Ah, the casual street artist. We all know and love you. With your witty slogans, political statements, and crass sensibilities. Some think you are just juvenile and trashy, but we love your hip, edgy commentary on the smaller things in life.

This here is a little ditty on a local salon named “blo”. Which seems like it is more suited for a Castro location, but actually resides in Hayes Valley. I’m not quite sure exactly what riding ponies has to do with a hair dryer, but there is definitely an innuendo in there somewhere. Nevertheless, the shadows are excellent.

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday.

My typical line goes something like: “well as a graphic designer, I spend every day being ‘creative’, so why would I want to spend all my free time crafting a costume?”

“Because it’s fun,” they respond.

And they are right. In fact, there are plenty of opportunities in this fine city, which allow us to let our inner idiot out. However, after living in San Francisco for a spell, and being fairly active in the nightlife scene… you really get a better picture for the amateur-hour that major holiday’s become.

So this year, I am going to take a break from the usual club scene, and get in touch with my roots. A few small house party with some close friends, a Star Wars-themed afro-beat concert, and the Dia De Los Muertos parade.

This is not to say it will be easy to avoid the chaos… searching the listings I come up with over 100 official, themed events happening in the 7-mile square city limits alone. We will see how the Bay Bridge closure might affect traffic in our dear city, but I doubt it will have much affect—‘witch’ granted, is great for commerce and local businesses… but this resident wants nothing of it.

The above snapshot was taken in the Mission, where some enterprising artist decided to go semi-permanant on his mural—with the help of some vinyl stickers. The skull theme really plays into this weekend, so I figured we could take a departure from our regularly scheduled graffiti Friday, and dress up the site a little.

Har har… Happy Hella’wean!

I am choosing to believe this tag says scissor. I know I see an “e” in there and most certainly a “j” exisits; but as it is a word, slicing through two windows (and given that this is my blog)… I can believe what I want to. So carrying on in the theme of windowed items, I present to you this week’s Graffiti Friday post.

This shot was taken near the corner of Laguna and Oak Street on a particularly busy day last February. Took a few shots to get the right angle, which in this case was holding my camera over my head and pushing the tiny little button. *click*

Today marks the worldwide release of Windows 7, and frankly I am glad… Vista is such a turd. I am looking forward to what Microsoft can do as a replacement, and I have heard good things from beta users. Granted it won’t affect me much, since I prefer Macintosh systems for my daily workflow… but since a good portion of the world still relies on Windows, improvements are never a bad thing.

The perceived “war” between Apple and Miscrosoft has been raging for years now (*rolls eyes*). Granted it is difficult to compare the passive-aggressive nerd battles to any major world war, yet there are definitely huge corporate powers backing each side; with many spoils of war to be had. But oddly enough, Microsoft already “won” a long time ago. It continues to hold a major market share of all computer systems, and it has it’s grubby fingers on just about every part of technology it can. (Basically, if there is money to be made in technological gadgetry, the powers in Redmond have their hands in it.) Which makes the fight that much more comical—and Apple’s underdog status that much more real.

As for me? I started off with fancy little Commodore 64. That was my passion, and the boxy, beige PCs in our house were reserved for business stuff. I ran a BBS from my bedroom fueled by my own phone line and lot of Mt. Dew. As I grew out of 8-bit graphics and teenage angst, I dropped the C64 and started building PCs (gone to the dark side). It was actually fun to open up a box and see all those cables and cords and fans and chips. Unfortunately, the operating system never latched on, and I graduated to bigger-and-better. Design school changed everything for me, as I was introduced to my first Macintosh! And as nerdy as this sounds… it was love at first sight.

Since then, I have had the pleasure of working on both Mac and Win systems—at home and at work—and I can honestly say that both systems are quite comparable. I do prefer the Apple method of thinking surrounding hardware and software design, but nobody is perfect (although most everything is better than Vista). Working in both systems you really get a clear understanding of this—just pick the one that is easiest for you to work in.

Which brings us back to today, the release of Windows 7, and the end of this snapshot post… Good luck, Microsofties! Let’s hope you brought some great new ideas to the table, err window.

…

Update: News and opinions are coming in from the tech illuminati, and world-at-large… and sadly, Microsoft is not off to a very original start. Which is not surprising since they have such a bad reputation for blatantly stealing ideas.

A kind remembrance of stencil-lettering’s past, this week’s Graffiti Friday post takes a conservationist approach to the art.

The blood-red paint drips down over the text, almost as if to suggest what horrible fate will become you if you go against the cautionary instructions. That gruesome death and dismemberment comes to all those who defy the sign’s authority. And adding to the narative… that by not completely painting over the wall, they have in essence, created more visual wall-trash, littering our vision with noise. Ah, delicious bloody irony.

I never really understood signs like these in the first place. “No parking” signs I get. No littering signs? It’s not as if someone was about to drop trash and suddenly notices a sign and sees the light. “Oh no! I better find a garbage can…” Or worse yet, does this sign imply that only in areas that are marked “do not litter” can you in fact not litter, so it automatically renders everywhere there is not a sign as correct littering zones. Maximum public signage stupidity.

I would love the opportunity to design some signage. To work with an architecture firm building up an airport system, or possibly with civic planners to re-engineer how my cities street signs work. There is such a grand potential for designers to enhance our daily lives and I could only hope that I would get that chance.

Funny that the more invested I get in the design business, the more interested I get in organizational information systems. You know the type… forms, documents, signage… things which the better they are designed, the less you see them. Quite the opposite of a CD case or a poster—made to atttract your attention with a flash of color or a bold statement. “Look at ME!” …no, these pieces are subtle, refined, and total utilitarian awesomeness.

