Creative Director: Alan
Designer: Dave
Developer: Brian

Alan flew in from Los Angeles, while Matt came in all the way from Bordeaux. The Symposium featured a recap of all the work we’ve accomplished in the past 2.5 years (which is crazy to see all together), discussions on our current projects (sign up for our newsletter for updates), future client projects, company expansion and new co-op members, plus (most excitingly) what’s in store for our newest Incubator Project.  Here are a few random Incubator ideas that leave you guessing:

For the annual meetup we each created a poster in 30 minutes or less:

Then we donated the posters to the New York Street Art Fund:

The rest of the week we also met with some new clients, ate great food, spoke on typography, got to take a behind-the-scenes tour of MoMa’s design department from our friend August Heffner, and checked out General Assembly’s new digs in Union Square, courtesy of Mimi Chun.

Overall, a completely successful, wonderful Symposium that made me very proud to be working with such a talented and lovely crew and humbled me in the ever-growing canvas of NYC… we’ve already started discussing location for next year (St. Petersburg anyone?). Thank you to all that were involved or sent love from around the world.

Check out all the week’s photos on Facebook or Flickr.

Seems like a simple question, but for a company that exists as a network, scattered across 5 countries on 3 continents, the answer is anything but. Luckily, technology has offered a few solutions to our need for a telephone number, but our want to keep on the move.

1. Google Voice - free number that forwards only to any other U.S. number
2. Vonage - paid service with U.S. number, but you have to lug around a modem
3. Skype - you can buy a phone number and forward anywhere, but you pay for the call.

In the end, I chose Skype. So we got a number (718.303.2262, if you want to say hi) and it forwards to one of us—anywhere in the world we might be. It ain’t perfect, by any means, mainly because of bugs in their system, but we’re still in business.

The interesting part was how I thought about the choice: consciously, I said to myself that I’m investing in a company—with my use. I knew that Skype was just OK at the time, but had faith that Skype would get better in the future. If I saw how it could be better, they must as well, right?

Needless to say, they let me down. With little improvement in their software for a couple years, they make a big splash with Skype 5, here’s what their customers think:

Speaking as a customer, that’s sad. The new Skype is terribly unintuitive, buggy, and to get technical, it does stuff I don’t want it to.

Speaking as a designer/strategist this is embarrassing. How can you be the number one Voice Over IP service, have over 650 million users, and have an approval rating of roughly 0%?  The User Interface is awful and over-sized, the updates have been slow coming, and they’re just not listening to their users. Do a better job.

And then there’s the $8.5 billion. With Microsoft buying Skype I’m seriously rethinking calling it quits now. Stay tuned for new business cards.

Sometimes you just have to go old school.  We’ve received lots of love on our diy business cards, so thanks to the guys at Uno for teaching us the way and letting us use all the great old presses.

A very happy and healthy year to you and all of yours.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but instead create a movement to re-adopt the use of simple clothesline and clothespins, which is a brilliant, sustainable way to dry clothes. LET’S HANG is a product and a campaign that changes attitudes about air drying and provides a simple method for hang-drying clothes in or outside the home.

By affixing screws to branches culled from fallen tree limbs, this solution is as sustainable as it gets. These small branches become “hooks” which can be installed in various places in the home. When it’s time to hang clothes, just tie some twine around the branches and you have a clothesline. When you are done, the line can be put away, and all that is left are decorative branch elements that have a minimal impact on your home environment, and the environment at large.

Using minimal, low-impact materials and social methods to change behavior, the LET’S HANG product/campaign aims to change attitudes and create options by making a small change in clothesline design, and a big change in how we think about air drying.

If you dig it, please give us a vote at the Myoo site.

Pink gives the example of Australian software developer Atlassian, but we have seen many-a-company veer towards a direction of out-of-the-box productivity: Facebook, Google, Mozilla, and many others all treat their employees with the respect that each one of them hold the next killer app. So why not do their employees dry-cleaning for free?

