Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

Design time – here's a logo that Christine and I combined forces to create.

Dr Kildeen Moore was Christine's much beloved aunt, who very sadly died from brain cancer a few years ago. Members of the family wanted to honour her memory by setting up a research fund in her name, and asked us if we would be able to come up with an appropriate logo.

The idea is all Christine's - she remembered Kildeen as always being the life of the party, so the conga line motif seemed perfect. Her initial concepts actually had the conga line facing left; it was only after we had "slept on the idea" that it occurred to me that the main character would resemble a stylised "K" (for Kildeen) if we flipped the whole thing. I redrew Christine's characters a little bit, added the type and submitted it. The family loved the concept and approved it after only a few minor revisions.

The stethoscope on the "Kildeen" figure was requested by the family: I personally find it a bit fussy for such a simple and stylised logo, but I can understand the reasoning behind it - an instant identifier of this figure as "Dr Kildeen".

Posted in: chaosboy, design on June 8, 2008 at at 5:33:00 PM 0 comments    

So, after more than a year, the ol' white type on black was getting a bit grating. Time for something new! I spent most of the day scouring the internet for information on how to get/create a new Blogger theme, with varying levels of success.

I finally found this neat theme, which I've spent a bit of time tweaking to my liking. There may be some more fiddling over the next little while, so forgive us if things look a little wacky at times. I'm still getting the hang of using CSS to determine pretty much every element on an HTML page. It's extremely powerful, but also quite hard to get your head around on the fly. Let us know what you think of the new look!

Posted in: blog, chaosboy, design on June 6, 2008 at at 12:52:00 AM 0 comments    

So Colin Lake and Wellbottom's album, Bullet, is finally being released properly. I did the artwork for this way back in February and while I've had my own sample copy of it for quite a while, it's quite exciting to think that it's out there for other people to see. As well as being in bricks and mortar record stores, it's also available on iTunes (as seen in the image above; click on it for a full size image) and Amazon.com (where it's currently rated #639,331 in their Music category!).

Of course, now that I think about it, Colin's fine recording isn't the only artwork of mine that is available for sale on the ol' interwebs, as the CDs I did for Hillsong Church are all out there too. (See here, here and here - they're on iTunes as well as Amazon). Maybe I just have a bigger sense of ownership with Colin's work, helping a new artist out with some quality artwork and design. Whatever - I'm just chuffed for both him and me that it's out there.

Posted in: chaosboy, design, music on June 4, 2008 at at 1:53:00 PM 0 comments    

Crowding In, originally uploaded by chaosgurlpink.

The Mac Store has been marking the Grand Opening of their Clackamas store in a variety of ways: the usual special deals on hardware and software, and (perhaps more unusually) with a series of live shows by local musicians and bands in both the new Clackamas store and the Portland store.

I came down a couple of times to meet up with Christine, and the music was always of very high quality. And Christine said that about the acts that I missed as well. The problem was is that it was generally played to an almost empty store, or to customers who wanted to shop rather than listen to great music. Sort of "live in store" elevator muzak, if you like.

That all changed when Laura Veirs showed up for her gig on Saturday. Suddenly, the store was full of enraptured listeners who found a position wherever they could to listen to her. As you can see in the picture above, there was even a guy who pulled up his old G5 tower that he'd just picked up from the service department as a seat! No one was interested in picking up an iPod accessory or even in the free pizza on offer until after Laura finished her set.

Of course, this reaction was to be somewhat expected - Laura Veirs is a pretty big name on the Portland scene. As Christine noted, she's the only one out of all the acts booked who has her own Wikipedia entry! She's released at least three albums that get proper distribution (ie, she doesn't rely on selling them at the end of gigs to get them out in the market) and has had successful tours and collaborations with The Decemberists, amongst others.

And that's what's cool about this small Portland moment. A successful local act who isn't above playing a very low key gig in a rather strange location (a computer store?!!). And she's rewarded for this, as the large and appreciative audience shows. A big win all around!

Posted in: chaosboy, music, portland on June 1, 2008 at at 7:13:00 PM 0 comments    

When I was first arrived in the US, I quickly threw together a web portfolio of my design work to make applying for jobs easier. No need to send a huge PDF of samples with my cover letter and resume; rather, I can just send a link to the site. However, it was very hurriedly done and probably didn't show my work off in the best way.

So I've spent a little while over the last few weeks redoing it, and I couldn't be happier! It looks very slick now, with a neat three column layout that works really well across the entire site. I think I now have a better portfolio site than some of the agencies I've worked at, but then, it always seems hard for agencies to find the time to sit down and do some proper self-promotion!

So head on over to take a look. Let me know what you think!

