Bon Voyage, 2012! Thank goodness you've arrived, 2013!

Well folks. It's that time again. Time to bid bon voyage to 2012. The minty fresh scent of the new year is wafting in and it makes me think about my resolutions for 2013. 

In retrospect, I think I did pretty good with crossing off items on my list for 2012. I didn't do a full 10k, but ran 2 5ks, which adds up to 10k… so to me that means a dotted line that crosses off #2. :) It was a rough year but with some amazing milestones and happenings peppered throughout. One of which is adding a new family member. Meet Nico. 

My 2013 new year's resolutions are: 

1. Get fit enough to run a 10k
2. Learn how to sew
3. See my family (especially the new niece and nephews) in San Francisco
4. Clean up my financial house
5. Be a better friend to my peeps

This year, I want to do something a little bit different by calling out a new month's resolution, each month. Maybe this will boost my chances of making it happen and get closer to the newer, hotter, more fabulous me. 

1. Month of January: Get organized with personal and work stuff

Bring it on, 2013! 

X♥X♥

Skip the movie, watch the titles!

"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Title Sequence by Blur from Motionographer on Vimeo.

In an alternate life, I would have grown up to be a movie titles designer (or more accurately, both a movie titles designer AND music video director). Imaginary Forces, the brainchild of one of my design heros, Kyle Cooper, blew my mind with the title sequence from "Se7en", back in 1995. Every since, I've always paid more attention to the titles than the feature film. Sometimes, I've skipped the film entirely if the title sequence is lacking. Yes, I admit, I'm a nerd.

When I stumbled upon the titles for "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Title Sequence by Blur at a friend's house, I literally ran home and put that movie in my Netflix queue. Mesmerized by the beauty of these 2 minutes, I watched it a dozen times before I watched the rest of the film. Check out these articles to get a more in depth look at Blur's process: 

An exclusive look at the making of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Jezebel
Oily Secrets of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’s Title Sequence by Wired

Tremor Video and Ad Age Super Creative Video Ad Challenge

I normally don't share work related stuff, but I'm especially proud of this little tidbit. When I was at Scanscout, before it got acquired by Tremor, I worked really closely with the Product and Business Development team to create Super Video ad formats like the Super Pre-Roll. This ad format turns plain vanilla pre-rolls into a more interactive and engaging ad unit and makes it a lean-forward experience. The very first one I created was one for Unilever's Vaseline Sheer Infusion.

Other old articles about Super Pre-Roll:

ScanScout Introduces the Super Pre-roll Ad Unit
IAC Outstanding Online Video award for Scanscout Super Pre-Roll

Fast forward to a couple of years later and now this ad format makes up the majority of our ads at Tremor. What's even cooler is that we, at Tremor Video, have teamed up with Ad Age to create a competition for ad agencies to put together the best Super Creative Video Ad:

We know you're silently judging creativity every chance you get. Here's your chance to weigh in on some super star contenders who put their creativity to the Super Pre-Roll test in Ad Age and Tremor Video's ultimate challenge. See how they

transformed their pre-roll into a super experience that moves people to lean forward and interact.

How'd they do? Visit the Contestant Gallery to rate all the contenders for the People's Choice Award!

Check out the creative ads and vote! 

http://superadchallenge.com

Jildy: List-a-mania!

I love Jildy, the iPhone app. It's election day and the app is my gauge of social media sentiments within my own group of friends on who have voted and for whom - all in one nifty snapshot.

I admit it. I'm a Facebook addict. But as much as I like FB, it drives me insane when I see the same poster show up 25 times in a row in my newsfeed. This is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to work with Mark Drummond, the CEO and his amazingly talented engineering team from Jildy, a mobile app company that sorts your Facebook (and Twitter and Linkedin) friends and their posts.


When we first started out with version 1, the UI focused mostly on lists AND on PSI (Personal Social Infographics) which created on-the-fly infographics of your friends' age, gender, relationship status and Zodiac signs.


With the second version, Mark narrowed the focus to be all about lists, which really sharpened the value of Jildy and solves this common problem with feeds in Facebook. Jildy's main power is the technology of auto-magically grouping my friends with photos or by posts or by my preferred topic using algorithms, or manually, and also using lists that were set up in Facebook. Download the Jildy app now and take control of your Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter

Jildy Mobile App

Jildy Website

NY Times Review of Jildy 1.0
Jildy
See more on my portfolio site

One super burrito, please

Please make my burrito, super. Apparently, my love for burritos has just gone "plush'. This genius, Lauren Venell, created the burrito body pillow. In my opinion, the best thing since sliced bread. I want to meet this girl.


If I truly became what I ate, this would be me frolicking around SF.

Buy your burrito body pillow from Bold Italic

Open Studios in Boston

One of the things I dearly miss in San Francisco is Open Studios that happens twice a year (which started off in Bayview but has expanded to so many neighborhoods). I finally checked out the Fort Point Open Studios here in Boston this past weekend.

Two highlights from touring various artist's spaces and art, were Lara Loutrel and Luther Price.

I love Loutrel's work and am a proud owner of a Russian eye chart-like screenprint. Loutrel's work is really arresting - abstract black and white prints. Her more recent pieces are more sculptural and 3-D which extends her very structural lines in her pieces. I really love this evolution she's embarking on with her work.

Luther Price is an experimental film maker whose studio was this enormous warehouse that featured his installation, The Sound of Singing through Dust. There were hand-made slide projections that was a combination of old personal photographs, found film stills that had various music pieces accompany them. His process is so interestingly different in that he really deconstructs the concept of mainstream film and physically collages these found-objects and reshoots them on Super 8mm. After turning them into slides, he manipulates and destroys the slides with mold, dust and overexposure. To me, they seem rough, sometimes perverse, but somehow delicate and poetic at the same time.

Infinite Pictures and Sound at the ICA

There were two exhibits that I found thrilling on my first visit to the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art). The first was Some Pictures of the Infinite by with Josiah McEhleny. In a large room, there were gigantic galaxy-like chandeliers that hung from the ceiling. The highly stylized planets, stars and galaxies were mesmerizing to walk around in and see various reflections in the shiny mirrored materials.

The Center Is Everywhere by Josiah McEhleny

Another aspect of McEhleny's exhibit was the sculptural and performance piece called the Infinite Repetition of Revolt, performed by Maggie McBrien. While McBrien stands planted in front of a blackboard like structure with silver drawings of boxes, she poses the question of how revolt should be pursued – lead by a small group of trailblazers or built on consensus? She turns around and erases all remnants of the silver boxes and leaves a black reflection of us, the audience's faces.

Infinite Repetition of Revolt Performance  by Maggie McBrien

A few months ago, there was a lot of outcry from the Boston public regarding a mural painted at Dewey Square because people interpreted it as the main figure as a terrorist by the Brazilian artist duo, Os Gemeos. To me, I see a vivid painting of a boy with a shirt wrapped around his head in a playful manner. What do you think?

By Os Gemeos

This mural complimented the full exhibit of paintings, sculptures, and interactive sound organ that was on display at the ICA. The Os Gemeos style has an underground graffiti-tone that is also playful, whimsical, and bright – like they are throwing a Carnival party with their artwork. Os Musicos was a sonic sculpture that had a piano or organ placed in front of a wall of yellow painted speakers. Apparently, each key creates an analog sound that pumps through the speakers. I missed the performance and couldn't convince the Gallery Docents to let me bang on the keys to see what sounds came out.

Os Musicos