Design Crack » JFF

American Express: Membership Can Get You Laid

Brandon Thomas Baunach — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 04:44:09 +0000

Equals

I’m a fashion addict. Being a fashion addict means I sign up for all the press releases to all the major fashion shows. Today I got one for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Smiw 2009 in Miami. The MBFW really does a fantastic job of making you feel like a million bucks especially if you have a million bucks. Now, the MBFW Miami has teamed up with American Express to offer card members exclusive access to VIP events at a number of scantily clad events. In other words, American Express = getting laid. Okay. Maybe I’m being a bit crass. You also get:

· Access to the private American Express poolside cabana at The Raleigh

· Meet and Greet with Tibi designer, Amy Smilovic

· Cardmember only trunk show with ANK by Mirla Sabino, hosted in the Penthouse of The Raleigh

· Access to complimentary valet parking and a gift bag

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Cool Foreign Design Councils

Brandon Thomas Baunach — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:42:15 +0000

What are design councils? Short answer: I don’t know. Long answer: I believe design councils were formed by government agencies to promote their countries design talent. So, the design council lists and promotes significant designers and design related events throughout the country.

Why is this so cool? Because it’s a concise way to find out who’s coming up with exciting ideas around the world.

I hope to expand this list into a whole huge section of the Design Crack Website, but for now, I will simply list a few links for various design councils:

This is just to get you started. I’m telling you: just this list will keep any design freak like myself titillated for hours!

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Graffiti Report Cards Are Not an Isolated Act

Brandon Thomas Baunach — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:17:26 +0000

As you may or may not know, I made a graffiti report card as a simple way to give feedback to taggers and graffiti artists in my neighborhood. I liked the idea, so I promoted it around to a few blogs, just for fun. It got picked up on a few blogs pretty quickly, and I thought that was it. Then it made it to boingboing, and I was a bit surprised to find such a dramatic reaction to this project. Most people seem to hate it judging by the seething contempt in people’s comments, but a number of the blog posts were favorable. Fortunately, Craig contacted me from Seattle, and he sent me his version of the graffiti report card that he has been using for some time now. Finally, I feel like someone out there knows why I might want to do this, and it’s not an isolated urge. It’s simply a fun project to create a dialog with an artist through graffiti. My medium of choice is a paste up. Craig’s are stencils. Thanks Craig for making me not feel like an aesthetically challenged idiot.

Also, I’d like to say thanks to the people that helped me get the word out. Whether you love it or hate it, I appreciate the acknowledgment:

If anyone actually writes a report card on some graffiti then please take a picture of it and post it to flickr (here)

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The Graffiti Report Card: Ugly Graffiti Haters Unite

Brandon Thomas Baunach — Sat, 19 May 2007 01:23:02 +0000

Click on image to enlarge

Now, in German! (Please find the badly written German version here)

What is the Graffiti Report Card?

The Graffiti Report Card is a mechanism that you can use to judge graffiti. It’s a sticker with an arrow on it that points to the graffiti. The sticker has a number of categories you can judge the graffiti on as well as a space to write your own comments. The way you use the Graffiti Report Card is you:

1: Find a piece of graffiti you love or hate.

2: Print out the PDF I’ve included in this article (HERE)

3: Fill out the graffiti report card with your comments

4: Stick it up on the wall next to the graffiti

5: Take a picture and send it to me or post it to the Graffiti Report Card Flickr Group

6: Buy a T-shirt Grim Reaper T-Shirt

What is the background of the Graffiti Report Card?

It’s a project I started a couple of months ago after seeing my neighborhood (The Mission District of San Francisco) receive an amazing amount of ugly, large, and talentless graffiti. I wanted a way to combat the ugly graffiti while at the same time give praise to the talented graffiti writers who I feel make the streets more beautiful. It occurred to me, that many of our local taggers don’t realize how ugly and talentless their graffiti is, so I wanted to give them some feedback.

I did some research and found the perfect project called the Graffiti Critique. The Graffiti Critique is a form you use to critique graffiti which suited my purposes well. I contacted Drew Heffron, the person who created the Graffiti Critique who was supposedly giving out this form as a PDF. I really love the design and execution. I had no luck getting the form though, so I just created my own.

To see more coverage, check out:

If anyone actually writes a report card on some graffiti then please take a picture of it and post it to flickr (here)

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