Photo by Dan Hall

Name:
Farshad Arshid

Aka:  
Rashad, Vershad, Far-shaad, Rasheed, FarshaRd, RashaRd, and any other way my name is butchered…

Website:
standardatl.com

Where are you from?
Born in Tehran Iran (gotta rep the motherland) grew up in Houston, TEJAS (as GDub says it), here in Atlanta for 13 years now.

Who do you work for? 
For the man… Damn the man… Oh, and I own the Standard boutiques in town.

What are your Current Project(s)? 
Collaboration with DC Shoes, collab with Process (clears throat)… Spring/Summer In-Store series at 1841. And a few more that I can’t talk about yet…..

Who would you love to work with?
Too many to name, but here are a few: Nike, The Hundreds, 10 Deep, Alife, Benny Gold, Huf, Maharishi

If you had to give all your sneakers away to charity except for one pair, which ones would you keep? 
Adidas Milano Navy with gold Stripes… I have 2 pairs… a beat up pair that wore while building the original store… and a pair I found at Sporty LA 2 years ago which I paid entirely too much for… This is strictly for sentimental reasons…

What’s on your iPod right now?
The new Depeche Mode (single), George Michael (4life), Ghostland Observatory, Sam Roberts Band, Rehab, Elton John, Morrissey, The Smiths, Cartel, Ponderosa, UGK, the Cool Kids, Phoenix, US Royalty, Chester French, NERD, Grip Plyaz, Biggie, Erik B & Rakim, Ice T, New Order, The Cure, Duran Duran.

What’s your Favorite ATL food?
Spice Market, Eugene’s, Rumi’s Kitchen, Flip Burger Boutique, Surin, Holeman & Finch, Taqueria Del Sol, FAB, MF Sushi, Shaun’s, Hong Kong Harbor (best dim sum in town).

What’s your Favorite ATL hangout?
STANDARD Boutiques (look man, I work gazillion hours a weeks… my only social activity is talking shit to whoever visits… but other favorite spot that I don’t visit nearly enough is El Bar.

What are your Pet Peeves?
Assholes (with the exception of myself), being late, bluetooth headsets, sunglasses indoors, stupid questions (Is the grass real? Is this Pharrell’s store? Where do you guys get your stuff from? Do you guys make your own clothes? Can I get a recession discount?)

Shout outs?
Man toooo many…. 1st and foremost, the bosslady my wife Sandy… My family, My Standard crew (Daniel, Ryan, Nellie, Mourad, Xavier, Cory), CHRIS BLACK, Bun B, My Process boys of course (keep doing what you’re doing), Greg Street, Don Cannon, Coach K, Vik S, Shawn from Walters, The entire Rehab Family, Demun Jones, Germaine, the Willis Twins, Smiles, xText message Timx, Kaos, Jason Geter, Brian @ DC, C to the JL, Kaan Ergun (kaandre 3000), FNDTN crew, BBC crew, Scotty ILL, Eric V, Meg, Benny Gold, Rob Wonder & Rosa, Zach Wolfe, Sumner, Henry, Serious Ron, The Joneses, Will Lundy, Lavish Life crew, AC, Myk and the rest of The Charlotte crew, Dallas Austin, and the Rowdy Crew, G Mike, Caleb, Ross, Reggie, Patrick, and last but not least my boys Zero, Cosmo, and Paco.

Here’s a closer look at the custom Vans from the Laced Up sneaker event we took part in a few weeks back. If you happen to be in Charlotte, they’re on display at Niche right now. Stop in and say hello to Bobby, and while you’re there, take some photos and send ‘em over!

View more custom Vans from Laced Up after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

ATL’s best interior design company, Habachy Designs, came to Epidemik Coalition needing a new website. After a few meetings at their downtown Atlanta office, which has an amazing view of the city, we quickly had wireframes and site-structure in hand. It was only a matter of days to implement everything and get it live. It was a pleasure working with Michael and Evan on this project and we’re looking forward to future EC/Habachy collaborations.

Yesterday, a special package came in the mail from Quintin, a new hat company owned by some of our friends on the west coast. What sets them apart from the norm is that they specialize in fitted 5 panel caps, thus eliminating the need for a pesky adjustable strap and delivering some class to the 5 panel category. Their first wave of releases will take place on May 2nd, kicking off a summer of weekly releases bearing collaborations with many heavy-hitting design teams (the line sheet looks amazing). We’re honored to be included in this succession of releases and are currently tweaking the final details on the first PROCESS x Quintin collaboration set for later this summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Thousands of independent record stores across the country are celebrating Record Store Day today, including our very own Criminal Records. It’s important to support these local stores in your city because life would suck if you were limited to the internet for new music.

From 10am to 10pm today, Criminal will be having a huge sidewalk sale and giving away FREE beer and cake. Also, a ton of great local bands will be playing sets in-store.

Here are the set times:
11:00AM – Death on Two Wheels
12:00PM – Thy Mighty Contract
1:00PM – Carolina Chocolate Drops
2:00PM – Mike Farris & the Roseland Rhythm Revue
3:00PM – Ocha La Rocha
4:00PM – Noot d’Noot
5:00PM – Player/Kommander
6:00PM – Carnivores
7:00PM – Selmanaires
8:00PM – Manchester Orchestra
9:00PM – Judi Chicago

So as I have written on here before, I work primarily as a photo assistant for the majority of my income. What this basically means is that I carry around all the gear and put up the lights where the photographer wants them and then make sure everything runs smoothly so that the photographer has nothing to worry about except making sure they get the right picture. So yesterday I was fortunate to work with a really awesome photographer out of New York by the name of Ben Baker. One of the most refreshing things to see while working with someone is their total control with lighting. What I mean by this is that no matter what the image or situation the lighting is spot on and Ben is one of these people. Even while inside the Georgia World Congress Center with a million kids around he still was able to keep his cool and know exactly what he wanted his lighting to look like. I went through his website and tried to find the images that best showed this. Check out the rest of his work on his website, you might see some images you have seen before.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight, join the crew at El Bar with special guest, DJ Rashida, on the turntables. You may have seen her on stage with Prince, or on MTV on America’s Best Dance Crew. She’s major!

Don’t know what to wear? I’d suggest swinging by Standard 1841 and picking up a PROCESS tee…

Our buddy, Myk Pate, sent me this photo of him and BLNGxBDGT (Bling on a Budget) on the Camden block in Charlotte. If you didn’t already know, PROCESS is available at Black Sheep located at the fork on Camden Road. It’s great to see the line being embraced by what is quickly becoming our home away from home.

As a side note, we’re bringing BLNGxBDGT to El Bar on May 22nd in what will be the 1st of many SWARM [ATL Edition] parties that we’re throwing in conjunction with Kitchworth. Fun times coming this summer!

Name:
Stefán Kjartansson

Aka:  
To my mom I’m Stebbi.

Website:
howdoyouspellkjartansson.com
armchairmedia.com/work/

Where are you from?
I was born in Siglufjörður, which is a small fishing town in a fjord north of Iceland.

Who do you work for? 
I’m a founding partner and designer at Armchair.

What are your Current Project(s)? 
Philips Van-Heusen, FusionBrands, SAT.

Who would you love to work with?
Peter Seville, I just want to see how he thinks. I would like to work with Michael Bierut to experience his process.

If you had to give all your sneakers away to charity except for one pair, which ones would you keep? 
I have two pairs of Tretorns. The high-tops could easily fetch $7.

What’s on your iPod right now?
Nate introduced me to this band today called Tuxedomoon. I plan listen to them obsessively.

What’s your Favorite ATL food?
Floataway Cafe, MF Sushi, Star Provisions, Top Flr

What’s your Favorite ATL hangout?
Octane Coffee.

What are your Pet Peeves?
Designers that are not passionate about their work.

Shout outs?
I wanna give a shout out to my Armchairs: Scott, Dave, Kenny, Kevin,
Farbod, Nate, Tiffany, Marta, Aaron, Michelle, Travis, Reena, Erick,
Emily, Darcey, Alice, Erica, Rebecca, Jamie. I also wanna give a shout
out to Elise and Thor. And God.

I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately… Asia, New York, New Orleans. On each of the trips, design has been at the reigns. I’d like to take a minute to describe my travels to Asia during one week in March and share a once-in-a-lifetime project I’ve been involved with at Georgia Tech this spring.

A group of 9 architects, 1 industrial designer (me), 1 anthropologist, and 2 health system engineers have been working since January to design a health clinic for a village in Sukadana, West Kalimantan. Kalimantan, otherwise known as Borneo to us westerners, is an island in Indonesia situated on the equator, exactly 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. The weather is a constant 85° with 90% humidity, making HOTlanta seem like the arctic.

Who are we working for? An American MD named Kinari Webb and her health organization named Health in Harmony provides integrated essential health care and environmental education to the citizens of Sukadana. It is one of Health in Harmony’s missions to reduce the local illegal logging industry towards preservation of the Bornean rainforest, home to one of the planet’s largest assets of flora and fauna including wild orangutans! It turns out Dr. Webb had a connection to a fellow at Georgia Tech, who pulled resources to organize the course.

After months of work, six students from our group were sent to Borneo (expenses paid via a grant) to present architectural plans as proposals to the organization. During an intense 3-day charette, we gathered their feedback in order to create a more informed design. Those involved in the charette included Dr. Webb, her health clinic staff, and the community who would ultimately be using and building the clinic. Each day of the design discussions took place at Health in Harmony’s current health clinic which is a 3-room house next to the ocean.

We returned from Asia full of ideas, rice, and a realistic outlook on what life looks like in Indonesia. On a personal note, it was humbling to be in a place so disconnected from western culture and so full of noise and LIFE. This information is being pumped into a final, refined design that will be handed over to the Health in Harmony group in a few weeks at a final presentation in Atlanta. Those architectural plans will be used to gather funding in America to be put towards construction starting in November.

See some pics of my journey after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »