As you know, CS crew members come from different regions in the United States. We're all proud of where we were born and raised and have tons of good things to say about our town. With that, we'd like to introduce to the world our "Homeward Bound" collection. First will be "OREGON"; this is where Anh and I were born and hope to be able to set up some sort of shop back in Portland, Oregon one day. Check it out
Sidestory: November marks the time of year we all start traveling for the holidays. Whether it's homeward bound or vacationing in exquisite locations, our final destinations are something we all look forward to. For Thanksgiving 2011, I had been anticipating a much needed break from the San Francisco grind and was looking forward to a bit of relaxation back home with family and friends in Portland, Oregon. I planned to do nothing... (could this be true..? obviously not)
I blame it on finding joy in working hard; is this insane? I'm not sure. It could be that I'm doing what I love, therefore loving what I'm doing.
I made time this Thanksgiving to connect and shoot a featured interview with long time friends; Marquis McNeil, Isaih Marcell, Olu Majekobaje, Tyler (Halfa) Monk, as well as two new dudes, Aaron Dickson and Timothy Greenidge, who makes up the company Mynority, based in Portland, Oregon.
This is the final interview video; be sure to read about them after the jump:
Featured Story:
Mynority is about Art, Music and Fashion - These guys are a prime example of principles we live by here at CS. We do not just like to talk about things; we become proactive and make shit happen - whether the results are good or bad, the journey brings plenty of lessons learned. Like Malcom Gladwell said, "To be a genius, you must put in 10,000 hours of practice," - theses guys are going to continue to grind, and in due time they're going to ahead of the crowd because they started something, while most are only talking about it.
Marquis of Mynority explained he started the brand back in college while being inspired by individuality. To design clothing he loved with like-minded folks. The brand is about art making and designing apparel that has an exclusive appeal; not one piece is similar to the other, because each piece is hand crafted individually.
While interviewing the whole team, I picked up on details that you usually don't get to see as an outsider looking in. Unfortunately, I had to keep the interviews short (only 3 minutes long), so I had to trim it a little to keep the interview video precise. Here are some quotes that I found to be rich and fruitful from the cast of Mynority;
"My personal fashion is very eclectic; I don't want to fall into one single genre so what I bring to Mynority is that same kind of confidence." - Olu Majekobaje
"As you know we say FAM alot. What's dope is we are a FAM. Our company entails fashion, art, and music- which spell out FAM" - Isaih marcell
"Mynority paints a lifestyle, with my music that's what I want to do, paint an image, make music that is driven by creativity" - Tyler Halfa Monk
"When I think about the start of Mynority man, I think about... Number 1: we are all FAM, we're all cool hanging out together, who else would you want to eat with....." - Tim Greenidge
Mynority is continuing to expand - One expansion is music, with Isaih and Tyler focusing on building a strong musical branch for Mynority member Tyler Monk, known by rap name Halfa . He has released a mixtape called Intermission, you can download it here: Listen and download Intermission ASAP
Also check out the latest video by Halfa titled Who Knew
Our good friend up north Marquis McNeil and the whole MynORity crew have been silent but deadly. We knew were working hard at putting something amazing together and not sharing. The guys just published their latest creation, the "PDXrainforest" here a description : Welcome to PDXRainforest! PDXRainforest is an online blogspot where creative minds come to cover the culture of Portland, OR. Through in-depth articles and innovative picture capturing, PDXrainforest covers everything from Art to fashion, music to lifestyle. Geared to the new renaissance of Portland “hipsters”, our blogspot gives an alternative way to look and capture the new lifestyle the beautiful “City of Roses” has created from its original roots....... read more here PDXRainforest
C.S has been following these guys progress for a long time and each and everytime they release/drop something. It makes you only want to work harder to reach their level of dedication. Keep it up guys.
So awhile back Keith one of CS's member branched out to look for a fashion design job. He wanted to leave a copy of his resume to the employer but not leave sheets of paper. We designed this thumb drive for him to save his portfolio and resume behind, this left a lasting impression to Gap Co. -- I been quite busy with life and regular work that I haven't had a chance to update the design. Here is the final and it's being shipped to Crown Molding tomorrow to be analyze for manufacturing. This is very exciting for us @ CS.
