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Rule 29 Rules
Our sponsors are the best and Justin Ahrens and his team over at Rule 29 are no exception!
Rule29 is a strategic creative firm specializing in Making Creative Matter.
They describe WMC as "making, original, and surprising" and they are most excited about "hugging Debbie Millman...again."
We love you Rule 29!
Hello Jakprints: Meet our WMC Fest 2015 Platinum Sponsors
The folks over at Jakprints have been faithful sponsors of our design conference, Weapons of Mass Creation Fest, since we can remember. Their enthusiastic support has made this fest possible – and we are truly appreciative of their passion for WMC and this community that matters so much to all of us. Jakprints will be returning to Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 6 and we have no doubts that their palpable energy will be at an all time high. Before the fest kicks off, let’s be reminded of why we love them so:
1. Tell us a little bit about Jakprints and how you came to be
Jacob Edwards and his band couldn’t find a printer that offered the quality shirts they needed at a price a young, touring band could afford; so, he started making them himself. When other bands asked about getting their own shirts made, Jacob realized this was something musicians really needed. Bands needed all kinds of merch and promo pieces, like flyers and stickers, done quickly. Plus, most bands didn’t want to wrestle with multiple print providers (tees from one guy, flyers from another shop, stickers from a third place). Things are way better these days; but, at the time, it was a hassle even getting a printer to talk to you if you weren’t doing large print runs. A couple thousand flyers? Pfft, they had better things to do.
Anyway…
Jacob and Dameon Guess were able to combine their screen printing and graphic design experience. We gained a reputation for great products from people that were comfortable talking to you, regardless of your order size. As Jakprints grew, we reinvested in things we’re passionate about: environmentally-friendly production, art, technology and finding ways to create new products we are excited about. Now, our Cleveland headquarters cover half a block and we just opened a new production facility in Oceanside, California. Our staff is extremely talented and equipped with the most cutting edge equipment in the print industry. In fact, we just got the United States’ first Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 Anicolor, the most eco-friendly printer on the market and the world’s first carbon neutral offset press. We’re very proud of the community we’ve created and we’re excited to keep expanding and pushing the boundaries of the print industry.
2. Every great story at Weapons of Mass Creation Fest involves how an individual “defied the hand they were dealt.” What obstacles have Jakprints had to overcome to find success?
Jakprints has been DIY from the start — we had no other options. Jacob and Dameon didn’t have any initial investors or overhead to work with, everything had to be built from the dirt up. We’re constantly focused on creating a business that we would want use ourselves, setting the highest standards for ourselves and following what we’re passionate about. Jacob and Dameon started by focusing on the markets they knew (art and music) and have applied that same ethos to every industry we work with. Jakprints is the ultimate DIY success story. Work hard, don’t be intimidated and follow your passions.
4. Jakprints has such a strong brand presence and is known nationwide for not only your high-quality product, but your personality. How did you achieve this amount of brand awareness?
Our creative team works really hard to make sure everything we put out reflects the personality and values of Jakprints. Our Creative Director, Ted Barnes, works with Dameon to managethe Jakprints brand that Dameon built. Together they’ve created a brand that is both approachable, knowledgeable and tries to not take ourselves too seriously. The personality of Jakprints is very much a collection of our entire community, including both our customers and employees. They make it possible to create awareness of our brand in a very natural and effective way. We apply the same DIY attitude that we started with to a larger scale, bands tell other bands, friends tell their friends and word spreads. We’ve been able to grow the best way possible. We always put ethics, like being green and supporting events we care about (ahem, WMC Fest) before profits. People love us for that.
5. Jakprints, Go Media and WMC Fest have had a long relationship and we appreciate the contributions you have made to our community, as well as the design community at large. Why is it important to make this contribution?
We look forward to WMC all year, not only to get one-on-one time with the design community, but to see what drives our fellow creatives. WMC Fest creates such a fantastic environment for us to all come together, to learn from each other and become inspired. We’re ecstatic to be a part of it!
6. What should we expect to see out of you at this year’s Weapons of Mass Creation Fest? We’re going to have some great people there to answer any questions you have about printing or what Jakprints does. This is your opportunity to ask anything, no matter how off-the-wall it might sound. We’ve got exclusive sticker packs (designed by WMC heavyweight champ OkPants), catalogs, little baby pencils and tons of product samples — including some new ones! Expect to take home some great stuff. Also, be sure to get a Jakprints Inkling vinyl toy: We’ve got an Instagram scavenger hunt! When you come by, make sure you grab one of our Pocket Notes, our favorite products to pass out at shows like this. Take notes during speakers and capture all of the sweet, gooey inspiration that will be seeping from your pores.
7. In closing, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to a designer facing fear or doubt, as you may have early in your career.