As a small, new company, OLH tries to constantly use our newness and smallness to our advantage. We don’t have on-site laundry (or on-site, for that matter), but we are still nimble and naïve enough to blaze a trail for a new type of company, learning from the mistakes of dinosaurs past.

Our goals for 2010:

+ get Incubator Projects up to 25% of our time spent (ultimate goal of 50%)
+ offer health-care plans for The Cooperative (even though we are all technically freelancers)
+ donate 1% of all revenue (through a partnership with 1% Foundation)

Thanks for the tremendous amount of support and praise we have received thus far, we welcome any other ideas to keep us keeping on.

What I took from it was that we, as humans, really don’t have any limits… or at least we don’t know what they are, which is really the same thing.

Our brains and muscles have developed many methods to tell us to stop doing what we’re doing far before we actually need to, as a safety mechanism. So that means if we just come up with ways to counter those little nay-sayer voices we can do a whole lot more/better/stronger than we have been doing.

I have been a firm believer in “mind over matter,” but now I realize that I have to find something to trump both of them.

*thumbnail credit to nateOne

We are just starting our first full, from-scratch, major-launch Incubator Project. It’s called Women’s Voices Now and its a non-profit for global women’s rights; the first project of which is an online film festival geared at Muslim women’s stories.

It’s a major undertaking as it will require 2 sites, full identity, a slew of collateral, many cooks in one kitchen, film partners, non-profit partners, tons of bandwidth, eager filmmakers, interesting stories, and a bunch of other stuff that we don’t even realize yet—but it will all be worth it. Nothing feels better than creating something from that ever-scary blank page and having it reach the world with a message you think is worthy.

If you’d like to help out, give us a holler.

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This is awesome! And a little scary. I can’t wait / hope for this kind of interactive technology seeps into the public sphere. The coolest part is at the end of the video below, where they demonstrate an interactive map of the premises: touch screens, lasers and a HUGE model. Check out the full post from Popular Science:

In an innovative solution to the problem of crowd control in a business complex filled with 5,500 employees, a banking center in Madrid has assembled a team of stylish, helpful robots to help people navigate. According to the robots’ designers, the helmet-shaped Santander Interactive Guest Assistants (SIGA) are the first machines to use “swarm robotics in a commercial context”—as opposed to, say, in submarine exploration or flying art.

After meeting the robots, guests choose their language and destination on the console’s touchscreen. The robotic butlers then take them anywhere, from the meeting room, to the auditorium, to the exit toward a bus stop.

Efficiency is a hobby—nay, obsession—of mine. If you come over and ask for a glass of water, chances are you will get it in an old pickle jar because there is no sense in that glass making the long trip to me (to deliver pickles) and me sending it all the way back without getting some more use of it. There are even times where I become inefficient thinking of how best to be efficient. But for the most part, I enjoy pondering better ways to do things.

My love of efficiency also carries over to items I own, or look to purchase. I believe a product should be a tool, and as a tool it should do its job as best it can. Here are some of my favorite items:

1. Sinn watch - The watch itself looks great because it’s so clear and easy to read, which is exactly what it should be since it’s function is to tell time. However, the real beauty for me lies in it’s automatic power. Automatic mechanisms have been around since 1770, but it still amazes me how simple and perfect the technology is. You move your arm all day long, so why not harness that power to keep your watch going? Brilliant, and we need more thinking like this in the world.

2. Leica camera - Heralded as the finest camera ever made, the M6 design didn’t change for over 15 years. My personal one is 25 years old and is still a thrill to use, with results that even top-end digies are hard-pressed to match. The price seems a bit inefficient at first, but when you think about longevity that thought quickly dissipates. In the time I’ve owned this M6 I’ve been through 7 digital cameras. I know that I will own this camera forever, so that’s probably 40 more digital camera lives, and deaths, while this guy is still ticking. On top of that, it can function fully mechanically. That means you will never run out of batteries.