Posted in: chaosboy, employment, internet on May 22, 2008 at at 3:40:00 PM 0 comments    

It's kind of hard to believe, but today marks one year since I arrived in the US to live. One year already! And in that time I've done so much:

1. Married my wonderful girl
2. Gone head to head with US Immigration (and emerged victorious... eventually!)
3. Found (some) work
4. Flown to the other side of the country and back (up to 10 states visited now!)
5. Gone on a road trip
6. Made great friends
7. Discovered that good beer does exist in America and most of it is in Portland!
8. Clocked up more than 1,500 miles (2,400km) on my bike

And that's only the tip of the iceberg! Things have been a little tough at times, but Christine and I have managed to muddle our way through it all together, and I can't say I've ever felt happier in my life. Every time things look grim, financially or otherwise, something will come along and rectify the situation; whether it's Christine winning a prize through work, my back pay from Vein finally coming through or whatever... life is good, and the weather is starting to get nicer, too! Roll on the next year!

Posted in: chaosboy, general musings, immigration, portland on May 15, 2008 at at 1:29:00 PM 0 comments    

Sometimes we all question our job. Are we getting enough out of it? Are we getting paid enough? Are we advancing ourselves? These are the questions that have been going through my head for quite sometime. However, last week, my boss Dan made it clear that something was going down on Friday and I had to be there in order not to miss it.

Now, life on my front has not been so interesting in order to blog about lately although I had been on repelling excursions and jazz shows... although this definitely was. I tend to blog when a train of thought has been altered. And I can say now that my renewed faith in the company which I currently serve has been preserved.

A business division of our company called Irisink ran a contest starting 3 months ago allowing individual salespersons to refer customers to their services therefore getting the lead transfered into tickets for a raffle. Irisink received many leads from all 7 Mac Stores and transferred them all into the pot. We were all told about this back in February. Apparently May was the the month of the drawing and Yours Truly was in for a surprise.


Those crazy guys had me in suspense all week that I was either going to get a promotion, get fired or get transferred but instead they gave me a giant check accompanied by a surprise party complete with an adorable cake. I was put on the spot and hugely shocked how above and beyond they went just to tell me I'd won. It was gorgeous. I might stick around just awhile longer with the Mac Store. :)

Posted in: chaosgurl, employment, portland on May 13, 2008 at at 8:21:00 PM 1 comments    

This last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I got a gig from 52 Ltd to temp as a production artist at a downtown advertising agency called Leopold Ketel & Partners. They have about 30 staff and have some great accounts, including a lot of not-for-profit organisations like Planned Parenthood, Oregon Public Broadcasting, the Oregon Humane Society and more. It's always nice to see an agency with heart, rather than one that's just interested in making money.

The work there was pretty simple stuff - presentation and pitch boards and books and some finished artwork. However, I handled it all with my typical ruthless efficiency and so wasn't particularly surprised when my supervisor came to me early on Thursday morning and asked whether I was interested in a full-time position. We had a brief discussion about it and I told her I'd get back to her next week with a decision.

Full-time work would be great, that's for sure - it would bring a lot of security that we currently don't have. Struggling for enough part-time work to meet the rent each month sucks. But this position is only as a production artist with no guarantee of any creative work whatsoever. We didn't really discuss pay at this early negotiation stage, but you can bet it would be substantially less than what I was earning in Australia. On the other hand, LK&P seems to be a truly creative agency (with no egos!) and I feel I could learn a lot there. Who knows, if I keep blowing them away with the quality of my work, there could be plenty of opportunity for advancement.

So I feel that the best course of action is to let LK&P know that I'm interested and see what pay they are offering. If it's below a certain level (I do have standards!) then I'll pass and keep on with 52 Ltd, maybe asking them to start looking for full-time creative work for me instead of just part-time. But if LK&P's offer is good enough...

Posted in: chaosboy, employment, portland on April 26, 2008 at at 9:31:00 AM 0 comments    

Drunken People Crossing, originally uploaded by Senex Prime.

The photo above is a sign at the entrance of a brewpub's car park in Missoula, Montana. It vividly and visually portrays the huge difference between Portland and Missoula when it comes to drinking alcohol.

The sale, distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages in Portland (and all of Oregon) is controlled by the OLCC (Oregon Liquor Control Commission), who rule with something of an iron fist. Venues are regularly tested to see if they are checking the ID of patrons or letting underage drinkers in; so much so that most bars will ask everyone for ID, even if they're way above 21. And once they've asked you for ID, no one will turn a blind eye if you've forgotten it. No card, no drink.

Whereas, as this picture shows, Missoula almost seems proud of its hard drinking reputation. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Top Hat Club has a "$5 Tap Beer" promotion on Wednesday nights. What this means is that for $5, you get as many pints as you can drink between 10:30pm and 1:00am! Guidelines for bar owners in Montana suggest that encouraging binge drinking isn't such a great idea, but it doesn't seem like that message has quite sunk in yet for some bars. Missoula is a university town, so I would expect that a large proportion of the drinkers who would want to take advantage of a $5 beer night would be college kids. Spencer (who grew up in Montana) told me that bars would do "Quarter Beers" - 25 cent pints!!! and "cheap drinks until the first person goes to the toilet" nights.

