You can now follow Sapitot on Twitter! Promise you’ll never see what I’ve had for lunch.
Sapitot Now Twittering
September 13th, 2009Portfolio Update
August 9th, 2009If you hadn’t noticed, I updated the Sapitot portfolio with a couple of new pieces last week. First up is Mike Grutka’s charming new album, Ria. This is the 3rd CD design in as many releases I’ve done for Mike. The challenge for this project was bringing the large amount of photos that Mike provided me of himself and locations in and around his home of Saratoga Springs, NY into a cohesive design. I used a moire pattern and bright, bold colors to give all the photos a common theme and thread throughout the digipack and 8 page booklet. The cover is below – you can view the rest of it in the Sapitot portfolio. We’re both really happy with how it turned out.
If you haven’t checked out Mike’s tunes before, this is a good release to start on. Ria is easily his most experimental, yet still poppy album and it has been on constant rotation on my iPod ever since he sent it to me. It’s available for digital download on his site now (mikegrutka.com) and the CD should be returning from the manufacturer in the coming week or so.
Another project still in the works is a logo/branding job I’m working on for Haute Dog Bows, an Arizona-based dog bow business who is looking for an upscale and girly look. Below is the logo created for them, along with the business card system. Next up is a dynamic, shopping cart enabled website. Stay tuned.
Poster in a Video
July 3rd, 2009Wow, long time no blog. I was doing pretty well with this, up until the past 6 months. Will catch everyone up to speed eventually. Anyway, the reason for this post…Harlem Shakes recently shot a very clever video for their crazy catchy song “Strictly Game”. If you’ve ever watched a pirated song on YouTube, you’ll totally get the parody concept. Quite genius and hilarious too. Keep your eyes peeled at around the 2 minute mark for a Sapitot contribution to the video. Came as a total surprise when I watched it for the first time. Kind of cool, cheggit out below.
Harlem Shakes – Strictly Game Video
I’ll be making some updates to this site soon, have a couple of new projects in the works that I’m excited to share.
Harlem Shakes Tour Poster
February 10th, 2009The Harlem Shakes approached me about doing a new tour poster for their upcoming tour with Tokyo Police Club and I was more than happy to oblige. Drawing themes from their upcoming first LP artwork, Technicolor Health, this is the end product. The print is 18×24, with 4 screens. Two versions are being printed of this design, one for sale while they are with TPC and one for when they head out on their own for a few weeks.
They also graciously gave me the LP in its entirety, and let me tell you, it’s ridiculously good…you’ll be hard pressed to get any of the hooks out of your head, just a fantastic CD. They seem to have tapped into the zeitgeist of the new presidential era, and will be soundtracking the foreseeable future for me. I’ll be very surprised if this doesn’t get quite a bit of buzz in the indie-sphere.
A few copies will be on sale here on Sapitot in a few weeks, or even better, pick up one when they come near your home town.
For more tour information, visit harlemshakes.com
uniquecss.com
February 8th, 2009For the month of February, Sapitot is being featured in a poll for “site of the month” at Unique CSS. Head over to uniquecss.com and help vote us to the top!
So this is the New Year
January 18th, 2009With the turning of a new year, figured it was time to spruce up around here, with the addition of a new work collage for the index page and some new recommendations in the “currently listening to” box on the right.
Over the course of the past month or so, I’ve been quietly adding some new pieces to the logo and collateral portfolios in the print section. Sapitot has several new freelance projects on the horizon, which I’ll be excited to share once completed.
Link Love
January 12th, 2009Sapitot has recently been getting some link love from the world’s CSS aggregate sites. Below are links to sites that are featuring Sapitot. Thought I would return the favor and give them a link back. Check out these great sources of inspiration.
luvthatdesign.com – Sapitot is a featured site!
my3w.org
cssburst.com
foliostars.net
quandtnet.de
rgbgarden.com
csscount.com
css-design-yorkshire.com
bestcssdesign.com
cssstar.com
mabucplus.com
css-imagine.com
csscookie.com
pixelcss.es
yoursiteisvalid.com
csssnap.com
onecss.com
cssblaze.com
cssseason.com
styletheweb.com
csspig.com
AOTY 2008 List
January 2nd, 2009A little late, but like any music geek, I’ve got to make a list. Here are the albums that soundtracked my 2008 (in no particular order).
23. TV on the Radio – Dear Science
22. The Streets – Everything is Borrowed
21. The Hold Steady – Stay Positive
20. REM – Accelerate
19. M83 – Saturday=Youth
18. Kanye West – 808s and Heartbreak
17. Sigur Ros – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
16. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
15. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
14. Arms – Kids Aflame
13. The Notwist – The Devil, You + Me
12. Nada Surf – Lucky
11. Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride
10. The Gaslight Anthem – The ’59 Sound
9. Ray LaMontagne – Gossip in the Grain
8. Q-Tip – The Renaissance
7. Atmosphere – When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
6. Conor Oberst – Conner Oberst
5. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
4. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
3. The Black Keys – Attack and Release
2. Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
1. Cut/Copy – In Ghost Colors
The Christmas Rush
December 3rd, 2008I read a rather disturbing article this weekend on the Huffington Post that for one reason or another spurred a lot of emotions for me over the Thanksgiving weekend. On Black Friday last week, a crowd of over 2,000 people in New York State stormed through the doors of a local Wal-Mart at 5am and trampled an employee to death in their rush for the early bird sales. I’m sorry, but where is the outrage over this? We’re talking about a guy who was working hard to provide for his family and then you have a crowd of suburban folks who are worked into a frenzy for a bunch of meaningless objects that are on sale, pushing him to the ground and crushing him. For what? Tropic Thunder on DVD for 9 bucks, a discounted TV, some cheap plastic toys for the kids? The report continues on that the mob became angry that they had to leave the store after the death was discovered.
I could possibly understand how this could happen in a third world nation where one truck of food and water relief arrived for the whole village and it was a matter of life and death, but we’re talking about America here. There is absolutely no reason why something like this should happen in a “civilized” country such as ours, especially over some plastic crap that is by no means essential for survival. It’s another sad reflection of how we as a society have to purchase meaningless possessions to fill our lives with meaning and how deep consumerism is entrenched.
The stores who limit quantities on highly prized goods, drop prices dramatically and then offer no way to effectively control a crowd who are whipped into a frenzy also share some of the blame. There is no reason why Wal-Mart should not have allowed that many people to fall into mob hysteria. Very sad.
For me, this event has me rethinking my giving this holiday season, giving presents that have more meaning and originality than the latest deal at Wal-Mart.
Pepsi
October 23rd, 2008Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Gatorade are redesigning their logos and bottles. I’m interested to see where this new direction takes the company.
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/pepsi_new_bottles.php
If you haven’t been to Brand New before, it’s an excellent blog that documents companies who are rebranding, by giving before and after shots of old and new logos. Great source of inspiration.
Now playing: Underoath – Lost in the Sound of Separation