I recently had a gallery reception at Tag Gallery in Santa Monica. This gallery is a collection of about 40 artists and not only provides an opportunity to show your work, but it is a great source of inspiration and collaboration. Each artist is responsible for their own show; from the signage on the windows to the hanging of the work to the mailing of invites. The gallery director drives PR and marketing support while the members all donate their time throughout the year for reception hosting and gallery sitting. I think it is a great example of how a community-based network of individuals can work towards the collective good of the group. Similar to what has happened with musicians leveraging the power of their fan base, vs. letting the labels dictate the when, where, how and what of their work. Not to mention a much more favorable split between artist and gallery, musician and label.

Today was eventful. I had the opportunity to fly with a stunt pilot.

As I sat in the front seat of the small cockpit, my mind raced back to the many years I spent as a Naval Aviator. The smell, the noise, the sensations as the engine came to life and the small plane began to roll forward. But perhaps what struck me the most today was the instinct that took over. We were completing a simple loop and as the airplane reached vertical and began to nose over towards an inverted horizon, my head instictively rolled back to look for the horizon and a reference point to keep the wings level.

20 some years and an eternity from flying an aircraft, but my instincts rolled my head back and looked for those simple reference points that I had been taught so many years ago.

The sensation changed from the exhileration of flight…to a reminisence of something I knew so well, so instictively so very long ago.

I was in control of an aircraft, I knew how to fly…and fly well…

What a day.

Art Of The Title
http://www.artofthetitle.com
From “Cowboy Bebop” to “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” this site is a fantastic collection of some of the best title sequences ever done. Each sequence is viewable in a very decent quality quicktime as well.

Gerd Arntz Web Archive
http://www.gerdarntz.org
This site is an unbelievable archive of the work of Gerd Arntz. From his pictograms and visual signs to his stunning statistical visualizations, this site can provide hours of inspiration.

Wordle
http://wordle.net/
Wordle is a JAVA Applet that creates beautiful word clouds. You can paste in any text you like and then adjust typeface, color and layout to create some very nice typographic layouts. FUN:)

Part of the joy of watching a digital strategy come to life is seeing how real people actually engage and interact with the work.

For our client Turks & Caicos Sporting Club we developed a blog and emagazine platform that has been incredibly successful. Not only has is generated significant sales leads, it has served as a wonderful central point for the members of this exclusive private island community to share their stories.

This morning a string of comments from the Deets family about Michael’s awesome birthday fish really made me smile.

You can view the post HERE.
How fun to see a family all applauding their son, and sharing the experience with one another online.

Check out all three of our Sporting Club clients blogs at:
Snake River Living
Life On The Cay
and
Life At The Greenbrier