Yesterday, traffic was seriously affected near Ric's Phantaci Store in Taipei. In front of the store, there were over 50 fixed gear bikers hanging around for the party dubbed "I Can't Brake" hosted by Ric and his Phantaci crew. I'm no rider myself, so I was interested in the riders enjoy this sport first hand. I also found it interesting that Phantaci put together the event. Since fixed gear has became a heat wave on the culture, companies (especially some corporates) are trying to tab into it and use fixed bike culture to up boost their own "street cred". Ric was not one of those candy asses who tried to "tab in", he truly enjoys riding, he simply used his Phantaci platform to bring all those people together. The event was FOR the riders, for those who truly live it. As authentic as it gets, peeps. Ric, thank you.
The road wasn't officially sealed off, but who cares...
Exhibition titled "logoogol" opened tonight at Pixie Gallery in Taipei. The exhibition is a celebration event for Pixie's third anniverary. Designers were invited to add artwork on top of the Pixie logo. Many friends came to tonight's party to view the artworks and celebrate its birthday with the Pixie family.
Friends like Eric and the Remix Taipei crew came to show their support to Mark (owner of Pixie). REMIX TAIPEI is the hottest streetwear brand in Taiwan, not just Taipei.
Ric from Phantaci joined us for a drink before he headed back to his base to continue the preparation work for tomorrow's Tier-0 Be True Dunk release, and the fixed gear event tomorrow night. Phantaci is the Nike Tier-0 account holder in Taiwan, in case you didn't know. Check it out the next time you swing by Taipei.
While all other artists submitted digital work for the exhibition, Australian artist Luke Tembly, aka CUPCO, submitted this. Why wasn't I surprised?
Mark, once again, congralutations on your Pixie's 3rd anni. And adFunture thank you for all your support all these years, and I'm sure more great things will happen soon.
PIXIE here in Taipei has long been adFunture's Taiwan representative. I can still recall the night we made adFunture Invasion here back in 2005. That was alot of fun. But then again, that was 3 years ago. This week, PIXIE is getting a little makeover. This makeover is way more than just a new layer of paint on the walls. We'll be seeing some serious moves in months to come. But first off, tomorrow will be its 3rd year anniversary celebration party.
Wade (Revelator) took me over to Fifi tonight for a brainstorming session. A very nice place, good drinks, good people.
Arrived Taipei for a few special meetings, meeting a few friends when I'm here as well.
My past visits to Taipei were always for TTF, which was an event that was held in the busy part of the city. This time, however, I came to this side of the river,.... a calmer party of Taipei City.
The results from the recent election offers the city and its people many new opportunities. Good or bad is still hard to say at this point. We'll see.
The China Design Now exhibition is at large a celebration of Chinese designing power in recent years. While some might question why there were 3 pairs of Nike sneakers on display, the answer was rather simple; The 3 pairs exhibits well execution of implementing Chinese elements on the iconic American sneakers by Chinese creators. The 3 pairs on exhibit were Year of the Dog Air Force 1, Shanghai Dunk II, and the infamous Clot Air Max 1.
PK is the creator of Year of the Dog AF1, and Shanghai Dunk II. Of course, his resume is filled wit many other outstanding accomplishments as well.
MC Yan (left) was at the event checking out his own Clot Air Max 1, this is his personal pair, as he told me. Joe Liu from Nike China also joined in on the fun of making the visit.
The three specimens demonstrated that Chinese designers have a different view on "Chinese designs". Look at the designs of the shoes, you'll see that we are not all about dragons and tigers anymore. Both these gentlemen inserted Chinese stories and theories into their designs. Do some googling, and you'll see what I mean. The 3 pairs are more than just "o dog hair", "use of hemp material" and "wow, clear toe box!".
3款Nike鞋子也有在China Design Now亮相。Clot Air Max 1设计师MC Yan，与狗年Air Force 1和小笼包Dunk的设计师PK也到场Party。他们俩成功了把中国元素有效的应用在鞋子上面。是全球Nike发烧友都追捧的款式。当然，除了鞋子之外，他们其他的设计品也是非常出色的。
MIKE23. Never Stop. Rushing to the Counter. Zock On
I do visit different designer figures forum, such the KR, MPH, etc. Often, people would ask if it is legal to use another company's character, be it as a parody, mimic, "inspired", or just homage. This is a question that most believe has a great gray area. Some would have comments like "yeah, but he did it before and he didn't get into trouble, so why would I get in trouble when I do it?" Yeah, but other than the actual property owner that you are "inspired" by, who else could decide whether or not you'd be sued later on? If you are expecting someone to post "Go ahead! I'm sure you won't get sued" Then, you might be simply looking for a false sense of security. There are written laws about copyrights, so maybe actually researching the subject as much as you can will help more than just asking randomly on a message board.
