These are the two best music videos that I’ve seen in a long time. The best thing about these videos is that I love both the music and the visuals.

For a long time (4-5 years) I’ve struggled with what I want out of my design career. Naturally, I want some respek, but how much of it do I want and how do I get it? I see people dedicating themselves to one style and getting much love. I adore the nopatterns and the toki dokis of the world because they have something I don’t, A style. Frankly, I find working in one style incredibly boring and this was problematic for me for a long time because I saw the formula for success looking something like this

An Awesome Style = Much Respek

This meant because I couldn’t pin down a style, I wouldn’t be able to be successful which meant my career was doomed to mediocrity. I became pretty depressed for a while because of it. That was until I saw a series of interviews at Zoom In with a few of the latest Young Guns winners.

They were all great interviews, but the one that inspired me the most was with Brooklyn based Labour (below).

So now the formula goes something like

Dedication + Passion = Much Respek

Which really was the formula all along, I just had a hard time seeing past all the pretty pictures.

It has been quite the hectic past couple of weeks here. My girlfriend and I loaded up the truck on July 10th (it took 6 hours) and drove for 8 hours (missed the free Roots show in SLC). The next day we drove 15 hours and another 2 hours the following day. Took about 6 hours to unpack (we did take breaks to eat and what not). Trying to manuever a budget trauck with a car hangining off the back end is now easy task.

My average work day so far has been about 13 -14 hours. I get up at 6 (which is 5 back in Utah), watch tutorials for an hour, go to work for 9 – 10 hours, come home, eat dinner, and watch tutorials for another 2 – 3 hours. So for my first week, I spent around 45 hours at work and another 20+ at home studying. Woohh! I’m exhausted but I gotta do what I gotta do.

By now you’re probably wondering what that image above is for. My first week at work involved designing and building a website for a short animation my company made a while back. It’s really a cute little animation and you can see it by going to LamieDeZoe.com.

Not sure what the story behind it is, but the short animation Postman Returns is sick.
[via Motionographer]

Nice little video about Peace from the UN.
via motionographer

It’s been quiet on this blog lately because I’m trying to get a new site started up called FridayNightFeature.tv.

I’ve been working on some animation and video projects lately and I gotta say, it’s a lot of work trying to do everything by yourself. Animating, concepting, finding music, etc, gets pretty tiring. And I know I could take on more ambitious projects if I could just get some people to work with (not to mention it could be a lot more fun). Friday Night Feature is a site where I hope to find collaborators of any kind.

Eventually I would like the site to become about more than just helping me find some cool people. I would like to see it grow into a whole community of talented people that easily contact each other for whatever they want. WriterX has an idea and thinks that CharacterArtistY has really great style and that AnimatorZ obviously knows his way around after effects so they all end up working together. Something like that.

So, please, if you want to join in on Friday Night Feature, or you know someone who might be interested, email me at emoryallen@gmail.com.

by 3 Wagons Deep
The runners up, honorable mentions, and the people’s choice winner can be found at swp.cutandpaste.com/winners.

French group Justice’s new video. Normally I’m against ripping off, i mean repurposing, old logos but this video is just so damned cool.

Now that the Photoshop and Cut&Paste sponsored “See What’s Possible” challenge is over, I present my favorites.
The Amazing Factory by Wondermint


Quirky Colors by 7th Fold ad Frameshift

The Boat by Adam Garcia and Gregory Hubacek

Talk by Daniel Fitzgerald

The Pencil is Mightier by Peter NG

And let’s not forget my entry.

Photoshop “See What’s Possible” from D. Emory Allen on Vimeo.