So I was starting to photo some of the drawings from the Live Drawing Event aka Little Big Draw at Mua Oakland on my back porch that I bought (for such a deal compared to how long it takes me to draw stuff these days) when suddenly a gust of wind blows them all away! Luckily the hand drawing by Lauren Napolitano  and the face by Kelly Monson land in my backyard but Michael McConnell’s bad boy sloth goes over the fence! A big rickety one and no one was home to let me in. + to having a neighborhood average age 20′s it was easy to have someone climb the fence, since my own personal minions weren’t home.

Program books, signage, and the rest! With Windesheim Design.

New Bi-Rite penthouse action.

Cooper Pugeda needed their logo and branding updated for their over-all company, as well as creating a related branding system for specialized branches.

I’ve done a lot of work for engineers over the years. I like organizing information that I know nothing about and making it understandable in layman’s terms. This project is for CPM Environmental, next I’m working on CPM’s over-all site. This is my first site using html 5, couldn’t use php on this installation. Responsive design!

I love working with Amanda and the other Leslie :). They have a great sense of style, fun and humor.

Sometimes even with new clients it feels like you’ve been working together a long time. It’s that alchemist thing that keeps coming up.

]]> http://www.dingdongnation.com/projects-identities/new-header-for-in-fiores-blog-in-vigilare/feed/ 0 http://www.dingdongnation.com/life/whew-this-important-video-was-almost-lost-on-the-interwebs/ http://www.dingdongnation.com/life/whew-this-important-video-was-almost-lost-on-the-interwebs/#comments Thu, 24 Jan 2013 06:07:15 +0000 Leslie http://www.dingdongnation.com/?p=2533

Just saw this again today. Wonder if they ever found him?

Just started working with Julie Elliott, of  IN FIORI. If only computers had scratch and sniff technology :)

If you remember that quote you probably also have a stack of crap broken Walgreen’s glasses.

4 days to finish up one proposal and create a new 35 pager for a new client for construction of a cool new green building by Ghery. Client worked on Cal Academy +. It was actually a fun change, look forward to working with them again.

Just in, they made the short list!

Overnight giant mushroom shows up and overturns hipster beer slug trap.

Pinkie cam for scale

Narcissus is blooming in December

and all summer I try to grow tomatoes, now I get one blooming in December. Weird.

Pyracantha berries, we used to have them in our backyard and all the birds would eat them and get drunk.

more art 4 u, a holiday group show at Mua in Oakland, up through January. This one’s a small gouache painting, Joe’s Cat.

Which category to put this, work, art or life? Little Big Draw, a live drawing event @ Mua was really fun to put together. Michael McConnell and John Casey rounded up the talent:  Michael McConnell,  Nicole Hayden,  Aaron Petersen,  Rachel Robertson,  Alison Frost,  Alison Tharp,  Crystal Morey,  Lauren Napolitano,  Gina Tuzzi,  Obi Kaufmann,  Marcos LaFarga,  Nathaniel Parsons,  Dave Higgins,  Jon Carling, John Casey, Jake Watling, David five ash. Michael McC did the invite. San Ju Made sure the starving artists got fed.

Also up a group show, more art 4 u, will be up through the end of December, ever changing, since as art is bought or traded new art goes up. There’s some work here even other artists can afford. Tim Gatto, Carina Johnson, Phil Aro,  Michelle Cernuto, Paul Mavrides, Susan DeGregorio, Patrick Carpenter, Karen Dunn, Simone Simon, Lisa Mendelson,Susan Scott, Heather Wilcoxon, Nin Nguyen, Nicole Hayden, Michael McConnell, Karyn Yandow, Krishna Bhat, Dustin Turner, Ann Phelan, Jacob Rimler, CP-37, Leslie Straw (ha ha) and more.

Guys, check it out. My first Fall harvest is a whole plateful of salad. My entire summer output was 5 radishes and two dozen peas so I think it’s getting better. Tuesday mornings spent at Visitation Valley Greenways  helped amp up production. In the background is a corner of my cocktail garden.

The tower looks anxious.

San-Ju (the next day) with one of the drink dispensers.

I must’ve walked past this umpteen times but today I just noticed how super cute this fence is. by michael bartalos mission playground 

Even though I don’t know what they all are I’m roasting those suckers up. Also, someone please tell me why is my mint plant dying when they are supposed to grow like weeds? This is important, it’s my cocktail garden area.

Laine and a Heizer

Colette and a Heizer

Me and Laine in a Heizer “Actual Size”

Phil in a Serra

Misprint, should’ve said Googly-Eyed Deity.

CAI GUO-QIANG (MOCA)

 Photo from MOCA, we missed this part :(

Cai Guo-Qiang @MOCA artist whose media is firecrackers.

I was hearing about Tango & Stache from different sources, but couldn’t figure out what they were, a restaurant maybe?  because their site was always down. So I contacted them and was able to help them untangle all the interwebness, and set them up with a basic WordPress site that is responsive (can display in all the different media from phone to big screen) and that they can update and style as they like. Plus I got a great date night trade and pineapple jam. Love and a Skillet :).

Helping Tango & Stache untangle some web stuff, they invite us to their pop up @ the Hideout (Dalva) in the Mission. Nice guys! and tasty Coca Cola braised pulled pork and “white boy” slaw. Spicey! Also such a deal for $8.

It’s all speakeasy like and we get a table in the tiny upstairs just before it gets super crowded.

Phil gets a call from Jeebus.

Super tasty cocktails. Plus, finally get to meet my neighbor Tablehopper in person.

Are they afraid they’ll get lost?

Somehow I didn’t manage any 4square/FB check ins, tweets or anything else during today’s fine WordPress event in San Francisco, but I was moved by the excellent food trucks and open bar at the after party :)

Alchemists: digesting

Alchemist best dressed award: Benamin Bossi (duh! every time!)

