completed on February 16th, 2008 shows 1310 results, and most are relevant. That’s saying something for a band that only got its start less than two years ago. And more importantly than that, they are listed in all the right Web 2.0 ways. Read the rest of this entry »

I have neither supported the numerous insane proposals for the use of hemp to replace every single tangible thing in the universe or been big on the production of the marijuana plant in general. I have, however, just recently purged every CD case I own because I have CD spindles and a large CD tote that I keep all my CDs in. That’s almost 50 pounds of petroleum-based plastic heading to a landfill because there is no local place to recycle said unusable refuse. With downloadable songs and MP3 compilation CDs burned from a home computer to run in an MP3-compatible CD player, the pressed music CD is becoming rapidly outdated. Consumption of music is increasing in volume and speed of adoption. It is more likely now to make it in the music industry with nothing more than MySpace samples and a CDBaby account than it is trying to hock your plastic discs at the local Sam Goody.

CD cases were originally created from plastic for a number of reasons. For starters, they were three-dimensional surfaces, meaning they had 6 sides on which to attach labels and indicators, A better idea when stacked because you can see the names of artist and album easier. The tray also had a spindle, called a hub, that was specifically designed to allow a snug fit and avoidance of surface-to-surface contact between the disc and the tray which could cause scratches if dust was present. Finally, it was water splash resistant, meaning if you splashed liquid onto the surface of the case it wouldn’t damage the case itself, ensuring the insert and CD were protected.

CD cases, called jewel cases, have had some drawbacks, however. Other than the fact that there are few places that recycle the plastic, the cases had small, weak tabs on the arms of the front cover that would easily break if dropped or hit. The hub, usually made from a series of thin plastic tabs in a circle made to bend in and release the CD for use, would often break, making the hub unusable and the CD bounce around in the case.

Hemp cardboard or pasteboardwould be an interesting tactic to replace petroleum-based CD cases. There are other paper-based options that would also make sense. The bottom line is that natural fiber packaging would be more sustainable for the music industry than plastics. And the outdated process of vinyl record recording and packaging proves that it is not unheard of to pursue this kind of initiative. Records were protected from scratching by a paper sleeve within the cardboard cover, primarily because the cover was produced with soft fiber that tended to not only hold foreign particles on its inner surface but hold an imperfect inner surface that itself would have caused scratches to occur. There was no hub to separate the surface of a record from the cover, and so even inserting and removing a record in a case was potentially harmful to the medium.

Sustainability means finding viable opportunities to reduce our footprint on the environment. Cardboard cases have been in production for a while now. The next step is to make them an industry standard and find alternative materials that would reduce the amount of wood-based pulp used in production. If not hemp or kenaf (a member of the Hibiscus species), then at least 100% recycled cardboard. The last measure in that initiative is to develop with the plastics industry a central repository for jewel case recycling.

Support sustainability in all industries, and reduction of frivolous production practices in the creative industry!

Carrie Iverson is presenting an installation of prints on paper and “prints in fused glass” at the Bullseye Gallery on NW 13th Ave in downtown Portland until February 16th. Fused glass? Sounds interesting, but web images are making the installation confusing. Read the rest of this entry »

McMenamin’s White Eagle Saloon on N Russell St (off N Interstate Ave under the I-5/I-405 interchange bridges) is having an open mic and songwriter showcase on February 10th at 7:30pm. Tired of whiny pop wanna-bes on American Idol? See live ones! And actual singers too, by the way. If you’re one of those, I have some ideas to make the most of this free-admission showcase. Read the rest of this entry »

TravelPortland.com posted an event notice for the Independent Publishing Resource Center’s one-day contest during their open house on February 7th that pits escritor al escritor, or writer against writer, for the prize of best rat-writer. Read the rest of this entry »

For my normal readers:

In an effort to prepare for some upcoming professional changes, as well as clarifying the intent of this blog, I am separating my posts into two specific blogs. My ThoughtRyder blog (here) will review the creative industry, including marketing, art, music, media, business management in the field and the creative community at large. Joe’s MySpace blog (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog&pop=1&ping=1&indicate=1) will cover personal news, political views, social issues and other musings. Please refer to the appropriate blog for your preference. Please note that both blogs will be updated as much as possible but the MySpace blog may have more frequent posts.

Thank you,

Management

Happy birthday to me.
It’s a birthday for me.
No sleep and I’m working, but…
Happy birthday to me!

(And many moooore… across the floooooorrr… you geeky whoooooore…)

On September 7th, at about 10:55 am, whilst eating a vending machine sandwich in the break room of my corporate master, the Colbert Report was playing on the telly. A commercial for Clark College here in Vancouver, WA, cut into the national ads, and I didn’t pay much attention… at first.

When the background music started, I immediately recognized it as being one of the tracks from Redshift’s latest album, Any Given System. Redshift, as I have written before, is a very familiar band to me due to Tyler Chen and Gabe Kniffin, the drummer and lead guitarist, respectively, and good friends of mine. I am happy to see our local heroes have secured even more commercial clout with advertising soundtrack selection. It’s the mark of a commercially-acceptable band, being able to rock it out and promote a business. This is good news for the band, who is on hiatus while the lead singer completes another leg of his education.

For more info on Redshift, check out http://www.redshiftband.com/ or the band’s MySpace page.