Always carry a pocketbook

It is to be expected that this little sucker is something I carry around with me everywhere I go. As we all know some of the most interesting ideas come out the blue and as far as my short term memory goes I rather be prepared to jot/sketch a quick idea down rather than forget. --If you're wondering about "all the way live" check em out on facebook

Creative Session Idea Pocket book

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It's been quite awhile since i've been able to sit down and get creative, isn't this what creative session'ing is about? Well tonight I finally had the chance to browse this little pocket book to go over the ideas I've jotted down these past few months. Lets just say we're going to get busier real soon- we have a few interesting projects to finish up then we'll kick start the many ideas in this booklet before summer end.

Keep posted though- we just finished a project with Hieroglyphics and a pretty big gig with intel. Sorry we will not be able to post any teasers images yet but soon.....

-H.Minty

Featured in Style and Trend Magazine in DUBAI

Its exciting for us here at CreativeSession. We've been working hard at putting out our designs in our minds eye. Its such a good feeling to be recognize. Here is an article in a magazine in Dubai: creativesession featured

Find out more about this project via : http://www.creativesession.us/2011/04/01/serendipity-social-network-dream/

hoang

Down Time Get Down

So I had a little bit of downtown in between the renderings Ive got to get done for work. So I did some quick shoe sketches to get by. Peep:

I've been using these pens for a long time now. The "Stabilo point 88 cool gray" & the "Staedtler triplus fineliner" I find it really sexy to start with the cool gray to knock out the general design and coming back with the fineliner to accent and darken the more important details. If you're looking for a good set of sketching pens! try these: Creative Session Selection of Pens

Taken with my Iphone so it's a bit blurry. Photoshop helped a bit: creativesession quick sketching

creativesession quick sketching

creativesession quick sketching

creativesession quick sketching

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.

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

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?

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

Scroll to bottom to see video.

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

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.

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

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.

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

creativesession serendipity project by Hoang M Nguyen

10 Minute Logo Challenge 3/31

I have this knack for graphics. I"d like to think that I can do a little bit of graphic design. I wouldn"t go as far as saying I"m amazing at it, but enjoy giving it my best. Its so bizarre how so many people do not know what industrial design is and infer that since the title is paired with the term design. I should be able to design anything.... "could you make a logo for me?" "How about a website?" "What do you design then?" Although I"m not offended, I wonder if my peers are?

So here is the story: lately at work we"ve either been buying up new companies or I"ve had coworkers want to start their own. Which leads to them needing a logo to support their identity. Since the industrial design department is the only design department in the whole company, most people ask if I could design their logos. I shrug and tell them I could try. Although the results of these designs can not be shown to the general public, I"ve decided it would be fun to start a series of 10 minute logo design exercises. These exercises are to stimulate my graphic skills and could become a neat collection in the end. Hopefully this well be a weekly thing (stay tuned).

So a few weeks ago, my friend Mike and I were talking about his new startup called "push2start", a mobile camera booth that caters to events targeting EVERYBODY. So if you need a photobooth at your next event, check them out here. SO CAL represent.

Here is their current logo:

creativesession designing push2start logo concept

 

Quickly, I sketched out a few ideas. I"ve gradually adopted the "less is more" aesthetic. Most people whom have followed my design career will know that I tend to get a little overboard with adding in details. Usually every time when I"m done with a project, I"ve already added ten totally unnecessary things.

and the sketches:

CreativeSession designs Push2Start logo concept

 

Creativesession, push2start photobooth

Took these into Illustrator and vectorized them:

Concept 1

CreativeSession designs Push2Start logo concept

Concept 2

creativesession logo design

Bird"s eye view, concept 3 to the farthest right

creativesession designing push2start logo conept

Here they are a little bit cleaner in 2D:

creativesession designing push2start logo conept

 

creativesession designing push2start logo conept

 

creativesession designing push2start logo conept

"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" Creative Session Sweater I CS PDX

Breanne Bumanlag - follow via Twitter Breanne Bumanlag modelling our creative session sweater.

