pidgeon birds

amsterdam is swell but cloudy. im sticking a quick entry in at a coffeeshop near the hostel called the dolphins. free wifi and other fun stuff that makes it worth the half block walk. its been overcast a lot and the six girls im with seem perpetually angry, but other than that amsterdam is really really great. architecture, canals, its gorgeous.

ciao

Over, Over

http://www.designrelated.com/inspiration/view/Karen/entry/2509

or you can see better photos on his website.

http://midwestisbest.com/work.php?category=3&item=128&image=456

Mike's new book hit the shelves recently, it's been pretty exciting to see the response it's been getting. It always feels kind of strange to see the work of someone you know getting a lot of attention from the design world. It's interesting for sure.

Yesterday I went to a barbecue with Dylan and Ali that his boss was having as an end of the summer sort of deal. It was great, a couple guys from Rad Mountain showed up as well as a lot of the guys from Athletics. So much talent in one backyard.

athleticsnyc.com
radmountain.com

I had to leave early to do my second to last day at the frozen monkey in Hoboken, and fantastic reverse commute from Hoboken to Brooklyn at one o clock in the morning. I live to complain.

My time with mike is over, i think thats what I sat down to blog about. It's been a great summer and I feel like the internship has done wonders for me. I feel a lot more motivated to create now and I'm getting anxious to get back into the swing of things.

Awesome photobooth quality picture of me with some of the edition of 100 zines i finished up this week as my final project. I'll have real pictures up some day. Mike paid for the printing and I spent a good two days folding taping and stapling them together but they are probably my favorite thing I've done in a long time, design-wise.

My flight is out of JFK on thursday at 7 am. I think I may just head there late wednesday night so I dont have to deal with the train system at 4 in the morning. I threw away one of my bags and condensed down to one suitcase, one backpack and my computer. For that being everything I own within 500 miles, I think thats a pretty good amount.

four days in the city, then its home for a breath and a leap across the ocean to red light districts and city canals and cafes called bars and buildings older than 100 years. New Yorks been dandy but im ready to jet.

Hope everyone is swell.

that hurt

so a cab ride to a lower east side rooftop led to an amazing view and some bad decision-making. cut to subway confusion and crackheads talking to themselves and you have a general idea of why im moving slowly today.

living on the streets

my brother moved to pennsylvania so i am currently staying with the lovely dylan mulvaney until further notice. i have one week left at Midwest is Best studio. Katie, the other intern already went home and Jim the illustrator had his last day today, sad stuff.

i visited dylan at rad mountain which was way cool, i met the guys behind some really great work. everyone should check them out– www.radmountain.com

it is official, i am flying home in two weeks, then flying to amsterdam in one more. its gonna be great to see ames and people again before taking off forever for again. but i gotta run, dylan and i are jetting to manhattan to go to some stupid overpriced bar that someone else decided on.
.
oh yeah, i met this cute waitress and hung out with her a couple times but this morning she left for the boston and i wont see her before i leave, but as Rainer Maria Rilke says, your solitude is your happiness. or something weird like that. He was a strange guy.

coffee and hamburger coma

Wow, so its been forever since ive posted last. lots of junk has happened. i saw a couple concerts and spent a lot of money on food. Willy got into town, met a girl, and moved in with her. Jennie Register got in two weeks ago and already found a salon job. Ive become less social than i remember, i work four nights a week at the cafe and that usually lets out around midnight. still going strong with M Perry, we actually are in the middle of our creative project for the summer, but ill keep it hush hush so it possibly will be a surprise for later.











this is a really terrible video of gogol bordello i shot from a tree. the concert was in mccaren park in williamsburg and tickets were thirty five dollars so willy and i decided to hang out in a tree and enjoy the show there instead. a fellow tree climber showed up a little later, he was alright.







this is the office where i work from 10-5. its nice, fun, whatever. the computer on the left is mine but i actually am using my laptop because the cs3 on the other computer is being silly right now. its not so sweet.

Jim and Jim, looks like a afternoon slump. that shelf is all of Jims design books from the past couple decades.

and these are his magazines. its a pretty incredible collection and there is some gold hidden in that bookshelf, especially if youre a design student.

the rayguns underneath are issues i had previously only seen in books. They are artifacts from when David Carson was still designing and thats sort of a big deal unless youre old enough to remember them being published. blah blah apostrophe poster blog design crap.














my notebook, pristine. screenprinted a photo anna wolf took onto my 'work' notebook.













my notebook, destroyed. shes hanging in there but her inks coming off like the skin of a man pulled from the east river. ahh morbid new york jokes.


new york is this huge club that everyone loves so much, its kind of bizarre. new york is dandy but im getting tired of the status symbols and celebrity sightings and iphones and excess. im sick of commuting and getting stuck across the river from where i need to go. im ready for somewhere new.

i miss my old room and being able to stay up until five am drawing, not having to worry about waking my brother up with the light. i miss my coffeemaker and kitchen counters, my jigsaw puzzles and dishwashing-italian audio lesson time. i miss my friends and being able to invite someone over. i dont want to be transient, i want my own space in the world again.

ice cream, ice cream everywhere

i got a job! I now sell the aforementioned five dollar milk shakes, i have become part of the problem.

On the left is the fail-safe hand-drawn letter the clears the path to employment via the golden road of pity. Make your application look like a seven year old did it and the job is yours!

I am a waiter-barista at the Frozen Monkey cafe in Hoboken where we dish out milk shakes, soft serve, fancy salads, paninis, and breakfast food all day long. I think this is the first time been making more money than ive been spending in about two years. Its dandy.










i finally got new shoes and it was just in the nick of time. the old black babies had a gaping grin forming in the side and pretty much all the trim had fallen off. my feet have been thanking me as the blisters stopped raging.

Today I was supposed to help Mike out with a photoshoot he is doing for a record cover but he tallied up all the suits and other people who actually needed to be there and the studio would have been just too jampacked if everyone ended up there. I did get to help out with the prelight session on Mikes roof, however, and that was a lot of fun. Ate pizza and took pictures till the sun went down. here are some photos.
























this is jim, hes been sharing studio space with us for a couple
weeks now, hes a really great artist and pretty funny guy. Hes english too (london) so the cultural differences make for ceaseless entertainment. http://www.jimtheillustrator.co.uk/
























more of the rooftop shoot- this is anna wolf and my boss mike perry. Theirs is the roof we were set up on. anna isnt as teensy as she looks in the photo, shes just set back a bit farther. dont get me wrong however, she is teensy.











i love this picture because im taking a picture of jim taking a picture of anna taking a picture of mike with stewart, the photo assistant in the background. its deep, really.

after this session was over, i got to model for some of the test shots. Anna asked if i felt like a canadian popstar which just confused me until i realized that that is the brand of popstar the shoot is for.

then anna shot down my self-esteem a little saying 'this is going to be so great with a cute guy in front of the camera--i mean not that ian isnt cute, uh--'

no, no, dont backtrack! let me know how awul and disfigured i really am.

here are some random photos from the city. industrial brooklyn, backside stairwells, trainyards, and wall street. Some snapshots taken while running errands.














































the beach at coney island. this picture basically sums up my summer so far. its been a tiring month but things are going pretty well.


im trying to draw more and i want to start a running website of new work but everything depends on what i can cram into postwork periods.

i hope everyone is well.

ian

lists

things i miss -

taylors birthday and fourth of july parties at the nevada lake.
making up nicknames for tim hart with hannah and tay.
shows at the old house of bricks.
my future wife robin.
shows at grinnell.
elliot kurtz sometimes.

things i love -

throwing banana peels at pidgeons
making mean faces at babies
drawing love notes for random girls in the park
thirty-five cent starcrunch snacks
showering with the lights off and music playing
writing in cursive