You're staring at sneaker culture.

A few weeks ago i made a trip up to Portland Oregon to connect with my roots, it was brief but quite productive. The little time i had was cautiously distributed between the lady, family, friends and of course Nike. The second day into my trip I met the footwear design legend, Tinker Hatfield. The meeting was brief but definitely MAGICAL. We spoke about our collaborations in the present and past, as well our backgrounds and interest! He's probably one of the most humble and highly respectable figures in the design world! This is the man who defined sneaker culture world wide, the reason you see tents in front of sneaker stores in the middle of NYC... filled with kids awaiting a Jordan release. You're staring at the guy who designed Jordan's 3-15, and some of the hottest AirMax's around!

New & Old

So we haven't really put much effort into focusing on Creative Session swagger. Most of the apparel we make are purely small runs of free swag-give-aways to promote CS identity as artist & designers.  If you've been following our design journey you'll notice we mainly put more effort into physical / feasible product designs being that we are Industrial designers. We feel it's time to put more attention into an apparel line. With interest and demand of a few print pieces we've put out, we're setting up shop. Keith will now be wearing even more hats here at the CS lab. He'll be the main driver for all the apparel that's coming from us. Anh and I will improvise while still be mainly industrial designing. --

Last night we had team bonding and screen printing time. Decided take a break and  refocused our attention away from our current projects and knocked out all these sweaters and long sleeve shirts. Winter is coming and I know most people would appreciate a comfortable lazy sweater.

Here are some photos from last night. We should be setting up a shop page soon.

All photos taken by our good friend Paul Vu : Check out his Blog and Website

five-minute doodle: "Protect your dome piece."

D&A - Logo Round 1

The family Drew Soto Amado up in PDX reached out to us a few weeks back to talk about starting a prestigious gentlemen clothing label called "Distinguished Anarchy" We kicked around a few ideas, store concepts and his mission statement:

“Distinguished Anarchy is a prestigious gentlemen brand emphasizing urban living (lifestyle). Drawing inspiration from various outlets to provoke thought, you can expect Distinguished Anarchy's products to be carefully crafted, sensitive to current events, sophisticated yet playful. chivalry prevails- stay gentle-man."

Although this is rather an early stage for Drew to be showing any product we've been banging out logo ideas for the brand. Check out some of the early concepts (they may or may not change.)

UPDATES:

Serendipity Social Network Dream

Background Story: I've decided to sit down and revive this project that I worked on in the past; I've procrastinated for a very long time in finishing some minor edits to the video. To those of you who have seen the "Serendipity" concept video, you should know that the video quality in the export sucked!!! There were so many cool details that were left out because of its poor quality. But worst of all, I used some demo program to publish the video so I had this huge watermark logo masking the whole video. Although it's subtle and you have to focus hard to notice it, it irks my design blood.

Serendipity article in "Time Out Dubai" Magazine Also featured on Core77

So lets get started:

A photo collage of the prototypes. Gives you a sense of scale.

At the time I was reading Orwell's 1984 and I was totally fascinated by the similarities between the book and social networking. Abstractly, we can use a social network like Facebook and/or MySpace in a "big brother" type of way. I wanted to embrace this scary thought; could we flip the negative connotation into something friendlier and fun? Is there a way for surveillancing to be experienced equally, then would we all be jaded and living socially be welcomed?

Scroll to bottom to see video.

I was solely interested in connecting people and social networking was one of the first tools to help with this. I am uninterested in pointless relationships, so how could we connect people who have simliar interest or maybe enjoy similar hobbies. I wondered in what way can I filter out the bullshit and connect Ernie with Bert, while getting past having to befriend Big Bird and Elmo. I wanted results.

As the project progressed further it became overwhelming and too difficult to explain the concept in just sketches, models and image boards. The best way for me to explain the concept was to make a video: (so im going to keep the writing short! ahha)

TURN UP THE VOLUME. enjoy. watch the HD version on VIMEO

Serendipity by CreativeSession from CREATIVEsession on Vimeo.

"I CREATIVEsession Around"

Back by popular demand, the I CS SF sweaters. This time around we're also making the I CS PDX version. It's only right that we carry the PDX edition to support our lovely hometown. Its been raining for weeks and it has been hard to do a photo shoot of these new sweaters (I guess it should of been obvious we take these photos in the rain since PDX rains 90% of the time anyway). Now that the rain is behind us and the lovely California sun is back, Brea and I set out to take photos of the "I CREATIVEsession Around" collection.

