Last year, I pitched in and shot some B-Roll for the Cincinnati chapter of Creative Mornings. It was used in the application video they put together. The Cincinnati version of the series has been going strong for almost a year now, and they are a truly inspiring way to start a Friday. I set my footage to the smooth sounds of Nick Waterhouse to create the quick Cincy-centric video above.
A long while ago I shot this short little time-lapse of my favorite OTR watering hole and venue, MOTR Pub. Recently, I finally circled back around to stitch it together.
This cold snap has me reminiscing about warm drives through the Ohio countryside...
Welp, the season didn't quite end on a high note, but I had a great time covering the Buckeyes for Eleven Warriors in 2013 and early 2014. I'll leave you with one last shot of El Guapo and we'll give the zoom lens a rest until the spring game in April.
And here's a little video of that Icy New Year's jaunt.
Spent New Year's Eve walking around on a frozen Lake in Wisconsin. Happy 2014!
Now, my little blog is certainly no Pitchfork, but at the end of each year, I like to look back at all my playlists from past 12 months and cobble together my top 25 or so favorite tunes. You can find them ranked worst to first below, and you can listen to the whole thing over on Spotify. Also, in case you care, my favorite album from 2013 was Foxygen's We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic, it wasn't even that close, so...go get that.
Grandman's Best of 2013 on Spotify
25 / I'll Be Around / YO LA TENGO
24 / Rewrite Our Lives / HA HA TONKA
23 / Hello Sunshine / DAMIEN JURADO & RICHARD SWIFT
22 / Comrade / VOLCANO CHOIR
21 / Advanced Falconry / MUTUAL BENEFIT
20 / A New Life / JIM JAMES
19 / Varsity / SMITH WESTERNS
18 / Keep Your Head Up / CULTS
17 / You've Got Me Wonderin' Now / PARQUET COURTS
16 / The Wire / HAIM
15 / The Bear & The Maiden Fair / THE HOLD STEADY
14 / No Destruction / FOXYGEN
13 / Metatron / DARKSIDE
12 / Here Comes The Night Time / ARCADE FIRE
11 / Ya Hey / VAMPIRE WEEKEND
10 / Tennis Court / LORDE
9 / Instant Crush / DAFT PUNK
8 / The Mother We Share / CHVRCHES
7 / KV Crimes / KURT VILE
6 / Sea of Love / THE NATIONAL
5 / Green Blood / SONNY & THE SUNSETS
4 / Avant Gardner / COURTNEY BARNETT
3 / In The Darkness / FOXYGEN
2 / Step / VAMPIRE WEEKEND
1 / Song For Zula / PHOSPHORESCENT
The 400 West Rich Street artist co-op/event space/dinin' hall thing in Franklinton is pretty rad.
Our awesome friends Chrissa and Sam recently got married on the Williamsburg Waterfront in Brooklyn, and I was honored to have the opportunity to design their wedding invitations. The lovely couple wanted the invitations to reflect the view from the ceremony/reception's venue, and who could blame them. For the event, I created color coordinated invitations and rsvp cards for the wedding (green) and the rehearsal dinner/toasts the night before (pink). As the bride is from Seattle, they are also having a West Coast celebration, and I added a matching set of Seattle themed Pink Invitations.
The wedding was a blast, and I was honored to play some small roll in making it happen.
I've been sitting on this for a little while, but now that it's starting to roll-out, I'm excited to share it with the world. Working with the gang at Eleven Warriors —leading up to the launch of 11W 2.0 (soon)— we've refreshed the site's brand to better reflect the spirit and ethic of the organization. The seal logo here includes the site's new latin motto, "Aesculus Excellantiam," which translates to "Buckeye Excellence." Lot's more to come from the 11W front in the coming weeks.
Urban Meyer, in his first trip to Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.
We found ourselves in New York City again, this time for a blowout Brooklyn wedding. We did our usual wandering about, and hit the Whitney for the stellar Robert Indiana retrospective. Good time as always, and got out just in time to avoid the holiday weather madness.
On this trip to New York, we tried to visit some parts of town we normally don't see. With that intention, we found ourselves downtown in the Financial District. Once we realized it was open to non-ticket-holding members of the public, we decided to visit the 9/11 Memorial. Erin and I both came away impressed with the scale, grace and weight of the site.
Over the past 5 years, I've been involved in one way or another with the Midpoint Music Festival. I completed a full rebrand of the indie-rock event in 2009 and have lent my talents in varying capacities each year. Having relocated north to Columbus, I was a little removed from this year's fest. However, I was luckily able to work with my Queen City Project compatriots to create a full-on QCP feature as well as the Midpoint Sessions. These intimate performances –from bands hand-picked by The Ridges– took place over Midpoint weekend in the Art Academy of Cincinnati. You can check out the feature above, Molly Sullivan's awesome performance below, and the rest of the performances over on the QCP MPMF post.
View the full set from Ohio State vs. Illinois right here.
Commonwealth Kentucky Bistro is the brainchild of Chef Chris Burns and his wife, Tess. Coming soon to the Mainstrasse district of Covington, Kentucky:
Our goal is to create experiences that support the common wealth of the community through love for food. It is a place where food is locally-sourced and inspired by our region’s past, prepared with passion and creativity, and served with Kentucky hospitality. It is a place to share stories and a meal. It is, in short, the perfect neighborhood eatery.
In planning their eatery, Chris and Tess reached out to me to develop Commonwealth's brand and visual language. I designed a logo and ID for the restaurant, contributed photography and designed and developed a new responsive website that is built to grow with the restaurant as opening night approaches.
The game-day environment in Berkeley and, more specifically, Memorial Stadium last week was incredible. I can't imagine a more picturesque setting to enjoy a fall show-down between two classic Land-Grant institutions. Here are a few of my favorite shots I took during the game that captured the atmosphere surrounding the matchup. If you want to see photos of football players, I got plenty of those too, you can view the full set over on Elevenwarriors.com.
