In the recent months, we’ve had the pleasure of designing for the music business. A business that I have wanted to dive into since the days of perusing the local record store for hours in search of new music – only to buy the album based on the cover art. In those days I didn’t have the resources that I take for granted now, and the thrill of the hunt was intoxicating.

One of the biggest scores I had was back in 1989 when I snagged a copy of Toad The Wet Sprocket’s “Bread and Circus” album based solely on the album art. To this day, it is one of my favorite albums, and a little over a year ago, I was approached by the band to use one of my designs as a tour t-shirt – a crazy story of chance, opportunity, and fanaticism. I can’t begin to describe range of emotions, memories, and excitement I had during that time. To be in correspondence with the band that I “found” on the rack – the band that my girlfriend, now wife, refer to when reminiscing the “remember when we were dating?” years — only to be front stage at a show where Glen Phillips, the lead singer, stopped the show to ask if I had a request, and he serenaded my wife and I with a song that was the theme song to our college-dating-crazy-good time chapter in our lives. The shear magnitude of of that moment was surreally staggering. He even waited until my wife, who was taking a call from the sitter, came back to join the show. No words.

With all that said – designing in the business that has taken a few licks in the recent years with social media and pro-tools in the hands of every “budding musician”, I am still triggered by the same unscathed enzyme to seek out and envelope myself in the “outer-body, outer-sonic” quality that music provides. I dive in full force – absorbing the gap between ocular, olfactory, and auditory with a sponge of imagination and literal awareness. Yes, it’s the “fun stuff”,  but to me it is a glimpse into intimacy and abstraction – a collage of ideas, collaboration, and emotional barriers. To me, it’s more than drumming up a cool design. It’s an investment into my passion and the avenue to inspire and grab the attention of the person blindly attracted to the “vision”.

A special thanks to Joe and Emily for unselfishly shoving my primitive printout in front of the band, and to Andy and the Sixthman warriors for allowing me fulfill my passion for music – grateful beyond words.

Which Toad song did Glen sing to my wife and I?

Check it out. HERE +++ Glen Phillips – Toad the Wet Sprocket

In the world of marketing, our existence is based on relevance. You go forward with your career or your go backward with your career. Our skill set is a constant evolution. This is utterly awesome and absolutely terrifying. You’ll find that any design firm that wasn’t on the front edge of its craft, no longer exists. It’s a wave of creativity and if you fall of your board, you’ll be crushed… or you end up working for someone else.

There are some ways that we stay channeled on the pipe dream of originality and I’d like to share a little bit on the effort in takes. For those of us that aren’t lazy, we read books, have subscriptions to design heavy magazines, focus time on inspiration and bounce ideas off one another. I’d say this was the proper way. Then there are folks like me. I’ve never had a design subscription. I don’t frequent any books on design, nor have bought one since college. It’s terrible. I depend on lack of influence to produce originality. This can result in chaos. I’ve come up with things that look dated or so far into left field that everyone was clueless on what I was trying to achieve. Most of the time, an idea mixed with caffeine arrives while i’m driving or many times in the shower. Note that I said “can” lead to chaos, but many times it leads to something the client never imagined was even possible.

My personal inspiration many times will derive from a client that I’m working with. If I can understand their dreams and put myself in the shoes of someone I’m working with, then I can try to align myself with their vision of a particular company. Once I really know what the vision is, it becomes a lot easier to accomplish the goal. Actually, I see the success of the companies outcome determining the success of the project. We don’t design to win awards. We design to win businesses. For me personally it takes on the form of becoming a solution database for any sort of situation. In multiple cases, I’ve lead a client to another company who offered a solution that met their goal more accurately for less money. In the end, we end up a company known for trust and in a service based industry – trust is most valuable thing we can have.

Most days when I come home from work my husband asks the standard, “What did you do today?” Obviously this isn’t meant to be a trick question, but there are days when it takes me a few minutes to rewind to the morning and think of all that was accomplished in one day. It gets really ugly if he asks what the guys were working on.

So anyways, today I decided that I would actually try to keep track of everything that was accomplished and how many different hats we wear throughout the day. For me, the day was started by hammering out a few kinks in two different sites that we are very excited to launch, Wings of Eagles and Neapolitan Gifts. These sites are both painfully close to being finished, so with each new tweak of the code the excitement between the kru and the client grows. It’s nice to see what can be accomplished by a morning of coding and clicking.

After lunch, the focus shifted to producing a set for our favorite new friends, Bawby and Rawtny. They are very excited to officially announce to the world the details for Papa Joe’s Banjo-B-Que at their press conference tomorrow morning at 11:30 on CBS News 12 and others. Switching quickly from web site designer, I threw on my “colorer” hat and dove into the project at hand, putting the finishing touches on a proper background for the pigs. The goal was to give these pigs a pad that matched their incredible attitude and I think they will approve.