As a final demonstration of the differences between the two cities, Spencer's sister - who is 23 - forgot her ID when she came to the Top Hat, but was allowed entry anyway. It just wouldn't happen in Portland.

Posted in: chaosboy, party time, travel, united states on April 16, 2008 at at 11:25:00 AM 0 comments    

Click on the map above for a full-size image.

This last weekend, I got out of Portland with Kim, Spencer and Jaime as we headed off to Spokane, WA and Missoula, MT to see the last two shows on Colin Lake and Wellbottom's 2008 Spring Tour. Colin is a good friend of ours (and I've designed his logo, web site and latest album cover as well) and Kim's boyfriend Kevin plays bass for the band. So it seemed like a great idea to pile in the car and cheer them along the home stretch. Christine couldn't make it on the trip with us as she has to work weekends and we kinda need the cashola at the moment, but she certainly didn't begrudge me going off and having fun.

We headed off after lunch on Friday, out along the stunning Columbia River Gorge towards Umatilla, where we entered Washington State and headed up to Spokane, a 350 mile journey in total. The weather was beautiful, the first 70°F (21°C) day since last October, with hardly a cloud in the sky. The familiar verdant green and waterfalls of the western Gorge soon gave way to the very different – but no less beautiful – desert-like eastern part and plains of Eastern Oregon. Much of the area is kept alive and productive by extensive irrigation; an aerial photograph of the area near Umatilla shows all the circular fields that seem to be the norm for irrigated farmlands in this part of the country.

We finally rolled into Spokane (pronounced "Spo-can" for all the non-locals) at around 7:00pm, where we met up with band and headed up to the house of one of Kim's friends to freshen up and have a few drinks before the show. The gig was at a small bar called "The Swamp" in a semi-industrial area of town, but attracted a pretty decent crowd, all of whom seemed to appreciate the show that the guys put on. Touring for a few weeks has definitely helped the band sound really tight, the show was pretty flawless. Here's a couple of photos:

After the show ended, we headed back up the hill to the house, where the party continued until 3:00am or so, after which everyone crashed where they could. The start the next morning was slow to say the least, with no-one even stirring before 11:30am. We finally got out of the house for a late breakfast at 1:00pm at a great cafe before everyone hit the road for the next leg to Missoula, Montana – a mere 200 miles away.

This leg of the journey took us across the "panhandle" of Idaho, a narrow strip of mountainous land that extends all the way north to the Canadian border. Looking at it on a map makes you wonder why a state would bother to claim such a narrow strip of land - and it actually all comes down to a mistake. The original surveyors were meant to mark the edge of the territory along the US Continental Divide, but went the wrong way and were almost at the Canadian border before they realised their mistake. The border should have been much further to the east, but the mistake has remained. After a mere 80 miles or so, we crossed the border into Montana, the "Big Sky State", the 10th US State that I have visited.

The scenery from Coeur d'Alene in Idaho all the way to Missoula was quite spectacular, with huge snow-covered mountains and pristine lakes. We also passed the town of Wallace, which holds quite a few claims to fame. It rose to prominence as the biggest silver mining town in the US, then had the last set of traffic lights on the US Interstate system: these were removed in 1991 when the bypass around (and above) the town was completed. Finally, in need of some tourism to help the struggling town, Wallace decided to declare itself "The Center Of The Universe", with a manhole cover downtown (seriously!) denoting the exact spot. I think that Rome and Greece had that idea some 2000 years earlier, guys...

We arrived in Missoula at around 7:00pm and got ourselves something to eat before heading off to the Top Hat Club, the venue for the last show of the tour.

Note the "$5 Tap Beer" sign... I'll be talking about that in another blog soon. While fairly unprepossessing from the outside, the Top Hat was a very atmospheric bar on the inside, and had a great big stage for the guys to perform on. Another great show, and a lot of the college kids in the audience got up and danced, which was fun to see. We were way too cool to dance ourselves.

The show finished right at closing time (2:00am) and we were treated to the Missoulan way of closing a bar: the chairs and tables were all instantly stacked on top of each other while the bartenders shouted things like, "If you don't work here, GET OUT!" and, "What are you still DOING HERE?!". We helped the guys load their gear into their rig, then headed off to a nearby hotel where we got half-price rooms for the night. Some of us headed off to a nearby 24-hour diner, but I took the opportunity to get an hour's headstart on sleep.

Sunday was the whole 550 mile trip in reverse, which took pretty much the whole day. We were all pretty tired and glad to be home, but felt for the band: in their big and slow rig, they didn't get back to Portland until late in the night, well and truly tired of this whole touring thing. Kevin had to get up and go to work first thing Monday morning as well, ugghh!!

Posted in: chaosboy, music, photography, travel, united states on April 15, 2008 at at 1:08:00 PM 0 comments