Frenemy

"Stop thinking it as a curse to have been given an enemy in life. It can be a blessing, too. A wise man gets more from his enemy than a fool from his friends."

Enemies or rivals call em' whatever you want. One thing I'd like to do, is thank you for the motivation you've given me. I promise every milestone thus far, in some way you've contributed your share to my growth and success. Frenemies you've become a friend to me.

On a recent trip with my buddy Paul Vu to Maui, we watched the movie "Rush" on the plane. A film based on the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda's 76th season in F1 racing. I felt angry the whole film at the poisonous relationship between the two world champions. James to me is one of those people in our lives that just have everything cut out for them. They seem to do the bare minimum and always WIN. I'm sure you can list a few of these people in your life. Niki is the opposite, we also can list these types in our lives. Constantly working and focused on their craft, but still WINNING though.

Ending the film, one racer said to the other "Stop thinking it as a curse to have been given an enemy in life. It can be a blessing, too. A wise man gets more from his enemy than a fool from his friends." My bitterness immediately lifted. I thought about the people who push us in life, the ones who challenge us, compete with us and make us better. If not a frenemy then who's to gauge ourselves against?

We all need a James or Niki to constantly chase our tails. My thoughts shifted to Creative Session. In a sense I've been spoiled for 25 plus years. Creative Session's momentum in a way has been a constant battle between my brother and I. On top of the awesome collaborations of course. He is the James and Niki in disguise. We've literally competed all our lives, whether toys, games, now designs. We've inspired, challenged and taught one another to compete at a higher level. Who is your James Hunt or Niki Lauda?

Lets all not scatter and find the closest hater friend and hug them just yet. I'm suggesting look at the situation in a new light. Happy National Siblings day YO!

Good Listening: Snakehips The Weeknd "Wanderlust"

Straight out of London UK. The Duo Snakehips with their latest "Wanderlust" The fader is so nice on this one. Headphones for best experience.

You are a NOBODY

Izzy (5pts) is a talented photographer I've been blessed to meet through Instagram.  A couple weeks back he posted a photo on IG for $5000USD. Instantly his feed was flooded with comments like: "You've got to be $#%&ing kidding me, this is rape."

"I can take the same photo with a shit camera and 15 minutes."

These meaningless, ego stroking comments brought me back to this quote by Ryan Holiday:

“Every single thing you’re doing can be done by some other person. You’re not the best photographer in the world, you’re not the best writer in the world you’re not the best anything. So really, your job is just to connect better with other people than anyone else.”

This quote reminds me of something we all struggle to have, we're so caught up in following trends that we forget to have our own voice. How do we emerge and sustain relevance in a world that is saturated with content and packed with talented people? How do we shoot better photos, draw prettier pictures and craft more meaningful experiences than the rest?

Simple, we cant.

But what we can do is “CONNECT BETTER.” This is the simple reason why Im sharing my conversation between Izzy and I. The dude has created a platform to CONNECT at any instance with over 56,000 viewers. He’s EARNED the license to post as many photos as he wants for 5k, 10k and even 20k if he felt the need.

When Nike released the Air Yeezy's, sneakerhead's camped out for over a week to get a pair. Eventually, some sold for over ninety-thousand US dollars! What if these were released by KMART under Shaquille O'Neal? Would you have camped outside of KMART for a week? Probably not.

At the end of the day,  people aren't buying into your work, they’re buying into you, your movement, your lifestyle, your thoughts, your ideas and beliefs. We're all replaceable, BUT what we stand for isn't.

Izzy may or may not sell the five-thousand dollar print today, but he sure as hell will sell it sooner than the dude with 100 followers who is too busy in the comment section crafting clever punch lines hoping to gain a couple more street creds.

Banner Image: Andy Howe

CONFORM

Same goes for design. Why not challenge the norm? Why not be the monkey that climbs the ladder, takes a banana, and spreads it among the group?

