DIY Leather Macbook Case

So I missed last weeks Creative Collective (bummer) but I am so excited for this weeks!
My laptop has been getting a little dinged up lately and the Creative Collective post for this week was a Pinterest DIY.

Guess what I made!? A new home for my money maker! aka my Macbook pro. Seeing as my laptop is how I make a living I thought I should start taking better care of it! My buddy Kenton Sorenson was kind enough to give me some "scraps" from his leather work that he couldnt use. Make sure to check out his website.

Stay tuned for some products coming out of my studio soon using this leather and also concrete! Cant wait to show you all!

Creative Collective // Skillshare

This week the Creative Collective prompt was to - Take a Skillshare class -
Easy right? Kinda. Actually not really.

I have personally never taken a Skillshare class (and still haven't! oops.) but after checking it out I was blown away. There are classes on everything and anything creative, and after browsing for 5 mins I already wanted to take 10 different classes. A good problem to have I suppose.

This past weekend I went to the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point NOWhere Design Conference (my alma mater) where I took a workshop that I am using as my "Skillshare" class! It was a hand lettering workshop which is very popular on Skillshare so I figured it would count. Good enough right? The workshop was hosted by the very talented Xavier Casalta from France. He is an incredibly talented letter and works very hard at developing his craft. You have to check his work out. It is amazing. I was lucky enough to get to know him pretty well and cant wait to take a trip to France for a visit!!!

I haven't gotten a chance to transfer my design to nice artist paper but that is the next step! Let me know if you want one because I want to make prints to give out!

Xavier Casalta // WEB

Insta-Fam // @JonTheGingBeard @CasaltaXavier

Creative Collective // Anything Goes

So here we are again on this fine, warm, Wisconsin Wed. with the newest addition to Creative Collective! This week we get the chance to create some "anything goes art" which at first was a challenge for me. Being a professional artist that tends to plan things out and think way to much about the art I am creating made things tough. I decided to mess around in Photoshop on a new photography series I am working on and that's when things started to get fun!

This new body of work will be an exploration of a series of double exposed images that I created in college. I love this series and that is why I wanted to explore it further. To see my original series click // here // It was fun to dabble and explore where this new series could go and not worrying about how good the images look but instead find the potential or lack of potential in each image!

The originals were also featured in a poetry book I designed call Pictures & Poetry and featured on Neenah Papers blog! It was so much fun and I am so excited to expound on this series!

Leave feedback if you like! Hearing what other people think about the direction Im going is always good!

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Creative Collective // Mixtape #2

This is my second post for The Creative Collective, which has been such a great community blogging experience for me and everyone should check it out!

I had several ideas for this playlist and I started with some music that was very personal to me but it didn't pan out into a playlist... it wasn't interesting. So thanks to Pandora and several friends, I found some amazing new music! I love finding new artists and music to listen to. I attribute this to the fact that not only am I a designer by trade but I am also a professional musician and have a degree in Vocal Performance. Recently I have been writing and performing when I can find the time. I love being on stage. I would do it every day if I could! One day that will be a reality. One day.

The songs on this playlist are very new to me with the exception of a few songs, and even those are new, I have just listened to them obsessively for the last 2 weeks so they don't seem as new as the others. When I find a song/artist I like I cant help but put them on repeat! Its a blessing, not a curse ;)

Please check out all these artists. Most of them are still up and coming and need all the support they can get, so lets help them out! Hopefully some day soon you can also support me by listening to my new music! Until then check out this Creative Collective playlist on Spotify. If you don't have Spotify you dont know what you are missing and you need to download it now! It will change your life and only takes a few mins (they should be paying me haha). It changed the way I experienced music! Amazing!

Listen to the playlist below or find me on your Spotify Player and check out this and many other fun playlists to enjoy later!
Listen // Spotify

If you are interested in hearing me perform check out my cover of Not In Nottingham // here // I recorded, produced and shot the video as well! So much fun!

Photo Credit: Jon King Design

Creative Collect // Celebrate

This is my first installment of The Creative Collect. What is this Creative Collect you say? It is a spectacular concept for creative blogger such as myself brought to you by Melyssa from The Nectar Collective. "It’s based on the idea of community and creation. 23 planned out creative activities for 2014 — all you have to do is show up and get your groove on." For all the details check it out here! I just found out about it this morning so this post is a little "fly by the seat of my pants." Just the way I like it!

The first activity is to // Think of a word(s) that you want to focus on in 2014. Easy enough (NOT)! Once you have your word or words grab your crayons, markers, paint, glue, "cough" wine... Whatever gets your creative juices flowing and create a masterpiece!

The words I chose were // Celebrate w/ Strangers

This may seem a little strange to you all but the idea actually came to me about a month ago when I was trying to think of a cool birthday party to throw myself. I am so cool that I have to throw myself a Quarter Century party. The big 25. Scary. I knew I would be out of town visiting a friend over my birthday and I had this idea to throw a party and only invite friends of this friend that I was visiting. Crazy ha? Well my birthday is in a week and I still dont know if this conceptually abstracted birthday party is going to happen, but it did get me thinking even more about celebrating with strangers and how wonderful it would be if we all celebrated the achievements of others even if we didn't know them. And they would celebrate with me even if they didn't know me. It would be like one huge fan club.

As a freelance designer I am always working with people I dont know and often hand off my work and never get to celebrate my clients successes. I want to celebrate with them as they grow and develop as a business or an individual, and I want to see how my designs have positively impacted them.

Celebrating brings joy to yourself and others. So lets band together as creatives, coworkers, families, and strangers and celebrate each others lives and achievements. Lets Celebrate w/ Strangers.