I’m making some birdie drawings and shapes for a pattern.

This is really awful, but I decided to invert my laptop screen today (ctrl+option+apple+8) to see how my digital world would look. It’s… pretty bizarre. It’s kind of an exciting change, although I’m not sure if it’s going to affect my eyes in some sort of awful way.

I then decided, that I would see how my website artwork looks. Mostly, it’s really hokey and stupid. BUT IT LOOKS SO…. what’s the best word to use in high school terminology….

…SWEET.

That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. I selected my favorite inverted pieces, all you have to do is hit those amazing set of keys to live the magic.

CTRL+OPTION+APPLE+8
One special bonus, I found a picture of myself on a website (which will not be named). MY HAIR USED TO BE SO LONG. It was actually inverted on said website, so you’ll have to see it normally to appreciate how long my hair was. I think this was either Junior or Senior year of high school.

IMAGE OVERLOAD:

A bonus fact: I painted this exact inverted self portrait to put in my portfolio, to bring to National Portfolio Day, to show to MCAD. I’m 100% sure this piece is why I got accepted. It obviously proved that my level of creativity was through the rough.

The title of this post comes off a little sarcastic, but it is NOT meant to be! I spent some time this afternoon and this evening working on a card for my relatives back in Michigan. I actually got birthday cards this year from two aunts and uncles, so I figured I should make them a card in return (my birthday is in May, I’m ridiculously late making these).

I’m going to print one out for each of my aunts and uncles though. Just to let them know I’m thinking about them and let them know how I’m doing, without mentioning my unemployed status. I think I’ll steer clear of that subject.

I basically copied took quite a bit of inspiration (QUITE a bit) from this book cover. I just couldn’t resist! The color palette, the typography, the imagery- all beautiful. The cover was illustrated by Will Staehle, who is an amazing-amazing-amazing artist/designer/illustrator. My piece comes NOWHERE near the incredible-ness of his book cover. But I do like it; very chilly and winter-y. Maybe it will keep my relatives in a cool state of mind so they don’t overheat this summer.

I really like those balloons- how cute! I also am pretty fond of the font: Museo. It’s a really fun style to work in, silhouettes and outlines with flat colors, I’m curious to see if I can somehow work it in with my drawing/painting style. Perhaps an experiment!

Hey, Shambot. Er…

Hello everyone! I was going to keep this a secret, but I figured it would be better to involve everyone so it’s not a selfish way for me to get you guys to like me (even more! :D)

I’m putting together a book of the best Shambot posts to date. At first I just wanted this project to be a way for me to practice my typography. I thought our blog is a good source of text and image so I was going to lay out a few spreads and play around with things. But I actually think it would be a super fun project for us all to come together and work on. I’ll be doing the layout of the book, but if you guys want to contribute photos, descriptions of older photos, drawings, maybe footnotes? (like what happened after this post was initially written) that would be really awesome.

Right now the images above are just some dummy spreads I put together. Although, I do like the cover since it is our logo/fav icon. The five names that I have in the ‘table of contents’ at this point were the authors of posts that were my initial pick. They weren’t necessarily my favorite but they all had a good amount of text and some cool images. For example, here is the spread I made for Ben (using the original title of the blog post):

It still needs a bit of work. I’m not sure how I feel about the images lining up directly with the grey box. But it feels like… kind of cool and hip to me. Not sure if that’s a universal feeling. You will also notice the comments section over on the right side!

If you guys are interested, I guess we need to go through and pick everyone’s favorite posts. Seeing as we all have quite a few pages of history, don’t go crazy with it. Just kind of browse around and let me know if you find anything that absolutely needs to be in the book. And when I say book, I do want to get this printed somehow. We can all have a copy and reflect on how cool we are. Maybe there could also be a bio section. Who we were when we first started the blog and what we’re up to now. INTERESTING.

Also, if we did a yearly collection HOW FRICKIN’ COOL WOULD THAT BE? I think everyone needs to start posting on Shambot MUCH more often. Me included. Then we’ll have more to choose from in the future for our anthology.

EDIT:// Help me write the intro thing on the table of contents! I’m bad with words. I forgot to change Cedar Rapids to Iowa City. Listing the cities might not even be important.

Ben and I wrote a short song, and recorded it on a Hitachi LevelMatic:

Mom’s Tape Recorder from billbill on Vimeo.

Sorry for the crappy video. My digital camera isn’t the best.

I was home a while ago, and found an old tape recorder in the basement. Apparently my mom used it when she was younger. I’m not sure what for, because most of the tape somehow got sped up and the audio is distorted. I had chance copy the entire tape onto a hard drive, so all the memories are preserved. There is however, a really beautiful song still intact. I think it was my uncle singing to one of my aunts. It’s him playing the acoustic guitar and the quality of the recording is unbelievable. It’s very haunting and romantic. There is also a cute, but also a little creepy recording of my brother singing the ABC’s. I can post that later if I get the audio from Chance’s hard drive.

So, apparently there is something interesting going on over on YouTube. You can download the Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros .mp3, and make a lipdub for the song, then upload it to flightlipdub.com. Popular clips are selected and are going to be played on HBO. You can check it out here.

I… would like to do one. As embarrassing as it will end up being, I think it will be fun! The deadline is Jan. 25th.

I think this one is hilarious, although at times fairly inappropriate:

Okay, so for the past couple days, I’ve been working on the following image:

I’ve been taking it fairly serious, and I can honestly say that I really do like this image. I know it’s silly and maybe a bit crazy, but in terms of a designed piece I actually like how it’s working. The bright colors, the glowing shapes, and the typography, I think, are all pretty cool.

Unfortunately, I may be a bit blinded by something, possibly those bright candy-colored orbs. Is this a good piece, or a cheesy, awfully photoshopped image? I was so into making this ‘illustration’ (I’m not really sure what to call it), that when I was told that it looked hokey I was flabbergasted. So, I need some brutal honesty. Should I frame it and hang it on our wall, or erase the files and hope potential employers and clients never see it? I can’t say I won’t be heartbroken, but I’m going to appreciate the vision correction.

Hey, it’s been like a week right? I’m posting again, sorry if I’m annoying.

Monster Clock from billbill on Vimeo.

Trygve and I started a small little project called Second Hand Clocks! Mostly his idea Totally his idea, we’re working together to recycle old clocks and clock parts and using them to make designer art pieces! I’ve painted two already, Trygve has one in the works, and Emma will be starting one soon. We’re going to get in touch with local artists and designers to make their own, then sell them online (with the artists getting the profit). Currently Trygve is working on the website and I’m still trying to get the logo worked out.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2009!

I made a cake over the holidays. Fondant is weird, but really fun to work with! I only had a few pieces but it tasted pretty good.

I should have made it Christmas themed, but I picked yellow and pink for some reason. I’m looking forward to more experiments in the future.