Switch to after dinner, back to the space to let the real work begin, power tools! Making easels and a stand for our backdrop was the task at hand. Crank on the power saw and fire up the drills. With the tunes cranking and the wood chips flying, the 2X4′s seemed to put themselves together.

All in all, it is incredible to look back at how many hats we wear throughout the day. Keep in mind that this was only my day, an outline of everyone’s accomplishments for the day could take up a small novel. Combine four workaholics and all of their different skills and the possibilities are endless. Moral of the story; no job is too big or too small, too abstract or too simple, we treat them all the same. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have a job that has the ability to take someone’s business to the next level, whether it be by coding, cutting, clicking, or “coloring”.

So I kept thinking and thinking  about what I could write about and I continually drew blanks. So with nothing to say I thought  who could say something for me and me still get a passing grade and I thought who better than my wife to say something  (reminding me of my college days since she  “helped” me write a couple papers) since she does work for kruhu. So, with out further ado…

There is a non-creative…

How else would anything get done If it weren’t for me the bills would not get paid, no one would get a paycheck, your voicemails would not get returned, the IRS, Department of Labor and several other government agencies would be hunting us down. But I also play quite the role in the creative process. In fact, I see myself as vital. Without my rapid-fire assortment of ideas and suggestions, how else would the “creatives” know what to eliminate! Matt (who also happens to be my husband) often showers me with praise for coming up with such a plethora of ideas they should never use and doing so with such speed. Glad I can contribute both sides of my brain Not to mention my love for Arial (it favors the widely accepted Helvetica font, but slightly more space-efficient) and smiley faces I happen to think punctuation faces are pretty creative and fun, along with spelling words on my calculator I have noticed, however, that I’m the only one who used them

While I have a voice, I might as well mention some of the things that impede my productivity while enhancing everyone else’s.

1. Loud email alarms. Chris’ horn effect makes me jump every time.
2. Music. Silence fosters mathematical accuracy.
3. Chit-chat.
4. Asthetics. I’m definitely function over form.
5. Aimless meandering that could be controlled by medication

I’m sure this will be the last time I’m permitted to publish under Kruhu’s name So farewell from the back office.

Sweat and blood. That’s how we do it. This video below shows our extensive gallery wrapping, printing process and how much hard work goes into it. In the video, I’m working on two 6′ x 4′ prints of old Augusta, Georgia. It’s about three minutes long and it shows that it’s quite a bit more than hitting print. (I stretched both of those in one day and I lost feeling in one finger for about 3 days.) If your getting ready for Master’s don’t forget our Augusta Golf Prints.

So, I have this thing with music.
Yeah, it pretty much has to be on at all times while working. A silent office is the loudest distraction, and can break the “flow zone” super quick. Our office has a pretty sweet sound system (conveniently plugged into my computer) where I can launch itunes>hit the Music playlist>tap shuffle and let the madness begin.

Everyone is a good sport for the most part as I reacquaint or introduce them with/to classics and obscurity from the 1920′s  to the most current of musical treats. The beauty of shuffle is that you never know what you’ll get. Here’s a three-fer for example: “Free”-Zac Brown Band> “The Vapors” – Biz Markie> “Say Yes” – Langhorne Slim — super random — I have over 11K songs in the queue – poised and ready for the daily groove.

Music can be an incredible backdrop to the creative and design process — tunes can serve as the perfect stabilizer while in the “outter-body design zone”  – a zone one enters while exploring the depths of an idea, exploring new techniques or incredibly cool mistakes—-only to wake up and find your leg bouncing in 16ths.

Music can serve as the perfect bridge to sanity while working on a tedious yet necessary procedure – almost like sticking your head out the window after realizing you have been asleep at the wheel. Everyone loves to sing along to “Take On Me” – Aha

Music is always the release of stress and connection to certain times, seasons, or even smells. Giving the mind a break from the constant expectation to keep that creative cranking on all 10 cylinders ALL day—- Music is just plain essential.

Thanks to my Kru for the freedom to crank it to eleven.

Do you want a taste? A sip of the mocha? A little flavor for your ear?

I complied a 32 song 2.5hr playlist of a typical “shuffle” – I call it the Ceremonial Succotash Vol.I – I plan to release one every now and again.

Go to the “Contact” page on the site and hit me up with an email for a free downloadable link.

http://kruhu.com/contact.php

Make sure you type in the “subject line” SUCCOTASH.

(download available thru Friday 3/5 @ 5p)

Enjoy yourself.