3. Swobo fixed gear bike - OK, I’m aware of the painfully hipster statement this made of me riding this baby through Brooklyn, but hear me out. Actually, I was first against the idea of a fixie in NYC. These are track bikes, so in my eyes this was the wrong tool for the job… until I found out one key bit of info. My love of bikes started as any kid’s, but it grew into an adult passion in NYC where it was fun, dangerous, quick, cheap, and bonus: environmentally friendly. And when I found out that bicycles are the most efficient form of travel created by man that was the kicker. And what is the most efficient type of bike? You guessed it, the hipster special. By losing the derailleur you gain about 15% of power efficiency. Sold.

I love these items not only for their individual ability to do a job perfectly, but also because they are built on the old school (or Japanese) conception that you only need to buy one in your life. In world modeled off consumption it’s tough to tell someone to stop consuming. What we can try and do is to shift the mentality back to saving up a bit more for something that wants to last. This is discussed in GOOD’s Slow Issue and also in Cradle to Cradle.

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On the flip side of efficiency is waste—my personal pet peeve. I know that sometime in the future I will work on a project combating waste, and it may just be my calling, I just don’t know what the specifics are yet. Any bright ideas? Post them in the comments, if it’s good, we’ll do it as an Incubator Project and you can join the team.

Credit for thumbnail image.

“In this economy my kids will have to share a Happy Meal.”
“In this economy I can’t afford to ask for a raise.”
“In this economy the terrorists have already won.”

But whining gets old very quickly. I (like many) was laid off by the crap economy. After going through the cliché stages of denial, anger, sadness, and acceptance, I found myself at a new stage… inspiration.

I took the time as an opportunity to enjoy the nice weather, slow down my life a bit, go back to cooking elaborate meals for two, take in the arts, rejuvenate, and then started my own company. I have appreciated seeing others in similar situations—not because of my self-diagnosed schadenfreude—quite the opposite. They didn’t waste time blaming others for their misfortune. They grabbed a pencil, started sketching, and made something.

Lemonade is a documentary created by Eric Proulx with the tag “it’s not a pink slip, it’s a blank page” all about people pursuing their dreams, but only after getting canned.

John Morefield started selling Architecture for 5 cents at the farmer’s market. Then he made $50k from jobs he picked up while interacting with those 5 cent customers, and publicity from a NY Times article.

Way back when, I took an architecture course at CCAC, in Oakland. It was a pretty flexible class, with little restrictions, and most of my designs were mediocre, at best. But then our final project was assigned. The limitations were astounding, and the class was in a huff (including myself). Small space, no skylights, limited materials, and many other excuses we could use to deliver crap. But that’s not how it played out. The limitations proved to help me, giving my otherwise unfocused thoughts focus. Once I accepted the boundaries given, I was able to create my best work.

That how I see the current financial situation. We can either sit around complaining about all the woes, or we can accept our limitations and start creating our next CNN, MTV, Trader Joe’s, GE, FedEx, IHOP, or One Long House (all started in recessions).

*thumbnail credit.

What a surprise !
For the first time, the Museum of Modern Art of New York (MoMA) is giving a blockbuster retrospective on Tim Burton.
Drawings, models, puppets, story boards, photographs…Many visions and flashes that give body to a visual world - Oh so special.

Of course to obtain the privilege to see this, one has got to work for it :

- Buy your tickets in advance
- If coffee lovers, be ready to wait in another line at the “*Bucks” around the corner
- Most of all, make sure you arrive on time so that you’ll have enough time for the line outside the museum, inside the museum and at the gallery.

Once you’ve done all that, relax and enjoy !

If you plan to see the exhibition Tim Burton

(Worth clicking through to see HD and fullscreen)

This whole film is computer generated, and sure, we’ve all seen amazing CG pieces before. But what gets me about this one is the perfection of imperfection: the scratches on the camera, the textures, the gaps where concrete blocks meet, really beautiful. My old boss used to say that God was in the details—then again, he also said that perfection was the enemy of good. I’m not sure what he meant, but this is really an amazing piece by Third and Seventh.

