Nick and Amy's Wedding
Nick Ovuka, a friend since 7th grade, got married on Saturday afternoon in Pennsylvania. It was a nice ceremony (Jeff and Don were groomsmen), a tasty reception (stuffed chicken and crabcakes), and an entertaining night out (4am ugly face contests). It was great to see so many familiar faces and catch up with everyone. I still remember Nick singing "Pablo the Reindeer from Mexico" in Mr. McCall's 8th grade Civics class, saying he wanted to only eat at Taco Bell when he grew up because it was so cheap, and being in the front row at pretty much every Okay Samurai show. Congratulations to Nick and Amy!
Monday, May 29 at 8:16 PM
Orange Kitchen
Dave, after seeing the pictures of your room in your new place in NYC, you inspired me to paint the kitchen in the condo I just bought orange. It's a pale orange, but orange all the same. Can't wait to come visit you up there. Looking forward to hanging out at Nick's wedding this weekend in PA. I'll never forget the 3 hour OKS acoustic jam session at my sisters wedding in Maine. One word. BIKES.
g5
Wednesday, May 24 at 9:36 AM
Do Not Be Fooled By The Miscellaneous Expenditures In My Possession; I'm Still, I'm Still Jenny From Your General Neighborhood Area
Hello faithful readers. You keep checking back in hopes of new NYC news, and instead get rambling tirades about my clinically unhealthy Nintendo obsession. No more. This update will hopefully make up for my recent slacktastic tendencies in the okaysamurai journal.
It's true that this city never sleeps; there's always something insane going on. I missed David Blaine's recent underwater spectacle, but passed by the new Fifth Avenue Apple Store last Friday for its grand opening. It's right in front of FAO Schwarz and the GM Building on the southeast corner of Central Park, in a beautiful Louvre-inspired glass cube that Tom Hanks himself would kneel in reverence of. The store is actually underground, reachable only by taking the crystal-clear stairs or elevator down the cube. The line to get in on opening day wrapped around several blocks. Apple employees congregated at the entrance, and cheered whenever someone entered or exited the store (especially loud if someone walked out with a Macbook or iPod or something). I love all these wildly inventive flagship stores that many companies have up here. Shopping sometimes feels like exploring a big amusement park.
Hank and some Portfolio Center students stopped by the Art Director's Club a few weeks ago to take part in a portfolio show...I passed through at lunchtime one day and got to see some old friends and great work. I'm also happy to announce that Okaydave won a Distinctive Merit in the interactive category for the 85th Annual ADC Awards, and will be featured in a printed annual and an interactive kiosk for their traveling show. It's hard to believe everything that has happened since Okaydave's launch just three months ago.
With five weeks behind me now, Frog Design is definitely the challenging experience I was looking for. Companies come to Frog looking for innovation, so we're able to dig deep into some pretty exciting concepts and prototypes (none of which I can talk about yet without fear of being thrown into a pit of poison arrow frogs). But in this past week, I had the opportunity to meet and show my designs to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, so that was pretty freakin' awesome. And although an "open space" atmosphere was a terrible setting for my "classroom" in Baltimore, it works great at a design firm like Frog. I love the desk setup too: my main computer is a 15" Powerbook, which is usually hooked up to a Dell 20" flatscreen and a TV for some crazy three monitor action. In other good news, my friend Jack from Pentagram is joining Frog in a couple of weeks, so I'm looking forward to beating him in foosball.
Something else nice about New York is that on any given weekend, an old friend is probably passing through the city somewhere. Jeff Ma was here the first weekend. Tammer drove up last Saturday. Ben from TheRoot42 is here tonight. Future visits are on the way from April, Jen, Casey, the rest of the Okay Samurai guys...and Jinsoo moves up on Sunday for his summer internship. Coupled with the NYC Portfolio Center crowd and peeps ranging from the Cavalier Daily to Teach For America, I'm excited for all the adventures yet to come (many to be documented in online movies with a Ben Folds soundtrack, I'm sure). For now, I'm looking forward to moving into Park Slope, watching Jack Bauer blow crap up, learning how to pass in foosball, and sketching out ideas about a little cardinal on the subway ride to work.
Saturday, May 20 at 12:21 PM
Icons
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was held last week in Los Angeles, and the general perception was that Nintendo rocked, Microsoft was great, and Sony left a lot to be desired. Nowhere else was this more evident than in their press conferences.
Sony's conference was very corporate. An enormous backlash erupted after they revealed an "innovative" motion-enabled controller, which seemed heavily inspired by Nintendo. The $499/$599 price tag announcement for the Playstation 3 didn't help things either. Microsoft had a friendly, conversational tone throughout their conference, and revealed some promising Xbox 360 games like Gears of War and Viva Pinata. Bill Gates revealing the Halo 3 trailer was a great surprise ending.
Nintendo's conference was primarily focused on having fun; laughter and applause were frequent. From an opening act with Shigeru Miyamoto conducting a video game symphony, to a virtual tennis match between Nintendo executives, Wii (the new system) just looks like a lot of fun. The lines to play during the week were apparently up to five hours long!
At Portfolio Center, Hank was adamant about including "theater" into any presentation, whether it's for a class, client, interview or portfolio. Boring powerpoint-esque presentations fueled by emotionless bullet points from notecards will never get people excited about what you have to say. Iconic moments and memorable stories will always be the things people remember and talk about later. Nintendo is a company of icons, from Mario to the Zelda theme song to Miyamoto himself. No wonder there is so much brand loyalty.
Sunday, May 14 at 7:13 AM
Meet Me In Park Slope
I've finally found living arrangements up here in New York, and I think it was worth the wait (lessons learned: stay clear of NYC apartment listings that use the words "cozy", "spacious for New York" or "in an up-and-coming neighborhood"). My future roommate owns a great place in Park Slope (Brooklyn), and it seems like a really good fit. That orange room above will be mine, complete with a working fireplace inside! There's also a nice backyard with a garden and even a little goldfish pond. The place is also three blocks away from the northern tip of Prospect Park, Brooklyn's answer to Central Park, so that's nice too. The New York housing search was certainly the craziest I've been through, but I saw a lot of the city during the process and couldn't be more pleased with the end result.
Wednesday, May 10 at 9:27 PM
Frog and the Chocolate Factory
The days of Kurt's couch are sadly coming to an end...I have a couple of good leads on an apartment and will probably come to a decision by Sunday. After getting settled in, I'm definitely planning to throw a movie together to show what life has been like up here. Work continues to rock. On Friday we changed the kitchen into a screenprinting production house, and I transferred a Frog-designed emblem onto a green polo shirt. Turned out pretty sweet. Did I mention Frog is right around the corner from a chocolate factory (Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven)? They actually make the chocolate from scratch in-store, and you can watch the whole process from large street-side windows (which I did the other day, while sipping some hot chocolate and eating a chocolate doughtnut...yes, I will be 12 years old forever).
Saturday, May 6 at 4:07 AM
Okay Samurai Multimedia is Dave Werner's personal site. I'm currently working at Minor Studios in San Francisco. Thanks for visiting! (more...)
Okay Samurai Journal (Subscribe RSS / XML)
Dave Werner's Portfolio (okaydave.com)
Archives (Cardboard Box)
Contact (Mailbox)
My Videos on Vimeo
My Photos on Flickr
Lars Amhoff: Kinkyform Design
Colin Anawaty: Cubed Companies
Chuck Anderson: NoPattern
Haik Avanian: HaikAvanian.com
James Bailey: The Kingdom of Sad Machines
Ben Barry: CarbonFour / Forced Connections
Dimitry Bentsionov: Arthero
Joshua Blankenship: JoshuaBlankenship.com
Casey Britt: CaseyBritt.com
Duncan Brook: Superfreaky Memories
Matthew Burtner: Burtner.net
Jeff Chin: JeffChin.com
Mary Campbell: Mary Campbell Design
Sarah Coffman: Minus Five
John Contino: drawings&co
Angie Cosimano: Angie Unit
Chris and Linda Doherty: Citizen Studio
Anne Elser: Annepages
Neil Epstein: Mediafactured
Bjorn Fagerholm: 3jorn
Dave Foster: Dave the Designer
Justin Genovese: JustinGenovese.com
J Grossen: Sugarcoma Labs
Audrey Gould: Aud's Blog
Greg Hackett: GregHackett.com
Sam Harrison: Zingzone
Todd Hammell: Solid Colors
Leon Henderson: LHJ Photo
Howard Hill: Fascination Streak
Peter Hobbs: Peter Hobbs Photography
Matt Ipcar: Ipcar Design
Michael Johnson: Michael J Rox
Melissa Jun: MelissaJun.com
Jiae Kim: Theme magazine
Zack Klein: ZackKlein.com
Katie Kosma: Flying Conundrum
Peter Lada: Proxima Labs
Josh Levin: Nothing Learned
Larry Luk: Epidemik Coalition
Mike Mates: Urban Influence
Alison Matheny: Life of a Harpy
Turi McKinley: Turi Travels
Alaa-Eddine Mendili: Furax
John Nack: John Nack on Adobe
Allen Orr: Anthem In
Scott Paterson: sgp7
Joe Peng: MacConcierge
Paavo Perkele: Astudios
Brian Perozo: Ephekto
Jason Puckett: Everyday Puck
Kate Ranson-Walsh: Thinkradical
Tania Rochelle: Stone's Colossal Dream
Angela Sailo: Peanut Butter Toast
Mohit SantRam: Santram.net
Dan Savage: Something Savage
Kevin Scarbrough: Thin Black Glasses
Scott Schiller: Schillmania
Jason Severs: JasonSevers.com
Anthony Sheret: Work By Lunch
Nick Skyles: Boats and Stars
Sujay Thomas: iSujay
Joe Tobens: JospehTobens.com
David Ulevitch: Substantiated.info
John Verhine: Verhine.com
Armin Vit: Under Consideration
Ian Wharton: IanWharton.com
Roger Wong: One Great Monkey
Clay Yount: Rob and Elliot Comics
Jack Zerby: Jack Zerby Music