Some designers would say to me "oh I changed it enough not to get sued, blah blah blah.." Truth be told, I don't even know how far we can go before stepping over the line on some of our stuff. I'll know when I get a letter in the mailbox. I got one before, it wasn't funny at all. I don't want to stir up that whole thing again, but for some of you who kept on asking for a certain product that never came out, well, BINGO. The up side of that was the fact that that company warned me early enough and we didn't start production. That was the up side.
Scott Nelson is a fellow blogger on Slam x Hype, and actually someone I was in contact with some years ago about a collabo. But what can better explain him would be his brand MIKE23. The brand MIKE23 pays homage to Nike and Jordan, that's an admitted fact by Scott. He worked hard at his brand for the past 3 years. I can still remember picking up his tee at Clientel in New York City back in 2005, that was the year he started the brand, actually, that was his first style of t-shirt as well.
Anyways, Scott's recent experience was not so pleasant. Last month, Nike issued a letter demanding MIKE23 to "change". Click over to Rob Walker's, he can give you the whole story there. Rob is another amazing fellow I met back in 2005 in New York (actually the same trip as I bought the Mike tee). Very insightful columnist. (I can still remember the food he treated me to. I'm coming back next month, Rob.)
I'm not about to pass a judgment on this, because like Rob said, this is not our place to make a judgment. However, I'm pointing this out because I would like some of you to keep this in mind; IT CAN HAPPEN. Scott's brand was established 3 years ago, 2005, and it has been reported by numerous trends sites and magazines numerous times in the past few years. Only now is Nike reacting to this. No matter how late or early they react, you can pretty much imagine the results. Just bare this in mind the next time you feel "inspired".
Most of my close friends know that I have a thing about coming up with brand names. Creating a brand and creating a brand name are very different, of course. One is a long work process, while the other one is just a keyword that popped into your mind and you believe that it has a nice ring to it. So, yeah, I just have a thing about thinking up names. A year or 2 ago, I was working at my desk, piles and piles of unsolved mysteries (bills, I mean) in front of me, a cool name came into my mind; "Never Stop". "Never Stop" can mean alot of things when you think about it, especially if you are in the creative industry. So, the first thing I did, I tried to register the domain name, a dot com. Sorry; TAKEN. Three other words popped right into my mind at that moment... W.T.F?! Ok, then forgot it. Some company in the US already taken that domain name. Fine. End of story.
Last November, I got an email from a friend of a friend who was visiting Beijing for work. The work was the Love of Force exhibition at Nike706. Always good to meet new friends, why not? Which company he works for? NEVER STOP.
Well, those 3 words popped right back into my head that given moment, put it that way. Small world, huh?
The boys are in Shanghai this month. Had the pleasure of having dinner with them tonight. Jou-Yie and Casey, pleasure seeing you again. Enjoy the city. And yes, you guys did the name justice, you guys NEVER STOP.
Recently read an interesting article on Hong Kong Hustle about the latest Neighborhood x W)Taps activity in Hong Kong, the "Previously Opening Exhibition". It mentioned how people rush to consume without looking at everything that the designers have carefully put on display. Displays that were made to help explain the brands' culture and ideas. If we are not interested in the brands' cultures or ideas, what are we actually consuming?
I can feel this problem with the gendre that we are in as well. Well, of course, being "visually attracted" is a legit enough reason for purchasing as well. But, there's always more behind the visuals.
THE NEW SINGLE FROM TERIYAKI BOYZ - ZOCK ON featuring PHARRELL & BUSTA RHYMES. Nice tune, but I am not sure which language this is in though. Universal? And let's not forget to mention the appearance of Jessica Michibata in the vid. (Source: TK's blog)
I was a little bit surprised when I walk into the V&A Museum shop last week, and saw how they displayed Tong Yan's JELLOFOX. I wouldn't wanted display it any other way. Is like they read my mind, thank you, Anne and Dianna. I hope Tong is satisfied with how this piece turned out. I personally love it.