With the help of Lisa Bumanlag from SignScape Graphics, we produced these prototype sweaters in a timely manner and should be taking pre-orders for all interested buyers starting out very soon. Calling out all PDX kids.

Here are some of the outtakes of todays shoot (enjoy):

"I CREATIVESESSION AROUND"

Breanne Bumanlag - follow via Twitter

...and now we're having fun.

All photo shoots should have a wind machine right? The hair's got to be blowing in the wind... But aren't we inside? Haha

Back to Front- "I CS PDX" front and our medallion on the back near the neckline.

The crop is nice on this one.

Share this with your friends, people.

-Hoang

INSAxFIFTY24 Show

I finally got around to uploading the photos of the show. I had big fun with my friend Arnelle Lozada, Celeste Prevost, Rob Angermuller & Alex Carter FIFTY24 gallery.Thanks guys. Peep photos from the show:

This animated gif was done by FIFTY24 Show. I attempted to film this animation but failed. Here is a gif of the room spinnning!!

ALEX, ROB & ME

Arnelle, Alex, Celeste & Rob

CREATIVEsession X Unscripted X Rhymefest X Karmaloop

Last Thursday, Anh and Arnelle hosted Unscripted, Rhymefest, and Karmaloop at the Astro Studios for a late night photoshoot. We had a great night networking and meeting everyone and we're hoping for a lot of future collaborations.Overseeing the photoshoot process

Arnelle showing off her artistic skills

Rhymefest striking a pose

Roy from Unscripted with Rhymefest

Anh talking to Chris from Karmaloop and the Unscripted guys, while Arnelle interviews Rhymefest.

Thanks to Unscripted for providing us with these pictures.

-Steven

MynORity

The homies from "MynORIty Crew" Marquis, Olu and Isaih came through last night to attend the "KAZBAY" party.  It definitely was an overdue reunion; its been probably 3 to 4 years since I've last seen these guys. Be sure to check out their work via MynORity's website, and become a fan of their Facebook Fanpage.

What I really appreciate about their brand is that they're keeping true to the nature of art making. Their products have a handcrafted quality to them. Their detailing and prints feel selective and consciously thought out. It doesn't stop there; on top of making art and clothes they're dabbing into music also. Check out their homie Halfa of MynORity music group.

Marquis and Olu out on the balcony exchanging design ideas. It was dope to get a glimpse into the direction their company is headed and to share resources with each other to better each other into something bigger. Bigger than how big we are now! With that said, look out for a MynORity and CREATIVESESSION collaboration in the near future.

The gang - pregaming - Love from all directions. Portland, Fresno, Georgia, AND Cali in the house!

-Hoang

CREATIVEsession Photoshoot Outtakes

We just had our first photoshoot last Tuesday. Hopefully you've all had a chance to check out our hoodies and sweaters before, and now you get a chance to see them on us. Being a startup, we don't have the funds to hire models, so we used ourselves and some friends. We wanted to really give everyone a raw internal look into who we are as a company, and we tried to do a less-than-traditional photoshoot. We just made sure to enjoy ourselves and show us as naturally as possible.We want to thank Andres Quiroz for taking these pictures for us; we're loving the photos he took, and we're glad he was able to deal with our general craziness. Our photoshoot took place at Astro Studios in San Francisco. Gotta thank Anh for letting us use the space. It was definitely more fun than business, and that's how we like it.

-Steven

KAZBAY Official Promo Video

We've just finished editing the promotional video for the Karmaloop party happening on the 15th of this month. Everyone be sure to check out the video and swing by to Atmosphere here in San Francisco on Friday October 15th. When tossing around concepts for this project, we sifted through a massive archive of concepts/ideas in our brains. We verbally entertained the ideas of using stop-motion, slow motion, making an entire storyline or a short film, etc. The thought processes jumped from treatment to treatment...party settings, sexual theming, dramatic storyboarding...the creativity was flowing. But when it came down to the wire, we knew that "simple" would go further, because in many cases, less is more.

Thusly, the video below was birthed. It's an extremely concise, clean, simple way of delivering the message in the coolest of ways. Inspired by movies with life-size, clear, hologram-esque computers like "Minority Report" and "Resident Evil 4: The Afterlife", CREATIVESESSION delivered in a seemingly effortless form.

