Just a quick note to say that we’ll no longer be actively updating this site. It’s been a great run. And thanks for stopping by.
For Michael Hastings-Black’s current exploits please visit him here. Raafi Rivero recently wrote about social media in the New York Times and maintains a personal site.
This past Halloween saw team Desedo plus a few hundred of our closest friends breaking things down in Brooklyn. At some point the camera came out. We’ll call it an exercise in creativity, a night of fun captured on film… Embedded journalism! All of that to say that time marches forward. And we like to march right along beside it. At times with booze and homies.
The Monster Mash was thrown by Jamie and Debbie (whose freshly minted ghost kitty is worth a checkout too). Of course, the scariest costume of the night goes to the guy with the custom-embroidered Bed Bugs hat and strap-on mattress. Don’t wave that thing at me, buddy.
The Treme logotype is everything that it’s counterpart is not. It’s an accurate example of hand-painted lettering that instantly conjures an image of the New Orleans culture. Because it’s handmade, it’s also real— the stylistic affectations and imperfections are what give it character.
On the other hand, the title/credit type feels odd, almost forced. It seems to be some sort of mid-weight serif font, perhaps Bell MT, stuck between old style typefaces like Garamond and a transitional face like Bodoni. It doesn’t pair well with the show or even offer any stylistic continuity. The Treme logotype evokes New Orleans neighborhoods, lifestyle, and culture. The title font evokes an antiseptic book report.
Sure, it contrasts with the powerful imagery in the intro theme, but it has a completely undesirable effect. Rather than making the images themselves pop and feel more powerful, the typographic contrast is jarring, and distracts the viewer from the imagery. So what was Simon thinking? While the typeface does have a genuine feeling, it certainly is not that of New Orleans. My guess is that he chose it because the ball terminals on the font’s letterforms bear a semblance musical notation. Yet notation isn’t really the essence of Jazz, or New Orleans for that matter, both of which represent a diametric shift from Western norms of that era.
Watching the show, loving the show, but still confused by the credits.
(Written by Desedo friend Ryan Reynolds, who is the Design Director at MSDS.)
Desedo fam Jordan and Brad went out to Red Rocks and shot this gorgeous commercial for McDonald’s. They worked with Abe Froman Productions and the ad agency R+W. The song, which is quite happily stuck in my head, is by Hungry Cloud.
Our Crookers music video premiered this week on NME. It’s also getting love from The Fader, URB and over 100 blogs from across the globe.
Directed by Paul Kamuf, lensed by Paul Starkman, cut by Neal Usatin and with a cameo by MHB, it’s clocked over a quarter million views throughout the web.
The CMO Council just published MHB’s essay about New Media + Multicultural Markets.
On December 5th, MHB will be speaking at Culture Lab Creative‘s 2010 Trends Summit in Dallas. Top on his mind right now is how men’s fashion relates to finance. In this downturn, we see it’s time to fix up, look sharp and be a grown ass man.