My Digital Life

Seems last the past few weeks have involved a lot of digital/computer work. Here is what I have been up to:

1. Grandma and Grandpa 50th Anniversary video. My mom and aunt dug up some old video that was originally shot on 8mm in order to make a video for my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. This was a lot of fun to make. It is a bit long (11 mins), but if you grew up in Minnesota you will see a lot of familiar sights and landmarks.

Version 2 from Howard Spiess Jr on Vimeo.

2. Lip sync video and t-shirt. Erin is in charge of student council at school, and it is time for the annual lip sync. I helped the kids produce the promo video, as well as the t-shirt design. I was not the one who posted this one, so the audio is a bit off.

Here is the t-shirt:


Also, a lot of fun work done in class. Check out the designs section on Flickr for updates on that. Not much else to report, as this has been the bulk of my life since Hawaii.

A Great Vacation

Well, we are back. Eight days and seven nights in Waikiki. We had a great time. It started wonderfully by the fact that we had a non-stop flight from Newark. You have to love modern technology. Maybe this is not so modern, but the fact that you can go almost 5,000 miles in the air without stopping is amazing, convenient, and very much appreciated. Thank you Continental Airlines.

When we arrived we got a proper Hawaiian greeting with a lei and a hug (for Erin). I went for a hug, but apparently it is not tradition for the male to get a one. Thankfully, the greeter turned just as I went for my welcome hug and my gaffe went unnoticed, but not by Erin who proceeded to laugh about it intermittently during the week.



We stayed at a great hotel right on the beach (above) and our room had a beach view. Every morning we would wake up (early) and see that the surfers had beat us to rise. They must be out there just as the sun peeks out. Every morning there were at least 20 of them in action when we woke.

We spent our days lounging at the beach, snorkeling, and one day we drove then entire island. We started in Waikiki, and headed to the farthest western point of Oahu. When we got there, to our surprise, we found out that the roads do not connect and we would have to backtrack 25 miles to head up to the north shore. This was inconvenient, but I am glad we went out there. It was very quiet and lightly populated unlike most of Oahu. I was also surprised by the homeless villages that are out there on the west shore. There are entire towns of homeless folks that live in tents, lean to's, and cars in makeshift communities along the shoreline. There were literally hundreds of the shacks. You can kind of see one in the picture below.



After we backtracked, we headed to the north shore that is famous for its large waves and surfing. It was rainy up there, so we did not hit the beaches, but it was cool to see all of the surfer types hanging out.

Erin and I fell in love with the snorkeling while we were there and spent two days out at Hanauma Bay. It is not only great snorkeling out there, but a little less crowded than Waikiki, and definitely more quiet. We took some photos there with an underwater camera that I look forward to seeing. They were shot on film (I know, what?) so they require a trip to Walmart to create the digital files.

All right, that is all for now. There was a lot of stuff in between, but the pictures do more justice than my words. TONS more photos on Flickr.

Ilustrator Sketch

This week, I am delving into Adobe Illustrator. Now, this is a whole new world to me. I know Photoshop pretty well (I am no expert), but Illustrator and vector art have been illusive thus far. I look forward to learning about it, as much of the logo and print work I do should be done in vectors vs. bitmaps. Below is my first sketch of the assignment for this week that requires us to draw a room with 3 walls, a light source, and a window. It must be perspectively correct. The final piece will obviously have to include color, and the proper lighting and shadow effects to get it as close to reality as possible.

First Draft of Motion Assignment

This weeks design assignment calls for motion that includes a vehicle. This is my first run through on my own concept. I will post the final to flickr. This was created in Photoshop. There are a lot of fine details still to be worked out with the shadows to make it look more organic, but overall I am satisfied with the concept and composition as a first draft.

First Draft: Abstract Text Cover

Another homework assignment. Again, I find myself going the simple and clean route. I am not sure if this is some internal aesthetic choice, or if it is my personal limitations limiting me to this style. I am satisfied with the design thus far. This is the first draft, created over the last few hours.

