the 2012 Olympics logo/brand stinks!

Posted on August 28, 2010 by sharif

A friend of mine in London told me today about Wenlock, the mascot for the 2012 Olympics. We laughed for a moment about how odd looking he/she/it is. I was having a good “lol” until something very very serious caught my eye. …..I’m sorry….I need a moment….let me preface this by saying that this is OLD OLD news but I either didn’t know about it or I blocked it out…but…can we talk about London’s 2012 Olympic logo brand? I believe 3 letters sum this up: Double-U Tee Eff? Seriously…this is crap. This is soooo f*cking bad…I’m not making this stuff up people. This is real. This is not a drill. This is an actual thing that’s not only been made and out there since 2007 but cost $800,000 to create!!!! …and I’m not a millionaire!? WHAAAAATTT!!!? I’m…shocked. I’m…offended, nay, highly-offended. I know. I know…most people who were paying attention got all this out years ago, but the company who made (not designed) this thing and the folks behind the Olympics said “It’s not a logo; it’s a brand that will take us forward for the next five years…” Well, you’re 3 years in people and this ain’t looking any better! Supposedly the logo brand “is a truly innovative brand logo that graphically captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games — namely, to inspire young people around the world through sport and Olympic values..” word!? like, for real…? Since when does inspiration feel like upchuck? I’m so insanely confused and sad about this thing. Really. All of a sudden those terrible AOL logos make a whole lot more sense.

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look süper-düper-über-cool with MON merch!

Posted on August 17, 2010 by sharif

A customer decided to send me this great photo of herself sporting a couple of the pendants she bought. Look at how much fun she’s having…and doesn’t she look super-über-cool!? Don’t YOU wanna look süper-düper-über-cool!? Well…buy some merch and you will!

customer wearing shot through the heart

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I’m a trendsetter…or am I?

Posted on August 10, 2010 by sharif

Thanks to @FernGlazer for passing this along to me. Apparently what I’m making is on the cutting edge. Why didn’t someone tell me? Better yet, why didn’t someone tell Trend Central to include me!? My Emotions Can Be Dangerous line even tells you it’s…dangerous. If you’re listening @theTrendcentral, I’m a little……hurt!

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Philly’s “ILL” spotted in the wild

Posted on July 31, 2010 by sharif

A few weeks ago Steve Cisowski (@SteveCis) of mediacipher.net got snapped wearing one of his favorite accessories (the Masters of None Philly’s ILL) in Jimmy’s Street Style (@JimmyStyle) section of Phillymag.com. Check it out.

Oh yeah, in that VERY same style section (pic #5) is my friend Louis Hauser, a very talented graphic designer. He’s also the guy that helped me come up with names for the individual Emotions Can Be Dangerous pieces. I’ve included him in the list of people of whom I am a fan and you should too! As a matter of fact, become a fan of Steve and Jimmy and tell them Sharif sent ya!

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We be ‘illin – so says the Examiner

Posted on July 27, 2010 by sharif

Hey look, examiner.com wrote about my “ILL” necklace! Here’s an excerpt:

“The perfect mash-up of classic Phillies fandom and savage urban style, the laser-cut pendant adopts the famous team logo and puts a cheeky new spin on it.”

Wow, if I didn’t know me I’d be so impressed by me. Wait – what? Anyway, read the rest of the article here: You Be Illin’ and buy the pendant here: Philly’s ILL

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Etsy Artists of Color showed me a lil love

Posted on July 26, 2010 by sharif

A while ago my sister introduced me to this blog called Etsy Artists of Color. So, I investigated and realized it was a whole community behind the blog. I decided to join and found there were lots of helpful hints and people willing to share lots of tips and tricks. I highly recommend you check them out…especially because they recently featured my laser cut bamboo Adinkra coasters as a pick of the week.

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WHYY’s Friday Arts

Posted on July 15, 2010 by sharif

Hey, did ya’ll see me on TV last month? I kinda forgot to put it here, so look below:

Watch the full episode. See more Friday Arts.

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HGTV stop trying to make DesignStar the Apprentice

Posted on July 12, 2010 by sharif

Hi, my name is Sharif and I’m an HGTV addict. That’s right, I can’t get enough of it. I watch it in the morning, I watch it at night and some times I even watch reruns.