Of course, the Jellofox project wouldn't have happened without Estelle Young in Shanghai. Lots of love, Estelle.
An amazing night at V&A Museum last week for the CHINA DESIGN NOW Exhibition opening party. Needless to say, the V&A building is visually breath-taking, especially at night with the spotlights on. 这次伦敦之行最主要是为了出席V&A博物馆China Design Now的开展活动。第一次到访V&A，一座很漂亮的建筑物。这晚的灯光把它更加丰富起来。
For adFunture to be a part of this exhibition in V&A was certainly a high honor for us all. It was a group effort of the whole adFunture team. I sincerely thank everyone at the studio and all the artists involved. For our part of the exhibition, we once again used the "I" figure as the platform to put together a small 30-pc customized collection. Most of them are new pieces, with a few pieces from the exhibition previously held at da>space back in 2006. This is not the "I, China" exhibition, so we cannot display all 113 pieces originally made, for this, we apologize to those artists whose work were not included in this new I exhibition, titled after the main China Design Now exhibition itself, "I, China Design Now".
这次参展作品分别是I, China Design Now Collection。当然也有展出一小部分I,China的作品。但始终都是新展，所以旧作不能全部呈现。对早前参与da>space I,China展的朋友们说声抱歉。
Other than the I collection, the all new PERK PIONEER figure by Perk was also exhibited in the museum. Perk, the Shanghai designing duo, got their own display as well. Very nice.
破壳的Perk Pioneer也正式露面了。当然，破壳本身也是展出artist之一，不少展品呢。
A BIG THANK YOU to V&A Museum and its crew for this opportunity to have our works shown in there. Especially to Lorraine, Gigi, Anne and Dianna.
Chinese Typewriter made by Double Pigeon back in 1985. DHY-d Series.
This Chinese typewriter illustrates the uniqueness and complexity of Chinese typography. It does not have a keyboard, but instead uses a tray that contains over 2000 characters, arranged according to 214 groups of meaning classifiers (the building blocks, or boushou, of characters). Several thousand more would be available on a second tray. The typist first aligns the tray and then presses a key, which makes an arm pick up each desired character in turn and strike it against the paper, a time-consuming process.
This typewriter now sits in V&A Museum (London) as part of the China Design Now exhibit.
Walked around Covert Garden with Sichi over the weekend, and came across this cafe selling these. Candy Cakes. Needless to say, the colors lured me in.
Muffins with rainbow colored icing plus a piece of candy on top.... What more can you ask for??
Arrived London this week, a few things to take care of, and a million things to check out.
Seen this person's works before via Wooster Collective, sorry, I can't recall his name. This piece he did with Supreme's latest campaign poster was just around the corner from Hideout in Covert Garden.
A mini exhibit of Marc Newson's furnitures near Dover Street Market.
I was in Beijing briefly last weekend, mainly to attend the opening event for Gary's Monster KaR Guerrilla Store. For the occasion, the Monster KaR vinyl figure we produced with Gary was also debuted. Couldn't pick a better time and occasion to launch Monster KaR's first vinyl incarnation.
Good party at SONG Bar. A relatively new gathering place in Beijing. Good times. A big congratulation to Gary the Monster KaR himself for the job well done.
It was back in last November, in London, we decided to put together a Buka series that would be composed by Chinese designers. Sichi and I just looked at each other and went "yeah, do it."
And we did. 9 designers came together to put out this 11-variant series. Go live this month in London. Stick around and I'll introduce the designers individually later.
Wow, how many years ago was this?? I loved this movie when it first came out, and I can still remember how funny it was now. I know some people might argue this, but I'd say this is Carrey's best movie ever.
DGPH from Argentina is extremely busy these days. Besides the 8 figures they have going with us here at the adFunture plant this year, they recently did a large window installation for Nike in Buenos Aires. This is for the mega Dunk event BE TRUE. Nike's BE TRUE campaign is shaping up as various events are popping up around the globe. As for DGPH, this was not the first time they worked with Nike, but I still find it interesting to see how their characters are mixed up with different sneakers visually. Topos, Moles, Dunks all in one big picture, what more could I ask for?!
