Name:
Skylar Morgan

Aka:  
doc.

Website:
www.smf-d.com
www.docbuilt.com

Where are you from?
Miles City, Montana

Who do you work for? 
I own two furniture companies, Skylar Morgan Furniture + Design (SMFD) and doc.

What are your Current Project(s)? 
New West Egg, White Provision, Ormsby’s Pub, Office Furniture for Armchair Media, Dining Table and Chairs, and Product Additions for doc.

Who would you love to work with?
e15 and Hans Wagner

If you had to give all your sneakers away to charity except for one pair, which ones would you keep? 
My hunter green Toms.

What’s on your iPod right now?
Avett Brothers and Ryan Adams

What’s your Favorite ATL food?
JCT and Serpas True Food

What’s your Favorite ATL hangout?
Ormsby’s Pub

What are your Pet Peeves?
Butterfly patches and air guitar.

Shout outs?
Shea at Intrinsic Architecture, Stephanie at State Design Co., Rob at Coalition Society, and Jesse at SMFD

Deftones - The Acoustic Experiment by Eric Dewyngaert

Some of you know that I’ve been teaching a class at Portfolio Center over the past few months. This has been a new experience for me, as I’ve never taught before and it was only a few years ago that I was a student at PC. In my time away from the academic world, I started to miss it. Not only is teaching a chance to “drop-knowledge”, but I find it invigorating and refreshing. Perhaps I’m a huge design geek, but I enjoy talking about design with people who aren’t jaded with the industry. Rather, they are eager to excel at visual communication.

The name of the class is Entertainment Design (a broad name for “The Album Cover Class”). We focus on concept, branding, and typography for artists in the music industry; with the deliverables being album covers, packaging, posters, and various other marketing items. In the 1.5 quarters I’ve taught so far, we’ve had a live project for a major label artist and several guest presentations from my friends who work in the design industry.

I’m putting myself in the mindset of a student (which isn’t hard considering I used to go to school there) and trying to make this class-scenario a “dream class” for anyone with an open mind. If my homework assignments consisted of listening to music, going to the record store, and sketching (sober of course), I would have been more than happy to go above and beyond the call.

I don’t have many examples of student work coming out of my class because most students choose to photograph their packaging towards the end of their student careers. I was able to get one of my students (and new EC web-intern), Eric Dewyngaert, to send me a photo of his album packaging. It’s a new approach to The Deftones, titled “The Acoustic Experiment”. He asked himself, “What would happen if one of the hardest bands out there created an acoustic album?” He was able to track down live-acoustic performances of some of their most popular songs which were sonically peculiar and very intense. As you can see, Eric’s visual-reveal is what I envision being the result of many long recording sessions. Very cool.

Given that the name of the class is Entertainment Design, we may shift our focus in coming quarters to film and other performance arts, although I have a feeling that most of my students get a kick out of discovering new bands and listening to music as homework.

Also, there’s always an open invite to my buddies who want to drop in and give honest feedback! C’mon down…

I just received this in the mail from our friends at Armchair Media. It’s a clever device used to help translate and size real world items to the web. Thanks guys! Check out complete package after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Pr*tty Sh*tty is a great blog for all you design snobs out there. Topics include, the terrible Carolina Hurricanes jerseys to the prolifically-gross Papyrus font all over that lil’ Avatar movie…

The Atlanta Falcons finished the season at 9-7, just missing the playoffs, but this snaps a 44 year drought of not having consecutive winning seasons. It might not seem like much, but this is great progress for a team that was recently dismantled and reassembled with “more responsible” parts. Maybe next year, barring injuries, ATL can make a run at the top!

This Saturday, we’ll be at Eyedrum for the Harts 4The Holidays Trunk Sale. There will be Arts, Craft, Music & your favorite local brands selling their gear.

ALL (100%) proceeds and donations will go to benefit the SONGS FOR KIDS Foundation

@ EYEDRUM Art + Music Gallery
290 Martin Luther King Jr Dr S

Event Time: 12pm-6pm

For more info, Visit Esperanza’s Blog

Finally! You can customize your very own pair on Nike Air Max 1’s online at NikeiD.com. This is something I’ve been looking forward to doing for a long time. Just don’t copy my Poppyseed Bagel, Lox, & Cream Cheese inspired pair.

One of our favorite ATL-based artists, GREG.MIKE, recently sat down with Oh Snap Kid and spoke openly about his Popstars & Cokeheads art collection.

Rehab just released this exclusive remix via their twitter account. I changed the colorway of the single art I created a few weeks back for this track. Falcons throwback helmets anyone???

Download: Rehab - 1980 (Steaknife Remix)

This Friday, at Young Blood Gallery from 6-9, Drive-By Press will be there printing on the spot. Ryan O’Malley & Joseph Velasquez will have over a hundred custom prints for you to choose from. Bring a tee and let them make you an one of a kind tee. They may even let you print it yourself.

After Young Blood, we will be moving the party to El Bar for a few drinks and some great music provided by Brian Parris & Cristo Disco. Mention “Drive-By Press” at the door and get in free.

Check out more photos after the jump. Photos from the RDQLUS Blog
Read the rest of this entry »

One of my Portfolio Center students, Eric Dewyngaert, took his project to the next level this week. Here’s a brief explanation of this video according to him:

“A photoshoot undergoing the album packaging design for a Deftones acoustic album cover, The Acoustic Experiment. This is one of the most incredible things Ive ever gotten to do.”

My favorite part of this video is listening to all the people hootin’ and hollerin’ as they congregate around to witness the smashing.