Regardless of your experience level, all creatives constantly struggle with fear and doubt. Any creative who says they don’t is a liar, period. It doesn’t matter what your skill level is, there’s always someone better than you. Accept it. Move on and use it as inspiration. Focus on your strengths, shore up your weaknesses, find what makes your style unique and concentrate on constant improvement. The only way to move past doubt is to use it as motivation to make yourself better.
Learn more about Jakprints over at jakprints.com and hang out with Jakprints & Go Media in the WMC Fest Maker Space next week!
Tickets to wmcfest
WMC Fest is sponsored by:
Show and tell for designers.
Featured on a Dribbble blog this morning! Who else is going to Weapons of Mass Creation this year?
Connect, collaborate and be forever changed: Grab your WMC Fest 5 ticket now!
Three Days that Will Change Your Life...
When your head is down and nose is to the grindstone, it's easy to feel disconnected from the world, from your fellow creatives. As projects pile up, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and to even lose that fire you once had as a designer, artist, musician, entrepreneur, maker, doer, dreamer.
What if I told you you have the opportunity to breathe again?
Attend our 5th annual Weapons of Mass Creation Fest (running August 15 - 17) and you'll experience three days of inspiration on overdrive: three days surrounded by folks just like you, who have all the passion in the world, yearning to become better than they once were. They'll want to hear your successes, your struggles, to collaborate and connect. They'll help you see life and work with new eyes. They'll ask nothing in return.
And you? You'll leave feeling recharged, focused, energized like never before. You'll leave with incredible bonds only created through mutual respect and understanding. You'll be an integral part of a movement, a part of something bigger than yourself. You will be forever altered.
Promise.
If you'd like to be a part of three life changing days, you can grab your Early Bird ticket now by:
Click Here to Get your Early Bird Ticket
For more info.
The Weapons of Mass Creation team is overjoyed to announce the first wave of speaker, artist and band announcements! Check 'em out over at wmcfest.com!
Speakers include:
Jolby & Friends is a collaborative studio based in Portland, Oregon dedicated to telling stories through design and illustration.
Sonnenzimmer is the art studio of Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi
Keenan Cummings is a NYC based product designer and founder of the Designer's Debate Club
Cuban-American Designer & Artist Veronica Corzo-Duchardt. Creating culturally rooted, story-driven work in the arts, publishing, & wine industries....more to come!
Bands include:
Mr. Gnome is a indie/psych/rock duo from the magical land of Cleve
Hawkeye: Comprised of four Cleveland rock music scene vets and fronted by Erika Lauren from WMMS’ “The Alan Cox Show” and MTV’s Real World DC, HAWKEYE has the chops and ain’t afraid to prove it.
Black Puddle Noise: Good driving and hard rock from Cleveland, OH
Teddy Boys: Backyard / Suicide Pop Rock And Roll
Dolfish is American singer-songwriter Max Sollisch
Oldboy (not to be spelled "Old boy") is a rock-folk band whose music runs the gamut from wistful to epic folk to downright heavy rock and roll. Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, a city known to be a part of the rust belt of America, Oldboy really shines - out loud
Texas Plant: Folk/Americana from Cleveland
These Knees collaborates with musicians across the country incorporating acoustic and electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, and percussion
Midnight Passenger is a Cleveland based rock-band ...and more to come!
Artists include:
JP Boneyard is from Boston, MA. He designs, does front-end development, and produces art and music events. He'll be bringing us his National Poster Retrospecticus
The Bubble Process is a two-man design and illustration firm built on this foundation: good food, good music, good times
Landland is a very small graphic design & illustration studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota that was started by Dan Black, Matt Zaun & Jessica Seamans in early 2007.
Meghan Minior is an artist, event coordinator, and musician living in the woods of Leverett, Massachusetts.
Scott Williams is a Chicago-based graphic designer who has been making things around town a little more beautiful since 1996.
Jason Munn's work has appeared in numerous exhibits and publications. A selection of his posters are part of the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Denver Art Museum.
Printmakers JW & Melissa Buchanan
Product designer and owner of studio and blog Pinegate Road, Kelsey Cronkhite ...and more to come!
Learn more about our line-up on wmcfest.com and be sure to stay tuned to upcoming artist, designer and musician announcements as well as more information about workshops and events! P.S. August 15 - 17 will be a busy weekend in Cleveland. Be sure to book your hotel now!
