Gareth's long way from NZ to NY

Just beautiful. The video as well. It's documenting the long way he took to get from New Zealand to New York Shitty once around the globe. Try to watch it frame by frame - dear reader - to see all the exciting stations of his and Vic's journey.

Here's a Link for a higher res QT version for the whole frame by frame thing....KLICK

Helen's Plushyopolis

Pure plushy and sculpty awesomeness with more information on Behance Network by Ms. Choi

Barack is keeping it cool...

...in a beautiful SNL shot

So sweet, Kernmit the frog singing "New York I love You" by LCD Soundsystem on my favourite spot right at the east river in Williamsburg.
Thanks for the tip, Ellen.

Chris Dane Owens - Shine on me

This going around the world right now and I think it is so awesome that I do have to post it too:
Shine on me by Chris Dane Owens.








The only questions is: are they kidding? Or is that real? Regarding the fact that he might be from LA explains a lot though, but it's not explaining that video...

Motion in Motion

Here a few things I really liked from the last weeks in Motiondesign (or Motiongraphics, however you want it):
Starting with 2 works from Stephane Coedel, opening titles for a Cartoon Network Show that is not airing (unfortunately) and the BBC Olympia 08 Titles.


The Amazing Adventures of Kid Cole & Klay from Stephane coedel on Vimeo.


BBC OLYMPICS ©2008 Passion Pictures from Stephane coedel on Vimeo.

Also 2 Stop Motion Pieces, the first by Johnny Kelly, who is working at Nexus, for Adobe called "Seed"

and the 2nd one by Team DAK, called "Involvometer":


Intervelometer from Kunal Sen on Vimeo.

The ideal song to listen to after waking up and zipping on the coffee with a nice video by Parra:


Here some work of Jen Stark with her awesome paper sculptures:

And last but not least, you - dear reader - should have a look on these Blogs here, first we have the Grain Edit Blog, if you are into Illustration and stuff:

And secondly the Lovely Package Blog, for - yeah, you're right - lovely package design. (A really good thing about is, that the guys put down the fonts that were used for the designs.)



I hope you enjoy browsing through all this stuffffffff....fffff..ff..ffffff.f.

Projections and Thanksgiving Catch-Up

When the winter hits NY (no snow yet) it's not only time to get the scarfs, gloves and long sexy undies out of the closet. It's also time to prepare some delicious food (usually something that contains turkey, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes, usually all in a big deep fried munch) and share it with your dearest on - yes, dear reader, you got it right- thanksgiving.

So that's what sticks out after a delicious spinach pie, a turkey pizza (with a handmade doe pie) and a rhubarb strawberry pudding pie. The next day was the so called Black Friday, the official start of the Christmas Shopping season that kicks in right at 12 am with massive discounts and sales. That leads to cruel accidents like a WalMart employee that got trampled to death by the furious masses in Long Island or a shooting in a Toys'R'us between two husbands after their wifes started a fight. The men shot each other, luckily nobody else got hurt. supposingly it wasn't about a bargain...
After hearing News like that it's good to see that there are still normal things going on in the world, like these amazing projections here by the french based Easyweb Company.

VIdeo projection Monumentale 2009
by uruk

"Fallen Gelassen" showing tonight at Unicato

Daniels and Max' 30 min long animated short movie "Fallen Gelassen" (Left Behind) shows tonight on German TV Show Unicato, 00:35. Check it out, if you are in Germany and recieve MDR. And take a closer look on the compositing of the second part...hahaha
More of their work is coming soon on Peppermill-Berlin.de, the studio they recently founded.

A little bit of nice advertisment...

After working in this industry for a bit now I really learned to appreciate good ideas and concepts for commercials. And by far the best can be found on the amazing blog called I Belive In Advertising. I can highly recommend to bookmark this page and have a look on it from time to time, you - dear reader - might be amused. From time to time.
And while you are enjoying a little preview here, I gonna keep on stuffing that Turkey in my kitchen...with some Ketchup...











Also, Robert Seidel, a Bauhaus-University graduate I met once for a split second in the Grafik room shortly after his stunning final Project "_grau" came out just updated his Website with another beautiful Ident for the British Channel Five (Buck LA made one too - check all of them out here: Klick) He was also working for Zero 7, the Phyletic Museum in Jena (AWESOME Project!!!) and other clients and was published on almost every important Magazine and Blog all across the Planet. (Well, almost every Blog...Here's finally the TAJ Post. Damn, that was about time...)

Kudos Robert, keep up the good work.

Oh, and while we are talking about people from the Bauhaus University, Thomas G. , studying Architecture finally got a YouTube Channel, thats worth checking out here: KLICK

And it's getting cold in New York. Pictures of People freezing coming soon.

Finally

It was really about time to get this thing done. We already ordered 6 for the office, the only problem is that we might need more space now, but playing Spider Solitaire like this is freakin Awesome!!!


g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
If you - dear reader - can tell me what movie this thing reminds you on then this could be the chance to win those whale watching cookies (they taste like whale) we still got here...

Catch Up!

Okay, first of all, here's finally the riddle's answer what the dealio is with those coloured shapes. The guys from Ventilate asked Buck to create short films portraying our offices in NY and LA.
You can check the two movies here, if you are interested to see how we roll:

Ventilate NY Ventilate LA


After the shoot the shapes decided to chillax on top of Kate's Office...fair enough, it was a tough shoot for them, getting constantly carried around, thrown through the air and molested.

Although we had to work on the historic night when Obama got elected, we spent most of the time listening to the News and at 12 of course to his moving speech.
If you wanna know what we worked on - well I guess you'll have to wait another while to find out - but I can totally hook you up - dear reader - with the handmodel, opening envelopes professionally...


Oh yeah, G's getting all jiggy with it watching these two manicured beauties.

And also here is finally the rest of the vacation post a few weeks ago:

Mister Carla Colummna himself managed to sneak me into one of the long awaited and pricy tours through and around Philip Johnson's Glasshouse in New Canaan, Confetticut, while he was working on a little something something.

That's it. All nicely placed right where it belongs. Johnson spent quite a long time together with David Whitney to perfectionize the place. It's an architectual Gesamtkunstwerk that must have felt like a museum even when he was still living there till his death in 2005.

Interior mostly by Mies van der Rohe...

...and your nobody if you don't have your own sculpture house...

Here's another Indian Summer Colour Madness.


And it was my first time enjoying Halloween in the states, and as you - dear reader - can guess, the whole thing is totally commerzialized. But nevertheless, people all around the country are trying there best to impress other people with the designs in their front yard. For Thomas and me, this graveyard on Cape Cod was clearly the winner of this season.

The Kiwis in their Low-Budget Costumes. If you - Dear reader - find out what each of them is personating you might win a few candies that are left from that night...

But to not bring a downer to Halloween, it is really fun to walk around on the streets of New York that night, especially when you're hidden under an Oldschool-Ghost-Cloak. Most of the people are dressed up nicely (some girls also pretty bitchy) and the very best thing about it is to see them walking around like this all day long.

Yes we can!

by Patrick Moberg.

The City Celebrates.
We feel Awesome.
Even though we still got to work.
Obamarama all over the states!
Yay!

banksy

on canal street

and one block up north...

Sorry, the TAJ team is a bit late with all that, but as you - Dear reader - might have heard by now, the British Street Artist Banksy is invading NYC. First you can find his over sized drawings all over Downtown (and I guess there are more elsewhere) and then there is his Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill featuring amazing Pet like installations in the West Village which is totally worth checking out.
If you can't make it there before October 31st you can check out a BBC video about the store here: Klick
And I will try to provide you -Dear Reader - with more Banksy Walls over the coming week.

Vacation in the countryside...

...with Tom Steuer...
(trick-question - dear reader - what the hell is that little bird looking at? or into? Answers or comments to solve that are highly appreciated by the TAJ team)

...and Hackepeter Con wearing Sunflowerglasses.

So, the other day Thomas (you - dear reader - should know him by now) and me went up to New England to enjoy some high-quality all-American Vaca-time and of course, first thing to do in the Hamptons: pulling over to get some cash at the Drive Through ATM. After that we drove straight into the supermarket to get some Groceries, then into the shop where they sell this fancy porcelain and then finally into a swimming pool. Unfortunately we didn't rent a Pick Up Truck nor a SUV so all the stuff we bought got really wet.
But luckely the sun was shining all the time so the four organic apples for 9$ got dry pretty quick.

The Maunthawk Lighthouse on the tip of Long Island. The legend says that from the top one can see the sunken Cauliflower II, the Watertaxi, that brought the first Pilgrims from the Ikea in Plymouth over to the Hamptons, where they got rich, out of a sudden.

As usual I was pretending to read on a beach. I figured that is just something good to do, having some excitement for the beautiful brain.
What you - dear reader - can't see on this picture is the freezin cold Atlantic Ocean that got ran into by Thomas and me earlier that morning. And - great thing about off season traveling - we just had to share the beach with some Seagulls and some Pick-Up-Trucks. (turned out to be a drive-through beach, and we being all european walked all the 2min long way from the parking lot down through the dunes, soooooo stupid, gosh!)

A stunningly picturesque Nature Resort close to Orient, on the North West tip of Long Island, that luckely had a road going through so we didn't need to leave the car to enjoy some serious nature.

On the Ferry to New London the sky showed some serious volumetric light and shine skills.

And did I mention that we came at the right time for the indian summer? If not, here is the evidence that we did. Amazing colours all over, and we learned that the trees are actually trying to immitate colours of Jeeps, SUVs and Pick-Ups. Cause they like them so much.

Thomas, being quite excited on board of the Northstar 3. We went on a Polarbear watch tour but once we got up to Alaska all we saw was Russia, Sarah Palins House and some ice cubes. So we decided to head back to Provincetown, Cape Cod, where out of a sudden 5 Humpback whales jumped out of the water...

...and surrounded the ship, telling us in whalish all kinds of stories 'bout where they come from and what they are up to and bla bla bla. It was super-boring. So, here's a good advice for you - dear reader - whales might look impressive, but they're to avoid when it comes to smalltalk at dinnerparties.

Splish, Splash, we are so big, and so heavy, bla bla bla, and so old....yawwwwn!

Provincetown, on the north tip of Cape Cod, really pretty. The dude living in the tower was a bit weird, tried to steal Thomas' Ice Cream but apart from that and the approximately 500 lesbians couples on the streets it was a pleasure to see the small town.

Did I mention the Indian summer thing yet? Well, colourful, like a sony bravia commercial...or a Priscilla Presley Fragrance...

And here a Picture of Thomas driving through a drive through country.

Best thing about the life in Motels: you get Plastic Cups wrapped up in plastic (each and everyone) so you can be sure that absolutely no plastic gets into your cup before you unwrap it.

More pictures and stories from trip are coming soon...as well as a good reason not to go to Confetticut after 9pm and the inconvenient truth about something you - dear reader - wouldn't believe. (actually this is just a cliffhanger to get you excited about the next post here on the TAJ...)