Recent Work, The Great Lemmy Killmister, and Instagram

[Our new Hoodzpah logo and it's accompanying motto: "Shine On" inspired by Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond."]

I have been rather slack on my personal blogging of recent due to the fact that I've been funelling all of my efforts into my twin sis Jen and I's new design company, Hoodzpah Art + Graphics! We have a business lisence, a website, bank accounts - and we really made it official because now we're on twitter and facebook too! I designed the website with the help of the savvy Chris Steblay who has done quite a bit of this in his day. Shameless shout out! He's been filming a lot or rad stuff for Nike's "Chosen" campaign recently. Check out his blog for some clips of that and a slew of other great videos and photos from his various adventures. Anyways, Hoodzpah is up and running and open for business! If you need art or graphics, we're your gals. 


Check us out on twitter here
And on facebook here
(Hit "like"... you know you wanna...)


In other news, I'm back on my "The Beatniks, The Bastards, & The Saints" series. I'm working on a painting of my friend Jordan Sabolick right now. That's right kids... the one and only Jordan Sabolick a.k.a guitarist for The Union Line. Jordo's one of the funniest, nicest chaps around, and has that look that perfectly suits my series. So far the painting is going along swimmingly!

I recently got the Instagram app on my iPhone and I have become a monster. You could spend hours choosing a filter from their wide assortment of awesome photo filters. If Words With Friends weren't taking up enough of my life, now I've got this. I'm becoming the iPhone user I hoped I'd never become - the one glued to it at all times, tweeting, facebooking, and texting people that are in the same room as them. *Shudder* I digress. Above are a few photos of the painting as it stands from my Instagram account. 

What's inspiring me these days? Well I just watched the documentary "Lemmy" today. It covers the life and times of Motorhead's Lemmy Killmister, and what a life he's had. I need to start dropping by the Rainbow Room when I'm in LA more so I can run into the old legend. It's ridiculous I haven't done that yet when I live so close to such a legendary place that plays second home to one of rock's greatest. Anyways, it was a really interesting watch, on a very interesting bloke. It's on netflix. Rent it. (It's not on Instant Play... sorry kids.)


- Amy
Listening to: "Blind Tom" by Grant-Lee Philips

Another Playlist for You: Featuring Ryan Bingham, The Stevenson Ranch Davidians, The Clash & Oh So Much More

Retro Poster Design, More Logos, & How Zombies Are Like Totally The New Pink

 [Fig. 1: MM final logo (top center) with other options that were unused.] 

I've recently doing some work with my friend Kc's production company Modern Myth Productions. I posted a blog a while back with the progress of our logo design so I thought I'd post the rest of our progress as well as the final design. Our final logos were the simple MM (see Fig. 1) and then a more complex visual logo (see Fig. 2). 

 [Fig. 2: MM final complex logo (top center) with our progression below.] 

They also had me design a poster for their podcast "We're Alive." It's a wildly popular podcast about zombies and the end of the world. Sounds epic right? It is. You can listen to it here and its FREE! Anyways, they wanted to make some posters up that had a vintage movie poster feel for the show. Like Mad Men retro style. Here's what we ended up with. 

 [Fig. 3: MMP Poster. ©Amy Hood] 

Speaking of zombies, I just saw the new video for Cage The Elephant's "Around My Head" which is hilariously good. Zombies... they're, like, so hot right now. Finally my hometown of Bowling Green, KY can be known for more than putting out Corvettes and Fruit of the Loom underwear. We can now say we put out a great rock n' roll band thanks to these boys. Enjoy...


Amy
Listening to: Cage The Elephant's "Around My Head"

Cage The Elephant - Music - More Music Videos

New Logo Designs, HAMMERHOOD, & The Horror of Wipe Out

[ HAMMERHOOD logo ©Amy Hood ]

Here's a new logo I worked on for HAMMERHOOD, the collab between me and the great Timmy Ham. I did a blog on Timmy (a.k.a SLOTH) a while back that you should definitely check out. He is a graffiti artist/designer/customizer-of-amazing-Vans. Not only that, he's hilarious and he's my partner in crime for the above said art collab that we're currently working on and hope to finish the first installment of soon. Once the first one is done (which you can see the progress of by clicking here) we'll try to sell it and donate the proceeds to charity. It probably won't be much, but we're trying to give back in our own little way and every little bit helps! 


Now it's back to working on my portfolio. Guhhhh. Shoot me. Going though all of my files and trying to figure out which pieces are my best design work is the worst. It's worse than a Wipe Out marathon. That's pretty bad. Wish me luck friends. 