...and now we're having fun. creativesession I CS PDX series.

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 i cs pdx, creativesession

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

The crop is nice on this one. breanne bumanlag modelling our creativesession sweater

Share this with your friends, people.

-Hoang

The Conception of Keith's Clothing Pin

CreativeSESSION's Keith Magruder is leaving us!!! He's branching out and starting his own company called SESSIONcreative. I kid.... So Keith is headed out to an interview with Old Navy tomorrow (a fashion design position). We talked about different ways he could show off his work - also a unique way in which he could leave his portfolio behind.

We figured for him to stand out from the rest of the crowd, we definitely need to leave something behind worthwhile, something memorable that would really leave a good impression.

We wanted it to be a USB drive; this is the easiest way to save his portfolio and be reusable later on. Keith wanted to do something crafty; something that is handmade to show his passion for the fine arts. Since his portfolio is so diverse, we wanted to design something that communicates his interest in both fashion and accessories. We sat down and brainstormed, "What clothing-related product can we use that will fit a thumb drive?" We had a ton of candidates: sewing needles, thumb tacks, wooden buttons, clothes pin, zippers, rivots, snaps, and scissors.

We ended up choosing the clothes pin. The width of the pin perfectly fits a small thumbdrive and the pin can be quite useful to clip papers or your clothes.

Check out our process:

Taking apart some clothes pins for measurement. Quick Sketching frame the background this round of design we did not need to make sexy design sketches since the product was a familiar object. Keith Magruder Clothes Pin, Usb thumb drive

The smallest usb thumb drive we could find. It sits a bit wider than the clothes pin, this means we had to do some custom work. Keith Magruder, Clothing Pin, Creativesession

I should be uploading some of our earlier prototypes. They were much more janky and primitive. These are the latest and greatest. Hoang Keith Magruder Clothing Pin

Thumb drive fits perfectly! Hoang Keith Magruder Clothing Pin CreativeSession

Excuse me for using my name on these earlier models, I just had to! Keith Magruder Clothing Pin

and here she is plug n' play USB clothing pin, creativesession keith magruder

We had to do an in-context picture. Although this is not a likely situation, you could use your pin in this manner if you wanted to, but in actuality we imagine it clipping together documents and papers. Keith Magruder, Clothes Pin, Clothing Pin

Things we like about this design - The top of the pin has Keith's number and the sides have his name. This will be a good way for employers to stay in touch with him.

Keith put together this packaging for his clip. Well designed, my man. Keith USB clothing pin, clothes pin

Recyclable black craft box, nice die-cut business card - with a seat for the clothing pin to sit right into. GIVE HIM A CALL! Keith Magruder Usb Clothes Pin

HIS WEBSITE Keith's Website

In Conclusion: Some of the challenges we ran into while designing the clothes pin were:

  • The final pin was about 3 millimeter wider than the original pin. If we wanted to use the compression spring of the original pin we needed to cut grooves along the side for the compression spring to sit flush and not obstruct the side walls, leaving a cleaner flat design.
  • The USB drive needed at least a 11mm clearance. 11mm was challenging for the aesthetic of the design - one end of the pin would be longer, leaving the other end looking like an accident. Some of the design decisions we applied to solve this issue was to make the shorter pin side thinner and trim it off at an angle. For the USB side of the design, we slanted the transition from the front of the pin to the back near the USB, creating a thinner and less obstructive look.
    This design used Keith's name and my name on the side, because we wanted the employer to remember him. We plan on mass producing this concept with a simpler form. Our options now are to make it in casted in bronze or a high gloss black resin; this way it hides the thumb drive.
    STAY TUNED

 

-Hoang

 

The Foundation Event ft. EARN YOUR STRIPES gear and design

Updated: This is a guest post from Hieu Pham of Moon Patrol Crew, who is a good friend of ours in Portland. The longest running bboy competition in Portland, The Foundation has always been a jam that everyone looks forward to each year. For the longest time, there was no promotion involved; the event didn't even have a name. We knew it as "Reed", since it was at Reed College in the Sellwood area, and promotions were strictly word of mouth. When the 6th competition came around, Huy Pham, my older brother, decided to start calling the event "Foundation". The reason behind the name was because it was the jam where a lot of the Portland bboys made a name for themselves. That’s what this event was always about. The money was always just a bonus.

