I recently put together this combo of a non-ROYGBIV rainbow and a matrix-like geometric cascade shape that I just love. It has so much movement implied even though it is not moving. I added a little glow behind it to fill it out a bit, and I really like the way it came together.
Here are some alternate color schemes, as I really had a tough time deciding on my favorite:
I’ve been having some fun with this audio + visual format lately, so I thought I’d hop on the Phish summer tour bandwagon and put together some new videos. Here’s an especially triumphant section of improv from their first night at Great Woods in MA:
More to follow….
I’ve begun playing around with using some of my digital artworks in a new way by combining them with some music and adding some subtle animations. I’ve mainly been using the music of the band Goose as my audio backdrop, splicing some nice moments of improvisation from some of their recent shows (something I used to do back when I was writing and podcasting for Live Music Blog). I have not done a lot of video creation, so this is a new thing for me, but it has been a fun experiment and I am liking the results so far. Here are a few samples:
I made a couple shorts:
And I’ve been toying around with this “grids” concept which I plan to do more of in the coming weeks:
I also did some longer form videos to show off more images and let the jams play out a bit:
Video content seems to get more attention on some of the social media sites, so this experiment was a good start and something I’ll probably keep doing.
BTW, if you the “JOTY” acronym thing seems odd to you, it’s a nod to a Goose fan term I’ve seen thrown around and used here and there; the term is just short for “jam of the year” and has been used in making list of their favorite sections of of improv (jams) for each year, but it is also sort of a knock on overzealous fans calling every new great jam “jam of the year.”
If you thought I was done with my obsession with the colors grey and green, I regret to inform you that you’re dead wrong. In fact, I did something a bit compulsive and bought some domains, and now I have something cooking over at thegreyandgreen.com with this as the top banner image:
I’ll be honest, I don’t yet know what I am doing with this storefront. I had enough people ask me about my art creations (including some about buying prints) that I figured it’d be worth the experience of building my own little web store to test out the Shopify platform and see what comes of it.
This is still very much in the early stages, but I am going to gradually add more prints and products and see what happens.
If you like it, please consider helping me by:
If you do buy something, please let me know how the process goes for you. I’d recommend one of the mugs as a great place to start.
As spring starts to turn to summer, I’ve got sun, sand and water on the brain, so it felt good to create imagery along these lines. I love the light blue colors in this one.
As all my friends know I am a music geek at heart and I love discovering new music and sharing it (by “new” I mean new to me).
One of my favorite past-times is digging up the sampled original tracks from old school hip hop tunes to uncover interesting jams. And one of my favorite recent discoveries was from a sample used in De La Soul’s “Change in Speak” by Cymande (from their 70s funk/soul tune “Bra”):
Below is the original tune that De La sampled.
Starting at minute 0:09, you can hear two key Cymande samples used throughout the De La tune, the first using bass, drums and guitar and the second making use of the full horn arrangement. When I first heard this original tune, it immediately triggered a memory of hearing “Change in Speak” way back in the early 90s (notably, De La’s 3 Feet High and Rising was one of my first CD purchases ever, along with A Tribe Called Quest’s first album, People’s Instinctive Paths of Funk and Rhythm…yeah, I really lucked out with those 1st two CD picks!).
At first, this just comes across as a great old-school horn-based groove with some soulful vocals. But, as you listen it’s just gets even better. One of the best parts to my ears is the instrumental break/drop-out at ~2:50 when the horns and vocals stop and the band just grooves for a while on drums and percussion (and plenty of hits to the cowbell!).
I have dug into the rest of Cymande’s catalog and while nothing hits quite like “Bra” there are definitely some other gems including “Brothers on the Slide” and “Dove.”
If you dig this type of musical discovery, you should check out a playlist I made for this kind of thing I called “hip hop who sampled” which I often update with new tracks. Also, as the title of the playlist suggests, I often use the awesome who sampled website to dig up the original tracks and artists.
If you find other gems, definitely let me know!
Lately I’ve been playing around with a lot of shapes and images that evoke energy and sound. This was originally in a black, purple and yellow (similar to “reach“) but then I found this grey color scheme with teal and red colors and just loved it. Most will know this, but just in case, the name is a nod to the “flex capacitor” from Back to the Future. heh heh.
I continue to be amazed at the fact that large emailers (brands, retailers, etc..) will spend so much money and effort on their email marketing program but not be bothered to create a decent email preference center. Given that email continues to be one of the most important messaging channels brands have, you’d think this would be worth the relatively small investment of time and money.
I know I’m probably in the minority since I used to spend a lot of time actually building and customizing these types of pages, but the default, out-of-the-box solution provided by your email marketing platforms is just NOT a good look.
“But wait, those people are unsubscribing, so why not just let them leave? Why worry about them at that point?”
Mmmm, “email soup.” That’s a fun term.
Ok, so if you’re liking where this “tough love” approach is going, then read on for some friendlier suggestions to provide a better email preference center experience:
There are a couple other options to consider, but I don’t think these are quite as straight-forward in terms of the direct benefits:
a) Including a survey to capture their reasons for opting out
This type of optout form became super common as it is the default Mailchimp optout page/format. I think this can be useful for some brands if they actually do anything with the info they gather (other than ignore it, which is what most senders do)
b) Sending users back to your website
Some ESPs offer the option to automatically send users back to the brand homepage after x number of seconds. I think this is better than doing nothing, but I’d probably prefer the option of showing them a way to opt back in or to make additional changes rather than sending them back to the website (that is, unless you’ve got some sophisticated way of re-engaging those users on the site)
Technical Stuff
Now, for smaller brands and newsletters that are on low-cost email services, there are cases where having a full-blown preference center may not really be an option or make sense.
But, for everyone else, you really don’t have an excuse. If your ESP does not allow for some decent customizations to your optout page in order to make it a preference center, then it’s probably time to fine a new provider!
If you’ve got similar experiences, pet peeves or better suggestions, please add your thoughts.
Otherwise, happy preference centering!
I’ve been listening to this one a lot for the past month or so. It has become a bit of a morning meditation for me, especially on the days I wake up before anyone else in the house and have some quiet time to myself.
It’s like an audio sound bath of filtered synths that just washes over you for several minutes, then fades into this mellow outro with human and animal-like vocal sounds. If you listen to enough Four Tet, none of this is surprising, but it’s always interesting to the ears.
For some reason, I’ve had this name in my head for a while, but never had anything that fit. I really like the squid-like tentacle shape (which I originally created in “squid gain“), so I recycled those here.
I still can’t decide which version I like the most, but the darker blues and purples seem to work best.
I also have a slightly simpler version:
And then there’s the purple version:
