JOYENGINE: cause sharing is cool

Soft&Furry, my ass.

He’s always watching…

 Our pal and co-conspirator in all things art & design related, Rob Angermuller, aka Lifter Baron was recently brought on by Minneapolis creative powerhouse, Seventhsin.  Rob will be formally joining the super-talented crew in mid-may and coming on as a Sr. Designer.  Yeah boyee!  The loss of Rob and his designer/partner/lady-friend Celeste  was a significant one to our little arty community, but their recent move to MN seems to be proving fruitful.  One man’s loss is often anothes gain, and we’re confident that Rob & Celeste will be upping the ante out in MN.  In a day and age where anyone and everyone with an Apple computer thinks they’re a designer, it’s quite refreshing to find a super-functional couple, both with Apple computers, formal design training, and real fucking skills.  You guys rock.  You can keep up with Rob & Celeste (and one of our favorite local design talents and all around awesome dude, Josh Wills)  and their graphically inspired adventures on their blog, becausweliketo.

I received a rather intriquing email from my buddy Lifter Baron this morning. He’d stumbled upon a graphic designers portfolio containing what seemed to be a sad and blatant ripoff of an illustration Brian Krezel created for a collaborative piece we worked on together for an opening I had at Installation Shoe Gallery. I went in for a closer look and stopped by http://downpour.identico.org, and yep sure enough homey totally ripped Krez’s storkmaster and integrated him into a snowboard design for Salomon? Perhaps even for Salomon’s design contest? Seems like he went one step further and stole a little Sam Flores steez for the torso. Drawing inspiration from someone, somewhere, or something is one thing, but straight up copying… well, that’s another.

Oh, for those of you that have yet to realize, in this Digital Age we’re living in, the “world wide web” really is worldwide - with eyes on the prize 24/7.

Note: (top image) Comparison of the Storkmaster piece and Downpour’s snowboard. (bottom image) A scan of Krezel’s original storkmaster sketch prior to adjustment.

I got all inspired after seeing the super sick owl stencils the guys did for Shitty’s show and couldn’t help but whip one up myself. It’s obviously not stencil safe but it’s a reflection of my longing for the missed collabos from days past. I’m waiting for the next time we all get to stay up until the wee hours of the night killin’ it for a sweet promo project or a show.

In case you didn’t know, I did a little update to my site recently. It’s still in progress but check it out, you’ll see some new stuff, some old stuff, some re-done stuff and just some stuff…

As you can see, we have started to find some interesting spots to check out here in Minneapolis. Although it may appear to be taken in front of a giant Murakami installation, it’s not. This flick was taken in a hallway in the Walker Arts Center. Celeste and I made sure to put this at the top of our places to see list and it was all, if not more than, what we had hoped for. We found this little area and had to snap a quick pic. How often is it that you see a room covered in a pattern by Takashi Murakami. It seems wallpaper still has something going for itself? To say the least, the Walker has tons of crazy stuff in it and is a must see on anyone’s visit to the Twin Cities, but thats another story all together. I’ll catch you all up on all of that soon enough.

To give everyone a quick look at my wonderful new city, I sneaked as close as I could to one of the bridges to get this swell pic. Although this is not out my back door or off of my patio, it’s just on the other side of the city. I promised to get some flicks of our pad with all of our our growing collection of art, and after we get totally situated and furnished I can post a somewhat modest collection of images. It’s mostly, if not all, comprised of CO based artists but still holds more weight than some of the illest stuff around. Maybe all of us can do a little mini version of cribs and show off our art collections and diabolical lairs. Who knows? Anyway, I’m sure it’s needless to say, but there will most definitely be more to come. Stay tuned and stay fresh kids…

Celeste and I recently took a little precursor trip to Minneapolis to check the city out before our big move. We were only there for 3 days, but the city undoubtedly spoke to us. Aside from being cold as shit, it seems to have a really great creative community with plenty of galleries, museums, architecture, food and super friendly people. We had a decent sized list of things to check out on our trip and Robot Love just so happened to be up on the top. We cruised by to say howdy and check out their selection of vinyl goodies. From the looks of it, they have a pretty damn good one at that. We found T-shirts, blind box goodies, Poketo wallets, plush, limited and rare vinyl along with some super rad prints. While there, we were reminded that the Dunny Trading Show was that same Thursday. We were kinda pissed about missing all the fun stuff going down here in Denver on that same night but made it an opportunity to check out what the Minneapolis Dunny fanatics were like. Saying that, I’ll leave you with a little taste of some of the things to come from our soon to be, Minneapolis vantage point.

If you haven’t heard, our dear friends Rob and Celeste are leaving us. Celeste was recently hired at Zeus Jones (congrats!!!) and the duo will be moving to Minneapolis in the next few days. We had a great going away dinner last night. TB and myself made the following pieces for them to take on the road. While we’re losing some key players in our scene, we’ll now be extending the JoyEngine family outside of Colorado. Good luck to you both!

It’s not all of the hair that surprises me, it’s the fact that this ad will never gain the recognition it should. The slogan says it all, “Going places no one has ever dreamed of…” and thats exactly what JoyEngine is doing. They are driving the artsy starship through the creative galaxy and deserve quite a bit of respect for steering this bitch through the dust and darkness. So here it is, a little something from me to them.

If you’re curious how TEEBEE got in such good shape for this ad, it’s all an optical illusion. I think the lights are reflecting off of his body hair in just the right way to make him looked all trained and shaped. Make it known that, although this is the first of its kind in JE advertising, it sure won’t be the last time. Who knows maybe it’ll be made into a calender!

As you can all see, the crew is slowly and most positively taking over the planet. You might be asking yourself, “why is Lifter Baron a judge at an AIGA event?” Well, the answer is simple actually. People love me! HA! It’s actually a combination of a lot of things. Knowing really cool, kind and connected people helps, along with living in a town where you get to be recognized quite rapidly for your enthusiasm and consideration. But enough about my shiny smile and my gorgeous locks of whisker hair. The real idea is that, although this is only an AIGA event, it’s still a great sign that certain people are doing everything they can to make things better. Getting people involved is a great first step. Make sure to keep your ears clean and your eyes peeled, there will be plenty more updates on the outcome of the Design Jam 08 competition and Lifter Baron’s skills in the judge’s box!