This is one of three prints titled “Leisure” that Colorcubic is submitting to the Communication Arts competition. The sly buck sitting in the tufted chair, emitting light and bling from behind is Drew Wiltsey of White Car. We’ll be sure to post the other 2 prints soon.

Enjoy

- m / Colorcubic™

Okay, so was I asleep the day Quality Control left the fucking building or something? I am just recovering from food poisoning for the 2nd time this month (that’s an entirely different post of complaints and explanations I’ll save for another day), but this is inexcusable, and certainly not helpful to my recovery. Before anyone asks, no, this is not the work of Colorcubic, thank God. So now you might be saying to yourself “then who cares?” Well, I do. Unfortunately I can’t tell you who kicked these… designs out (if I can call them designs at all), because I just don’t know. What I can tell you though is that these are for the ELECTRONIC MUSIC SENSATION OF THE CENTURY… YACHT! Yes, that’s right, YACHT. You know, the guy who wears a handkerchief over his face, carries a sword, and looks all hipster while ready to pounce. No? You don’t know him? Oooh baby! Rolling On The Floor, Laughing!!!!!!!! Laugh Out Loud, blah blah blah!!!!!!

Let me quickly move to explain our (being Colorcubic’s) position on this matter. We, (Christy and I) aren’t just passionate about the work we do, but the concept of design in all facets, by all people. Call it Aesthetic Bliss™ if you will, but whatever you call it, we’re defending it, and it’s a shame that the people who would call themselves the designers of this MARVELOUS work would allow something like this to hit any printer. I apologize if what I say next comes off as being somewhat “fascist?”, or tyranical, (yeah right, far from it), but one has got to take a stand somewhere.

For example, I like taking a fishing pole out to a lake on a yacht (no pun intended) and attempting to fish occasionally when the weather is good. I’m absolutely horrible at it. The worst ever, and because of that I’m not about to call myself a fisherman. Just because I have a fishing pole DON’T MAKE IT RIGH’!.

Real fisherman go out to sea on rickety ass cold boats for months on end, catch large amounts of beautiful, mouth watering fish (you know, the same fish that we all love for sushi), bring it back to port, and sell it off at great rates after they have risked their lives, and that winds up on someones table as food. Now, wouldn’t it be a real slap in the face if someone just came along and said, “hey… hey, I’m a fisherman. Yeah, yeah buddy. I’m a fisherman, I fish all the time. Wanna buy some fish?”, and they then proceed to open some gnarled burlap bag full of some of the worst specimen that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for fish, but before the atrocity could be prevented, some poor, uneducated fool buys into it, and then proceeds to convince all of his other cronies / lackeys / friends to buy this shit peddling rank sea bass. I don’t know about you, but I would feel obligated to step in and say, “take your 2 bit scam and beat it!” At that very moment, Michael Jackson would magically appear, and moonwalk all over that hustl’n ass. Hustle n flow baby, hustle n flow!

This scenario is exactly that, RANK SEA BASS trying to be passed off as my next roll of hamachi nagiri sushi. Sorry mutha fucka, but I ain’t buyin’ it, much less swallowin’ it. And Sorry to all you “die hard YACHT fans” out there, but this (in an ideal world… or my world of QA and perfectionism) wouldn’t peddle peanuts for poop, let alone exchange hands with an overzealous buyer. Unfortunately, nowadays, people have forgotten the measure of quality to shit (apparently). People are actually buying these five second run off to the screen printer, got no raisins in my brain-case, looks just like crappy, wannabe, rip you off and skimp yo momma Urban bullshit Outfitters t-shirts. Am I mistaken, and is shit suddenly the new gold? I’m sorry people, but this is wrong, stealing is wrong, and if you’re buying this, you’ve been robbed and left with what’s left at the bottom of some nasty barrel.

On a side note I must say, I’m especially moved by the “fucking positive” shirt. Great man, thanks, brilliant, a completely original slice of freshly baked pound cake. Seriously? Do FAUX witty catch phrases actually do anything for anyone anymore except make people angry? Maybe just me?

