jcksn

The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

Banksy

Being an Automattician and all, I’ll be attending WordCamp this Saturday the 16th.

As lorelle mentions, there are also quite a bit of wonderful treats surrounding WordCamp, like a WordPress Genuis Bar and a WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt!

I’m extra excited to go, since somehow, they missed it, and are allowing me to present! There are going to be some really amazing speakers, like: Jane Wells, Andy Skelton, Andy Peatling, Alan Levine, Tantek Çelik, Noel Jackson, Joseph Scott, Lloyd Budd, Mark Jaquith, Stephen O’Grady, Jeremy Clarke, Aaron Brazell, Sam Bauers, Will Norris, Liz Danzico, Chris Lea, Tom Coates, Chuck Lewis, Stephan Spencer, Steve Souders, and more!!!!

Taken with a Canon G9

From some notes scribbled at the pool:

The sound of ocean waves hits you the moment you open the door. Like a wash of relaxation and solitude you soon realize that you are indeed being bathed in not just sonics but lifewaves of a very different kind of energy.

You go to bed, partly from exhaustion, but mostly from the hypnosis of the visual and sonic landscape that you have been drenched in.

Your first day begins in a bath of pure happiness. It was the first time you awoke rested in years – years! You grasp for a clock, yet realize that they have been removed from the room. Your watch, resting in the bottom of your carry on bag reads 8. You are awake and rested at 8am. (What has gotten into me?)

–

Leaving wasn’t painful, as I knew that I would go home with the one I came to relax with: my new and wonderful wife.

• I’m now on a plane headed for the pacific rim. You will not see me or hear from me for 6 days.
• Dean blogs!
• Stefan Sagmeister is my hero. His TED talk was great. His book “Things I have learned in my so far,” is amazing. Here’s an article about him.
• I got married. It was the happiest day of my life. Pictures are forthcoming.
• I got a new job. I’m extremely honored. I’ll explain more, when I’m not busy sipping coconut juice and eating fresh pineapple while the natives give me hot stone massages.
• Draplin vs. USA I can’t explain how close I feel to these words. I mutter this stuff every day.

And she couldn’t be more beautiful, smart, and loving…

Thank you all for your support and love. It’s going to be one wonderful day!

This also means I’ll probably be off the radar for quite a while. See you then…

With my wedding just a week and three days away, I decided to show off the hard work we put into our letterpressed wedding invitations. You can check out the writeup and pictures over here at eight6.

Which eventually led to you coming up with a technique that’s pretty much paved the way for all the D.J.’s and turntablists to come. What did you feel like the first time you were able to make it work? 
When I first did it, I called up Disco B and EZ Mike, and I was like, “Listen, I got something, I got something.” And when they came down, they were like “What the fuck is this?” And I was like, “Watch what I’m doing, ya’ll, please watch what I’m doing.” But they just could not grasp it. I went on to doing it in different parks. I figured if I was playing the hardest, best part of these different genres of music I would have people on the ceiling, but people were just like “What the fuck are you doing?” I went home and I cried, cried, cried, cried. Nobody got it! I tried to go to different clubs, get on for five or ten minutes, and I heard excuses like “My boss will fire me, I hear you ruin records, I can’t let you touch my stuff.” It was just ridicule after ridicule after ridicule. I was a geek for a long time. [Laughs.]

[via TMN]

For the first time in my life, that I can remember, Amazon is unreachable.

Can you remember the last time Amazon was down for the count?

I get to marry her, in 44 days approximately. :)

I’m getting married July 5^th (two months from today), To this beautiful woman (yes, that’s me on the right, her on the left, :P)

Our invitations are getting letter-pressed. I’m giddy.

The pixel is the celeb’s ticket to fame these days. Retouched by myself in 2005. View the full size here.

I plan on posting one of these every few weeks, till I run out.

My life is changing. I’m growing up, in a pretty accountable way. I’m getting married.

It’s amazing. I never knew I’d be this astonishingly happy to be “getting married.” I found someone, that is so indescribable, that it makes me forget what time of day it is when I think about them.

I’m so lucky.

But that’s not all. Lots of things in my life have changed. I went to school, aged 4 years, and started two companies (selling one of them off – that had attained Condé Nast contracts in under 6 months of business, and also, my latest venture, eight6).

So, since my personal life is changing, I think that my personal domain should to.

leavesrustle.com is now jcksn.com

Live redesign commences.

During some blurry years from 2003 to 2006, I attended The School of Visual Arts, for photography. It was an amazing time in my life. Unfortunately, it caused me to stop blogging and start being an assistant to a fashion photographer who was repped by Avedon’s former agent, and then started a retouching company with said photographer. Too many parties, a few nervous breakdowns, and enough beautiful models to make a man die happy later, and here I am; finally realizing that beauty is usually just skin deep, and doing what I love, designing things. (I’m still an insane fashion fanatic. I openly admit to buying Vogue Italia. I have a mid-90s fashion magazine collection that rivals many.)

