PHOTOGRAPHER you need to know…

Estevan Oriol – one of the illest in the game and a true originator at capturing L.A. lifestyle culture and beyond.  Check out his work here and congrats on the book Estevan!

2 Events, 1 Space, 1 Night – Recap

Despite having 2 events…in the same space (different floors)…on the same night, and some hurdles to um…hurdle, both Playtime and Soul Overdose came off rather well.

The attendance was crazy, tons of toys were collected for both The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project and The No. VA. Family Services Head Start Center, and N’Digo Rose, and Phonte (earning a well deserved Grammy nod) both killed Soul Overdose.

Thanks to Kat (Lil Soso), AM Radio (PJ killed the live mural), Karim (Smirnoff),  Sandra (SCION), and Dave (Frank 151) for supporting.

Check the link below for more pics…..

The Good Book

I’m a fan of design and an even bigger fan of concepts and the guys at Burton Snowboards nailed it in applying a healthy dose of the two with The Good Book 2010 catalog! Based on a Bible you’d find in most hotels, The Good Book, has every detail that most of those Bibles have: embossed gold lettering, crackled burgundy/black front and back cover, gold tipped edges, even the nylon bookmarker!

Thanks to Billy from Burton for shooting me this and their new DVD.

2 Events – 1 Night

The last in the five-event Be You series closes with “Soul Overdose“. This year soul resident N’digo Rose and DJ Jahsonic hosted Yahzarah and Lady Alma in some of DC’s coolest spots. For the final hit, we are taking it back to where it all began, with our very special guest Phonte of Little Brother and Foreign Exchange acclaim.

Wed. Dec. 16

@LIV 2001 11th St. NW

9pm-12am

DJ Jah-sonic – hip hop and rare grooves

Visit www.lilsoso.com for tickets.

and on that same night….

PLAYTIME – Custom Toy & Art Party

Wed. Dec. 16

@ LIV 2001 11th St. NW

Custom Toys and Toy Art provided by AM Radio

FREE Entry w/Toy
9pm – 12am
Drink Specials
DJ Jahsonic – hip hop and rare grooves

*Special Guest Performer

Toys to benefit The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project and Northern VA Family Services Early Head Start Center.

*Please bring toys that inspire creativity and learning: building blocks, activity kits (oragami, necklace making), art supplies and children’s books that represent African American and Latino children.

Visit www.mbilashaka. com/amradio for more info.

Its going to be nuts!!!

KILLSPENCER

The saying goes “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” which I know is cliche, but in this case its very true.  Meet Spencer Nikosey, son of Tom Nikosey (subject of my marquee interview for The Classics Series 2: SOUL), and his ultra cool line of bags KILLSPENCER.

Made from a variety of new and vintage combat materials (ex. combat military truck tarp) and sleek details (ex. black metal + acetal mil spec hardware) KILLSPENCER presents a line of backpacks, messenger bags,  brief cases, and more all of which are handmade ensuring the wearer receives an original.  Check them out…

The Classics – Series 2: SOUL – Event Pics

In The Artist’s Studio feat. Res

Can’t wait for tonight – the final In The Artist’s Studio of ‘09 featuring Res.

By the way, its SOLD OUT!  So unless you’re a blood relative of Kat’s or last name is Obama see you in 2010 for the next INAS.

Visit www.lilsoso.com for more info.

The Classics – The Interview: Tom Nikosey, Pt. 2

Here’s Part 2 of the Tom Nikosey Interview:

Soul 1: How would you describe that approach? Incorporating what you feel from the client as well as your “Americana” influence…

Tom Nikosey: In “Americana” I don’t mean necessarily Revolutionary style, or Civil War style, or WWII style…

Soul 1: Then pretty much all of those, like sign painting?

Tom Nikosey Yeah, I think that’s a good way to describe it.  They were called sign writers.  Sign painters, poster artists…I’m very influenced by all that stuff, I love that stuff.  I’ve done a lot of posters and a lot of full on illustrations…

Soul 1: Because a lot of that stuff was hand painted.

Tom Nikosey: Oh definitely.  I’ve done a lot of pieces where I’ll paint the whole piece on wood. Then again I’ll illustrate on the computer – whatever it takes to create a feel.  This is commercial art.  These pieces were generated by somebody calling me and saying,” I want you to create a piece for my project.”  So it’s very commercially generated, but I still try to do it so you’d be proud to wear it on a t- shirt.

Soul 1: How much creative freedom are you usually given within the parameters of your projects?

