A little over a year ago I was given the opportunity to create an identity and plant the seeds of brand for Proper Barber Shop based here in Denver. The shop is ran by master barber, craftsmen, and good friend Jordan Weinstein. Recently Sailor Jerry featured Jordan in an installment of their Hold Fast series. In the video Jordan discusses his take on tradition and dedication to craft. Taken from personal experience Jordan is an extremely skilled craftsmen and a very passionate one at that. Jordan broadcasts ‘barber shop banter’ over twitter and facebook, though nothing replaces spending a half hour or so at Proper talking shop with the boys.
Proper Barber Shop has joined forces with PBR to bring all of the best art from the PBR Colorado art shows under one roof. This Friday night join the gents from Proper along with DJ Ginger Perry and buckets of free PBR for the opening reception highlighting the best of the best. Featuring artwork by Josh Holland, Jouvelt, Absinthe Photography, and more.
Proper Barber Shop : Friday November 4th : 7pm – 10pm : 3923 Tennyson Street
To all of our friends, family, and community in Denver we regret to inform you we are no longer associated in any way shape or form with The Shoppe: Cupcake and Cereal Bar on Colfax. We’ve been silently attempting to resolve conflicts with our former business partner in the background while they have continued to manage the day-to-day operation of The Shoppe for a little over a year now.
While trying to sort everything out we were advised to remain silent, which we respected. Over this past year we’ve had multiple people approach us with negative experiences and comments in regards to doing business at The Shoppe, and as a result we felt it was our responsibility to come forward in public and announce that we are no longer affiliated with the business. We had a very specific vision for The Shoppe, that image was part of everything we did during our control of the business from customer service, the environment, down to the music that was played and art that hung on the wall. We know that many of you showed your patronage at The Shoppe because we made it a priority to provide a positive experience with good vibes every chance we got, we cannot thank you all enough for the support and encouragement you showed us during that time. We are extremely fortunate to have been a part of the community and family along East Colfax and are both very proud of what we all accomplished. We apologize to anyone that has had a negative experience during our absence and want you all to know that moving forward, The Shoppe is no longer owned, operated, or managed by either of us. The current owner continues to do business under the name, idea and branding we created without our consent. If you continue to enjoy the service and experience The Shoppe provides, so be it, to each their own, we just want you all to know if The Shoppe seems to be a little off as of late, different, or not quite the same, there is both a rhyme and a reason.
Though saddened by what has went down over the past year, we will not let this slow us down. We believe in the Denver community that has shown us nothing but love for the past several years, as a result we are currently focusing and putting our positive energy into our newest venture Super Ordinary, a gallery/community creative space in the Rhino District off 31st and Larimer. We will have monthly shows every second Saturday featuring work from established and emerging local, national, and international artists. The space will also hold other events, classes, lectures, and happenings throughout each month. We also continue to collaborate with other passionate small business owners in and around Denver on a variety of projects from creating fashion and art events to bed and breakfast’s and barbershops. We will do our best to create other spaces and experiences around town that honor everything we have all been building together for the past 7 years.
My wife Tran and I have been busy the past couple weeks building out a new space that will house our first pop up store. Having taken a few months off since closing down the permanent storefront we wanted this space to more accurately reflect our individual design aesthetic and personalities. The permanent storefront ended up becoming a quite repetitive and stale environment for us. The pop up model will allow us to pair what we offer with the space it’s being offered in. As a result the soft goods and accessories housed in this iteration of The Fabric Lab are the result of a curative process that ensured everything throughout is cohesive and presented in a more thoughtful way than we’ve been able to accomplish with past versions of the store.
I’m writing this post under the influence of excitement, anticipation, and a wee bit of exhaustion… I’m equally proud to announce the completion and simultaneously the opening of the new but temporary The Fabric Lab.
Please join us on June 12th as we open up the space to the public for the first time and celebrate our new home on Colfax in Denver. Postman will be plugging in and cranking out tuneage throughout the day, Tran and I will be in full effect with pregnant bellies up in your face. We are looking forward to sharing the fruits of our labor and the toils of our friends with you. The Fabric Lab Pop Up Store is tentatively scheduled to run through the end of September. Regular business hours will be 10PM TO 9PM DAILY.
