These days, if you’re a musician, you’ve likely wrestled with the question of how to get your music out to the masses and how much (or whether) to charge for it. Enter the iPhone. Bands like Nine Inch Nails have already been using the device to their advantage with cool apps like their version of Tap Tap Revenge and their NIN Access app.

Of course, that’s Nine Inch Nails. For bands without much of an iPhone app budget or if they aren’t so tech savvy, Mobile Roadie has come along with an inexpensive, customizable app for bands. For a fee, bands go through an automated process to upload content like photos, video, music and an upcoming show list. The backend CMS allows bands not only to manage content but also to manage fan comments. Setting up the app takes roughly a week, depending on how long Apple takes to approve the app.

So far, it looks like a few dozen bands, including Black Lips, have jumped on the Mobile Roadie bandwagon with an iPhone app. Time will tell how many other bands will use the iPhone platform and whether brands may jump in there as sponsors.

Who doesn’t love a good optical illusion? Whether it is 3-D chalk art on a busy city sidewalk, or these murals on the sides of buildings, there is just something visually astonishing about Trompe L’oeil, (fool the eye) murals and paintings.  No matter how many times you look at this work and know in your head that these are in fact 2-D paintings, they can just draw you in to the parallel universe created by an artist.

These works were created by John Pugh, who is one of the top practitioners of this style of painting. The above mural is called Siete Punto Uno and is located on the side of building in the town of Los Gatos, California, a city that was hard hit by the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989. The mural below is called Academe’ and is located on the side of Taylor Hall at California State University, Chico. It was Pugh’s first commission in 1980 and is the mural that put him on the map.

Here’s a short documentary about John Pugh at work.

New York City foodies, take note. This Memorial Day weekend, it’s time to step away from the barbecue and hit up the city’s top food trucks. They’ll be gathering on Saturday in one place, BKLYN Yard, for Parked!

The event brings together trucks that serve up tacos, ice cream and of course cupcakes from New York’s first mobile cupcake shop, Cupcake Stop.

Food trucks, long a staple in Los Angeles, have been sprouting up all over New York over the past few years and bringing unexpected, sometimes even gourmet, treats. It’s not just about the Mud Truck anymore. These rent-free food joints on wheels mean low overhead for the operators and inexpensive eats for the rest of us.

If you can’t make it to Brooklyn this weekend for food truck cuisine, look for many of these trucks on social networks like Twitter, where they Tweet their locations and the day’s menu and specials.

From the moment we wake up in the morning, to the moment we go to bed at night, designed objects surround and define us.

But how often do we actually think about all these designed things in our lives? For instance, how often do we ponder the group thinking that went into the design of a simple toothbrush? Or why does our mobile phone look and feel the way it does? Or why do the handles on pretty much everything these days, from potato peelers to pruning shears, just feel better in our hands? Whether we are a Mac or a PC, how often do we really contemplate the intricate processes, the successes and even failures that go into the design and function of our computers?

While we may interact with thousands of designed objects everyday and think nothing of it, there are people who do, every single day. These are the people who populate the world of industrial design.

Documentary filmmaker Gary Hustwit thought about industrial design so much that he decided to go out and make a movie about it. Objectified is his second cinematic go at understanding how the design of an object integrates with our lives. The film, which has a Euro-slick look that mirrors many of its subjects, does a good job of taking in the broader aspects of design thinking.

Still, Hustwit is only able to scratch the proverbial slick surface, yet this does not take away from the enjoyment of his film. This is perhaps due to the sheer size of the world he seeks to visit. Questions about design and its place in our lives are put forth; though it is debatable if the film is able provide the answers.

The first time Hustwit thought about tackling the world of design on film, he concentrated his efforts on one element: typography and the ubiquitous font called Helvetica.

His film, appropriately titled Helvetica, was the rare film that used as its subject matter something that is, in effect, all around us, yet most people pay little or no heed to it. Heady stuff, and not the sort of subject matter that one would think an audience would gravitate to, but they did and the film gained a following. Because of this, Helvetica set the documentary bar a little higher for Hustwit, opened more doors and allowed him more wiggle room in which to maneuver as he continues to ponder the complexities of design through his lens.