Think of a FedEx form. You just know how to fill it out. You aren’t thinking, oooh, I really like this color purple or the font on the address field. Nope. You just get it and fill it out. And that, my friends is great information design. Simple, pure. And that is indeed very difficult to execute on… or more accurately, sell to a client.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

Happy Graffiti Friday y’all!

The weekend is finally upon us and it couldn’t be here any sooner! Are you as excited about LovEvolution (aka LoveFest aka Love Parade) as I am??

Come out for the parade at Noon, and stay for a day-long dance festival! And while you’re there, make sure you stop by the float I helped build… a little voodoo-disco-tiki goodness from the awesome Strategik and Brass Tax party crews (float #20 in the lineup). Granted last year was phenomenal… but this year looks to be even better. (Is that even possible?)

If you need some history on the event, or just want a little video to pump you up, head over and check out the awesome documentary: LoveFest: Bringing the Love to San Francisco. Even if I hadn’t been a part of the production, I would still recommend it as a great primer! Lots of great talent came together to produce the documentary—in the same spirit of the event itself—and it’s well worth watching!

Other than that, it’s shaping up to be a busy October. So hopefully that means a bunch of great new images to show here!! In the meantime I leave you with this piece of Lower Haight and a ghetto blaster to set your weekend straight!

See you on the dancefloor!

Happy Graffiti Friday everyone!

Yesterday marks my first missed post since the blog started in August. I started up the ol’ thinkin’ machine, dropped fingers-to-keys for some special clickety clack, and abruptly forgot to post. So instead of trying to sneak it in with no announcement, I figured I could use today to reflect on the positives instead.

It really means a lot to me to know that people are enjoying my little project! I started this site to once again have a personal space to share thoughts, feelings, and imagery (along with helping to improve my post-140 character writing)—and with a little over a month of publication, it has been seeing a consistent 25-50 unique daily visitors! That, combined with the regular comments I get, really warms my heart on such a cold, foggy, San Francisco morning. Thank you!

This snapshot is a wheat-paste poster from an alley close to Hayes Valley. It was taken shortly after President Obama took office, and really reflects the general attitude in and around ‘Frisco at that time. I do understand that this city is a bit of a political bubble, but the night of the election, you could walk up to anyone on the street and just cheer and they would smile and join in. All 6 Republicans were safely tucked away at home and the city was on fire with jubilation!

I post it today in memory of my missed post… and with the certain knowledge that anyone can make a mistake.

I often used to ride Caltrain from San Jose to Redwood City. It was a wonderfully peaceful way to start and end the long workday (as well as a great way to plow through a ton of books!) But what I enjoyed most about the trip was the scenerey whipping past. The tracks are built right along the backbone of the San Francisco peninsula—El Camino Real—and as such, run right through some very interesting real estate. The train clearly does not discriminate—chugging through some of the richest cities around.

Needless to say, there are a lot of backs of buildings… and a lot of graffiti. Almost every week, the murals change. Big, small, artistic or gang-related, the battle between property owners and artists wages on. What’s left is an Urban Quilt—patchworks of large squares wallpapering the architecture. While intended to remove the rogue artwork, buildings never quite look like they did before. They almost seem to have a new dimension added to them.

I imagined what would happen if one of the artists infiltrated the graffiti task forces… like a covert, paint-spy. Using rollers to remove their own work from the night before—all the while embedding secret messages in the large, flat, new colors. Perhaps choosing slightly off-color replacement paint and patterning up the backsides of buildings with a morse code of espionage.

This snapshot is taken in that spirit. I came across a group of task force members tooling down the road by my old house, painting out tags. The only trouble was, in this particularly colorful neighborhood, they seemed to be doing more damage than good. Painting out green houses with bright yellow, and white houses with pink. So the end result was that same patchwork quilt of roller-marks.

Serves as a keen reminder to ensure that the solutions we devise aren’t actually creating more problems. And that no matter what we do, art will prevail!

It’s always an awkward situation, walking into the bathroom and find some great photographic composition. You carefully whip it out, cautiously aim, and squeeze. Then the stall next door bursts open and a redneck cowboys glares over at you… People tend to get shy when you pull out a camera in that privatest of places.

This snapshot was taken in some grungy bathroom—the alien lightface had enough personality to glow, without even turning on the halogens. Love the forehead graffiti, and that yellow wall patina. This evil protector from a distant galaxy, just happened to land in my next of the woods for a snapshot moment.

It’s a short week people, so TGIF… and make sure you get outside!

In the alleyway beside Amoeba Records on Haight Street in San Francisco, are two long walls of graffiti. Every time I walk by, there are different pieces added or altered along the narrow driveway. The residents clearly don’t mind it being there and honestly, if I had a shop, I would let artists bomb the walls as often as they like.

San Francisco is known for it’s many murals—graffiti or otherwise—and it never fails that when visitors are in town and we are touring around the city, this street “gallery” is one of our destinations. We often end up strolling along what would otherwise be a smelly, dirty back-alley with various members of my family. And invariably we take a lot of photos here.

This is one such shot. What strikes me most about this is the juxtaposition of the tags inside the barred window, and the freeform amorphous pieces outside the little window. It is almost as if some hierarchy of artistry has been established and the lesser creators are banished to that one area.

Or maybe it is just that its easier to fit your hand through the bars with a smaller paint pen and not with a full-sized rattlecan… But in my overactive imagination, I much prefer the thought of painters battling it out for dominant placement while younger, lesser writers scuttle aside to let the big boys through.

Nevertheless, if you are in San Francisco and haven’t taken a tour of the murals, it is definitely worth your time.