Julie's Pseudo Birthday Gift

We all have tough months. Mine was February. The aftermath of the holidays, some unexpected expenses and a dip in freelance work left my wallet thinner than usual. I can handle living on a shoestring. However, my fiancée's birthday just happened to coincide with this perfect storm of financial wallops, leaving me empty handed in the gift department. Not good. So this year, in lieu of an actual gift, I designed her this five panel, vertical accordion folding card and she loved it.

Nikon D60

Shortly after the holidays I treated myself to a fancy new camera. The Nikon D60 entry level digital SLR had been calling me ever since I saw the photos taken by a fellow traveler on our trip to Peru. The deep, saturated colors that she captured on her D60 were all I needed to convince myself that dropping several hundred on the camera was an absolute necessity. Not to mention the fact that every designer needs a good camera, right?! See here, here and here.

Below is a selection of photos captured on the new DSLR since January. If you want to follow my photographic endeavors, here is the photostream.

Happy Holidays from Studiostein

Viva Las Incabators

A friend recently told me that in film making you will spend roughly six hours in the editing room for every one hour of completed footage. Over the past two weeks I had the opportunity to test this theory, and found that it is extraordinarily optimistic. Last month Julie and I took our first vacation in five years to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and along the way we got about two hours of footage. Editing it down to a thirty minute movie took me at least twenty hours. Granted, I'm a film making novice with a computer not optimized for video editing. However, I prefer to convince myself that the reason it took so long was because I did such a damn fine job on it. I hope you enjoy the finished product.

Illustrating the Holidays

On a rare occasion I get to wear the hat of an illustrator. Its something that I always enjoy, but hardly ever have the opportunity to do. Consequently, I've never developed my own style of drawing. Yesterday I was asked to create some holiday related marketing pieces. The client was intent on focusing the design around highly obvious holiday subjects: Santa, turkey, fireworks, and so on. I learned quickly that the royalty-free stock photography reserve of holiday themes is just downright bad. I figured, the only way to make this project work without compromising too much on aesthetics was to embrace the cliche and illustrate them by hand. Here are a couple of the illustrations that were settled on:

Happy Holidays

Just a quick note to wish you Happy Holidays and say thanks for visiting my blog. This site rarely gets more than 10 hits in any given day, but I value each visit more than you know. Above is a slightly adapted version of the post card that Julie and I sent out to our usual holiday mailing list. Thank you to Michael Schwab for providing the inspiration.

The Edit Aesthetic

I just finished a small stationery re-design for a non-profit association that, in their best interest, will remain anonymous. The back of the letterhead features a list of all the board member names which require annual updates. Herein lies the subject of this post. This particular client constructed an elaborate and aesthetically satisfying piece of her own by listing the edits in a Mind Map-ish sort of way. I love the look of it and in spite of the visual complexity, I understood it all.

Kinetic Artwork

As a kid I had a fascination with the incredibly complex and always whimsical devices I would later come to know as Rube Goldberg Machines. Although in my youth I simply though of them as really cool ways to make breakfast (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure) or open your front gate (The Goonies). There is a great DIY aesthetic to the engineering of these devices that commands our attention no matter what age we are. And they remind us that the tangible world of physics, chemistry, engineering and sheer dumb luck still offer spectacles that computer graphics and super-slick art direction can't beat.

These are some of the more noteworthy Kinetic art pieces I've come across. Included are two works by Theo Jansen, a Dutch sculptor who creates large kinetic machines that can be set into motion by slight forces, such as a gust of wind or a gentle push.

The Way Things Go - Peter Fischli and David Weiss


Honda Ad

Theo Jansen - BMW Ad


Theo Jansen - Animaris Rhinoceros


Japanese Rube Goldberg Machines

Aaron Cool

On a recent trip to California I drove through the town of Cool, a small unincorporated community with a smaller population than my high school. Cool hardly seemed to live up to its name—that is until I drove past a back road that caught my keen attention. Keep in mind, my name is Aaron:

Serendipity

Here is my Word It submission for September. This month's word is Serendipity: the occurrence and development of events in a happy or beneficial way. I took a very simple approach to this. Enjoy.

The Propagandizer

I just want to take a moment to announce a new project that my girlfriend Julie and I are starting called the Propagandizer. Click here to check it out. Spurred by the fulfillment of designing the 9/11 General Strike Poster, we are launching this project as a small contribution to a world desperately in need of change. I for one have never been the type of activist to march in rallies, stage sit-ins or throw eggs at the presidential motorcade, so we believe this undertaking will drown out any other attempts we could make to have our voices heard.

On a continual basis we will post original propaganda that you can download, print & post in your neighborhood if you are so inclined. If you disagree with the point of view expressed by the Propagandizer, let us know (as I'm sure you will). If you wish to contribute your own propaganda, please do so. Prepare your artwork as a PDF file and email it to this address. Please keep the file size below 5MB.

Day of nothing

I don't delude myself that visitors to this blog want to read about my political leanings. This little corner of the internet is about design, not politics. I am neither learned in the political sciences nor thoroughly up to date on world affairs. My political convictions are based largely on what I hear on NPR a couple times a week, what I see in the headlines of CNN.com, and what I feel in my gut when I take all this, and much more into consideration. That being said, I promise to keep all political ramblings to a minimum.