Lately I've been ultra busy with work, work. I mean Lab126 work.
Yes, CreativeSession is just a side hustle that Bro and I started back in 07' It's a way for us to collaborate with other artist, designers to do crafty, designer'esk type things. I'm very proud of C.S and how far this journey has taken us. What I appreciate most about my life as of yet is that I get to design 24/7. My 9 to 5 @ Lab126 is to design products for the Amazon brand. We just released 4 new kindles BTW. (be sure to pre-order yours.) After the 9 to 5 hustle, If the energy is there I'd unwind with dinner and a beer and have a bit of fun Creative"Sessioning" with little Bro.
This week we both have been burnt out from designing electronic products at work so decided we'd revisit our high school infatuation which is shoes. Both him and I actually went to school to become shoe designers. 4 years later the geeky, techie bug had us! We are both now product designers that still wished we kept our sneaker dreams.
Anh had re-worked an Audi inspired pair of skates this week if you havn't seen it LINK YO SELF HERE!
Here are images of what I did:
Quick sketches in order to lock down final shape & form.
Here is the final design : Nike ACG "Boat Dreams"
These are screen shots to show the details of the shoe! Done in Photoshop! SKILLING IT!
I'm Making this into a poster if anyone is interested. It'll be up on our fanpage soon. Be sure to like us. www.facebook.com/CREATIVEsession
Click image for higher resolution.
SHARE THIS ON YOUR FACEBOOK IF YOU'D ROCK THESE! ;) Like most of you out there I'm a "sneaker freak," it's an exciting hobby that continues to dig deep holes in my non existent pockets. I was born and raised in Portland Oregon a town where EVERYONE has access to the "ES." What's the ES? It's the street term for the Nike Employee store, extremely exciting if you ask me! At 40-50% off new Nike releases, I was inhaling multiple pairs of sneakers on the weekly!
Anywho, back to my creative assets. As an industrial designer I've been blessed with the opportunity to work with a few fresh names out there including Nike, Adidas, Puma, Pearl Izumi, etc... but unfortunately designing sneakers on a daily basis isn't my cup of tea... So here i am, rocking out a fresh pair for kicks and giggles!
Let's be honest, ACGs are off-road/trail shoes that are mostly worn on the streets... so why not fuse 'em with some street friendly light weight sneaker materials and finish! :)
THE BEGINNING OF AN EXCITING EXPERIMENT!
FINAL SKETCH/PHOTOSHOP RENDERING.
DISSECTING THE SNEAKER.
FINAL FRESHNESS!
Enjoy 'em and thanks for look'n! -Anh or Bi :)
As we get closer and closer to October 15th (Karmaloop's KAZBAY Party in SF), we thought it'd be nice to update the readers with a detailed image of what the collaboration t-shirt we made looks like in its full glory, then speak a little about the process of creating and designing it.
Coming into this project, we knew that there were more than 13 brands who would be attending the party; these brands are all separate entities, but will be coming together with the same intentions: to promote brand awareness, to network, and to have a wonderful night.
It'll be a party you shouldn't sleep on.
Conception: When we first started the project, NASCAR and the massive amounts of ads that are applied to a each car came to mind, since we would be working with over 13 logos in the design; thinking of NASCAR made sense at the start.
The thought of the amounts of logos to put on a t-shirt design AND make it appealing was overwhelming. Maybe we'd have to change up our idea of how to go about this design.
We decided that NASCAR frame of mind for the design wasn't going to be attractive or appealing to pop culture, and definitely not something popular to used by the urban heads in the KAZBAH store. The question was now, "what could we use?" What popular product, vehicle, or character would suffice for this job? We dug back into our youth and the idea of Transformers came to mind - then Voltron. Voltron is a classic figure that most of these brands could gravitate towards.
Quickly after vectorization, we realized that trying to fit the Voltron figurine on a t-shirt and have enough room to fit 13 plus logos on it as well would be quite difficult, especially if we want each and every logo to be clear. That idea was tossed.
Then it came to me! Why not mix these logos into a nice sleeved tattoo design, but with a twist. We would use traditional japanese tattoo sleeve imagery, but mix in images that all these brands could relate to, such as things they sell; we wanted to include products like hats, shoes, ect.
The following are sketches, images and progress jpegs.