During my stint at “Art School,” all the freshmen would usually get really into one of the classic photographers, Avedon, Cindy Sherman, etc. Cartier-Bresson was one of the most referenced. For what he calls “The Decisive Moment.”

“There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

Henri Cartier Bresson

Today I ran across a lego reproduction of one of Bresson’s most infamous photos “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare.” Pictured side by side below:

The Lego™ rendition is genius. But, the original, is a classic, if not a tale in itself. The photography, is said to have been staged. He still clicked the shutter, but only after many tries. Or so goes the legend.

If that’s true…

Henri wasn’t just a photographer, but an brilliant self-marketer. He created a “brand” around himself. He built upon this idea of “Henri” being in the right place at the right time, all the time. People thought and still do think, he was truly a photographic GENIUS.

Cartier-Bresson knew his audience. He was a masterful photographer, but beyond that, he truly understood what his audience wanted. They wanted to believe in magic and coincidence and fate. He gave it to them. Maybe, even if it was decisively.

[picture of lego guy via clusterflock via coudal]

In fifth grade, and subsequently when doing a stint at Wayne State University (and losing my mind as a 20 year old) I wrote papers on Fraunhofer lines.

Oddly enough, Eric brought it up on his blog, or at least in a roundabout way did.

Fraunhofer lines are the spectral lines in the light emitted from an object.

With just these lines, you can determine what elements are in the object emitting the light.

It’s an aura, for the stars.

I got a B+ on both papers. My astronomy teacher said it was the only paper he read all day, that wasn’t crap. He was a nut.

Captioning Sucks! is a microsite about captioning, and why it sucks!

Joe Clark approached me to design and build the site. His request: “garish and vulgar.” So, eight6 went to town.

It was an odd request, and an awkwardly challenging one. Aside from wrangling with Comic Sans and coming out victorious, I got to play around with some alpha-transparency and I think the result is pretty interesting. This site was one of my favorites to design… It’s not every day you get to do this kind of work! And now, I can finally say, “I got a client to use Comic Sans!”

I want to point out, that this is the kind of stuff I really enjoy and one of the main reasons I started eight6. We don’t just want to design, we want to move the world forward through design. (Yeah, it sounds corny.) Captioning Sucks! is a perfect example of balancing graphical conventions and implementing contextual design. It’s vulgar appearance helps emphasize the importance of the project’s goals.

Go find out why Captioning Sucks!

I met Hugh MacLeod at SXSW for the first time–it felt like meeting a long-lost cousin. He’s such an absolutely awesome dude, on paper and in person.

I’ve been reading gapingvoid for ever. I don’t think I would have survived NYC without the backlog of cartoons Hugh has put online.

Hugh drew me this card, that will be cherished forever. Frame is on its way.

Hugh, thank you my friend!

BTW, be sure to check out this post over at Hugh’s site. He’s great.

SXSWi (South by Southwest Interactive, for my Mom). There were 9 million 7,500 people, and I was one of them. I was the one that looked half his actual age.

Some notes:

• With all the commotion, I found it frustratingly hard to meet my web heroes. However, I did manage to squeeze some face time in with some new and old friends. I also, found it irritatingly bizzarre at how celebrity-like the whole web game is getting. The line between intrepreneur [sic] and dedicated interactive designer/developer became blurred. Maybe, it was the invention of Valleywag? (I just want a little RESPECT!)
• Overall, I think it was worth going, despite not getting to see some of my best pals. I’m hoping this will spark a better way to connect next year? Twitter is so popular, and the usage was explosive, but was it the best way to gather friends? Maybe so. But I think we could do better, especially with that shiny new iPhone SDK.
• I picked up a “Brain Machine” (PDF Link) at the MAKE magazine booth, while I was there. In it, a kit with some swanky infopr0n and a kit to make a brain machine.
• At SXSW, I broke my YEAR long dedication to being vegetarian by eating a Cheeseburger. Then promptly being ill for the next day afterwards.
• Naz made the most kick-ass infographic I’ve seen since Khoi’s daily activity graph at An Event Apart in 2006.

 

Last Tuesday, my girlfriend and I went to see Joshua Radin and Schuyler Fisk at The Ark in Ann Arbor.

It was truly amazing. Hearing them live was so powerful. They talked about their songs too, which made it even more gratifying and intimate. If you ever have the chance to see either of them, do it, it will be a show you’ll never forget.

The best part of the night was getting to speak with Josh and Schuyler, who were both just so radiant and happy to meet their fans. And, I got to tell them how much their music has helped me, especially this past year, and that they really have made a difference in my life. This past year has been a crazy one, especially with my Dysautonomia, and their music really has touched me.

Oh, and if you ever read this Schuyler, I have to admit, I’ve got a crush on you. :)

I saw Madeleine Peyroux in concert at the Michigan Theater last Monday. She’s oh so talented, and really wonderful in concert.

I’ve got her first two (major) albums: Careless Love and Half the Perfect World. If you like Jazz just a little bit you’ll probably love Madeleine.

It’s official. I’ll be attending UM Dearborn in the fall. Yay!