Thursday, July 22, 2010

If a tree fell and nobody blogged about it would you still hear about it on twitter?

This last weekend IOP took a much needed break from digitizing the last 4 years of our lives and watched a movie. Little did I consider that the film would in fact revolve around the very same concept. If you haven’t seen it - the movie Julie and Julia is about how writing a blog can destroy everything it touches – including people, books and food from the past.

Luckily since we employ no professional writers here - the titanic powers of the blog are muted at best, but the movie still left me with a self-loathing ennui that only someone with a blog can truly fathom. After all as the movie proved thoroughly via fiction- today we can blog it, photograph it and lay it out so nicely - but who or what going to put substance into our lives? Titans of the past? Us? LOL cats?

Since we at IOP have not done much to destroy culture in the past few years – I spent a little time thinking about where the true blame might fall.

Who made the idea of typing some nonsense on the computer equal to saving a life or translating French cooking into a vernacular Americans could understand?


Who indeed …and then it came to me in a flash – I know the first time I saw someone pecking out their most intimate thoughts onto the glowing screen of a computer monitor. I know who encouraged us all to take the grand events of a real life and encapsulate it into a few quips to never fade away. Season after season he brought us closer to the brink of mass self projection and perhaps we should recognize him now for what he has done.


Doogie Howser brought us the blog and thus perhaps our ruin.

I trusted him - we all did - because he after all was a genius child doctor.

Now I just don’t know what to think every time I read:
  • A blog about Japanese biker gangs riding vintage American motorcycles in Japan posted in American blogs about Old school motorcycling in America.
  • A blog linking to a site offering us all the ability to dress EXACTLY like Mel Gibson in the Road Warrior.
  • A blog about someone’s house - on the other side of the planet - that is way cooler than your house will ever be.

Frankly it scares me – Why? Because I love it all too much and I think you might feel the same way.

Perhaps as penance we should ask Neil Patrick Harris to write & sing us a song about the heavy burden of the invention of blogging


Perhaps that would ease the imbalance I sense in the universe.



Hiram Kneesch *transcribed from a text via Bruce McClure



Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The Process of chocolate


If you haven’t tried Olive and Sinclair’s chocolate yet here in Nashville you really should. Over the last two years we have had to do a lot of “product research” as we worked on creating packaging befitting such an awesome local product.
Here are a few shots of the process:

Early sketches as we worked on creating the original wrapper designs – Since eating chocolate is pretty fun we tried to convey that same feeling in the artwork.

Possibly the first incarnation of the design



Working out the details



Early color version



One of the final team effort production versions based on our art







A few shots of the hand printed boxes we helped design for O & S to use as both packaging and display. In the spirit of multiple reuses - the boxes will soon feature prints on the bottom of the boxes to keep after all the chocolate has been sold.
More to see soon! Check out the O&S website and blog here



Be your own Genie




Two Etsy sales and climbing!

For every parent that thinks art school is a road to ruin I like to think there is a shop like ours proving them wrong. Follow your dreams - if you dare – life doesn’t last nearly as long as you think it might.
Also………..
Remember buying a print is like granting a wish.

OKAY - my personal hover craft is waiting– gotta split!

Hiram Kneesch

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

If Sherraden uses a computer I guess we better try it too



Hello my friends – fear not – contrary to what our recent internet posts would have you believe - time did not in fact stop on May 21, 2010. It is still rolling ever forward.

Hooray !!!

And though no blog was updated or picture uploaded, things have been cooking on in our little corner of the universe. IOP has rejoined the electronic front of 21st century in force! – we invite you to look for many new things to see in our website and on our fancy new ETSY site?! And there is more still to come. Stacked up and waiting for final approach are about 3 or four years worth of goings on in our little shop...

So stay tuned, stay sweet and stay our facebook friend forever and ever and ever

Until Hiram shows up -
Your loyal servant

B McClure