Hasta La Ideas

Squarespace allows bloggers to take a hands-on approach to their website. Through the well-designed interface, great selection of templates, easy customization and robust platform, it is a great DIY solution for creating an online presence, particularly for those in creative fields.

UPPERCASE magazine‘s readers are designers, illustrators, bloggers, crafters, entrepreneurs—people who express themselves through all media in both their professional and personal lives. Though a print magazine, the UPPERCASE community is well-connected through the blog, twitter, flickr, etsy and other social media. The content is a collaboration with its print and blog readers and subscribers—as such it really is a magazine “handmade” by its own readership. The readership is enthusiastic, engaged and feel strongly that it is their magazine.

The theme “handmade by you” expresses both of our audiences: a person’s signature is a basic way for someone to declare ownership and assert their personality. Through handwriting and drawing, we express our individuality. An artist signs their creative work. Grafitti and tagging take claim of urban spaces. And so, at the ALT party, Squarespace and UPPERCASE will invite attendees to use handwriting, doodling and tagging to declare their passions.

Follow the live blog and party pictures here:

http://altminiparty.sqsp.com/

Here are Ryan of Squarespace and me testing out the video/photo concept:

I’ve put a huge amount of effort into planning this party, so please come by. FREE MAGAZINES!!!

Our friend Marko Manriquez and his fellow creatives at 319 Scholes are pleased to announce that they are hosting a “huge interactive hacking event”in their 3,000 sf exhibition space in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Art Hack Day is (somewhat contrary to its name) a 48-hour marathon of digital creative activity—”part happening, part hackathon”—featuring “many prominent hackers, netartists and geeks in their respective fields will spend 3 days straight creating amazing works of interactivity, digital fabrication and DIY.”

Art Hack Day is an event dedicated to cracking open the process of art making, with special reverence toward open-source technologies. Between January 26-28, artists and collaborators will inhabit 319 Scholes to create and explore the participatory nature of technology, bringing together hackers whose medium is art and artists whose medium is technology. The event will be streamed to online audiences, who will be encouraged to participate through various platforms to be listed on the ArtHackDay.net website. Visitors are invited to engage and interact with the projects online throughout the hack, as well as join the teams on Saturday night starting at 7:00pm for a closing exhibition, live performances, and a massive party.

Rendering of the space

The general public is invited to attend the closing party on Saturday, January 28; RSVP on Facebook.

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It’s shaping up to be another eventful year for Tom Dixon and his addictive forms. On Friday, the self-taught designer-maker will debut his collection of everyday home accessories and design objects at Maison & Objet in Paris. “Eclectic by Tom Dixon” includes gift-ready goodies made of materials such as copper, marble, cast iron, and wood. But that’s nothing compared to what he’s got in store for Milan Design Week. Come April, Dixon and friends will transform the National Museum of Science and Technology Milan into MOST, a new cultural hub that will showcase the creations and wares of a handpicked group of designers, curators, and companies.

“In a fit of spontaneous madness we decided that the world’s most important meeting place for global design obsessives needed a new epicenter, a space for quiet contemplation or chaotic energy—a platform for the exchange of big ideas,” said Dixon in a statement announcing the project, which kicks off on April 17. “We have created a place where we can demonstrate the new democratization and hyperactive innovation of technology in art, food, fashion, manufacturing, and communication.” His creative partners on the project are Design Miami veteran Ambra Medda and Milan native Martina Mondadori, who is working with TAR Magazine to assemble a slate of lectures and seminars that will take place in the museum’s gorgeous auditorium (pictured). MOST will provide each exhibitor with an individual space within the approximately 400,000-square-foot museum, and there will be an overall exhibition theme. Exhibits of various sizes, positioned inside and outside of the museum, are expected to create a carnival-like environment. Interested in exhibiting? Contact Alice Foster (Alice.Foster@tomdixon.net) for more information and an application.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Our latest video takes a look at the lesser known athletes in bull riding

It’s not every day that the rodeo comes to New York City, and we were recently invited to get a peak behind the curtain at the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event at Madison Square Garden. We talked with Jacke Carnefix, Senior Manager of Public Relations for the PBR, and got some insight into the life and times of the lesser-known participants—the bulls. While most attention goes to their human counterparts, the bulls that take the stage in high-level riding competitions are highly esteemed athletes in their own right, bred and trained specifically to be expert buckers. In this video, you can check out some intense rodeo action, and, if you have ever seen MSG on a regular night, you may be shocked by its transformation to a rodeo ring. The build-out morphed the infamous home of the New York Knicks into a massive dirt-covered pen, offering a pleasantly disorienting experience for locals.

With dynamo conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the helm and the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall as a venue, the Los Angeles Philharmonic is a cultural force to be reckoned with. This year, the LA Phil kicks off a three-year project celebrating the operatic collaborations of librettist Lorenzo da Ponte and composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with some impressive collaborations of its own. The upcoming production of Don Giovanni will feature sets by Gehry and costumes by Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte.

“This is a project very close to Gustavo Dudamel’s heart. He knows the music like the back of his hand, and has a unique vision that I find very exciting,” said Gehry in a statement issued by the LA Phil announcing the creative team and cast for Don Giovanni, which premieres on May 18. “Kate and Laura’s work reminds me of my early days—it is free and fearless and not precious.” This marks the Mulleavys first foray into operatic costume design, following their show-stopping tutus for the film Black Swan. “Opera has always been a part of us; our grandmother was from Rome and studied it as a young girl,” said the sisters, now at work on costumes that will create “a timeless context” for Mozart’s characters. “Working with Frank Gehry in the concert hall that he designed, alongside Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a dream.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.