HED LYTE : Resurrection P1

A little something I made last night! #process #waitforit

ON BEING WRONG

Here's a little Monday morning inspiration. Now spend this week being wrong. What a perfect combo with Mark Manson's "The Hidden Cost of Happiness"

This part of the TED TALK is so powerful to me. "The dumb kid, the trouble Maker, the one who doesn't do his homework. So by the time you're 9 years old, you've already learned people who gets stuff wrong are lazy, irresponsible, dimwits. Second of all to succeed in life is to never make any mistakes. We learn these really bad LESSON really well. A lot of us deal with this by being perfectionist. A students...... We then freak out at the possibility of getting something wrong.. and getting something wrong means there is something wrong with us...."

New&Fresh from Sam

Production by our good homie and OG CreativeSession contributor Sam aka WooStaar. Visuals by Hidden Fortress Collective.

Nike Roshe Woven 2.0

Random fact. We're both obsessed over sneakers. Yes, we're shoe whores. Children of the 80's. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon right next door to Nike. We've fantasized over the idea of becoming shoe designers for the big SWOOSH as kids. Inspired and drooled over idols like Tinker Hatfield. While attending design school in San Francisco we both had ambitions of coming back to fulfill our shoe designing prophecy. Its funny our careers took a slight detour as the appeal of the tech industry in the Silicon Valley grew on us like charm of an annoying crush. Now-a-days we live vicariously through guys like Nathan VanHook and buy lots of sneakers in homage of our early dreams.

The latest pick-up are these Nike Roshe Woven 2.0 - We love the weaving details, they're so breathable, great for the spring time and the leather detail screams premium and high fashion.

MIND BLOWN.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Concept Kicks & Speckle Hat

DOPE GEAR ALERT.

Our buddy Daniel Bailey is one dude to follow if you're an aspiring shoe designer. Daniel started Concept Kicks as an online magazine dedicated to all things footwear. The website and Facebook  pages are both great resources that we wish existed while we're in school. There are many sites out there to catch up on your sneaker fix, but none dedicated to footwear designing. Links are all in yellow-bold if you love it share it.

Daniel ran a Kick Starter campaign for his "Speckle Print" cap and it was successful. Although we didn't get a chance to support and pledge, we immediately gave him cash as the hat became available. Buy it here.

No need to explain the aesthetics of the hat. The inspiration above points everything out & the spec sheet is a great example of a clean/clear CMF document for those of you interested in spec'n out gear.

Good Listening: A1 "Bring It Home"

Our homie A1 is back with another conscious one! Put on some headphones and listen deeply to the lyrics... ENJOY "Man say he don't see no evil. YEAH? he must be blind man. Rich man don't never see jail house. YEAH? It must be blind men. 9 out of 10 times we aint got big no money - there aint such things as a crime then? Well, Fine then. This one is for those who don't let their bank rolls define them..."

Fuck You, Pay Me

Our latest pick up is this print "Fuck You Pay Me" by Joseph Martinez. He started working on this in 2012 using mixed mediums of gouache and currency. Joseph says "The way our economy is going, and still is for that matter, even Mickey Mouse is collecting his dues." You can check out Joseph's interview with 1xRun here.

For me what's captivating about this piece is the play with money.  We've all seen Mickey in this particular pose before. It is one of the most iconic images from Disney. What's interesting is Mickey's raised right hand has never  meant anything other than a welcoming gesture to me. It's crazy, simply replacing the white gloves with money, this grand gesture immediately looks more like begging hands. Now I'm not sure if that was the intent the artist had, but it's @#!&ing effective on so many levels. Especially when it's titled "Fuck You, Pay Me" Anyway. I'm that guy who believes there are undertones of Illuminati activity in everything. Conspiracy theories all over (paranoid right). Thus you see why I might be reading into this way too much, or its just the critical artist in me.