Brings me back to my first 3D animation piece (cue shameful self-promotion):

Of course for almost any other band, it would have been a non-issue. Over the past decade or two it has become increasingly acceptable for bands/artists to sell their songs for use in commercials. In fact, these days the right song in the right commercial is seen as a positive move for both band and brand… (How many iPods did Feist help sell? How many people bought Feist’s album after hearing her in the iPod commercial?)

Some say the big turning point was when the Stones sold “Start Me Up” to Microsoft in the 90s. Others point to Michael Jackson’s rewrite of “Billie Jean” for Pepsi in the 80s. Certainly, by the time Dylan himself appeared in a Victoria’s Secret commercial, the battle was all but lost. (Or won, depending on which side you were on.)

Still, there are some songs that we feel more comfortable about hearing in commercials than others. A couple of years ago, a writer in the Washington Post came up with an equation to calculate the degree of selling out. Check out the whole article here.

On a final note, did you know that the Rolling Stones recorded a Rice Crispies jingle in 1964? I had no idea. But apparently Brian Jones was paid all of 400 pounds to help come up with this little gem:

Now if all jingles rocked that hard, the world would definitely be a better place.

Digging this work from Jelle Martens. Partly because he digs triangles as much as we do. Check out the work on his flickr page.

Steve Duncan is the one man who can get you excited about your city again.
He documents the abandoned and long-forgotten nooks at his own peril—once climbed one of the World’s Fair Observation Tower with rope hooked to a small rusted electrical box—all for a peek at viewing history from multiple angles.

For those who live on the west coast, Friday is your chance to personally witness a slideshow from Duncan’s summer trip to Eastern Europe. More of the creepy, deserted and cool forgotten cities under our feet!

January 15 | 7p.m.
Shutterstories
981 Iowa Ave, Riverside CA 92507

There’s a nice article in Behance’s The 99 Percent about encouraging daylighting for productivity. As always, Google seems pretty damn progressive:

Google has taken measures to encourage outside interests, enacting the 70/20/10 rule, which allows employees to spend 20% of their time on “Innovation time off” pursuing their own ideas that relate to Google and then 10% of their time on stuff completely unrelated to Google.  This could be reading a book, drawing in Photoshop, or going to a museum.  By doing this, Google gains a loyal employee by allowing them to do whatever they want without Big Brother looking over their shoulder.  At the same time, it captures innovative thinking due to random stimulation.

If you have any ideas you want to share with us—and collaborate on getting them done—drop a line.

That being said, the best projects (in any medium) happen within the most confining limitations. Take Blair Witch Project or Memento, both done on shoe-string budgets and both were able to completely reinvent the medium.

I have never been one to create for the sake of creativity and I always embrace the business side of what we do, so seeing this side of the movie biz is seeing the tiny man behind the curtain—an insight to how things are done. Now the key is to use those truths + limitations to your advantage, rather than detriment.

On the panel (from left to right):
Tim O’Hair
Robert Katz
Doug Hansen
D’Arcy Conrique
William Stuart

(Albert Angus Turbayne, 1903; Bonnie MacLean, 1967)

Any designer, photographer, artist, writer, etcetera that says they don’t copy is a liar—or not very good. It’s in the very nature of us to work in groups. Nothing is created by one person. The exhibit at the d’Orsay is another stellar example showing there’s nothing wrong with copying. Cut, paste, change, mimic, trace, and borrow… but learn from it, make it your own, and don’t be shy about giving credit.

We wanted to build a site that put equal emphasis on the three aspects of our business: the work, the people, and sharing inspiration… hopefully that’s what we’ve done.

In starting One Long House our goal was to nix the restrictions and limitations that came with a traditional brick-and-mortar agency, opening up the possibilities and connections. We work on a network so that we never stop growing, learning, and changing. For us, consistency is complacency. We believe that one must constantly strive for something greater.

We are always up for new ideas, projects, or partnerships so please don’t be shy to .

Enjoy,

-Alan

A seemingly simple site and email newsletter was anything but:  guests attending the Food & Wine Festival were prompted to text in keywords at each booth to receive more information. By the end of the day, thousands of people had texted in an average of 4 keywords. The next day they received in their inbox a customized newsletter and site with the info they requested. Phew.

