Hay Fam

This is an episode of Jon Phenom's "Hay Fam" show. This one focuses on Josh Madden, older brother to the boys in Good Charlotte. take a gander and be inspired.

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Clovis



Episode 03-Josh Madden-Hay Fam Show from Hay Fam Show on Vimeo.

Spaced

I know I'm a few years (it came out in 2000) late coming around to this television show. But being a fan of both Simon Pegg and Nick frost and being bored one afternoon - I decided to take a little field trip over to our local Best buy and pick this up.

This show is hilarious. I know sometimes british humor can be sort of hard to swallow, but this show was right up my alley. You can see the beginnings of Shaun of the dead and hot fuzz in these two seasons. If you get a chance pick it up or netflix it, it's worth it.


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Clovis

November 24th

Just a reminder, we'll be having our Holiday sale this year, all shirts $15.00 and free shipping on any orders over $30.00. So now would be the perfect time to find your favorite TOI shirt or find a pretty in-expensive christmas gift.

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Clovis

Wow

I have fought back every urge to write something political on this blog.
But last night, well let me just say that last night was one of the most awe inspiring, most important, most confident endings to a presidential election that I have had the pleasure to be witness to.

I can't really put into words how much this election meant to me, I don't think I really realized it myself until after the results came in, and I watched everyone on every channel tear up a little.

And today has brought with it renewed hope, with friends and family calling to tell me how excited they are about this new president.

So really this post is just to say that I am proud to be an American.

coming down the pipeline

For the release of next year's shirts we're looking at having more of an illustrative feel to them. Drawing a lot of inspiration from old children's packaging, movie posters and some french prints thrown in for good flavor. It becomes very interesting to see what you can mix and match to come up with ideas.

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Clovis

Green light

John Legend |MTV Music

I love it when a song makes me feels something - I can't tell you how much I love this song - John Legend and Andre 3000 are just having a really good time and it transfers over into the music.

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Clovis

My weekend design partner

This was my weekend design partner. I did basic production while Delilah directed colour, style and content.

She's quite talented.


Looking over my work on the website ...


Proofing my work.

Campus tour - Kalamazoo

Sorry for the delay in posting these images from our first college night in Kalamazoo. It was a good crowd and a good time.
Remember our next event is This Thursday Oct. 16th at Pinball Pete's in Lansing MI so if your in the neighborhood stop on by.

The process 10/13/08

So what do you get when you commit to finishing a major project in less than 24 hours?

answer: (and not in any particular order)
1. Drinking
2. Pizza
3. Good Conversation
4. papercuts
5. glazy eyes
6. more drinking
7. a photoshoot well worth talking about

I want to send a big thanks to Matt for all his hard work this weekend.

Also my thumb makes a cameo in one of the shots. Good Times

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The Process

I love handmade items. there's something very cool about the imperfections that arise when something is hand crafted - every nook scratch and line means something, which makes it all the more special.

Anyway, so here's the stage for our next stop motion animation. we're pulling a lot of ideas from the "Science of Sleep", which is a great film by Michel Gondry, that builds sets out of cardboard. It is very inspiring and it will be very interesting to see how it all turns out.

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stop the presses.

A big thanks goes out to John Liberty and the Kalamazoo Gazette's Ticket for a very nice article done on Toi's first college night.
Check it out here.

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Clovis

Creatives

I remember the first Spike Lee movie I ever watched was Malcom X.

My stepfather had just given me the Alex Hailey book and I tore through it amazed at this true life story, and relating to it in ways that made my fourteen year old mind more militant than it had any right to be. And so when the movie came out I couldn't wait to see what had been transferred to film. I loved the care that Spike lee had given to the film, and it made me a life long convert of his movies.

Anyway there is a very good article on Ain't It Cool News, where moriarty has a conversation with Spike Lee discussing film. Even though the focus of the conversation is based in film I believe the things they discuss are universal for any creative looking to succeed.
Ain't it cool news

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www.nalden.net

Nalden is co-owner of Appletree Records and has a personal website called Nalden.net THAT IS FRIGGIN' INCREDIBLE! I mean seriously it is a beautifully crafted, well planned, incredibly interesting website - It makes the mind wonder. Just take a look at it you'll be blown away by how well this site is designed.

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Clovis

Something to look at

just something to take a gander at.

