The revamp of the Slide Styleâ„¢ site is finally complete, and live online. A lot of work went into this site, and I like it a LOT more than the old version. It looks a lot cleaner, and much more polished. I think the catalog of products looks awesome. I have some more items to get up on the site… but for the most part, she’s full-steam ahead.
Believe it or not… I actually SKIPPED the Southeast Drift event at Turner Field today for a class. That’s right. I ditched drifting for school. An opportunity came up to take a class in Cinema 4D – which is an animation software that I have been dying to get my feet wet in. Even though I would miss out on an awesome event at Turner, I knew this would be my chance to get acclimated with Cinema 4D.
Darrin Frankovitz, lead trainer at Maxon was instructing the class at MGFest ’09. The class went over the basics of C4D, and the Mograph module. I learned a lot… including that I have A LOTTT to learn.
Here is a screenshot of one of the project files I was making. The extruded Helvetica looked too much like elements of the Comcast commercials to pass it up… so Comcasticâ„¢ it was.
A project that I’ve been wrenching on for a minute has finally gone live!!! I’m working with some great people on this project, and I am really excited about it. We have some really big plans for this site.
Take a look, subscribe, and comment it up!
www.motormavens.com
If you were to search the pages of any dictionary, you would find that a maven is a connoisseur – a person who has specialized knowledge or expertise dealing with a particular topic.
Though this definition is true, there is much more to being a maven than simply gaining knowledge or experience. True mavens are created by their passion for the subject; after all, relentless passion is the driving force behind the mastery of any subject or skill.
That passion is what drove us to create this site and we look forward to all of the specialized knowledge and experience that you, our fellow Motor Mavens, bring to the table. Email us at (motormavens(at)gmail.com) with any suggestions, contributions or special insights you may have.
After months and months of countless hours… the new Advanced Armament Corp. website is finally up and running. This site has been an enormous undertaking from all angles. I’m really happy to see it go-live.
Check it out, click around, browse the online store.
www.advanced-armament.com
This video is AWESOME. Style is oozing from this edit at the seams. The cuts, the car, the shots… everything.
Brandon Nero’s ’04 Jetta GLI from wagenwerks on Vimeo.
While I’m ranting about type… here is an amazing motion type piece that Charlie turned me on to. I need to wrench on a project like this. BAD.
BTW… this is NOT Arial (which probably should have made it’s way into my top 5 worst).
Flickermood 2.0 from Sebastian Lange on Vimeo.
I’m going to step up on my soapbox for a second, and share my TOTAL DISGUST for my top 5 least favorite typefaces of all time. Sure, my list is much longer than this… as it is apparently easier to make a garbage set of letters than to focus and make a good one. These 5 typefaces are ones that I tend to see the most around me on a daily basis. And I HATE them. A lot.
Have I used them before? Yes. Does this list make me a hypocrite? Hardly. It is only after years and years of design experience that I have developed this kind of typographic repulsion. Nerdy, I know… but bear with me here.
These two are pretty much a given… so I’m counting them as one entry. Comic Sans is the international typeface for “take nothing I’m saying seriously”. I see this “font” misused daily. If you want your business to be instantly discredited, and taken as a complete joke, go ahead and use it. Or you could try Papyrus… which is equally misused, and does NOT convey natural, Earthy, herbal, outdoors, or African in any way shape or form. It conveys that you are unoriginal in your endeavors, and take the easy approach to things.
Number 4:
Porcelain has had it’s day. That day is over. I see this used all the time like it is edgy and hip. It is not. It is old and worn out. 2005 has come and gone… time to move on.
Number 3:
This face was cool the day it came out… and not a day after. Much like Porcelain, Bleeding Cowboys gets used to seem rough and tough. The swoosh-like “ascenders” and “descenders” are forced, and don’t make it any cooler. They make it awkward, cluttered, and hard to read. Yes, grunge type is supposed to be hard to read… but 10 times out of 10, this face is used in a manner in which it needs to be read legibly.
Number 2:
This is a cheap ripoff of one of my favorite typefaces (that I paid a lot for). I see this used everywhere, and in every instance… the REAL typeface would have been more fitting. Why pay for quality, when you can get the cheap, grunge, snaked-face for free. There is a growing trend of these typefaces… and I hate them all. Pay for the real thing, and support the foundries that create(d) quality typefaces.
The #1 Typeface I HATE the Most:
Here is yet another face who’s day has LONG since expired. It is WAY over-used, hard to read, generic, and NOT COOL. Nothing about this typeface is edgy, hip, or youthful. It is cluttered, ugly, and an uncreative go-to font to try and look cool. It doesn’t work. This typeface isn’t even worth the 112kb it takes up on my machine… and after I finish this blog entry, I am deleting it – never to be reinstated as a soldier in my design arsenal.
Even amidst my hate for these typefaces, I must commend the typographers that created them. They have unknowingly spawned these typefaces that “designers” have misused and plastered throughout modern society. Perhaps it is the reckless abandon in which they are used that really fosters my disdain so aptly.
[/soapbox]
Spitfire Studios vs. Andy Sapp. from Andy Sapp on Vimeo.
Tripp sent me a cut of the footage they shot on the 22nd. It turned out RAD! The interior shots utilized a rollcage-mounted Canon 5D Mark II and a steering wheel-mounted Flip Mino HD camera. All the exterior footage was shot using a RED ONE. I can’t get over the quality from the 5D Mark II. I’m super stoked they asked me to be a part of this project. It was definitely a fun Sunday afternoon of shooting.
