Creature turns ten

For those of you who haven’t read the Creature history book, yesterday was our proper tenth anniversary.
 
If Matt, Robson and I had to say only one thing it would be this. Thank you.

Thank you for caring. Thank you for working hard. Thank you for making Creature magical and inspirational. Thank you for making it happen. Thank you for making it smart. Thank you for keeping the volume turned up. Thank you for making it feel like a place for art. Thank you for making it feel like a place for spreadsheets; good ones. Thank you for making every day completely unexpected.  Thank you for the sweat. Thank you for the gray hairs. Thank you for all the amazing faces. Thank you for all the beautiful minds. Thank you for making Creature successful. Thank you for the Champagne. Thank you for making people scratch their heads as they walk by in bewilderment. Thank you for making Creature ten years old. And thank you for making sure the next ten feel like a space ship to the other side of the galaxy.
 
We couldn’t have done it without you all.
 
 Jim, Matt & Robson

Our Founder

The End of the Sweater Vest Era

I have trouble with emotions. After all, I’m a man. A big, strong one. So I’m going to use this blog post to tell Hemant Jain how much I’m going to miss him rather than tell him to his face. So if you’re reading this and you’re not Hemant, you might not understand some of the things in this post. And it might get weird. Not super weird, but weird.

Dearest Hemant,

You and me made a good team. Yeah, I understand. You gotta head back East. I wish I could talk you into staying but I know you’re mind’s made up. And it’s what you need to do. We had a good little run though didn’t we? About a year and a half of good times, talkin’ shit, laughing and terrible guitar playing. I’m gonna miss you coming over to my desk and hovering around without saying a word until I acknowledge you. And our whiteboard sessions. How can you give those up? Are you sure you have to leave? You selfish asshole.  I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Shit. Here come the waterworks. I told myself I wasn’t going to cry… And your rings. Holy shit, I’ve never seen a man wear more rings. When you’d make a firm point in a meeting and you’d slam your hand down on the table. Boy that pinky ring would make a sound. And your obsession with Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder. Despite it no longer being 1998, you stood by him. And I appreciate that about you. And of course, the sweater vest. We all grew to love it. But I remember when they first paired me up with you. Secretly I was like, “This guy’s supposed to be some super awesome creative we imported from India? How cool can he be, he wears sweater vests?” And wear them you did. With pride. Every day. No seriously, every fuckin’ day. But those sleeveless sweaters aren’t what I’m gonna miss about you. What I will miss is the intelligent conversations we had. Well, mainly it was you being intelligent and me listening to you be intelligent. From your published Indian political cartoons, to all the work you do for the environment. I was just always so impressed with how smart and passionate you were about everything you did. And it rubbed off on me. And it probably rubbed some other people the wrong way. But in the best kind of way. You have a knack for making people think. Really think. And that’s what this business needs more of, in my opinion. So I guess the long and short of it is, have I ever loved a man? No, of course not. But did I enjoy being your partner here at Creature? 100%. I’m sure the whole office will miss you. But I will miss you the most. And that doesn’t make me gay. I don’t think.

xoxo,

Pat

America's #2 Hero

For the first time ever, the Advertiser of the Week Award was passed on to the second most qualified contestant, Ramon Vasquez. Because the person who was to receive it bailed early. Ramon was happy to receive the award but said he didn’t feel like he fully deserved it since he was the second choice. “It’s kind of like when you’re in a Christian alternative rock band and they kick you out of the band because they found somebody that can play the bass without a pick and they think he’s sooo cool. But then two months later, he quits the band to join a Christian ska band because he knows how to play bass without a pick and they asks you to come back and be the bass player again... It’s kind of like when that happens. You’re happy to be there, but you can’t help to not think about the fact that you are only there, because the first choice wasn’t. You want to be the first choice. You want to know how to play bass without a pick.”

We all strive to be #1 at whatever it is we do. Often if and when we reach that goal, only we know ourselves the hard work and dedication that was put into getting there. To the world around us, it appears as if we were somehow handed the opportunity, or that we just have some natural god given talent that has created the opportunity. It is not uncommon for people to resent you and your accomplishments and claim that anybody could do what you did if they were lucky enough to get the help and support you were given.

This is why America loves the #2. We are too shallow to understand your struggle unless we are there to witness it. We need to see you give everything you have and more, and after we see you do that, we want to see you fail. With that being said, keep your head up Ramon. Next week is a new day...or week. Till then, you are our favorite American #2 hero. And you pretty much deserve the award every week anyway. And we all know it.

A wealth of useless information

Everyone at Creature has the opportunity to curate our front windows. This week Dave Kaul took the initiative and did not disappoint. In fact, I want to live in that world. As a special treat, Dave wrote about his creation in some depth. Give it a read. Follow the links. Enjoy.

- Jim

After five years as a designer at Creature, I started to have this feeling, like I had to get something out of my system. I wanted to paint something big, overwhelming, and put it on display. I realized that this feeling I missed was the feeling of painting graffiti, which is where my roots are. I realized, after years in the agency world, that I needed to get back in touch with those roots, and make something outside of the computer. The perfect opportunity came along in our 12th Avenue Storefront project.

So I turned the windows into a magical winter feather-land. The idea was to do something bright, almost glowing – when I paint, I'm always drawn to very vivid colors. The feathers are an element I've been using in my painting for a little while, and I've been wanting to do them on a much bigger scale. The concept is not so much of a concept; it's just something I really wanted to make and could visualize in my head.

The display features four 5 x 8 canvases painted with the monochromatic illustrated feathers in pinks and greens. The repeating feather pattern gives it an infinite, wallpaper effect. I then painted real feathers in matching colors and hung them in front of the canvases – I was trying to create the illusion of feathers lifting off the canvas almost, and fluttering to the ground.

On the floor is a train that spans the two windows, set up to look as though it's magically traveling across to the other window. The train reads “What is love” on the green side, completed by “baby don't hurt me” on the pink side, which is a lyric from the 90's dance hit by Haddaway. Haddaway who? Exactly.

In the end, I was trying to achieve a contrast between each side with a strict color theme, inject some of my awkward sense of humor, brighten up the gray Seattle streets.

 Maybe most of all, I wanted to get back in touch with my immature, skateboarding/graffiti writer past. I'm also currently working on a book, “Denseone: 19 Years as a Mediocre Graffiti Writer”, which looks back at my time as a wandering teenager in California all the way through my current career as a designer, and my attempt to stay connected to my favorite way to pass the time. Which is art.

It's also a way for me to do something with my ridiculous amount of graffiti knowledge, or what I like to call a wealth of useless information. Ever since I got into graffiti, I've never gone a day in my life without noticing it, without reading even the tiniest signature on a garbage can. It's almost like someone put it there just for me to read. I don't think I could stop looking if I tried. I'm pretty hooked, and I guess my current work centers around this hope that graffiti stays with me into my old age. It's who I am.

 DK

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David's blog is Art / Design / Surface, where he posts one example of each (art, design, surface) daily. 

Also, check out creative and design director Steve Cullen's blog, Makecentric, where he also wrote a piece on Dave's recent window art.