The team up with CREATIVEsession happened because of a shirt design that sparked all kinds of ideas in my head. This was the "Earn Your Stripes" shirt, designed by the creative minds of Hoang and Anh from CREATIVEsession. I always felt that traveling was essential to the growth of a dancer. You put yourself in a completely different city, where no one knows who you are. The real challenge of this experience is to meet the standards of that scene. Win, lose, or draw, the outcome of it all is a change of perspective and a raised standard coming back home. Since a lot of Portland are younger kids that haven't had the opportunity to experience this, I decided to invite crews from outside of Portland this year. This included crews from Seattle, Texas, California, and Arizona. This was our way of bringing the travel experience to Portland.

All in all the jam went very well. People seemed to have enjoyed it, competitors and spectators alike. Music was great, very classic battles went down, and generations old and new of dancers were inspired. I was super stressed during it all, but in the end it was all worth it. Big thanks to everyone that supported and helped out with the event, especially my crew, my brother Huy Pham who was also the DJ, and my girlfriend Sereyneth who helped me throughout the entire process. BIG shoutout to CREATIVEsession for the shirt design and flyer design. See y'all next year!

Check out the final battle below:

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So this year "The Foundation" is throwing it down at Reed College; the breakdance event is bringing competitors from all around the country to Portland, Oregon. Some of their previous guests include: SuperCr3w (ABDC champs), Skills Methodz, Massive Monkees, and many others. The event dubbed "Earn Your Stripes" will be happening on Saturday, April 9th, 2011, and doors open at 6PM.

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Here at the CREses kitchen we're cooking up some hot flyers and posters for the event. The event will be titled "Earn Your Stripes", taking the name from one of our successful t-shirt design.

(Anh Nguyen rocking an "EARN YOUR STRIPES" shirt) earn your stripes sample

I spend a few solid days to knock the conception of the design out. I wanted to stay true to the shirts original design intent. The flyers kept the striped text - but also played up the concept a bit more by adding additional colored stripes. Hope you like:

(general layout of the post card)

creativesession the foundation flyer design

(some close ups)

creativesession, the foundation designing flyers

<(Fliers printed to fit a 8.5 x 11 sheet. Realistically it should be 5x3. )

Creativesession the foundation flyer design

creativesession desiging the foundation flyers.

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

Google Magnify

"Google magnify is our attempt at design an object removing it self of clutter. It performs one specific task & the task well." - - Anh Nguyen

Google Magnify is the latest concept to be created by Anh Nguyen. This concept began with a funny email that he had been going around the office at his work. He went up to their intern, who just happened to be from France, before realizing that he would have a tough time reading it. After a little bit of confusion, the intern just copy and pasted the entire email into Google Translate and was cracking up just like everyone else after reading it.

Then the idea started to percolate in his mind; what if there was a device which was basically a window to the world, where everything would be translated into the language of your choosing? A modern take on the magnifying glass, which hasn't been updated much in its 800 years of existence. With a flip out handle, triple cameras, and text recognition software running through the Google Translate engine, the device just needs to be held in front of any text to be translated on the spot.

Just think how helpful this would be for tourists, students abroad, even our parents; the world wouldn't seem like such a scary place with help from Google Magnify.

 

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

CRE SES 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 luxury like other companies 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

"Earn Your Stripes" Hot Off The Press

Yo, one word. Keith, that's the word. So, we've been working hard for the last week just to get the Karmaloop promo video ready. Even though it was tough to put together, we had enough time to get these "EARN YOUR STRIPES" shirts done.

For serious, holler at Keith via keith@creativesession.us. We're all about making shit happen. After a hectic week, we slipped in a couple hours of work to get a few CREATIVEsession shirts to pass out at the KAZBAY party.