The Fabric Lab Pop Up Store at Mod Livin’ : Opening Reception : June 12th :
5327 Colfax Avenue Denver, CO : 12PM – 6PM
Above is a few snaps of the Create Denver Week Pop-Up store build-out in progress courtesy of Samuel Schimek with 15 Min. Sam concepted and conceived the idea of a pop-up store that is filled with artwork, clothing, jewelry, paper products, and other items that have all been designed and developed by Denver artists and creatives… I’ll be in the space this afternoon trying to help with the final push before the doors open for a week starting tomorrow. The Store opens April 10th and is open until April 17th running in conjunction with Create Denver week… business hours will be
11am – 7pm daily!
Create Denver Week Pop-Up Store : 1600 Glenarm Denver, CO : Open Daily between 04/10/10 – 04/17/10 : 11AM – 7PM
ELM&OAK just added their spring line of merch to the site. Their store has 12 new items on a super limited run, 3 of which were designed by yours truly (Perfect, Destroy, Rebuild / Space Mickey / Local Hero). Stop by to take a closer peek and grab something while you can. I think there were under 50 of each item printed. Hand sewn tags printed on American Apparel.
After a period of considerable debate and frustration, I present to you, a sneak peek of my pieces for Duplicate of a Duplicate coming up next week at Black Sheep in NC. I’m probably making it all sound way worse than it was, but being so used to doing brief based work and having a finite solution to most of the projects I have, I struggled a bit trying to pump these out. I have a bad habit of redoing drawings and fiddling with colorways way too much for these sorts of art projects, plus I’m always trying to one up myself for some damn reason… BUT I think I’ve finally gotten a good grasp on an aesthetic I like and a good process with this set, that I’ll be able to work and evolve from here on out!
Stay posted for pics and additional information. If you are in NC and can make it to this show, please hit me back with any photos and / or glorious stories about the event.
Apparel projects, logos, art shows, illustrations and CD packaging… The list is growing as my third official month as full time freelancer kicks into gear. In that time, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a large variety of friends, clients and collaborators on a bundle of really great projects. One of the most recently completed, is the packaging design for Mike Swoop’s upcoming release “New Love.” Along with the packaging, I put together a handful of sticker designs, shirts and promo materials based on the identity system I built for the release. It was a refreshing change of pace from being somewhat limited in the variety mediums I get to work on a single project. Check back on BWLT of my site for info and additional photos of this project and others that are in the midst of being wrapped up.
One of the finishing touches to any identity project or space redesign would be a sign. Saying that, I would like to share the new Fifth Element identity and sign for the shop on 24th & Hennepin here in Minneapolis. The sign went up a few weeks back and the space is being slowly being finished as the last few fixtures are being rolled in.
Aside from the identity redesign and space build out, they will be carrying the look/feel over to the online store as well. Which if rumor serves me right, is being hammered away on as we speak. For a quick peek at my proposed version of the site please swing over to the Lifter Baron site and check it out for yourself.
It’s up and running… Probably a couple things here and there so don’t piss yourselves if something winks back. I spent far too much time in too small a period to not assume I will make adjustments and add more things. Regardless of my weary ramblings, please take a look and pass it on. Thank you my dear readers…
The font has yet to be completed but will be available for download along with other tasty treats as soon as the new Lifter Baron site goes live (hopefully this week). I have plans of doing the numerals as well as standard punctuation in a bundle. Keep your eyes peeled for info on the launch of my new site as well as the date for download on this and more.
DOOMTREE‘s new site just went live last night and already seems to be getting a good response! I (Lifter Baron) had the chance to work with DOOMTREE in collaboration with Sevnthsin over the past couple months to work out some great additions and adaptations to their previous site as well as help the crew pro up their image a bit. They are using a handful of social apps and services to share info and promote shows, releases and merch. Underneath the clean aesthetic, we tied in all of those social media tools to easily update fans with minute to minute information and refreshes. We also built a mobile site and downloadable widget to get that content wherever you might be to make sharing simple. Flexibility and adaptation was the key factor in this whole project; and with time and use, the site will grow and evolve into an uber dynamic sharing tool for the group and their fans.
Here’s a quick peek at a tasty little collabo between super fantastic sock server, AshiDashi, and the Villain. Look out for updates on this and other delicious side projects and diabolical dealings coming up. Muahahahahah!!!