Explanatory video created to help people understand what Apoko’s does and how they can help celebrities with their Social Media.

We also led their in-house design team on the creation of their site, housing the sweet, new explanatory video and showcasing their current clients (including: Jessica Alba, Baron Davis, Nick Swisher, Chuck Liddell, Ryan Higa, and Kevin Wu) who have an influence of over 13,000,000 fans. Check out the live site here.

We designed and built Brand X a completely automated newsletter system that pulls content from their RSS feed and creates an email-safe, daily newsletter for their tens-of-thousands of subscribers. The Content Management System (CMS) is even more impressive, but top secret, sorry.

A logotype inspired from old ligatures and alluding to the bridging of Fashion and technology…
a couple with a sorted past.

For the real deal, check out Hall-Five.com and explore the world of Trend Forecasting.

The first 5 minutes of the feature-length documentary on the great Wolfe Sacks.

Shots from on location in Israel.

The site’s primary focus was to tease readers and future viewers while illustrating the zeitgeist of pre-war Germany. Instead of “pages” we designed individual, interactive “cards.” Each card contained specific information and can be shifted around to allow the user to sift through the content as one would pages on a desk.

We could explain further, but it’s much better to see for yourself with the INTERACTIVE VERSION (password: berlin).

We created WVN an hopeful, colorful identity showing that their can be light in even the darkest crevasses of civil rights. The three lights also speak to their mission’s three pillars: To empower women around the world and give voice to the struggle for civil, economic, and political equality.

Their site’s home page was to give a quick overview of all that was going on in the world of Women’s Rights, and also allow them to feature any ongoing project, like their first:

Women’s Voices from the Muslim World, a short-film festival, seeking to give a voice to women who might not otherwise have one. This is the animated version of the logo.

In their first year’s project, Women’s Voices Now offered more than $35,000 in prize money to budding filmmakers telling Muslim stories, plus plans to screen the finalists from the online competition in cities around the world, bringing these issues and their artistic visions for the world to see.

Poster design for the film festival.

See the best from the first Women’s Voices from the Muslim World Film Festival.

Why should a juice company be named after a Roman emperor? Well, Publius Aelius Hadrianus (a.k.a. Hadrian) was one of the so-called “five good emperors” so he’s the perfect spokesperson for good juice.

Home page: Issue 20 (Energy)

Home page: Issue 18 (Future)

Article sample

Article index

Contributors page

With multiple authors (and more to come) we built the Dangerous Minds system to be forever expandable. And with 1,000,000 views within the first 3 months of launch it’s a good thing we did.

For the real deal, visit the live site here, but here are some sample posts:

Poster for Blue Sky Black Death

Heart break Poster (Zee Avi inspired)

Poster for Black Star, Re:definition Tour

Poster for Dark Night of the Soul

18” x 24” Poster

This animation took 2nd place in the National competition and was later picked up as the TV ad campaign for Rhode Island Power.

The piece was created by first making a 80’ continuous drawing, then scanning that and animating. Here are some behind-the-scenes shots of the creation:

For Tartan Week, we sent out Jerry Dixson in nothing but some skippies, a sporran, and a nice set of pipes. He trotted around Midtown gathering an audience, then headed to the main showdown in Times Square—with The Naked Cowboy himself. Tension was high as to what the confrontation would bring. Would there be naked blood?

Then we “seeded” about a dozen videos spotting the The Naked Piper around New York City:

The final piece (after all the viral factors had played out on YouTube and the blogosphere) was an edit with The Naked Piper meeting The Naked Cowboy, set to Dueling Banjos.

(note: YouTube version with views + comments was pulled, here’s our copy)

The result was a great success, he became instantly famous and was called upon by Fox News (the most reputable news source) who actually said they weren’t going to cover Tartan Week unless the Naked Piper was there, a testament to their quality.

(note: forgive the poor quality, FOX was less than willing to give us a copy)