Prep

We're always in a constant state of prep. Prepping for the next season of shirts, prepping for an event, prepping for world domination. ( The last one is not so much prep, just wishfull thinking.) anyhow one more thing that we are prepping for is the Re-design of our website. We wanted to get rid of some of the clutter, and add some cool little tweaks. One of the cool things about the web and it's ability to adapt to different types of media and platforms - is the idea of what you can do to add to the visual language of your site. That language is limited only by the imagination of its creator and how far you're willing to take your little virtual corner of the world. In the end all that we can hope for is that we're adding something interesting and a little cool to what is essentially an ever changing canvas.

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Clovis

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone powered by Centennial Wireless.

What did you do this weekend?

Just wanted to send a big thankyou to our models, photographer and intern for making this past weekend a blast. It's great when a plan comes together.

This is a rough edit of what we spent saturday working on. Check out the fruits of our labor above.

also if you look real close like, you'll see some of our new shirts, some of which won't be available on the site till after our college campus tour.

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Clovis

Converse Music Collab

Produced By Pharrell - Santogold, Julian Casablancas, N.E.R.D.


Have you ever met one of those people that just makes you jealous of how creative they are?

Well Pharrell Williams of nerd is one of those people everything he does is insanely creative and yet it all retains his own peronal brand. The video above is from the Converse Music Collaboration featuring Santagold, and Julian Casablanca from the Strokes. Damn Creative video and an equally good song.

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Clovis

Shawn Barber

I have been a fan of Shawn Barbers work for a few years now. His work has a really beautiful quality to it, I could only imagine what it would look like close-up.

Anyway for the past few years now he's been working on his Tattoo portraits. and I have to say that everyone of them is amazing.



Well now for those of us that can't afford priceless art, for $65.00 you can own his coffee table book "Forever and Ever" from 9mmbooks

Take a look at his website, and then go and get the book.

Summer lovin'

Don't forget to visit the Lost at E-minor site daily. If you love art, music, fashion, this site will become your new addiction. also we're privilaged enough to be included in their store, so stop by and show them some love.

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Clovis

Where does the time go?

I gotta say with summer kicking in full steam, time has become something of a hot commodity - Two events, new TOI apparel and work/real life are making me miss winter just a little bit.



First, just a heads up and something that we'll be talking about some more, is our TOI campus tour, the first being at my good ole' alma mater, Western Michigan University, in September. I'm really excited about it, since it will be a really good time getting to know new broncos, and watching their reaction to the new shirts - speaking of -



I love the classic monsters, Especially the wolfman, since, being a hairy bastard with canine like teeth, he was the one I related to the most, - this also carries into my love of beast from the x-man.

and finally something I'm still working on and trying to get right. the image below started out as a homeless man with the term "F*$#K you pay me" screened in glow ink and has eventually morphed into tattooed lady maybe or maybe not saying the same thing - I'm still working on it and am not sure if I'm getting it right yet. but right now still a pretty good image.



And also a prayer goes out to both Tim Russert and Stan Winstons' families. I love news and right now I'm addicted to MSNBC, Mr. Russert was a major reason for that. and Stan Winston helped to create iconic images - Terminator, Aliens, Iron Man, even the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. His amazing creativity will be missed.

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All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom

Above is the new Nerd video for their song "Everybody Nose" I heard a clip of this song a few weeks ago, and heard the full song this morning. This song is just energy, and beats and everything that makes yummy music.

The video by the by is based on Last Nights Party, a website I would link to but we may have some youngins who read this.

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Clovis

AARGGHHH! real monsters!

I don't know how many people remember the old Nickelodean cartoon "Aaaarghh! Real Monsters". It was a staple in my apartment at the time (that and Rocko's modern life.)

Anywho Kidrobot has done it again with their new collaboration with Peskimo, BambooZoo. each toy reminds me of those character drawings from the cartoon all those years ago.

I am continually impressed with Paul Budnitz and crew.

Godfather chair

What you're looking at above comes from the Skate Study House, a company out of California who creates high end furniture using Skateboards as their starting element. I love the look of their pieces, (Even if I don't love the price) it is really nice to see how visually creative, these guys are with just a simple skateboard.

Nice to see you old friend

I know, I know. The point of a blog is to keep up with the day to day happenings of our little corner of the world. And your saying to yourself, Self, once a month is not enough, I need weekly injections from the world of TOI. I feel your pain, and I apologize as life has been hectic and I've neglected my post.

So, what has been going on?

Well we're prepping for our first college night type party. Sept 19th Kalamazoo MI. We're really trying to make it something special and something that people will talk about on Western Michigan's campus for months to come. This is the event to be at if you want to start your college semester off right.

We're working on some simple things to help streamline our process. You wouldn't believe how complicated small things become. And for TOI to be the best TOI it can be, we need to tweak and polish a few things.