Here Yacht, how about printing this on a t-shirt instead, “With music to match, Yacht to trot. Just say no to faux!”

This is, of course, just my subjective opinion.

Enjoy

- m / Colorcubic™

We decided that our office needed a mix to hail the coming of this beautiful Portland summer weather. Aphex Twin’s “Xtal” wound up on our mix. Originally featured on Aphex Twin’s “Selected Ambient Works 85-92“, this is an amazing song, and an even more amazing album. We highly recommend buying this. If you can find it on vinyl, even better. Be sure to give this a listen, and we’ll be sure to post more of what we have officially dubbed “the Colorcubic Helios mix.”

Enjoy

- m / Colorcubic™

We thought we should take this time to give a shout out to the individual entities who have deemed us worthy of featuring us on their sites. Thanks a lot everyone. We really appreciate all of the buzz.

Peace,

- m / Colorcubic™

Okay, so this is actually kind of old news, but I figure better late than never. About 7 months ago we submitted the Colorcubic business card to “the best of Business Card Design 8″ competition, published by Rockport publishing. About three weeks ago we received a letter in the mail stating that we were chosen to be featured in the book. I have to say, we were both completely blown away that they considered us at all. If you get a chance, you should definitely pick this up. Honestly, we’re still scratching our heads, trying to comprehend why they chose the design we submitted, but either way, Thank You Rockport!

- m / Colorcubic™

What is Designism?

Well, I’m sure there are by now hundreds of definitions, but ultimately it comes down to the social responsibility of the industry designer. In saying that, I suppose I have to shed light on what those responsibilities would be. Well, like I said, social responsibilities, in which designers do, in fact, have an impact on the economy, or developing countries, or the everyday product consumer, and can make social changes, such as; influencing tyrannical governments to give it’s people back their freedom, or shedding light on certain corporations who steer far from running socially responsible businesses (whose bulk success derives from the employment of children, or pays out their employees in ridiculously low wages, undermines fair trade agreements, or whose actions are detrimental to anyone and everyone who buys into their bullshit propaganda campaigns).

Let’s come up with an example, like… Unilever. Wait, what the hell is Unilever? Well, Unilever is Dove. Yes, Dove soap. Now here’s a company thats main campaign is about promoting natural beauty by exploiting semi overweight women who use dove, and by using dove, makes them comfortable in their lifestyle, and of course, gives their skin a beautiful sleek sheen that can only be achieved by exfoliating with Dove, (apparently).

Hmmm, so why is Dove / Unilever so bad? They’re seen as promoting natural beauty in its purist form, and they actually go so far as to peddle out a video called “Evolution“, depicting the industry process for transforming a girl off the street into a billboard model for some generic makeup ad campaign, resulting in a closing conclusion that the public’s sense of beauty is horribly distorted (which it is, in fact), all while (indirectly) excluding themselves from such accusations .

That’s great, right? Of course it is, but not if the whistle blower is just as corrupt as the instigator, like Unilever is. That’s right. Unilever / Dove is just as bad, if not, worse than what is depicted in the “Evolution” video. Why are they just as bad? Well, for example, Dove’s Parent company “Unilever” is responsible for all of Dove’s supposed “natural beauty” campaigns, that generally depict women overweight, or elderly women posing nude, to show that beauty is all in the eye of the beholder, and that everyone is beautiful, and (subliminally) anyone who cares about their self-esteem regarding beauty should use Dove soap, because Dove actually cares about YOU. I’m sorry, but hearing that come from Dove is absolute bologna, especially if Unilever, (reiterating that Unilever is Dove’s parent company, and is responsible for promoting this natural beautify campaign), is also Axe body spray’s parent company. You know, Axe body spray, the same body spray that usually produces videos depicting “young, and attractive” men and women in sexually explicit situations. That’s right, it’s the same damn company.