One of the things I like to watch is DesignStar. I’ve watched it from the beginning and have always really enjoyed it – until now. I still enjoy it actually, just not as much. In case you don’t know, DesignStar is a show about a group of people with various design backgrounds chosen to compete for their own show on HGTV.

design apprentice

This is the first season being produced by Mark Burnett, the same guy behind Apprentice and Survivor. I guess for people who like those shows this could be a good thing, the problem is DesignStar has never been like any of those shows. It was quirky, artsy, innovative and talent was able to shine through the reality TV haze. Now that production companies has changed, so has the show. Instead of contestants standing behind paint buckets in the hopes of finding a nice fat budget to work with, or being able to take a room in a large house to design, they now work in large groups where no one individual talent can be seen and roll their luggage behind them to elimination in the exact same way they did/do on Apprentice. The jovial host is gone as well as his signature: “your show has been canceled line.” In place of those things we simply have the judges. That wouldn’t be so bad if Vern Yip, as if in some attempt to mimic Donald Trumps “vicious” business acumen, wasn’t edited to be the head of a tribunal while the other two judges are relegated to knowing glances and head nodding. On top of that, the deliberation between the judges has been dubbed over with “intense” music so the public never has any idea of why the judges (Vern) have chosen an individual for elimination.

I really wonder how we or the judges (Vern) will know who a DesignStar is if every week there are two teams. The old DesignStar had a mix of team challenges and individual challenges that actually made sense. They also used to make over homes for real people like veterans or families in need instead of empty apartments inside of these anonymous New York high rises that we can only assume are owned by Donal Trump (thanks for the insight @shesherara).

Now, instead of being about competition of design individuals, it is literally a popularity contest some times. Worst of all, instead of taking the opportunity to make design accessible, the recent changes really remove the endearing quality the original DesignStar had to offer. Instead of the designers being inspiring and giving insight into the artistic process, the show really is just about what people do to not go home. The audience has much less idea what makes a designer tick and why they make the decision they do. This seems to be counter intuitive to HGTVs programming – but what do I know?

The Apprentice and Survivor, although I don’t watch, have been around forever so I guess they must be doing something right. I just wish they wouldn’t do it to DesignStar.

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the next great artist – really?

Posted on July 3, 2010 by sharif

Bravo’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist has been on for a few weeks now. I can’t say I watch faithfully, but I’ve seen a few episodes and I can say – I’m not impressed. I thought, at first, that I liked the idea of the show but now I’m not even sure of that. Is the way to find the “next great artist” really by sticking a bunch of people together, telling them what their inspiration is and putting them on the clock? …then threaten them with dismissal if they don’t live up to your expectations…?

Isn’t that just an office job?

Moreover, what exactly IS a “next great artist?” How do we know when we see it? The great artists that we recognize today have created incredible works over a number of years. They tapped into some kind of universal psyche and created stuff that we could appreciate or would learn to. While there are definitely people who are “authorities” on the matter of what is great, good and not-so-good in the way of art we can generally all agree that it’s mostly subjective. I mean, what I think is great may not be great to someone else.

So does Bravo telling us who the next great is actually make it so?

Furthermore, will the eventual winner actually believe in their new title? And if so, how will that affect the work they create? And since when have artists simply settled for being told who and what was great?

I can’t speak for everyone, but I do think that one of the things that drives artists is a spirit of self-expression. This means a lot of times we end up being somewhat counter-culture – appearing to be going in the opposite direction of the majority. That’s one of the reasons why a lot of independent artists would rather struggle to get their work out there than settle into something safe and routine. So I wonder how being told who amongst us is the next greatest will affect that individual and the artist community as whole…?

Overall, I dig how well some of the things that naturally occur in the artistic process fit the concept of this kind of reality show, i.e going to crit, showing your work in a gallery setting, etc. but it’s really nothing but a project runway ripoff that doesn’t really do much of anything except come off as feeling a lil too self-important. I’m a little afraid of what non-artists might start to think looking at this show. The people on the show do create relatively good looking, large scale pieces of work in a short amount of time. Do people who aren’t familiar with the artistic process understand that not all art is made this way? If not, then doesn’t that in some way devalue or diminish work that takes months to create?

Having said all that, I hope Abdi wins because I like his stuff! ;)

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Linda Magazine talks about sex…and me!

Posted on June 14, 2010 by sharif

A few months ago I got an e-mail from someone in the Netherlands asking me for more info about the Emotions Can Be Dangerous Line. Next thing I know, I’m in the very sleek, very chic Linda Magazine. It’s a women’s fashion mag based in the Netherlands that’s all about high style, hot fashion and great design. The issue my tiny write-up appears in also happens to be about women who pay for escorts! Thanks to this link, I just found out that Linda Magazine gave male escorts to some of their subscribers as part of the promotion for this particular issue. Whoa!



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