Media Design – Print

One of the meduims I enjoy the most in the design arena is Print (Ads)

Print Media makes up the first semester of WelTecs Digital Media / Visual Communication bA and is one of 5 parts in semester two, so Ive you are a budding young designer get used to it.

On top of this in a Design firm you are probibly going to be thrown all the crappy jobs at first, alot of which fall under / into the Printing industry, so things liek Paper Grade, become so much more important i your line of work, its no longer all digital…

At WelTec, and in your future workspace, you can count on one thing, The hardware screwing up, and not all the time either, im talking about 3 hours before a deadline kind of screwing up, and trust me, if your hung over and youve rushed something up to sell to someone, its a hell of alot easier to bullshit them into a sale with something printed out, except no doubt there will be some kind of nastey arsed paper jam, or the printer will be backed up because two floors worth of computer suites are all printing for the same 3 hour deadline, and you cant easily fix this problem… ooooh no its not your regular HP deskjet ‘ un jam it by yanking that paper out’ this is a top of the line expensive hunk of CMYK dust printer, hell you wouldnt even know where your peice of paper is…

the bible – LAUS | adg-fad this thing cost me
$50 marked down from $90 because the CDrom
that comes with it was fucked [click to enlarge]

Be sure to have plenty of insperation, Surround yourself with it, its much easier to do this is your in a central hub (think big city, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, or student centers, we’re talking Dunedin, Palmerston North etc) because there are piles and piles of free handouts, crazy people, musical festivals etc etc on music, several of my tutors actually demand you take some in with you, it gets the creative juices flowing… Ive always played music while I design, and not soft pussy crap, I think back to when I started doing this, in 5th form at Waiopehu, there where 3 of us that year, and we cranked Black Sabbath, we all also passed.

adg – fad is a great resource, they release one every year (its the Euro awards for advertiseing in all areas / meduims including video, websites etc etc) though its expensive… such is the life of a designer, its a 24 hour job, if you have a deadline due, and youve lost all your work, get the coffee on and lock yourself in your room and do it… dont settle for working for free, for anyone, you simply dont have the time

Empty Rooms

So for the first time in a long time I was up before 8am this morning, the landlord called and is brining someone in to veiw the house today, in a queer twist of fate, Rawiri, Benny and Matt all won sevens tickets last night, So benny came home from the pub a little later then expected, In that time Steve and I traveled to the hutt and found somewhere for us all to live, so now, this weekend, so thats one less set of hands to help around keeping this place spic and span for possible tennants… on top of this they had people around after the pub last night for a few more beers, the lounge has a dude living in it, so looks like an uncleaned bedroom and everyone else is at work *there goes all my other helpers for today*

This is one big stress fest for Tom.

—

Ska bat ninja is getting married!

holey shit, this guy is synical as hell and great to chat with in dAmn #hell I wish cheshirekazz and zephyrkinetic all the best XD

Rainlendar

Rainlenar is a dynamic widget for your dektop, which you use to organise your life.
Because its fully customisable its really popular, and great, if your not useing it yet, I suggest you check it out in the Korova Milkbar Section of the site (im updating today, so expect some new stuff in there)
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Now I wanted to talk about Dan Hsu for a bit, I added his blog to my blog roll to humor you people, Last night in dAmn I mentioned that Dan Hsu is a god, and got some blank looks and question marks as to who exactly he is.
Dan Hsu is an editor of a little magazine I like to call E.G.M (thats Electronic Gaming Monthly) you can also find him at 1Up.com who host the magazine’s sites / blogs.

Recently he interveiwed Peter Moore , on the xbox 360, big whoop huh, well usually, except he asked relevant questions for once, now ill be the first to mention I think 1UP, IGN, Gamespot etc are not what I consider great sites, and its always been because I think the journos on them blow big hype horns (usually) at the same time im not going to talk up the likes of smaller sites (NZGamer being my pet) as the journos (I use that word very loosely) usually have nothing in the industry, other then there tiny little sites (I know ive worked for one) Dont get to talk to the Shiggys, Peter Moore’s or John Carmack’s at all, and therefore pretty much only relay the hype from the bigger sister sites (this is why I stick to the industry cynics – pA, ctrl alt del, etc etc)

Here’s what Peter had to say about this whole thing, in a recent email to me:

Shoe,

Well we certainly stirred the pot with this one…! Just wanted to reassure you that I thought the interview was very fair and balanced, as well as somewhat entertaining…

I think it is good for the industry that we do more interviews of this tonality…don’t stop at me…

Cheers,

Peter

Hell he even seemed to take the piss, At the same time, He didnt follow up his questions / Mr Moores replys with arguement, It didnt really (to me) come across as an attack, it was a good solid interveiw where they discused the problems the xbox360 is having, in a no nonsense fashion, Wadeing through the 360 / MS fanboy comments you’d think this guy was a microsoft hating jerk or something… But ontop of doing a great interveiw (which has had him imortolised on penny arcade news item on comic here) He has taken the time to reply to alot of the angry mob… you seriously dont see that every day, anyways,

thats my rant on Dan Hsu, hopefully that cleared up what I was on about last night (the early hours of this morning… whatever) and hopefully you will check him out in the future, I certainly plan on it.

Oh also check out how he got into the industry, its a good read

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Finding a New place is Incredibly Stressful, It looks like the flat will probibly be broken up and benny ’smooth transition’ wont happen… what can I say you sit around leaving it for too long and things are bound to fuck up.

-Tom

Death From Above 1979

A long long time ago there was this boy, Tom, and there was a girl, Kim… Tom was getting bored with the ’skatey punk’ music his friends where listning too, and Kim had a vast musical library Tom had never heard of, she shouted ‘let there be glassjaw, head automatica, the yeah yeah yeahs and DFA1979!

Unfortunately head automatica’s ‘beating heart baby’ became popular, and killed on mtv, ontop of that all of there more ‘glassjaw’esk’ tracks would never be played to the masses, and glassjaw itself disbanded because of the side project, the yeah yeah yeahs released pin, and soon everyone was listning to the same music as Tom… again, however he had a trump card… and that was DFA1979.

Death From Above 1979 is the greatest 2 peice band in the world, without a doubt, sure the whitestripes are cool, but D.F.A are fast and furious, heavy as they want to be, at the same time they can be catchy, intellegent… whatever man theyre always gonna be cooler then cool…

Check out these songs by DFA1979, ‘little girl, dead womb, blood on our hands’

…just dont listen to it if you have a headache

Death From Above 1979 Last.fm

Death From Above 1979 Homepage

*New Ricky Gervias Show (ep 9) now up

Fat Freddys

Fat Freddys Drop are a Roots/Reggae/Dub group from the greatest city, in the greatest country in the world, they have two albums ‘Live At The Matterhorn’ and ‘Based On A True Story’ If your into some chill out dub / like skanking check out ‘Wandering Eye, Flash Back and Cays Crays’

Last night, Well, Yesterday through to last night, panned out something like this, Benny, Sleaze, Grant and Jeff Return from the races, and start drinking,
Jeff and Grant go to get more beer, Steve and his Father return from the races, Steves has won big, and has curry…
Steve drags me down to the supermarket, and procedes to get a trolly, and fill it up with beer, chewing gum and bags of chips, when we get back the backyard is just full of people…

We decide it’ll be a good idea to head down to Fat Freddys Drop, playing at the main stage at the end of our street, but it is fucken packed!
Socailite Wellingtonians kick arse, So we head to Ra’s place, just above the pharmacy, upstairs and out the windows… I never knew those overhang things could hold so much weight, in anycase we had everyone out there, and probibly the best veiw of fat freddys (other then the bastards on the resine rooftop, right above fat freddys drop)

The gig was amazing, they finished up with wandering eye (their hit at the moment) leading onto a cover of sweet dreams (eurithmics) At one points the police stopped them playing and an announcment was made that they couldnt continue playing until everyone came down off the rooftops… we pretended to head down, but stayed up there anyways… they continued with the gig, and it was awesome.

Then we headed home again for a few more drinks, before heading around to Momo’s place, I really didnt want to be there, but thats where everyone else was going… Ange told me her swiss ball was going to be expensive to replace *eeek*

Then it was around to Bay street to see what all matty chang chang was up too, noone turned up to his place, so he said n party and ended up at the pub, I just happend to walk into our new resident Matt Paris on that street, and we Decided to go to the pub for a quick beer, He had just spent several hours on some expensive launch cruising around the harbour.. lucky punk… Anyways I somehow dropped about half a pint on the ground, by this point I guess I was drunk.