At the urging of my gut, and aided by a strong desire to do more "extracurricular" design, I created this poster to promote the 9/11 General Strike. Whether or not they include it on the official website for download by the public is yet to be determined, but you can download the full size PDF here, print it and post it in your neighborhood if you are so inclined.


Regardless, it felt good to break from client projects and create something that reflects my personal convictions. While I don't think that design alone can change the world, I do believe that it is a critical tool in bringing about political, social and environmental progress.

Coke vs. Pepsi (Aesthetically Speaking)

Less is definitely more. The Coca-Cola Company proved that with the recent enema it performed on the famous Coke can. This simple redesign turned out to be one of the best product packaging overhauls of the last several years, and it is one that will go largely unnoticed by the general public. Instead, consumers will experience a barely detectable sense of nostalgia and perhaps an enhanced connection to the bubbly beverage, and nothing more. Why such a slight consumer reaction? Rather than slapping swooshes, splashes and halftone patterns onto the design, they removed extraneous design elements and, in so doing, returned the Coke can to its long-ago simple glory.


In a marketing milieu where corporations flood the public with visual noise, a move like this from such a large player should be applauded. Now Coca-Cola actually deserves the name "classic".

On the other end of the boxing ring stands Pepsi. Now I should probably mention that I have little conviction about which is a superior soft drink. My girlfriend Julie feels very strongly that Coca-Cola is the apex of all beverages. Because of this, no Pepsi can has ever seen the inside of our refrigerator. That notwithstanding, Pepsi's latest marketing effort takes the exact opposite approach as Coca-Cola, and quite frankly their new cans turn my stomach.

Adorned with flashy, urban patterns this suite of 15 unique designs attempts to speak directly to young consumers in what Pepsi calls "a salute to the spirit of youth and discovery". Unfortunately, these cans only succeed in widening the gap between mega-corporation Pepsico and it's consumers by trivializing youth culture with graphics of car rims, snowboarders and DJs. For Pepsi's full spectrum of youth culture clichés, click here.

Web 2.0, I love you

Just a quick memo to proclaim my love for the era of immediate information. I'm smitten with the Internet. I love it in the same way I love my bicycle or Dunkin Donuts coffee. It's always there, ready to take me new places, show me new things and answer my questions. It's my professor, my doctor, my tour guide, my mailman, my megaphone, and my community.

Whether this is good or bad for the other relationships in my life is a question for the true, living-breathing apple of my eye, Julie. But I must admit that my infatuation with the Internet is long-standing and still going strong.

On a side note, you can now check out my fickr photostream by clicking on the flickr badge in the sidebar. Meet our menagerie of pets and catch a glimpse into the daily goings-on at the Weinstein/Vazquez household.

Egg'd!

A funny thing happened on my way home from work that has nothing to do with design, but is noteworthy nonetheless. My preferred method of transportation involves two wheels, a crank shaft, and a hard leather saddle. I'm an urban bicycle commuter, and I love it. But this Monday my daily commute was disrupted by a band of 10 year old punks.

As I approached Cabrini Green, I took momentary notice of the abundance of people enjoying the beautiful Spring day. It seemed only natural that a group of kids should be strolling the courtyard, smiles ablaze in the sunlight. As they rapidly approached the bicycle path I noticed the smile in one boy's eyes quickly change into wicked determination. In that moment before his dastardly act was executed, I was swept back to a distant childhood memory.

In this memory I was riding my bike to the end of the cul de sac and through a neighbors lawn to a place we called Dirt Valley; a network of twisting, hilly paths tucked away in the woods. As I approached the bottom of the street I glimpsed Sean Perkins, a chubby boy 3 or 4 years younger than I with a broomstick clinched high above his head, and the same look of wicked determination in his eyes. Without hesitation, he released the broomstick, lodging it squarely in my spokes and sending me sprawling across the pavement.

Flash forward—I noticed something white and round in the evil-eyed boy's hand and began to realize that this was no innocent interaction, it was an ambush. Blocked by a solid row of cars to my left, I had no choice but to stay the course. I curled my shoulder down and turned my head away as the boy took aim and pelted the egg with surprising accuracy. The projectile hit me squarely in the leg and sent a gelatinous mélange of yolk and white across my frame, handlebars and shoes. I was egg'd! His band of hellions instantly burst into laughter as I did all I could think of—yelled obscenities and rode on.

Humiliated and slightly amused, I began to think that I was not so different when I was a kid. I wrought havoc with rolls of toilet paper and cartons of eggs. I stole beer from open garages and turned people's televisions off with a remote from outside their living room windows. What right had I to loathe this boy for egg'ing me? It was merely karma coming full circle. Rather than brooding over the event, I've decided to focus my energy on developing creative ways to get revenge if the band of kids ever makes a follow-up appearance. So far my favorite scenario was suggested by my girlfriend: pudding filled water balloons in an easy-access pouch. I'll simply grab as many balloons as I can hold in one hand and with the momentum of my cycle, lob the balloons at the group of kids and laugh malevolently as I ride into the distance.

If you can think of other creative methods for me to foil the band of 10 year old punks, please let me know. If it seems feasible and won't call the attention of their older brothers, perhaps I will put your plan into action.