Check out the details, you should know we love to be a part of every aspect of our designs. From designing to screen printing; whatever the endeavor is, we want to connect at all levels.

Steven came after work to see the process through. Steven is about the business aspect of our company, we admire that he wants to understand every detail of the business from designing, printing, and to marketing.

Make sure you make it out to Atmosphere on Friday, October 15th to grab a CREATIVEsession sample shirt. We've got so much in the works. Just stay tuned.

-Hoang

Earn Your Stripes

--The Story:

Yo, one word. Keith, thats the word. So we've been working hard for the last week just to get the Karmaloop's promo video ready. Even though it was tough to put together, we had enough time to get these "EARN YOUR STRIPES" shirts done.

Keith Magruder Earn Your Stripes creativesession

For serious, holler at Keith via keith@creativesession.us. We're all about making shit happen. After a hectic week, we slipped in a couple hours of work to get a few CREATIVEsession shirts to pass out at the KAZBAY party.

Check out the details, you should know we love to be a part of every aspect of our designs. From designing to screen printing; whatever the endeavor is, we want to connect at all levels.

Steven came after work to see the process through. Steven is all about the business aspect of our company, we admire that he wants to understand every detail of the business from designing, printing, and to marketing.

Make sure you make it out to Atmosphere on Friday, October 15th to grab a CREATIVEsession sample shirt. We've got so much in the works. Just stay tuned.

-Hoang

Business Cards

>Designed by: Anh Nguyen ( bi ) As we're getting more established as a business, we need to be able to keep making new connections. It'll be much easier now because "WE JUST RECEIVED OUR FIRST BUSINESS CARDS!" Having lunch today in the neighborhood, we called Clubcard Printing hoping we could come in and see a finished card or two. Them cats told us we could swing by to peep.

The designs of the cards are simple, clear and concise. Drawing inspiration from credit cards, we've implemented these aesthetics in detailing our own business cards. Breaking away from traditional business cards, we've shortened the height a few millimeters in constant reminder that our cards are nearly finished. The remaining info is filled in accordingly to our situation. This emphasizes spontaneity in all art, design, and networking opportunities.

If you get one from us, you know you're special. Each card takes a little effort, and it's totally customizable. We've blessed each one personally and you'll know each card is unique. Some might have just our name, some might have our numbers, and some might even have sketches on them. We've made distributing business cards a more intimate experience, and we're looking forward to giving them out to you and making those connections.

-Steven -Hoang -Arnelle

Karmaloop X SF Brands Collaboration T

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.

KAZBAY Promo Video Shoot

Hopefully by now, you've all seen CREATIVESESSION's Karmaloop's KAZBAY promo starring Arnelle (and if not, view it here). The process behind it was grueling and tedious, but also a lot of fun. We all enjoy each other's company, so even with a lot on our plates, we always manage to have fun while doing it.

With Hoang behind the camera, you never really know what to expect for the end product. We had the camera only on Thursday night, so we had an extremely tight deadline, so we were only able to film for one night with very little time for scripting. But in the end, with lots of filming and many hours of cuts and editing, we ended up with a video that we could be proud of. You have to hand it to Arnelle; she was really great on camera. Now we just need to see everyone on this Friday, October 15th at Atmosphere in San Francisco!

Here it is again if you want to see it:

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

-Steven

Thought Processes

While these may just look like sketches on a lowly notepad, they're actually the beginnings of an idea. The quick sketches, the crude lines, they come together to form features; these features are constantly evolving, with new ideas coming from everyday inspirations.

It's not all business, though. Sometimes it's just to pass the time. Sometimes, we use sketching as entertainment; an outlet to really express ourselves on our own time. It can range from silly and fun to concentrated and organized. But sometimes the greatest ideas and brainstorms for our projects can come from a quick sketch session while sitting in a lecture, or just passing the time.

These ideas come, and suddenly we want to see the idea from all angles. Purpose and real life application are added in the mixture and these sketches become fully formed ideas with shape, form, and utility.

With these ideas down, the design can really turn into something beautiful, like what you see below.

Work by Anh Nguyen

-Steven