Political Marketing

Tonight, President Obama fills us in on his plan for economic recovery. This is obviously not going to be a bipartisan entry. The Fairness Doctrine has not been put in place yet *wink*. Anything in quotes here is not direct, but a paraphrase as I listen in. Let see what he has to say:

- Right off the bat he deflects responsibility and is sure to make clear it was not him that put us in this financial crisis. True, but not the talk of a leader. This is not about deflecting responsibility, but offering solutions.

- "Look beyond our own short term interests, to the wider needs of all." Yikes. This sounds nice, but is dangerous rhetoric and a very slippery slope. Mr. President, I have a hard time as a tax payer bailing out those who got into mortgages that they could not afford, while I am stuck in a house that I could not break even on if I tried. It is a house I can afford, and I make my payments on time. Where is my cap reduction? If I had bought a house that I could not afford then I would qualify for government assistance, "for the greater good." This sir, is unfair. For responsibility I receive nothing, but for irresponsibility you receive bailouts. Perhaps if the likes of Barney Frank had not forced Fannie and Freddie to hand out loans to people who could not afford them, we would not have all of these bad assets and much of the housing crisis may have been avoided.

- Who the heck is Chuck Todd? "What should the public be sacrificing?" Come on Chuck. Lob that one in there so the President can jump in and say that they are already sacrificing. What a bald faced setup... this is reporting? The guy has one question and this was his choice.

- Cap and trade is a government scam, with them as the auctioneers. The way it is structured it will only pass down costs to consumers via higher energy prices. I fully support reduced carbon emissions, but the idea that you can force this through cap and trade only pushes cost down to the consumer. You may get a tax credit, but you will pay for it in higher energy costs later.

- Some good questioning by the gentleman in the front row about the deficit. I did not catch his name. Calling out Obama's rhetoric of cutting the deficit in half. The fact is, he has already almost doubled it and then after 6 years the budget deficit continues to GROW, not shrink. Obama talks about the long term, but in the long term the Obama deficit only gets bigger and bigger, with only a SHORT TERM reduction.

- Nice work on the Mexico deflection. I can already see the headlines tomorrow. Obama Tackles Cross Border Violence. I agree that the Mexican drug cartel problem is extremely dangerous, with ever increasing bloodshed, but its acknowledgment here feels forced. With the amount of bloodshed in Pakistan and Afghanistan daily, where we are currently engaged and focused militarily,this seems weird.

- Really pushing health care reform as the nexus of the economic problems. This will help his public opinion polls on the socialization of medicine.

- Major Garrett. You cheeky bastard. You never know what comment will come out of him. "What do you think when center-left and socialist European countries say no to more stimulus and overreaching spending?" lol. *jab*

- Wow, "it is not going to cripple them, they will still be well to do." This anti-rich stance is dangerous. His whole BS line that he thinks that the bus driver who earns $50,000 a year should have the same deduction as the wealthy businessman is a shameless downplay on this charitable contribution deduction program. The fact is, the rich are doing the large majority of the charitable contributions and with a reduced deduction their contributions will become less, and the CHARITIES WILL SUFFER. It is not that the rich will be less rich, but that they will adjust their contributions down in order for them to maintain their quality of life and still make charitable contributions. This will have an extremely negative effect on charities of all kinds. It is a blind tax grab to fulfill a bloated budget.

- The stem cell talk has thrown him off. He certainly is having trouble eloquently spinning positive rhetoric versus ethics on this one.

OK, I may get beat up here, but these are my thoughts as the press conference moved along. Interesting choice in reporters, eh? No WSJ, NY Times? No financial networks or publications? Thanks Fox, for pointing this out!

Till next time.

180 Marketing

Here is a new component that is sent as a HTML email.

I got your attention!

Now that I have sufficiently got your attention I will blog more. I know, my email was less than subtle, but oh well. I was thinking of vlogging (sp?). Interested?

Poster Design

Here is a poster I designed for class. The goal was to design a poster the "represents who you are." I will post my description below.



As I was brainstorming this project, a multitude of lofty ideas came and went. In the end, when I chose to move forward on this concept, I knew that I wanted the design portion of it to be simple. I have placed emphasis on line and geometric shape in my design.