Tom Nikosey: In the beginning not as much as later on.  Art Directors naturally hire a young person who doesn’t have a lot of pieces in their portfolio.  They wanna direct you.  They might see something that you’ve done on another piece and they’d say, “I kinda like that but I wanna push you in this direction,” and you work with them.  And in my case, it’s not strictly illustration; it’s a combination of design and illustration.  I’ve done a lot of lettering pieces that were just done in black and white and printed in solid colors where the design was the whole thing and not necessarily the color.  As I started to build up respect and people were trusting me (more), they would call me for my advice.

The Classics – Series 2: The Food Menu

One of the new developments for this edition of The Classics is the food menu.  Simple, yet complete – good lookin’ out Maiy Lay!

The Classics – The Interview: Tom Nikosey, Pt. 1

For The Interview component of SOUL I had Soul 1 (The Frank White Space – BKNY) interview a designer that, in my opinion, has truly earned the title of Icon – Tom Nikosey.

Since the 70’s Tom Nikosey has created some of the most identifiable logos, posters, album covers (and other goods) for some of the most recognizable brands in the world (The Commodores original logo, San Diego Padres, The Grammy’s to name a few)….and he’s not done yet.

As with RAP – the interview (or really conversation) Soul 1 conducted/had provided more than enough content so I’ll again be splitting the interview in two parts.

Thanks again Tom for your interest and participating and thank you Soul 1 for again coming through!

Part 1 – enjoy:

Soul 1: For those who don’t know, what’s your name, where were you born and where did you grow up?

Tom Nikosey: My name is Tom Nikosey, I was born in Brooklyn New York, and I went to grammar school, high school, and art school in Brooklyn. I went to Pratt Institute which was an international art school right there in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. I graduated with a degree in communication design and graphic design and illustration and two weeks later, ‘cause I was involved in a rock band all through my youth, I was on a plane with the guys and we were on our way to L.A. to try and make it in the record industry; and here I had a degree in art, go figure. So, when things didn’t work out financially with music, I turned to my portfolio and started working in the graphic industry. I eventually started doing album covers, pretty early on luckily, and then started getting known.

Soul 1: Do you know around what years you started?

Tom Nikosey: I know exactly: I graduated Pratt in 1972 and I came out here (L.A.) two weeks later in June of ‘72, and my first album cover that I worked on was in 1975 and the title of it was “Papa John Creech and the Mid – Night Sun.” It was the very first piece of lettering – I specialize in lettering and logos, and I didn’t realize it then when I started that that was going to be my forte´. I had a strong feeling for letterforms, and people really weren’t creating these dynamic logos at the time and I had this vision that that’s what I kinda wanted to do; make a statement with lettering.

Soul 1: Right.

Tom Nikosey: So, Papa John Creach was the first project I was lucky enough to work on. I was just 24 years – old, trying to ‘make it’, and David Larkham, an English fellow who was designing all of Elton John’s albums at the time, gave me a chance by designing the lettering for Papa John’s album. Yeah, David Larkham and Friends was the name of his design studio. I went around with my portfolio, and he saw that I had a flair for lettering – hand lettering, and again this was before digital and we did everything by hand, he gave me a chance to do lettering for that album and it went to finish and it was my first piece and I got a credit on the record …

Soul 1: Nice

Tom Nikosey: …and I was feeling like a million bucks.  I went on to do some more covers after that. He introduced me to Ed Caraeff – an independent photographer/Art Director, (who) was my age, and he was already shooting pictures of rock bands at rock concerts. He would shoot these great photographs then approach the band, sell the band pictures, and they would say, “We wanna use this on our album cover!”  So then he started designing album covers.  I met him at David Larkham’s studio and Ed needed a designer to work with him independently and so David connected me with Ed and that was the beginning of my career to be honest with you.  Ed hired me on “Sergio Mendes and Brasil 77”, Eric Clapton’s “No Reason to Cry,”  Cheech and Chong’s “Sleeping Beauty,” “Three Dog Night,” “American Pastime,” the Bee Gee’s “Children of the World” and “Saturday Night Fever,” and what happened was, Ed would give me the photographs, we’d talk about the idea – Ed usually had the idea for the cover, and I would put it all together graphically.

I always had this flair for lettering as well and I had this vision of designing logos that were the main piece rather than a subordinate piece that went along with the photograph. I wanted to embellish a name and make it the central piece.  Lo and behold I get a call from an Art Director at Motown, and this is early 1976, and he had seen something that I had done and he wanted to know if I would design a logo for this album by a band called the Commodores.  He said they already had one or two albums at the time and he wanted to make sure that the logo stood the test of time.