Distance Learner
A wild weekend, sculpting shenanigans, and thoughts on branding
Happy Monday! Anything interesting happen this weekend? lllloooolll… what a week/month/year as the wildness keeps coming. I’m really glad that Biden has chosen to drop out when he did, I mean, clearly this has been in works for a while. First, they had to plant the bit about “if anything health related arises” and then Joe came down with Covid. Then, the announcement had to happen after the RNC so now those suckers feel like they spent a week saying “an old man president is bad!” and they’re the one left with a geriatric lunatic.
The energy today across social, especially TikTok, is PALPABLE. You can see folks rallying together to make Kamala Harris the next president, people are excited to vote again. Harris, and whoever she signs as her running mate, will be a fresh ball of energy, basically 20 years younger (or more if she picks Pete Buttigieg! He’s only 42!) than the fascist MAGA candidate. I’m sure the next four months are going to be filled with even more clowns, buffoonery, and hoopla, but for today? I’m feeling a lot better.
As it turns out, I remember how to sculpt, and I love it. I mentioned how I was starting a a ceramic studio to get back into sculpting a few weeks ago so I wanted to share some initial thoughts and results. Sculpting feels like I’m making an onion from the inside out. After a few weeks I’ve made two large pieces and two medium sized pieces, all very different in style. My favorite is the one at top which was inspired heavily by the ceramic work of Yoshitomo Nara. I’ve come to realize that I like really bold shapes with simple, somewhat minimal expressions. It’s definitely interesting trying all the different types of clay to see what works best for me. Like any art and any medium it takes time to find the material that allows me to create what’s in my brain.
The next step is to start glazing everything which adds more complexity. Crazy speckle? Wild colors? Chic and all-black? My ideas are torn between wanting to create beautiful, minimal, moody objects and making ridiculous little guys who are funny and cute. I’m sure in time I’ll have a better idea of the path I want to take, and for now, I’m keeping an open mind and letting the ideas flow out of me. More to come!
Recently, I went to a talk by architecture firm mesura as I’m a fan of the work they’ve done here in Spain. Now to be clear, it was all in Spanish, and let’s just say I understand most but not all of it. Still, a highlight was seeing a bit of BTS on the rebrand that Mouthwash Studio did for mesura. The wordmark at this point is absolutely perfect. Look at how the “e” and the “s” connect, as well as the swoop of the “r” into the “a”. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than this, it’s so wonderful. You should definitely go see the whole thing for yourself, really interesting ideas in how to differentiate a brand.
An interesting aspect of the talk was how a few members of the audience were confused by the rebrand, as they had only just rebranded a few years earlier. They asked about how this aligns with a creative strategy, doesn’t constantly creating a new look and feel for your company confuse things? My take on the matters is that we’re moving past a brand needing to be one solidified thing all the time. People really only find meaning in content that features eye-catching gimmicks, celebrity, or nostalgia. Slap a logo or wordmark on the end and you’ll be fine!
Hi! Apologies for placing this here, I wasn’t sure how to best get this to you. I followed your blog about a decade ago and particularly loved your mixtapes. Ive many times over changed computers and along the way lost the downloads. I see your new OIR mixtapes and ive had July’s on repeat since I found your newest rendition of the blog ☺️ i wanted to check before subscribing for the paid content, does the “archive” stretch back all the way that far and does it include all your old mixtapes? Thank you!