WE MAKE IT GOOD
- WMIG REEL
- WMIG & The FADER
- From 2009 to 2010, WMIG partnered with FADER magazine to create a stream of original content for their website and ours. This audio and video content was comprised of music, design, art, events, experiences, and much more. No matter what we were doing, we siezed the opportunity to make an engaging piece of content for the web at every step; filming photo shoots, making stop motion animation web flyers, or creating bizarre voice messages that play at the other end of a phone number for people to find on the internet or read off a poster on the street. Our goal was to create something that people could interact with outside of their computer; a mixtape to listen to while walking down the street, a party to dance at, or a phone number to call. If it wasn't something real or tangible, that you could step away from your desk to enjoy, then it wasn't for us.
Below are a few selections from the year long stream of content that I created for FADER Magazine and WMIG as lead creative director and writer. - THE WE MAKE IT GOOD MIX SERIES
- In 2009, WMIG & FADER presented the We Make It Good Mix Series, a bimonthly series of downloadable "mixtapes" made by bands, musicians, and DJs. It rapidly took off in popularity, with over 10 thousand downloads per mix, garnering acclaim from music industry insiders and fans alike with it's patent blend of yet-to-be-released songs and freshly unearthed gems.
As creative director, I worked with a different DJ to formulate a concept for each mix. As they expressed the concept musically, designer Evan Dennis and I would work to create a visual depiction in the form of an album cover. Each mix would then be available for download in MP3 format from wemakeitgood.com with the custom covers embedded into the MP3, making it visible in itunes or on the iphone / ipod for the listener.
We challenged each DJ to do something unique and totally out of the ordinary from their usual approach - be it picking a theme like movie scores, or a genre like psychedelic world music - with the only rules being: no dead air and no train wrecks. These simple directions were in large part what made the series a huge success, yielding unexpected results from major indie bands and DJs who all had secret penchants for italian pop music or militant 70s funk. - THE POP-UP PHONEBOOTH
- We challenged ourselves to create a week long installation in a Manhattan storefront based on the theme of communication and came up with our own Phonebooth pop-up gallery. A good old fashioned telephone became our icon, a device that instills quaint feelings of nostalgia and illustrates the most direct way to communicate a message: from one human to another.
Our goal with the Phonebooth was to connect and communicate with the public in a multi-layered way- anonymously and personally - so plastering the town with enigmatic posters served as a gateway to ignite this exchange. The poster shows a man obscured by the piece of paper he’s holding. The only information gleaned is an 888 phone number beckoning to be dialed. The simplicity of the image of course belied its complexity and resulted in thousands of phone calls. Intrigued dialers were greeted with a secret message that included the address of the We Make It Good Phonebooth and details about the party to come. - LEVI'S / the FADER / WMIG at SXSW
- Based on the success of The WMIG / FADER Mix Series, WMIG was asked to curate the DJ lineup during the Levi's / FADER Fort's busiest day at SXSW. As creative director, I coordinated the day's schedule to feature a showcase of DJs with mixes already out and a preview of mixes to come. The 10 hour music marathon featured Blaqstarr, Paul Devro, Alex XXXChange, DJ Sega, Chris Devlin and more, while providing the perfect soundtrack for thousands of people dancing in the sweltering Texas sunshine.
- FADER PRINT ADS
- For the year that we curated the mix series, FADER ran a corresponding series of print ads in their magazine. We saw the ads both as an avenue to drive traffic to our websites and as an opportunity to create visual art by extending the We Make It Good mixes into a broader cultural vernacular.
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