Again, I incorporated an abstract eye into the design to represent my personal world view of design.
The line coming off of the bottom of the eye is my line of sight, which then connects with my simple circle to represent the earth, the way I see it. The consistency of hue between the eye, line of sight, and earth was not a coincidence, but is there to represent their connection and how closely they all relate to one another.

The black lines and hexagons represent future visions and design solutions. As you can see there are a multitude there, and the idea was to create the feeling that they were infinite. By placing them together in a way that creates an implied organic star field image, the viewer may understand that there is more beyond what they see on the surface, similar to how we perceive the stars in the night sky.

The yellow circle represents inspiration and is purposely designed to imply the shape of the sun with its rays coming off and crossing my line of sight. Through the use of line it draws the viewers eye from the top right of the image, to the bottom left, which is opposite of how most people naturally view a design. I did this because it pulls the viewers eye back in, instead of letting them fall off of the side of the design as they follow all of the other lines.

Lastly, the incorporation of the building image is a picture I had taken while on a trip to LA. For some reason the pictures speaks to me about the modern world and connects with my logical real world existence. For me it represents structure and a solid base in an otherwise chaotic world. This structure is provided by self and is something we all create in order to make sense of the world around us; the core of our ideas.

Now, I wanted this poster to be different and go beyond a solely graphic design. In an effort to represent as much of myself as possible, I included myself, books, and the TV that holds the design. The books are now at the base and are holding up everything else, the way our intelligence and education carries us through our professional lives. The TV that holds the design was my fun way to incorporate technology into the piece, which represents my interest in science and technology. And myself holding it all up was my sneaky way of getting my mug shot into the design and represent its creator. The shirt I am wearing actually inspired my use of color and line in the design, and me wearing it tied myself to this particular project.

I planned to key out the background from the initiation of this project without really knowing what I would place there. After some trial and error with solid hues, gradients, photographs, and more graphic design, I plugged in the design that is on the TV and the result made me quite happy. This repetition really tied the design together as a whole. After messing with scale a little, I was able to create the impression that the building extended from the background and into the TV. All of this was initially unplanned, but an exciting discovery.

Personal Logo

Fun assignment in Visual Communication Theory. Design a Personal Logo in black and white. Here is my creation:



Simple, yet functional. I was looking to create an abstract, implied eye. In the end, it was less abstract than I had hoped, but I was happy with the implied organic shape. Created in Adobe Illustrator.

Camera RAW

Well, I did it. I have made the plunge into RAW. It is definitely a whole new world and given that a week ago I knew nothing about it, I am feeling much better about the prospects. I picked up a great book that is teaching me the ins and outs of Adobe CS3 Camera Raw editing. I have a long way to go, but have burned about half way through the text already. The amount of control is staggering and when coupled with Photoshop, it really allows for an incredible amount of post production control.

That being said, I quickly found out that you still have to take great shots with the camera to get great outcomes. RAW does not provide you the ability to transform a bad picture into a good one. One part I really like about it is the ability to adjust the exposure during the post production. Again, shooting with a good low light lens is superior, but I have found that I can really brighten up some of my low light shots after the fact by adjusting the exposure in Camera Raw.

Anyway, I am very excited to get out and shoot some more. I have been playing around with F-stops and shutter speeds with mixed results. The ability of a good lens cannot be understated, and I have come to the conclusion that the stock lens that my camera arrived with will need to be replaced/substituted with a fancier one. Maybe before Hawaii. Below is a nugget from Ben's visit. I post-produced it in Camera Raw and was pretty happy with the color output.



I did a lot of color altering here. As a reference, the wall in the background is actually yellow. The photo is soft, but again I need a better lens for low light shooting.

Dirty Mouth

This little nugget popped up on the interweb overnight. Apparently Obama did the reading of his own audio book. Being that there is some colorful language included and this is a man who's rhetoric is usually well groomed, the hilarity ensues.

Disclaimer: I just think this is funny and in no way am I looking to tarnish his reputation or make fun of his politics. People are so touchy about him.

Audio 1
Audio 2
Audio 3
Audio 4
Audio 5

SoCal

Aaaaaah, a week in Laguna. Work life is sure presenting its hardships this year. The weather was absolutely beautiful and the resort where the event was hosted was pristine. Though, it gets to be a little too much for me at these swanky hotels, with the Mr. Spiess this, and Mr. Spiess that. Too fancy. I know, rough right?

I did get an afternoon to sneak away and check out Jim's new apartment. I took the Coast Highway most of the way up, which was beautiful, then had the pleasure of getting on the 405...



Jim is in a sweet neighborhood just east of Brentwood, and only a couple miles from the Santa Monica Pier. It's a cool location with lots of restaurants and activity. We went down to the 3rd Street Promenade for some sushi, but I had to head back shortly after to get back to work. LA seems like an experience, and creates an feeling of self-consciousness everywhere you go. Everybody is better looking, and surgically altered. I have never seen so many fake boobies as I did last week in Laguna!

Southern California is beautiful, with their multi-million dollar homes perched precariously on the edges of the hills. Everywhere you go has an ocean view and Catalina is only a short ferry ride away. I can see why, if you had an endless supply of capital, people live there.



Again, more shots on Flickr.

Whoa!

Death Drive Home

I ended up behind this guy on the way home:





Two dead deer tied to the bumper. Delightful.

Lesson learned: my phone takes terrible pics.

Microsoft Songsmith is funny

I caught this on pitchfork this morning. Apparently Microsoft has a new software that creates a musical track to accompany the singers voice. Hilarity ensues. Here is a nugget:



More here. I especially like Oasis - "Wonderwall." I am pretty sure it is better than the original.

Yule Blog

Well, the holiday season has come and gone extremely quickly once again. It was an especially long break this year, as New Years day fell on a Thursday and most places of employment extended the break through the weekend.

We had the first of many Christmas celebrations here in New Jersey with my dad, Nancy (step-mom), and Sean (bro). We decided this would be the year of the Lego because Sean is now 6 and has the patience and fine motor skills to handle it. He really liked the Lego's, especially the Star Wars themed kit. We also got him this awesome dinosaur set that turned out very cool. A picture of it is on my phone, I will be sure to post soon.



My dad and Nancy got us this awesome, and much needed set of luggage. It got a lot of use over the holiday and was extremely convenient.

On the 23rd we headed to MN for the start of our long break. We stayed with my mom and Ken (step-dad) in Somerset, WI, which is just across the border from Stillwater. It was quiet and peaceful and nice to spend a few days with family. We spent Christmas at my Grandma's house, which is literally just down the road from my mom's house. Erin and I decided to walk there, which tuned out to be much colder than anticipated. Apparently they have a pretty steady wind through the development, and we were pretty chilled on arrival. Grandma and Grandpa made a Christmas turkey with lots of fixin's.



After G & G's house we headed to my Aunt Sue's house (my dad's side) and had dinner and family time. It was nice to hang out for a few hours and catch up with cousins, aunts and uncles. Unfortunately at this point I was feeling ill and was not able to enjoy everyone like I had hoped, and banished myself to the couch so as to infect as few as possible. Over there, the Christmas was all about the kids, and they racked up a lot of fun gifts.


Taiylor and Connor patiently wait for presents

After that we headed to Connoy's for the annual Christmas party. It was great to spend time with friends, catching up and listening to music. Unfortunately I did not take a lot of shots and the ones I did take we not good. I need to work on my low light camera skills.

On the 28th we headed to Sheboygan to spend time with Erin's family. We left early (6:30 am) in order to get to the big Marx family get together. It was a wonderful family celebration with crock pots filled with midwestern delights. A good old fashioned midwestern pot luck definitely does have an unmatched charm. Again, the children enjoyed gifts and we all enjoyed their smiles and holiday enthusiasm.


Becca enjoys her gift (a baby)

We had a great week in Sheboygan that included taking Grandma Donna to bingo, an evening out with siblings, New Years Eve at City Streets, and lots of family time.





We headed home on the second, complete with flight delays and other miscellaneous travel mishaps. Anyway, so glad to be home. Hope all of your holidays were great!

More pictures on Flickr. I had some fun with notes on these, which I like and will do more often now.