- Amy
Listening to: Otis Redding's "That's How Strong My Love Is"

Barber Shops, Meeting Rockstars, & Wearing Sunglasses At Night

INSPIRATION OF THE DAY: Fast Eddie's Barber Shop


This brand identity is by designer Richard Arthur Stewart for Fast Eddie's Barber Shop. I wish I created this logo/brand identity. It's soooo delicious. If I were a man I would definitely go to a barber shop and get my mustache trimmed and my hair pomade-d. Preferably at this barber shop. I found this great logo/identity while doing research for a new logo project I'm working on. 

I should get back to it because I've got a BBQ with Sweet later. That's right, you heard me, Sweet [See Fig. 1]. The very band that brought you "Ballroom Blitz." Jen and I met them on an airport shuttle on our way home from LAX this week. We had flown out to participate in our BFF's wedding (shout out to you Liz Logsdon - errr - Stevenson!). Not only did we meet Sweet on our travels, we also met LA DJ Skrillex [See Fig. 2]. He was so pleasant and nice and he's quite the DJ. He's worked with the likes of Deadmau5 and Lady Gaga. He started talking to us because he thought we were in a band and on our way to the same music festival as he was (greatest mistaken identity ever). Now that I think of it, Sweet also thought we were in a band. It was probably because we were wearing sunglasses at night and leather jackets. We were working on zero hours of sleep after an 11 hour flight delay, so give us a break. Having said that though, I've got to start wearing sunglasses indoors and at night more often now! Anyways, it was quite the adventure between the wedding and all the rockstar sightings. So good day to you good folks. Have a great Sunday fun day!

[ Fig. 1: Sweet back in the day.]

[Fig. 2: Skrillex]

- Amy

Listening to: Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz"

Hoodzpah Logos, The Glory of Freelancing, & Pink Floyd

[All rights reserved. © Amy Hood.]

Life after The OC Gazette has been a wild and exciting (and busy) ride! Yes, I am no longer at the little local magazine where I got my start in graphic design those four years ago. It was the perfect ending to that chapter of my life though. I learned a lot, met a lot of great people, and grew a lot as a designer. Now it's on to new and exciting ventures where I can grow even more! The next chapter? Hoodzpah, baby. Jen (my lovely sister) and I's freelance art and design company is now at priority number one and we are readily accepting all the work we can get our grimy little hands on! Freelancing is a glorious, glorious thing. You get to make your own hours, work when you need to, take breaks when you want to, and you can choose your projects and workload. For that same reason it's hard too, because it takes so much discipline to stay on top of everything and to be diligent and keep a schedule. If it weren't for my handy planner, no work would be done - I'd just be vegging out at the beach, trolling facebook and conquering my Netflix Instant Watch queue all day. 

With a new company comes the daunting and arduous task of branding. Designing a logo for yourself as a designer is one of the hardest things EVAHHH. The glory of being a designer is that you get to try all different styles because you get to work with a slew of unique clients, but when you're designing for yourself you have to pick ONE style to define you as a graphic artist - and its TERRIFYING! It's like the first day of high school when you have to figure out where you're going to sit at lunch. That spot will define you for your whole life! (Well, for the next four years, which seems like your whole life at that age.) All that being said, here are some logo ideas I came up with for Hoodzpah last night. So far I think I'm liking the B series of designs best. All input and ideas are welcome! We knew we wanted to incorporate a diamond(s) in the logo somehow to reference Pink Floyd's mind-blowing and inspiring 13 1/2 minute song "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." If we had a theme song - this would be it. 8 minute intro and all. If this doesn't stir something deep within you, then you're just not human. 

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.

Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom, 

blown on the steel breeze.

Come on you target for faraway laughter, 

Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!

You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Well you wore out your welcome with random precision,

rode on the steel breeze.

Come on you raver, you seer of visions, 

come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine! 

Alright, it's off to work on a poster for my friend Kc's awesome podcast We're Alive, a podcast about zombies and the end of the world. It's great, but don't take my word for it, take their 4 million listeners' word for it. Did I mention it's free? Nothing like free quality entertainment! Download it here. 

- Amy

Listening to: Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (Duh.)

Another Playlist: featuring Morrissey, Dead Man's Bones, Black Sabbath & more...

Another playlist to tickle your ears. Some good ole' rock n' roll to get through this CRAZY busy day of designing, phone calls and illustrating. Maybe one of these days I'll actually post some art again. Someday... (Cue the playlist.)

 -Amy