I recently worked with emerging iPhone app developer, Khu.sh, on the branding and interface for their company and it’s new product, LaDida - a reverse karaoke app. You sing, and it makes up the music to accompany your voice. You can choose a genre of music and a tempo for each tune you sing. One of the greatest features of the app is that it allows you to share your tunes on social-networking sites such as facebook and twitter. Future updates will include more music genres and perhaps auto-tune.

This was my first time to work on anything for iPhone, but I found the experience very enjoyable and similar to web design, except you’re dealing with a much smaller canvas.

Download: LaDiDa.

Sweet stickers Hank! photo by Roger Wong

Congrats to Portfolio Center’s, Hank Richardson, for being the recipient of The Art Director’s Club’s Grandmaster Award. Hank is an amazing teacher and mentor to anyone looking to have a career in design. However, I’m not really grasping what the term “grandmaster” really means here. Maybe it means Hank gets black tees and John Lennon spectacles for life?

Seriously though, (I think I can speak for most people who have gone through the Portfolio Center curriculum), Hank has been one of the most influential figures in my life. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life until I randomly met Hank one day. After talking with him for several hours, I decided to take a risk, leave my job, and go to school at Portfolio Center.

Over the next few years, I was frequently subjected to his unorthodox teaching style which included 6am classes, weekend classes, marathon 12 hour classes, and the destruction of countless sketchbooks. I learned a tremendous amount from him on how to work hard, work smart, develop concepts, talk to clients, draft logos, work with type, and most importantly, believe in my abilities. He even invited me to return to Portfolio Center to teach a class of my own. I’m now teaching the class that I always wanted to take while I was at PC, Music Industry/Album Cover Design, and I’m having a blast doing so.

The above photo of Hank and I was taken by a classmate, Roger Wong, a few years ago when I was working with a live client on wine bottle designs while I was still a student. I have Hank to thank for setting up that experience, guiding me through the initial stages of the project, and letting me fly on my own. That bro totally changed my life!

The newest effort by our house line, We Are The Process, is called the “Love & War Collection”. We created this Lubalin-esque logotype for the collection as an homage to one of the greatest typographers of all time, Herb Lubalin. Keep an eye out, as you’ll start to see imagery and pieces from the Love & War collection very soon.

The Hawks revealed their new alternate jersey today at AtlantaStationz (Atlantic Station) at their “Paint the Town Red” event/pep rally. As we wished so dearly, it was pretty much exactly as we envisioned it months ago. YAY! I can’t wait to get a #27 Pachulia Authentic jersey, but it might take a few weeks for them to be available. Either way, I’m very excited that one of our local teams will be repping ATL hard on their jerseys.

As a cool side note, I was able to speak with Jamal Crawford at the event. Our conversation went like this:

Me: “Jamal!”
JC: “What’s up?”
Me: “I drafted you to my fantasy team yesterday”
JC: “You won’t be disappointed…”
Me: “Thanks bro, have a good season!”

Our friends, Rehab, are releasing the single, 1980, off of their acclaimed album, Graffiti the World. They asked EC to create artwork to go along with their radio-promo CD’s as well as art to accompany song downloads and other fun stuff.

The lyrics to the song remind me of a bro going to his high school reunion and hollering at shortys from way back. It just so happens that my 10-year reunion is coming up soon, so it made sense to draw Rehab’d “class ring”. I intended for the colors in the ring and background to dynamically change out to the school colors of the different regions they’d promote the song in. For example, Red/Black/White for Georgia/Athens area, and Orange/Blue/Green for Florida, and so forth. Somehow the management really liked the Varsity Gold and Maroon colorway I presented. I like it too, except it sort of reminds me of the worst NFL team ever ever ever (Redskins).

I’ve been reading a lot of Atlanta Hawks Basketblogs lately, and they’ve officially confirmed that the Hawks ARE unveiling a new alternate jersey on October 25th (3 days before Opening Night). I have a feeling (actually more like verbal confirmation from the beaks of designers at ATL Spirit) that they are going to be red jerseys with ATL written across the chest… similar to my mock-up that I posted during last season’s playoffs.

This is really exciting for peeps out there that are hardcore about sports-branding like myself. Sign me up for a #27 Zaza Pachulia joint!

photo taken from AJC.com

I apologize about the lack of updates lately. We, among other ATLiens, have experienced being flooded out from historic rains over the past few weeks. Here are some photos taken at our apartments by Jared Dalcourt this past Monday. Read the rest of this entry »

Check out our boy, Greg Mike, getting ready for his first solo show in San Francisco at the Medicine Agency . The show features hand painted pieces, sculptures, tee shirts, accessories, prints and collectibles designed and created over the past ten months. The centerpiece of the show is an army of 100 hand painted soda cans that have been transformed into the kaleidoscopic “POPSTARS AND COKEHEADS” characters, a playfully sinister cast of unique and eye-catching creatures. If you happen to be in San Francisco, go check out the show.

NOVEMBER 6TH, 2009
GREG MIKE’S: POPSTARS AND COKEHEADS
LOCATION: THE MEDICINE AGENCY
1262 MASON STREET. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

I just finished this illustration for our friend and local DJ, Rob Wonder. He’s been on tour with Scion this summer and just started a new campaign. We’ve been working on a few things with Rob so keep an eye out for more stuff to come soon. Photograph was taken by Zach Wolfe who just recently just shot the cover of Time magazine. Congrats Zach. Big things happening in Atlanta.

Here are a few close-up shots after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »