Daily—Day1—Hot Italian, Ikea, WD My Passport

Things have gotten pretty busy on my end lately. At one point, I’ve had more than 8 projects on my plate simultaneously. I love my work and I like the way I get to engage each project, but a small part of me is starting to feel a bit exhausted and, more importantly, bored. A sign that will soon lead to “bad work.”

I need to focus, be able to look back, and, hopefully, feel content for each day passed. I used to blog daily (although, they were just random crap), it was a good tool for me to check myself and find ways to improve. So here’s the first step of many—get back on my blogging grind.
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1. Each post should take less than 45 minutes to write.
(Being a perfectionist and taking too long to write is what drove me to stop at the first place.)
2. A post to be published daily. Even if it’s just a few sentences or pictures.
(If you break once, you’ll break again.)

3. Keep this space personal. None of that corporate write up bullshit.
(Don’t even know what that means. But it sounds badass.)

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Here goes day 1.

Zeeb Characters Prints—a project I started 2 months ago. Things are going well and I enjoy all aspects of it. [aside]9:14AM[/aside]

One of the features for the prints is the complementary frames. These are frames that I’ve collected over the years. Each print will be framed in one of these. There’ll be scuff and scratches, but I personally think they add characters and the experience of the print itself. Also making each one unique. It does take a good amount of time to gather the frames, so I might find an alternative soon. Maybe. 

The recent edition of the Jumpman, Yeezy, and McFly prints have these stickers posted inside each frame to keep things authentic. 

Shipment time. [aside]11:46AM[/aside]

Swung by UO because this happened: [aside]2:06PM[/aside]
The 2 inches long needle from one of those magnet sensors was tangled in her sweater for a good 6 days. She just realized today.

Bright vibrant bags is the new thing. Rubics cube inspired colorway. Word?

Some people just aren’t meant for headwear. 
(All photos from today’s post were captured with this bad boy—Olympus OMD EM5 + Lumix 20mm f1.7) Quality so far so good.

Adjacent to UO from Emeryville is this neat restaurant: [aside]2:28PM[/aside]
Hot Italian. Very well branded.

The place is dominated with 2 colors, black & white, with a bold san-serif typeface. It’s hip, clean, a bit cold, but in a good way.

The single line illustration from the logo and seals offsets the rigidness of the color palette and appeal from the rest of the brand. It’s a good touch. It makes the brand more youthful and playful.

Mojito—$8. Holy crap. 

Canister to lamp shade. Cool touch, but not fitting from the branding I’ve seen so far. The red and text from the canister is too distracting from the brand’s minimal nature. It’s good that they recycle and shows a sign of cafe, but I think de-labeled half cut wine bottles may be more suitable. Or just straight aluminum cans. 

Enough design, let’s talk food, the most fundamental aspect of a restaurant. 
This is their specialty—thin crust pizzas.

…and they’re impressive! I’m not a pizza connoisseur by any mean, but I love pizzas and these are pretty good. Priced at $14-16 for a standard one size 13″ pie. Not the best of value, but certainly a fair price to pay for the taste.

We got “Pezzo” & “Magnini”:

Next up: IKEA. [aside]3:18PM[/aside]

Michelle’s got a few props to buy for her graduation show.

While I was wandering around shooting, she took the time to apply for the IKEA Family card. The proceed was pretty straight forward and efficient. 

They even print your card on the spot. 

Another look at this beauty. Speaking of which, I heard there’s a new EM camera coming out early 2014. I’m tempted to return this guy and wait for that one. Though, I’m pretty satisfied so far. That greed. 

I think the most holiday spirited places are the big box retail stores.  You know you want one.

Evening shower. [aside]4:32PM[/aside]

Back to work. 

Package from Adorama. That’s right, one of the few things I purchased over Black Friday. 

The 2TB Western Digital My Passport. I got it for around $70. 

I was amazed by how tiny this thing is. I believe it’s a product from last year, and it’s incredibly small. 2TB of storage, supports USB 3.0 (that’s more advanced than my laptop), and portable (powered by USB). Very cool.
But that’s about all there is. It’s tiny and works well so far. Just transferred about half of a gig of photos to it. So far so good.

Work. This I shall not go into detail. [aside]6:01PM[/aside]

And there, day 1. [aside]1:46AM[/aside]
Took me an hour and a half. I wrote the first few paragraphs 3 times.
I really have to brush up on my writing. Practice makes perfect (or near perfect).
Let’s see if I can make it tm.

’til tomorrow,
B)