Having successfully explored the world of a mere typeface, in Objectified, Hustwit now trains his camera and curiosity on the subculture of men and women who have been called to design the objects of our lives. In his film, he is able to get plenty of face time with many of the rock stars in the design world. These are the people who dream up the objects that we as a consumer culture, primed to be obsessed with the latest and greatest stuff, place on our iconic pedestals. Objects like the iPhone, the BMW automobile and the Braun shaver, to name only a few, are presented reverently.

The majority of industrial designers working today fly under the radar in design labs and they are not in this film. They are busy contemplating and designing mass market gew-gaws and gimcrackery for companies whose very survival rests on the fact that the more objects that are made - or as the New York Times’ Rob Walker posits in the film, the more SKU’s created - the more things there are to sell to us and thus the more money made, thereby fueling the ability to make more things.

All of the designers talk about how there must always a new model, the “new now.” This year’s plastic widget will soon become last year’s plastic widget, ad infinitum. Last year’s model probably does pretty much the same thing as this year’s, but as a consumer culture, driven to possess the newest items, it becomes a cultural necessity to possess the newest model. In the film, one designer points out that the mobile phone he used three years ago would probably work just fine today, but it’s not new, and so like many items in our throwaway culture, things like mobile phones are deemed expendable.

Hustwit has admirably taken a bite out of a very large topic here and he is somewhat successful. Objectified shines a sleek light on the people who spend their days contemplating the tactile and visual language of objects. He touches on the various philosophic schools of thought that surround modern design. He also touches on the importance of environmental sustainability in design. Each of these subjects could take up the entire 90 minutes of his film and so he really only glosses over them.

While Objectified will certainly appeal to industrial design geeks, who get the rare chance to watch a talking head conga line of their heroes ponder the platitudes of “less is more” and “form follows function,” it is a documentary that can be enjoyed by anyone who is even remotely curious about where the objects that surround us come from.

Objectified is currently on the film festival circuit and at the IFC Center in New York City.

In an era where major print institutions have been going under, I was sad but not necessarily surprised to find out that hip music and culture magazine Paste is hurting. I was, however, surprised to see the magazine going to its reader base for donations.

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reported:

Paste Editor-in-Chief Josh Jackson said he needs donations in “the low six figures” to safely keep the magazine devoted to music, film and culture afloat.

“We have been trying to cut costs but apparently not fast enough,” Jackson said Wednesday. “We’re at the point where we have to go to the readers for a little help. We hope it will be a one-time thing.”

Paste is following the Obama model and is trying to get small donations as opposed to large ones to help it stay afloat. The magazine has put out emails and calls for donations online. Its Twitter followers have taken the campaign a step beyond, tweeting about the situation and using the #savepaste hashtag. Fans have also set up a Facebook page for the cause.

It’ll be interesting to see if the campaign pans out for the magazine (and personally I hope it does). It’s Paste’s latest in creative fundraising. In the past, they tried the Radiohead pay-what-you-wish pricing model for subscriptions.

The first Creative Seed Initiative lecture series co-sponsored by BFG Communications and Savannah College of Art and Design was a big success last night.

SCAD’s Arnold Hall was packed to the brim with people who came out to hear poster designers Dan Ibarra and Mike Byzewski from Aesthetic Apparatus give the kind of presentation one would expect from two very creative guys.

For over an hour the two kept the crowd thoroughly entertained as they went through a slide presentation that not only showed off their poster work, but also their various workshops over the years and a very funny video of the two actually making a poster. They also showed off their love of twisted animated gifs, which they collect and placed on each slide, which always induced a reaction. The guys spoke of their rise from a dingy, smelly basement printing rock posters for free, to the full service print and art shop that sees their work in high demand from bands, brands and collectors worldwide.

Consistently witty and self-deprecating, the duo poked fun at themselves at every opportunity as they spoke of how they are able to tap their creative process and stay fresh in their artistic outlook. They also talked at length about being true to the original vision of Aesthetic Apparatus, which has kept them on the good foot for ten years now and seems to be working well. By staying true to this original vision they allow themselves to pick the jobs they do, not based on how much money the job will bring in (which they point out is a surefire way of inducing a splitting headache if money is the only real inducement), but on how the job appeals to less tangible, but very important criteria like creative freedom.

Earlier in the day Dan and Mike spoke at BFG’s main office and to students at SCAD.

For more photos from the Creative Seed Initiative, check out BFG’s Flickr stream. Stay tuned for more Creative Seed Initiative events.

What do you get when you give 40 artists a truckload of old city street signs that were about to be permanently cashiered to the city dump?

An art show of course.

That’s because artists have been thinking “green” long before it became fashionable to do so. Artists love to recycle, or in this case, “upcycle.”

It behooves creative artists to find and utilize materials that are either free or cost very little.

For the last six months, Jake and Miriam Hodesh of New Moon of Savannah have collected old street signs from the city of Savannah that were damaged or had outlived their civic usefulness.

The duo then handed the signs out to a wide array of local artists to do with what they please, with the idea that they would all have an art show and sell the work with some of the proceeds going to the Savannah Bicycle Campaign.

The resulting art is as  varied as one might expect. While each piece in the “redeSIGN” show is unique, there seems to be two camps of thought when it comes to upcycling an old road sign. There are those artists who took their road sign and kept it quasi-recognizable as a road sign and then there are those who took their sign and just painted over the signage and used it more as a blank canvas. I am drawn more to the signs that still retain their sense of being an old road sign, but there are plenty of excellent pieces in the show that veer from that course.

The redeSIGN show is varied, creative, inventive and fun. Whether the work is a straight up wall painting that might look good over the couch, or a hanging lamp, or a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired cabinet, or a chair, a water fountain or a gyrating, gear driven stationary robot, every artist in the show proved that upcycling, what is supposedly an old throwaway item, will always get the creative juices flowing.

If you are in the Savannah area on Friday, May 15, there is a reception with the artists between 7-9pm at 312 West Broughton Street in downtown Savannah (the space is not even a gallery per se, but a empty storefront that is being repurposed for this, and hopefully, future events as long as it is empty and available).

If you can’t make it in person to our first installment of the Creative Seed Initiative lecture series, fear not. We’ll be bringing it to you live on Ustream this Thursday, May 14th at 7 pm EST.

This first Creative Seed event features acclaimed rock ‘n’ roll poster designers Dan Ibarra and Michael Byzewski, the co-founders of Aesthetic Apparatus. They’ll be sharing their stories and taking your questions at what’s sure to be an outstanding event.

If you happen to be in Savannah and would like to attend, join us at SCAD’s historic Arnold Hall, located at 1810 Bull Street (between 34th and 35th Streets). The event is free and open to the public.

Some of the Aesthetic Apparatus work hanging at SCAD’s Poetter Hall.

We’re gluttons for cool design over here and this is the sort I can really get behind. It makes use of everything and the kitchen sink, many of them in fact.

Built by 2012 Architecten, the facade is made entirely of old stainless steel sinks held together with scaffolding, wire and waterproof multiplex boards. The open air community events space is set in the midst of much more traditional architecture in Amsterdam.

Another added benefit is that the building collects rainwater that can be used in a nearby garden.

For more photos of the structure, check out 2012 Architecten on Flickr.

Remember the tourism campaign out of Queensland, Australia that was advertising for “The Best Job In The World?”

Did you enter? Did you win?

Sadly no. The job went to Ben Southall from England.

Charity-fundraiser Southall beat out some 35,000 applicants and then 15 finalists from every corner of the globe for the gig. So, the job starts in July and last for six months and all this newly minted “island caretaker” is required to do is comb the beaches, swim and snorkel the Great Barrier Reef, blog and post random videos about his completely chilled out five star life in paradise.

Plus, for all of his sweat and backbreaking toil Southall will also draw a hefty six figure salary and live a posh life in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The Queensland tourist board says they’ve reaped somewhere in the neighborhood of $110 million (AU) out of the $1.7 million campaign that went inthyper-viral when it was announced. The campaign was designed to show off Northeastern Queensland and to prove it, the announcement of Mr. Southall as the winner was widely covered by the world media.

Obviously the campaign got people thinking about Queensland and that is the point.

I also recently pointed out that a California winery is basically offering the same type of gig to one lucky winner, except instead of lounging around an island, this winner will lounge around a vineyard, quaff an endless supply of vino and yes, blog about it.

The winery “job” is still up for grabs.

If you hear of anymore of these “Dream Job’s” feel free to let us know about it.