Hmmm, so what is their stance on natural beauty exactly, and how can they peddle a video like “Evolution”, and then turn around and create an Axe Body spray commercial? I’m sorry, but that is really confusing to me. These are the same people dishing this crap out, and not until recently are people actually beginning to catch on. Maybe you’ll get a better idea of just how phony this “Unilever / Dove / Axe Body spray” company is if you just watch their commercials back to back. How about it?

or

Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel those are some pretty contradicting videos, especially with the fact that those messages are all coming from the same source, UNILEVER.

Now, how does that tie into Designism, (The Designer’s social responsibility)? Well, let’s use Ogilvy and Mather as an agency for example, although they have been commissioned by Unilever to produce these “natural beauty” campaigns for Dove. With a company like Ogilvy and Mather, you’d think that they would catch such obvious contradictions, but apparently they’re either too slow, or could really care less. Either way, they’re a perfect example of what NOT to do as far as designism is concerned, although they haven’t really practiced designism at all in any case.

Now, if this were a “perfect” world, (that being very subjective, so I’ll rephrase that), or “my” perfect world, I would have to politely decline Unilever’s offer to work on their Dove campaign, solely on the grounds that their campaign is a contradiction, and ultimately misleading, which in turn may potentially have detrimental effects on our own brand equity, as well as theirs. Obviously someone overlooked that minute detail. Well, it’s not minute anymore. The cat’s out of the bag, and people are slowly but surely catching on.

To break it down for you, just think in terms of “cause and effect.” The world is obviously a pretty messed up place, and no matter where you live, there’s always some GIANT taking advantage of the everyday, rat racing, don’t have time to look at the label while shopping, consumer, hoping they’ll “OBEY.”

Well, to your own demise, because YOU as a consumer, and YOU as a designer are solely responsible for companies such as Unilever getting away with such contradictory campaigns. If you don’t care, well okay, keep telling yourself that when your son or daughter wind up bulimic, anorexic, or utterly lost and confused when they’re trying to fit into some social group / gathering, and they’re being denied left and right because they’re not “blond” enough, or “pretty” enough, or “tall” enough, or “skinny” enough, or they don’t come from the right background, or they don’t have a Louis Vuitton, Chanel, or Prada bag, sunglasses, purse, etc… Oh, but don’t worry, because we’ve got Dove to combat such distorted campaigns by companies like Axe Body spray. Dove will boost your self-esteem, all while revitalizing that natural inner beauty.

Ha! I don’t know about you, but this Unilever / Dove / Axe Body spray situation reminds me of Fight Club (in more ways than one), and the schizophrenic battle between Tyler Derdan (Brad Pitt), and the Narrator (Edward Norton).

Anyway, I’m sorry for all of you who believe that situations like these are blown out of proportion by people like me, and that they’re not as serious as people (like myself) would have you believe. On the contrary I’m afraid. The fact is that these are serious problems that affect the youth of the world everyday, and people in general I might add. I’m sorry, but there’s no divine intervention that is going to occur that’s going to fix all of humanities problems. Even if there were, it shouldn’t happen, because whether we like it or not, we’re responsible for how bad things have become. They’re so bad that people still believe there’s nothing wrong at all. If situations like this are going to stop from happening, we have to take a stance and say, “NO, I’m not going to support you, and ethics and morals don’t carry a price tag, PERIOD.”

Okay, well I think I’ve ranted enough. In closing I suppose this hints at Colorcubic’s manifesto, which is that our Moral, Ethical, and Social stance will not be bought. We don’t design to make a quick buck. We design because we care about the work we produce, and how that has an effect on the people who view it, use it, and ultimately live by it.

Oh, and to the cat on QBN who believes social changes come from signing up with some political party, and joining congress, and not by attacking the problem at the core (you know who you are). You’re living in a very naïve bubble. It’s the media that controls governments and it’s people (unfortunately), and not the other way around.

Peace,

- m / Colorcubic™