This is pt. 1 of a 2 part KAZBAY promo video package. Look out for pt 2 this Thursday, the day before the party, with a very special guest.

Enjoy.

Karmaloop Kazbah - Kazbay party - OCT 15h 2010 from CREATIVEsession on Vimeo.

Word Vomit.

This one is called "Word Vomit." Haha. Pretty straightforward concept, right? It's a literal translation of the phrase. Quite simply, "word vomit" is used to describe when we pretty much blurt things out before thinking about what we're saying. Then because of this, we usually almost immediately regret what we said and wish we didn't say it. There are a million things we say in our lives that we speak on impulsively that probably would have been better left unsaid. This piece communicates that clearly. I think it's rather funny.

It's a mixed media piece. I drew her face with a regular ballpoint pen, then scanned the image in to the computer, and built on it and effected it in Photoshop.

I was smiling the whole time while I was making this. I hope it does the same for you when you see it.

\\ Arnelle

"KAZBAY" - KARMALOOP x RHYMEFEST x UPTHECITY x CREATIVESESSION x 15 STREETWEAR BRANDS

This is a 21 event.

I"m telling you all right now, this is THE ONE AND ONLY party to be at on Friday, October 15, at ATMOSPHERE in SF. We"ve so cleverly dubbed this party "KAZBAY". We"re bringing the KARMALOOP guys out to party, in association with UPTHECITY, to bring you the bay"s most official, and FIRST OFFICIAL Karmaloop Kazbah streetwear party. Brought to you in part and hosted by CREATIVESESSION"s own Arnelle.

We have RHYMEFEST, the unsung hero of hip hop, coming to headline the event, plus 15 Kazbah brands in the house to sponsor/host the event. This means TONS of free streetwear giveaways. We will also be giving 50 exclusive collabo tees to the first 50 who show up, that the brands collaborated on SPECIFICALLY for this event, printed by Thick-n-Thin Printing. Attendees of this event will also get a special Karmaloop discount code to use on the website after the party.

Our creative team CREATIVESESSION will be present, showcasing art, along with a live tee slashing session by Cecilia Aragon of Punky Couture, specially for the ladies! Erin Paula formerly of Rin on the Rox will also be in the building.

Tons of media, press coverage...magazines, tv coverage...it"s going to be the night of a lifetime. Look at the list below to see just what you"ll be getting yourself into if you show up.

COMING FROM KARMALOOP:
Chris Deleigh | Kazbah Director, model, host
Dennis Todisco | Marketing Director

PERFORMERS:
Rhymefest
40Love
C Plus
MikeDashE

STREETWEAR BRANDS:
Fully Laced
Vintage Deadstock
Breezy Excursion
Adapt
Gold Coin
United & Taken
Unscripted

MixerFriendly
Buddhapparel
Invisible Stripes
Booger Kids
LimbxLimb
Capital
Ava Domina

DJ"S:
RJ Kool Raul
Grubber Juan
Justin Scott
Da Kidd

MEDIA COVERAGE:
Aris Jerome
Mycol Chauncey
Alam Photo
Jngfx
Infamyjunkie

PRESS:
Karmaloop Tv
Myx Tv
Contra Magazine

Socialush

So...like I said, you definitely don"t want to miss this kids. For more info and the guestlist, visit www.upthecity.com. See you there! Please reblog this!

"WE ARE TOOLS!" - A Quick-Edit Lifestyle Teaser by Arnelle

Today I took the liberty of making a quick-edit lifestyle teaser for CREATIVEsession, grabbing video clips and various photos from different times the team has gathered recreationally. When viewing the collective of images we had on file, I couldn't help but notice that even when we get together for fun and leisure, we are always pushing ourselves creatively and using our artistic talents to whatever end, in all facets of life. Whether it be taking random pictures, recording special moments on video, playing with iPhone apps, cutting hair, or all of us grabbing a paintbrush and getting down on a canvas... we are always exercising our minds and our artistic abilities.

That's what I love so much about our team. We are passionate, and we continuously inspire one another when we're together. It's this nonstop flow of positive and innovative energy that keeps us on our toes, and keeps us, well...happy.

This teaser was meant to capture and convey that in a short amount of time. I hope this brings you one step closer to falling in love with my team just as much as I have. Enjoy.

\\ Arnelle