Top 20 Albums of 2012

In no particular order here are the albums that topped my list for the 2012 calendar year. Enjoy. 

1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - The Heist

2. Odissee - People Hear What They See

3. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave

4. The Avett Brothers - The Carpenter

5. Electric Guest - Mondo

6. Baroness - Yellow and Green

7. Every Time I Die - Ex Lives

8. Grimes - Visions

9. Grizzly Bear - Shields

10. El-P - Cancer 4 Cure

11. Hot Water Music - Exister

12. Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

13. Alabama Shakes - Boys and Girls

14. Jack White - Blunderbuss

15. Santi Gold - Master of my Make Believe

16. Hospitality - Hospitality

17. The Shins - Port of Morrow

18. Gold Motel - Gold Motel

19. Aesop Rock - Skelethon

20. Coasta - Sunzal EP

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Spent my weekend designing a custom vinyl chess set for America’s Foundation for Chess. #baji_group

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number34:

SAVE THE DATE!

Happy and excited to announce the opening of 50 and 50: The State Mottos Show! 

Join us on Wednesday, December 19th at the Ace Hotel in New York City and check 50 leading designer’s interpretation of their own state motto. Read more about the project HERE. 

Delicious beer provided by Sixpoint. Good vibes provided by you. Freedom provided by the US of A. 

Hope to see you all there. 

My piece will be there. Sadly I will not.

Holiday Spirit

For the few years I worked at Fender I would take on the annual task of designing the brand holiday cards. Creating the cards always served to put me in the holiday spirit and build excitement for the coming festivities.

I’m not designing any holiday related items this year (for now) so I thought I would substitute by posting up some of the old work I completed for FMIC.

Merry Christmas. 

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Another thing I made on my phone using a variety of apps.

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Playing around with #overapp some more. Another piece that was shot, edited and typeset on my iPhone. (at Discovery Park)

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I wonder if the “high water roll” trend started in the #PNW as a practical way to keep your pants from getting wet. It would make sense.

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Photographed, processed, collaged and typeset with my phone. Pretty cool.

Lots of new work added to my site, as well as a few aesthetic upgrades. 

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Away We Go. 

First off, let me say that I tried to talk myself out of making this announcement via longwinded, sappy, nostalgia-filled blogpost. It’s a tad more self-indulgent than I’m comfortable with but there are a lot of people out there I want to share the news with and I hate talking on the phone (plus I’m pretty sappy), so here we are. 

To get down to the brass tacks… I’m quitting my job, leaving my friends and family, abandoning the city I’ve grown to love, changing my name (you can call me Johnny), vacating the home I’ve worked so hard on, taking my wife (and ill-mannered dogs) and moving to Seattle to start a creative agency. 

As I write that out I am realizing for the first time just how insane it sounds. Sanity aside, I’ve been blessed with the chance to pursue a long-standing dream alongside a group of guys with more talent and ambition than you can shake a stick at and I’m not going to let opportunity pass me by. 

With the opening of every new door comes the closing of another and leaving behind the life we’ve built in Phoenix will not be an easy thing to do. Paige and I have been in the valley of the Sun for nearly five years now and they have far and away been the best of our lives. Those years have seen us go from unemployed newlyweds with few friends and less money. To a happy couple with great jobs, our own home, a couple of dogs and a massive community of wonderful people around us. We’ve been incredibly blessed with our life here in Phoenix but it’s time for a new adventure. 

Things I Will Desperately Miss:

Seven months a year of perfect weather. Having family two blocks away. The Phoenix Design Community. Monday nights at The Main Ingredient. Sunsets in the desert. Sharing a city with several of my childhood and still best friends. Redemption Church. Downtown Phoenix. The ridiculousness/awesomeness that is my neighborhood. Hanging with Caden and Clive. Front porch philosophizing with amazing friends. Shows at The Crescent Ballroom. A downtown community that is eager to take on the challenges of their city and make it a better place. Too many people to name. 

Things I Will Not Miss:

Five months a year of hellish heat. The Sprawl. Jan Brewer. Energy bills in the summer. Sweating at night. Lifted trucks with Tap Out stickers. Constantly watering plants to keep them from exploding into flames. Dust storms. Strip malls. Mega malls. Living in a city that makes national news for all the wrong reasons. Wearing sandals. APS. Being geographically and culturally isolated in the middle of a giant desert. 

I realize that I’m going from one extreme to another. A city with 300 some odd days of sunshine a year, to one with less than a third of that. A state that lets you carry guns into bars, to one that just outlawed plastic bags. I know a lot of people are thinking that this is going to be a more significant shift than I’m anticipating and I may, in fact end up hating my life. And they might be right but I’m not too scared by that possibility to be deterred from finding out.

The little bit of time I have spent in Seattle was fantastic and I can’t wait to explore more of what the city and Pacific Northwest in general has to offer. I mean just think about it. Snowboarding in the winters, mountain biking in a rain forrest, weekend trips to Vancouver, endless coffee shops, walkable neighborhoods, adventures to Portland, oh and one of the world’s greatest music scenes. What I’m trying to say is, I think I’ll get by. 

I think I’ve rambled long enough. If you’ve made it this far I commend your dedication and thanks for caring. Here’s to the next chapter. 

The posters I designed for last week’s Manchester Orchestra show at The Crescent Ballroom are now available online. I only have ten so get one while they last. 

Click here to purchase

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whatitladue:

Hanging with Jonas H. Croft.

Doing werk. 

thetypefight:

E = Magnificent Characters x The Speed of Helvetica Light squared. Today, Matt Goold’s Atomic-powered skills meet Jon Ashcroft’s Einsteinian intellect.  There’s an astronomical battle afoot, and these massive forces aim to cancel each other out. So solve this equation for us and vote.

I added a few new pieces to the site this week. 

The first is a manifesto I worked up for Jackalope Ranch. The reversible poster forces the viewer to change their perspective both metaphorically and literally.

The second is an editorial piece for Java Magazine about Seasonal Depression. Something I struggle with in August when it’s 110+ degrees for weeks on end.  

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As part of my multifaceted assault on the internet I finally built out my Society 6 store. Check it out, buy lots of prints and let me know what other pieces you might be interested in purchasing should I put them up. 

http://society6.com/jonashcroft