We got home to find everyone from Anges had come to our place, Music was cranking, More drinking was done… And then I passed out… Bloody good night, no complaints here…

Pet1 Massiv Moving

We just got a call from the landlord, and, found out he dosent like signing short term leases, so, we (the flat) are out, on / by Feb the 11th, Which will probibly mean a little bit of downtime, Ra dropping our wireless project… and a new (hopefully fancy) home, its good because everyone gets what they want (in a way) steve will have a door!, benny wont be ‘growing into the furniture’ and hopefully, the ‘massiv, or atleast the people who occupy them wont be broken up… alot of people are going to miss being able to crash here after getting hangover cure (fish and chips) I tell you what…

Flat A

Muggy Weather Again?

What the hell?
Am I being punished for something? The weather is crap, I see wee patches of blue over the next valley (jonsonville?) looks like I picked the oven valley to live in for today…

Ive been re accepted into my course, start on Feb the 28th, got a few things I need to do before that… and a few important thing to do once im at course.

before

*GAT A DESK FAN – summers over, why isnt it cold

*Re subscribe to deviantart

*Sort out a new CPU to replace my ageing athlon

*Get a 200gig + HDD im running low on space.

after

*Buy a car (asap)

*Upgrade liscence

*New Sterio
(my speakers are starting to distort poorly… i blame it on age)

*New Clothes – they’ll come in handy later on in the year

*Suss out Saras visit (come on, summer months haha)

Jackson Street Fiesta

Taken from the hutt news

WHILE TICKET buyers for last Friday’s Big Day Out were clamoring to see a host of top kiwi bands on offer, locals and visitors get to see one of the lead acts for free this Saturday.

Fat Freddy’s Drop headline the fourth annual Jackson Street Fiesta of the Arts in Petone. The home-grown roots reggae act has been making waves here and overseas since release of there debut studio album last year, Based on a True Story.

They’ll be joined by a long list of other local music artists, and fiesta-goers will be able to choose from four performance stages throughout the evening. Local Petone acts, Hikoikoi Reserve, Zamba Flam and Henderwood will appear with Mana, KoKo and Wellington Batucada.

For families and art and culture lovers there are also roving street preformers, face painting, story telling, ethnic food stalls and a street art exhibition includinh interactive art activities like spray and mural painting [Time Table]

Hutt City Council’s Recreation and Events Manager Duncan Chrisholm says around 20,000 people enjoyed last years fiesta.
“With our great headline acts and the growing reputation of Jackson Street and the Fiesta as an art and culture destination, we think we’ll top that figure this year,” he says

The Fiesta runs from 6pm-10pm and the Nelson to Buick Street part of Jackson Street will be closed to traffic from 1pm to midnight. A liquor ban is in place for the event. Local cafes and bars will be open for business.

External Links

Wotzon Jackson Street info

Jasons – Jackson street shopping

Scoop – Petone / Hutt summer fun info

Tom Says;

So there you have it no excuses if you can make it down then do so, would be great to catch up with any of my friends currently in the wellington / lower noth island region, I know uni has just started up again, but its a friday evening, dont be fucken slack! I hear sense and or his mates will be hitting some drum and bass (from momo and caroline), there will also be gigs at murphys law (the watering hole round here) Fingures crossed the weather holds up, peace.

Muggy Weather Bad!

I am, and always have been, A fan of warm weather, provided, its a clear sunny day, with a soft breeze, its been that in Welly since I got back from palmy, until last night of course…

I was going to complain then, instead I threw up a long peice on music, so here my rant, right now its probibly only about 25 degrees, but overcast as it comes, and god knopws what the humidity is, on top of this if you look out to wainui hill you can see just how low the cloud is… its like living in a dull depressing oven.

Luckily however I have things to combat this… we call them, Bulk mizone bottles chilled over night, drugs, beer… and Ras air conditioned flat.

So anyways Jackson street fair this friday?? saturday?? something… its free, on the 27th of this month, Fat Freddys Drop is playing (for free) A few years back the boys got Rhombus to come back home with them and hit the piss, So if your in the Wellington Region, make sure you come to that, then come hit the bot’ at my place.

- hey guys ricky gervais show ep 8 now up

Wellington Music Scene

Places to Hear and Buy Music in Wellington

TESSA PREBBLE (Salient Magazine)

Venues
*Bar Bodega (103 Ghuznee St; 384 8212)
Ahh, Bodega, the hang out spot of the beautiful people, particularly on a Tuesday night with Beats and Bubbles offering up cheap $2.50 champagne and a DJ. Fridays and Saturdays are the busiest, but bands often play on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.
Bodega is well known for good music, with performances from the likes of The White Stripes and The Brunettes, as well as Shihad and Supergroove, while still managing to keep up the local contingent and support our city’s newest talent. There is a chalkboard right outside the front door, so a mere jaunt past will give you all the info on who’s playing and when.
*Indigo Bar (Level 1, 171 Cuba St; 801 6797)
Indigo, by far my favourite place to spend a Saturday night, is home to of a number of different styles and tastes, ranging from rock on Tuesdays, to drum n’ bass and trip hop on Wednesdays, to local and international comedians of varying skill (just a quiet warning, rookie night can be a bit of a gamble), and Hip Hop on Thursdays. Pick which night of the week suits you, and make it a habit.
Indigo also sports a balcony, for those exiled smokers, which overlooks Cuba St and provides a nice change of pace from the thrum of inside.
*Valve (154 Vivian St; 385 1630)
Don’t be afraid, although Valve is in the midst of Wellington’s red light district, its not that kind of bar. Valve showcases a number of different types of music, with drum ‘n bass on Tuesdays accompanied by cheap drinks, and local rock bands battling over the Thursday, Friday and Saturday night slots. Gigs at Valve rarely cost much, making it an affordable place to check out live music.
*Sandwiches (Cnr Majoribanks St and Kent Tce; 385 7698)
Sandwiches is fairly new in the Wellington music scene, but ever since it opened it seems to have been making up for lost time. If your a fan of electronica, drum ‘n bass, dub, house, the list goes on, Sandwiches is the place to be. Sandwiches has played host to international, national and local acts since its conception. In its first year it showcased acts like The People Under the Stairs, DJ Marky, Nathan Haines, and Bad Company, to name but a few. Tickets to these gigs, depending on the artist, aren’t cheap, but if you’re a fan you’ll be happy to pay the price.
For other venues and gigs check out The Package. (www.thepackage.co.nz)

Stores
*Real Groovy (250 Cuba St)
In a word (or two) – the best. I was in heaven on my first entry to Real Groovy. They have the city’s best selection of new and second-hand compact disks, as well as a healthy vinyl section, and DVDs, books, and clothing.

If they don’t have what you want they are happy to order it in for you, and if you’re a club member (only a measley $5), you don’t even have to leave your flat to shop there, just hope online and visit www.realgroovy.com. You can also trade in your old CD’s.

The staff are on to it in practically every area of music you could think of. A visit to their spacious store always does the soul good, even if it hurts the wallet.
*Slow Boat (183 Cuba St)
Slow Boat could be seen as the introverted older brother of Real Groovy. It’s independently owned, smaller, more intimate, less intimidating, and while it probably can’t beat Real Groovy’s selection, the staff are as knowledgable as they come and there’s always a conversation lurking behind every CD.
They stock second-hand, and new CDss (another place for you to offload your old CDs) as well as vinyl, posters and other paraphanalia. There is a loyalty card which amounts to a free CD after every ten, and you can order online at www.slowboatrecords.com.
*CD and DVD Store (Corner Cuba St and Dixon St)
While many of you will already have shopped in one the CD Store’s chain stores around New Zealand, this particular shop is worth a mention for its great selection of vinyl in the back of the store, under the name of Chelsea Records. They cover it all, – hip hop, drum ‘n bass, electronica, everything your heart could desire.
Other than that, the CD and DVD Store on Cuba is pretty much like any other CD Store chain; there are almost constant sales, which is always a bonus, but don’t go there expecting to find a fantastic range, or stimulating words of wisdom from the majority of the staff.
*Tower (Manners Mall)
Tower is an affiliate of Sounds, and like Sounds the range is fairly limited. If you only want to buy Top 40, then this is definitely your kinda place. Tower, like most other chain stores at present, has a pretty constant price for CD’s of $24.95, which is always nice.
Both Tower and Sounds have a loyalty card, an ordering system, and respectable DVD sections. If you want the latest and greatest at a cheap price, Tower and Sounds are a good option. Tower is slightly better in its service and atmosphere than Sounds, but if you are in there buying the Rhythm Vol 25, these things probably won’t matter to you anyway.