Can't wait to introduce our new keychain. they'll come with the shirts, but it is definately one more exstension of our "do it yourself" brand. And kids have flipped out over some of the samples we've been handing out.

And speaking of kids, today was my last day as a JA volunteer, here in coldwater. I can't tell you how cool these kids were. They were excited to hear about TOI and you could see their brains ticking away as we talked about branding and marketing and business in general. It was a lot of fun and hope to be able to do it again next year.

As a special treat for our last day I brought each of them a shirt. I'm hoping to see some of them start their own company in a few years and get out there and be entrepreneurs.

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Clovis

God Save The Panda

A few things... 1. if you love a well designed site, you owe it to yourself to vist the new Lost at E Minor it is a beautiful site and an incredible re-design of their previous incarnation. 2. how much do you love Jellybeans? Nothing really more than that, I just love jellybeans (but I don't really like them during easter. Easter is for Cadbury and nothing else.)
3. And finally up above is one of our new shirts for the fall/winter 08 season (yeah, I know that it is now just starting to feel like spring, but we never sleep and are always planning.). Click on it to embiggen'.

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Clovis

Russell

I cannot tell you how much I love these Guerilla's toys from Kidrobot. I mean they are just insanely detailed (They look exactly like the cartoon) and the packaging is top notch. Plus right now they are on sale for only $5.00! I love the concept of the band and I love these toys (And I've been on a guerillas listening spree for the last two days, just playing their songs over and over.)

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Clovis

The Process 2.5

I used to work at one of the major cereal manufacturers (Think tiger, not pirate) and we would spend HOURS scrutinizing over cereal box art or morning bar photos or if the tiger was correctly positioned with the three elves and the bird. It was mind blowing how detailed we got into something that when kids opened it, would probably be torn to shreds.

But I understood because -



PACKAGING MATTERS!!! - it is the first thing your customer touches, their first impression and reaction. A brands awareness can live and die on simple packaging, that's how important it is. But, here at TOI it takes on one more special meaning, Our packaging is part of our thankyou to you, the customer. When you open the bag from TOI we want you to forget the crappy day that you may be having, we want you to forget your nine to five, and we want you to remember what it felt like to open up the apple jacks and find the prize inside. The little add ins that we package with our clothing is a part of that. We want you to look forward to opening a TOI shirt, we want you to be suprised about what else we have thought of to stuff in that bag. That's why I spend hours scrutinizing over every package that we send from TOI.

The Process 2

This is what one of our workstations looks like right now. I know it's a mess. But what is coming out of this glorious mess will be friggin' cool - once we finish it.

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the Process 1

This is how every shirt or project starts. I sketch out something, take it into photoshop or illustrator and tweak, add color, re-draw, or shitcan (depending on my mood and if I think it was a stupid Idea 24 hours after drawing it.) This image I've already taken into photoshop and worked on some color samples. I think the rough lines and pencil smudges add to the effect I'm looking for.

Thoughts?

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Clovis

Helloooo Australia

Australian website Lost At E Minor have just opened their store and in addition to stocking Jeremyville and Ryan Sullivan, TOI Creative has been added as well.

We're really excited about this opportunity to spread the TOI gospel overseas, and look forward to everyone wearing a comfortable TOI T-shirt.

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Clovis

free rice

Here's a really cool way to help the planet. the UN’s World Food Programme have created FreeRice.com which lets you answer questions about everyday words, which are then turned into rice donations that are shipped around the world. It also lets you take a look at what countries have already ahieved the goal of donating .1% of their national income to help struggling countries. Pretty cool.

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photoshoot

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who participated in the photo shoot this weekend. Great fun was had by all and I couldn't ask for better friends. Thanks
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Clovis

I haven't had a chance to watch a full episode of Yo Gabba Gabba yet, (There's no tv in my office) but what I've seen on You Tube and the fantastic toys and clothes that Kid Robot has put together makes me want to find this on dvd and spend a weekend reliving my saturday morning childhood. By the by if anyone know when this is coming out on DVD please let me know.

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Clovis

Family

These are two of my nieces and nephews (I have six in total) they're two of the cutest kids you'll ever meet. I get caught up a lot of the time (Busier chasing my own tail, and trying to run this small part of the world.) but I love them all deeply. Part of the reason for the formation of TOI was to create something that my family could be proud of, (Or at least tell their friends about.) I don't get a lot of time to spend with them. But look at those cute faces and tell me that you wouldn't want to free up some time to go and see these kids and my family as much as possible.

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Clovis