Spotted in Key West, FL.

“It’s been exactly a year since The Items We Carry, a flickr group, was started by designer and photographer Naz Hamid. It’s for photos of the small things we put in our pockets or on our persons — the essentials we need to function daily at a basic level.

This week, we’ve invited Naz to JPG, to run this interesting challenge within our community. So empty your pockets and show us what you have! We’ll play by his rules—if you don’t have pockets and say, are a lady, then your purse may serve as your pockets (no bags otherwise)—and Naz himself will be guest editing this challenge!

If you did this challenge on flickr last year, do it again, and link to your original photo. What’s changed since then?

This challenge will be open for one week and will close on July 30, 2008.”

Do it!

Update: The selections I made have been posted which are also available as a PDF download. Thanks to all who participated.

Last evening, I attended the Field Tested Books: Live in Chicago set of readings (NYC, Monday!) and had a great time. I’m not the biggest fan of readings depending on the pedigree of the reader or readers at hand and there are certainly some who delve into Freebird jam-band territory¹ but last night’s readings were on point.

The material at hand helps: short, brief, concise narratives held together by a common topic with a relatively similar structure. Easily digestible, easily enjoyed and no wankery.

That said, some writers are born to be writers and not readers. Or rather, public speakers — in the sense that there could be some showmanship involved. Years of live music and good showmanship have spoilt me in that regard. There were some definite highlights though: Bryan Bedell’s delivery and humour, John Tolva’s phoning it in from Ghana, Jonathan Messinger and Wendy McClure as always knows how to close a show down.

Much props and love to the Coudal crew as always.

My photos from the event are here on Flickr, as I field tested the rented Nikon 18-200VR lens (which I am decidedly not fond of) and the noise and blurriness get worse as the light gets super low. Apologies. My prime 28mm f1.8 should have been on deck.

¹ A zinester reading a few years ago scarred me when the reader used a candle to emphasize her point by lighting it then diffusing it. Bleah. ↩

The Girl™ taught me how to sew. I’ve wanted to learn for years. My mother tried teaching me when I asked as a very young child but was far to complex for my 11 year old mind at the time. I’d watch her make a variety of things over the years — anything really. As the years have gone on, it’s one of the skills I’ve always wanted to add to the toolkit. From my own selfish reasons¹ to other exploratory ones².

With much joy, I learned how to thread the machine, insert the bobbin, and go to town. We’ll see what comes about.

¹ I’ve hemmed a lot of my t-shirts — I wear smalls in shirts but am not as tall as your average American male and so I find most stock t-shirts too long for my liking and torso. ↩

² Making bags, wallets, containers, things that I’m curious about.  ↩

While this is from Stephen King’s On Writing, I think it applies to the digital realm equally as well, especially given that the computer itself provides a variety of distractions in the same place.

If possible, there should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If there’s a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall. For any writer, but for the beginning writer in particular, it’s wise to eliminate every possible distraction. If you continue to write, you will begin to filter out these distractions naturally, but at the start it’s best to try and take care of them before you write. I work to loud music — hard-rock stuff like AC/DC, Guns ‘n Roses, and Metallica have always been particular favorites — but for me the music is just another way of shutting the door. It surrounds me, keeps the mundane world out. When you write, you want to get rid of the world, do you not? Of course you do. When you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.

Jim Coudal kindly asked if I’d like to be guest editor for Fresh Signals for the month of May over at Coudal. Who could say no to that? Expect the usual items of fancy, delight and wonder. And perhaps a WTF or two.

My parents instilled a sense of fashion into me as a child. I grew up surrounded by piles of Vogue and more of their ilk. My mother and sister rattle off designer names, as familiar to them as their own family. My father aligns himself with designer names that simply sound aristocratic — Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Valentino and their kind.

I resisted their call to fashion, opting instead to embrace the styles of skaters and snowboarders, hip-hop and grunge. Despite disappointing my parents when I’d wear the nice striped shirt and slacks only when I had to attend a function of some kind, I soaked up the magazines and the names and more importantly cultivated the eye for what made clothes look good.

My family would probably chuckle today and be proud. That I’ve finally over the past decade, come to embrace a good cut, a fitted shirt, a proper pair of pants that fit and a shoe collection that women I have known have been surprised to see, almost jealous in some cases.

I like to watch trends. I keep an eye out on what the kids are doing these days — currently, I’m not too happy with the selection of American men’s fashion at the affordable level. The classic brands have remained preppier than ever and the rest are going with some kind of hip-hop indie hybrid comprised of chunky Nike dunks and tight jeans matched up with your father’s blazer on top of either a striped t-shirt (either slanted, horizontal or asymmetrical), a striped sweater or cardigan or some other pattern variant (houndstooth, herringbone, etc).

I’m personally a man of solid colours and clean cuts. The Europeans have long been prescribers of this aesthetic, as well as some of the Asian countries.

Menswear is described by many as hard to do — there’s a limited canvas to seemingly work with — masculinity is measured in finite terms and the clothes, made to match. Very few designers and companies make menswear that I feel push the boundaries even a little bit, re-inventing old classics into new silhouettes and shapes. There are a few I do like though.

Earlier this week, Trent Reznor released Ghosts I-IV, a 36 track (or a traditional split of 4 albums) collection of instrumental music. It forms a soundscape of moods, atmosphere, moments and volume. It’s a highly interesting experiment in regards to Reznor pulling a Radiohead but how good is the actual music? And how does this set the tone for distribution?

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Today is the official launch of Patternclash, the site of photographer Francesca Tallone. We’ve been working together on the site in bits and pieces over the summer and amidst a few domain and host issues, have everything sorted out.

Francesca has in the last year, been featured as part of Surface Magazine’s Avant Guardian portfolio — a selection of stateside photographers who are recognized as pushing the boundaries of commercial photography.

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I’m back from my excursion to Key West, Florida. A few days before I left, I made a photo containing items I use and carry on a daily basis — the essentials to function. I made the photo with the intention to use it for the redesign I’m working on for Weightshift but did use it as a splash page for the temporary studio closure.

I had an inkling that it might be a decent group but it wasn’t until my SF brethen Daniel Dent and Gareth Spor proposed the idea in public that I decided why not?

The Items We Carry was born.

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The still-fresh, brand spankin’ new relaunch of AIGA.org has had a lot of well-deserved press around the web. The Happy Cog crew did a hell of a job.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have now been involved in the design processes of two major AIGA redesigns in different capacities. The first time around when Flat redesigned the national website, I worked under Behavior with Khoi Vinh to come up with designs for the Design Forum. This time around, I was again, fortunate to be pulled in to work on the AIGA redesign, but not on the public-facing website, but rather under the hood and behind the scenes on AIGA.org’s CMS interface.

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