John Jennings - The Souls of Black Comix (by Weapons of Mass Creation) In the last decade a new generation of black scholars, publishers, creators, archivists, documentarians, and curators have come forth with a re-imagined vision of what it means to depict the African American experience via the comics medium. An underground movement has been operating unseen; flowing in tandem to the mainstream but showing very different levels of depth and experience. “The Black Age of Comics” is an attempt to shift the paradigm of how black images and stories are portrayed in the medium. The lecture will deal with examining some of the major creators and events in this robust and exciting visual culture. This talk was given at Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2013 in Cleveland, OH. For more info check out wmcfest.com John Jennings is an Associate Professor of Visual Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research and teaching focus on the analysis, explication, and disruption of African American stereotypes in popular visual media. His research is concerned with the topics of representation and authenticity, visual culture, visual literacy, social justice, and design pedagogy. He is an accomplished designer, curator, illustrator, cartoonist, and award-winning graphic novelist. His work overlaps into various disciplines including American Studies, African American Studies, Design History, Media Studies, Sociology, Women and Gender Studies, and Literature.
Timothy Goodman - I Want to Get Away with Shit (by Weapons of Mass Creation) I'm held down by rules, clients and parameters that stifle me. So how do I find my own voice? How do I put my sensibilities into my work? And how do I get away with doing the work I really want to do? A couple years ago, I made a decision to redirect my career and push myself into new, scary, and unexpected territory. Simply put—I realized that the work I ought to be doing is the work I should be doing. This talk was given at Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2013 in Cleveland, OH. For more info check out wmcfest.com Timothy Goodman is a designer, illustrator, and an art director based in New York City. Currently he runs his own studio, working on a variety of projects for clients such as the New York Public Library, Airbnb, MoMA, Citgo, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Previously, Timothy worked in-house at Apple Inc., where he helped integrate Apple’s visual language, domestically and internationally, across third party environments, retail stores, events and campaign launches. He has received awards from many major design & illustration publications, including the Art Directors Club Young Guns award, Print magazine’s “New Visual Artist” and GDUSA’s “People To Watch.” Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Timothy graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he now teaches.
Lisa Congdon in Conversation with Rena Tom: Illustrating Gertrude Stein (by Weapons of Mass Creation) Early in 2011, illustrator Lisa Congdon got a call about what would be the most challenging & exciting assignment of her career: to illustrate the non-sense word play of one of the world's most famous writers: Gertrude Stein. Taking cues from what visual reference she could find in Stein's writing, combined with her own imagination, Lisa completed the illustrations in late 2012. In this conversation with her close friend and frequent collaborator, Rena Tom, Lisa discusses the creative process involved in illustrating 42 poems that made absolutely no sense. Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons: Objects," illustrated by Lisa, was published by Chronicle Books in 2013. This talk was given at Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2013 in Cleveland, OH. For more info check out wmcfest.com San Francisco fine artist and illustrator Lisa Congdon is best known for her colorful paintings and collages. Her vast catalog of work includes illustrations for Chronicle Books, Harper Collins Publishing, and Simon and Schuster, among others. Lisa is also known for her hand-lettering and pattern design, and keeps a daily blog of her work called “Today is Going to be Awesome.” She is the author of A Collection a Day and several more books in the works. She lives in the Mission District of San Francisco with her partner, chihuahua and two cats. She works in her light-filled studio a few blocks from her apartment.
Alonzo Felix - Fieldwork (by Weapons of Mass Creation) We live in a hyperconnected world. It's easier than ever to fire up a web browser and endlessly browse design inspiration blogs/sites when approaching new projects. While they are convenient, how would it change our work if we regularly challenged myopic approaches to the practice and cast a wider net across other fields of study? What are some beneficial perspectives creatives can glean from areas adjacent to and even opposite from design. How can examining fields like anthropology, architecture, food, filmmaking, and music make us better creatives? How do we make meaningful connections between disparate fields of study and what lessons for us do these hold? We can develop frameworks for incorporating these ideas into our practices. Our edges tend to move further out when we consider others. Let's encourage unexpected results by engaging in fieldwork. This talk was given at Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2013 in Cleveland, OH. For more info check out wmcfest.com Alonzo Felix is an art director, illustrator, and type designer living in vibrant Brooklyn, New York. After earning a BFA in graphic design, he studied typographic application and theory in London, and also earned a postgraduate certificate in typeface design from the Cooper Type program, a joint venture of the Cooper Union and the Type Directors club. Selected clients include Beck, Boston Magazine, Crate and Barrel, Kickstarter, McSweeney’s, Quarterly Co. and The Washington Post. In addition to maintaining a steady freelance practice, Alonzo also works as a designer for Oak Studios based out of the Studiomates workspace in DUMBO, Brooklyn. He is interested in the overlaps between design and other fields like architecture and anthropology and believes the best work combines a strong sense of craft, conceptual thinking, and creative storytelling. He favors the classics from Miles Davis to hot dogs and is a sriracha enthusiast.