New art for me: Simone Simon

And chicken.

But we got distracted and forgot. I’m blaming the cacti! Photos at General Store, Little Chihuahua, Reliquary where we adopted a one from Crimson and gave it a home with Alexis.

This is the secret area I stash things in that I don’t want the cat to get into

Thanks to Kelly Malone. Also, why was there a power outage? It’s not like the hipsters had big static chemical hair like the 80s.

Just came across this Carleton Watkins photo of Haight area taken from Mint Hill Orphan Asylum in 1866. Those days it was called Sans Souci (think wiggle bike path). The fence is Herman Street. The hill on the right is Alamo Square so we are just downhill from that. I’m guessing these farms were more successful than my 6 radishes and 1 snow pea. There is the Hayes river (under our backyard) that still provides water to the Fillmore and Civic Center fountains,  and occasionally floods Muni.

Hey opera guy on the far left, can you please move so we can see Laine? Thank you.

The cats been eating spiders again, she gets the webs on her ruff. We’ve got black widows, if they are psychotrophics that would explain a lot. Also, I just made up that word.

First the good news—our first harvest! Woo Hoo! 3 radishes for 4 people, which come to think of it might also be not that great. OK neutral news.

Next, bad news. Pea plants eaten to bloody stumps. Any ideas why? Probably snails even though I put copper tape around the beds, they coulda climbed up the drip pipes. They are not as stupid as they want you to think.

Love these girls, can’t wait to see what they get up to in the future.

When I bought my sloth I had no idea it would be so customly packaged. You all need to get your sloth on too. http://othergoose.bigcartel.com/

Self explain-a-tory. ATA in Mission

Guess I need to plant some Wooly Blue Curls

And smarter too.

Of all the plantings at HayBro Farm so far I got 18 radishes. They better be good!

I liked this sign. But what I really liked was someone added a flower. New rule, all flyers must have flowers.

Same as the licks to the Tootsie Roll center, 3.

Baby Ducks

Phil says they look philosophical hahaha

Baby Chick.

They were actually super cute in real life.

Which Phil and I moved to the backyard with our little toy wheelbarrow and two shovels. It took 3 hours so afterwards we had to go to Nopalito for lunch and a Margarita. Urban farming is expensive.

Finally going through the boxes of hand me downs in the storage. Found this with acres of tea cups.

A considerate someone in the Castro concerned with the comfort and well-being of  stoplights.

All this rain will definitely help our first crop at Rancho HayBro, cardboard.

The swell Palo-Mar Stables on Skyline just south of SF lets you come and get all the horse manure you want.

Here is Colette, shoveling shit in white converse.

Thanking this handsome guy for his contribution.

These guys too. In other news, the name Rancho Ding Dong has been voted out by the minions. We are now Rancho HayBro (Hayes@Broderick)

This is how you wait if you’re a dog in the lobby of 5th Floor.

I think of all the sites I’ve designed, La Cocina’s is the most successful in terms of overall usability. Recently updated the back end. Look at all that content! They do a great job keeping the site updated and so they get tons of traffic. Also got a virus but I fixed it, yay me !

left

Step 2. Get a boy with tools who knows how to use them :) to build raised beds from wood that hasn’t been soaked in poison (thank you step 1).

Step 3. Post it on facebook and twitter so someone can tell you what to do next.

My photos of Mua in the Boston Globe!  Bonus, I got to eat the props yum.

How have I never seen this before? Fair Oaks near 25th.

Just took some preliminary products shots to revamp a site, which can’t help but be super cute :)

In which the lone camellia of a bush that survived drought (not draught as previously somewhat erroneously reported), pests, pestilence, small boys with big shovels and saws, gets done in by the cat.

Check out the protoplasm at my favorite parklet at Fabric8. OK maybe it’s bird related.

See that little burning oak log graphic on this packaging? I totally did that :). Hey, don’t laugh, the simplest things are the hardest to pull off.

I don’t think that tiny fence will protect city hall.

Is it the work of the Talidutch or the Dutchiban?

Modified Cone of Shame.
The first one was a photo I took of Lisa Mendelson’s Bukowski lingerie poetry embroidery at her old place Soap Gallery. This one is thanks to my daughter and her friend Cade. It really is about who you know.

OK, so I didn’t put a lot of time into the graphic, but it’s a pretty cute tag line, geographically. Also important, politically.

The over-all feel of the celebration, because with teenagers, the less specifics you know the better.

Took this one years ago with Laine for another project but went with something else. Got to use it this week with Windesheim Design “Takes a Village”

I just saw this again. Reposting because I can :) Colette is in here, if you blink you’ll miss her.

One of my favorite contact pages. Eye contact! Leah Bershad’s truly one-of-a-kind store that you should go to— Reliquary on Octavia in Hayes Valley.

Just when I get the site redone (above) Nex changes and becomes part of Mua. Sigh.

NEX is the latest restaurant site created for San-ju and Hi-suk (Mua, Soizic, and Pastoral). I love working with them—creative, fluid, non-corporate aesthetic. Yay for that! (Also for the side benefits, he he) This site was built in WordPress so they can update menus, add photos, be “liked” on facebook, etc. I also help managing online reservations and marketing.

>>go to NexOakland.com

OK here is round 2, not completely messed up yet, still a chance!

A lot of new clients are Green or Mission Driven, which is cool. This site was with Windesheim Design for YR&G sustainability consultants based in NY.

I survive heart palpitations  as Colette drives us (shown here approaching Golden Gate road construction) up to Santa Rosa to see Gramma, who is back home and doing really well. Phil took his bike up and came back on hiway 1 via Hog Island Oysters for dinner tomorrow.