What I'd really like to point out is my initial reaction. The value here is knowing we're all worth a pretty penny and often we sell our selves short. Do not take your skills for-granted. At its simplest, this print is a visual reminder that time is money and how much is your time worth?

Reminds me of this quote I ran across weeks ago.

"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. " --Red Adair

Good Listening: Nick Hakim "Pour Another"

Lets slow things down a bit this share. I dont know much about who Nick Hakim is except he's MAD talented and from the East Coast. I swear I've replayed this song like 100000000 times and Im not over it yet. This tune might not be for everybody but sonically it's so easy to work to. ENJOY

Make $84,600 count

"Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door."

The Journey We Take

Nostalgia in full effect here. This photo of Astro's dodge-ball team in 07' makes me wonder where all our time have gone. What a throwback. Its' crazy to think this was seven years ago and Astro was our first. All these guys in one way or another have inspired us, raised and fueled us. We're both so grateful for this milestone looking back. Today most have moved on to start companies, manage larger teams and I'm sure continuing to inspire others. With Creative Session we hope to carry on tradition, to inspire others as these folks have for us. Feel free to ask us anything and we hope to be your first stepping stone through our blog and work. ps. we just added the holler tab-- Its a Q&A of sorts. Speak your mind here.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. --Lao Tzu

It's our job to...

"A great carpenter isn’t going to use lousy wood for the back of a cabinet, even though nobody’s going to see it. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.”

#DETAILS #WIP #PROCESS #COMINGSOON

Starry Sky

{ jasperandpeg.com } California Made Clothing that affirms your true beauty. Eye catching fashions for the everyday fabulous woman.

For the lack of behind the scene photos for this project, I'm unable to show you guys our thought process this time around. But here's a change of pace for ya, photos from the shoot and a promo video.

J&P reached out to shoot a promo to feature their "Starry Night" line. These draping hoodies, embellished with icey white crystals remind us of beautiful rain drops. After noticing the duality of the white and black pieces we conceptualized around the idea of Yin/Yang. The contrast between dark and light, good and evil. We settled on the idea of two alternate versions of oneself, and what it might be like if somehow these two versions interacted with each other in two separate but identical universes.

Although the final video isn't as elaborate as the original idea, we're really happy with the results. Tell us what you think about this project and enjoy the photos taken from this day.

Add em on FACEBOOK and check out their SITE

Vape City DC (update)

A few months back we shared our thinking behind the "Six Sided Hex" logo for Vape City. Although this was not the logo chosen, it was a good example of how we integrate company aspirations into their branding strategy. Read more about it HERE. Since then Vape City has moved into their first location out in Daly City, California and on any given day you can find the owners: Ken, Dj or Jordan, behind the counter and ready to lend a hand. These guys are more than helpful and knowledgeable about Vaping so come check em out, they have awesome starter kits. Just let them know Creative Session sent you (no guarantee you'll get a discount though, ahaha).

Spent this past weekend filming and shooting high res photos for the portfolio. It's the best when you can show design work in context and we're super happy with the way this project turned out.

Here is a rough cut we put together. We're planning on a re-shoot for voice over. The audio has too many random artifacts and just sounds bad.  But enjoy this for now.

(Photo)Maker, (Dance)Breaker

Last August I traveled to El Salvador with the All The Way Live Foundation and had the privilege of being alongside some of the most talented and generous dancers and artists I have ever met. Among them was ‘Terrible’ Mike, a pretty sick dancer and equally passionate photographer, which I would later learn as we documented the foundation's Central America trip. Here are a couple of the photos Mike recently finished developing from the trip, but if you have some time to kill, I recommend checking out more pics here. Check out more of Mike’s work at http://michaelkenneth.squarespace.com/ And go to http://allthewaylive.tv/ to find out more about All The Way Live Foundation.

GOOD LISTENING: WOOSTAAR "THE MAKING"

Check out more of WOOSTAAR's work here : http://www.woostaar.com/ Do you recognize the voice in this track?