betterthanblog

Family Force 5 is one of my favorite bands right now. When I first heard these guys I was like “What the crap are these guys thinking?” Then I listened a little more and found that I frickin’ love them.

They’re a group of southern rockers with some hip-hop/club flair and a super-power pop sound.  The clips I’ve seen from their live shows look insane and their lyrics are downright hilarious.

On top of that, they’ve got some hella good style and have chosen Chris Rushing of The Dara design studio to design their apparel. You’ve probably seen his stuff on Emptees or over at Behance because it’s fricking awesome.

Watch this video and visit Chris’ links above.

This evening I was asked about the specific location of our excursion last week so here is a link to the Google map of the general area and a color coded map I made up based on my observations.

Google Map of LA Fashion District

Also, to the NE you have the Floral District, followed by the Toy District. Slightly to the South of the Toy District is the Industrial District. Just North and slightly East you’ll run into the Jewelry shops. Mostly costume and fashion jewelry though. Directly South and proceeding SE of the Garment District you’ll find produce. While the Fish market is to the East. It’s a fascinating area. Probably not safe at night. There were quite a few folks living on the street in the area but most of them seem pretty nice even if mentally ill/unstable. There were quite a few Hispanic dudes hanging out on some of the corners communicating down the street to each other by way of whistles that sounded like bird’s songs. I’m not sure what they were about though though. The sidewalks got busier and busier as the day wore on and the smells coming out of the local Asian and Mexican Food restaurants were quite enticing. However, my boss is afraid of ethnic food so we ended up eating at Burger King. Anyhow, it’s most definitely worth exploring. Especially the retail areas where there are stores chocked full of Grey Market or Black Market/Knock Off goods. Anything from $5 Versace-style sun glasses to Louis Vuitton look-alikes. Cheap jeans and tees too. And everything can be haggled for. It’s kind of the the streets of the larger border towns in Mexico.

So, if you’re ever in LA and are looking for something cheap, interesting, and definitely not on your run of the mill sight-seeing guides you should check out the area.

I received a comment the other day from Erock congratulating me on how long I’ve gone without posting.

Well, it’s not because I’m lazy. It’s just that I’ve been so freakin’ busy. I realize that’s no excuse since most of you are probably equally busy. So, it’s probably fair to say that over three months without a post is pathetic.

This week alone has been crazy. We’ve been working through a ton of personnel changes at work. One of those resulted in an addition to our art department at Righteous. We just added Ryan Land to our design team to focus on web development.

In addition, on Tuesday night my boss called me and said we were flying out to LA at 5 AM. We headed down to round up some specific fabric and to find a sewer for a special project we’re working on. We spent a good portion of the day in the Garment/Fashion District where I saw more fabric in one place than I’ve ever seen
in my life. It was pretty cool and ultimately we found what we were looking for. The thing I found really interesting was how the different areas were so saturated with a particular ethnicity. In the garment district itself, the majority of the shop owners were Jewish/Israeli immigrants. Right next to the garment district is the flower district then toy district, which are both primarily populated by East Asian immigrants. In another direction you have the fish and produce districts. Those are mostly manned by Hispanic folks. Consequently, most of the produce shops also happened to sell lots of pinatas.

Anyway, there was lots to see and it was really cool to meet and talk to all the people and see the different cultures. Ultimately, we found everything we were looking for. Fabric and a sewer who could handle our project.

We got off the plane around 1AM on Thursday morning. It was pretty whirlwind and made it a long week since I missed the day in the office.

Here are just a couple of pics I snapped with my cell phone while we were there.

I’ll be posting some project updates shortly.

Peace,

T

I’ve got a portfolio up on Behance.net

Check it out here: BetterThanHuman on Behance

Hey everyone,

I haven’t been too active in the blogs lately. So here’s an update.

My son was born in September and B stayed home with him for the first three months. When she went back to work, we didn’t want it to be full time for Judah’s sake. By December I realized that these circumstances created a huge hole in my budget. If any of you know B and I, you know that we are very frugal and fiscally conservative people. That being the case, there wasn’t much fat we could trim.

Now, I love my job at Righteous Clothing, but I love my family more. So, I thought to myself; “I don’t want to but extra strain on Righteous’ payroll, so I’ll just look for another job.”

I posted my portfolio on several sites and joined LinkedIn. Over the next couple of months I went back and forth with recruiters for Nike and other companies and sent applications in via Monster and Craigslist nearly every day. Finally last month I was contacted by a local small company wanting to hire me to head their art department. They offered me a significant raise and plenty of room to grow. They wanted me to learn some additional skills on the job such ans PHP, MySQL, and more. This sounded like a great opportunity. I snatched up the opportunity. I gave my notice and within two weeks with only 4 hours of orientation/training I was off and running.

Well, for the last month I’ve been miserable. The job turned out to be nothing more than a high paying production position. I spent my days editing names on business cards, digitizing artwork for embroidery, repairing SQL databases, and outputting pre-done art to vellum (…of all things) for screen printing. By the beginning of my 5th week I was absolutely sick of it. I called my wife and told her “I think I hate my job…” This was a brand new experience for me. I’ve never hated a job in my life. At least not the way I hated this one.

I began to realize that this was because I was chasing a dollar and not trusting God to provide for me. I didn’t really ask Him what I should do or if it was the right thing. I just assumed that since the opportunity presented itself that that was proof enough that God wanted me to have the job.

Coincidently I was heading back to Righteous that very night to help install a new dry-film image setter. I sat down with my old boss and asked if they’d found a replacement yet. He responded with an explanation of how difficult it was to find someone with the appropriate skill set, personality, and values and that there had been few responses to their ads anyway. He realized that they’d have to pay someone more than they were paying me to try and fill the hole I’d left. So, I asked if they’d consider taking me back and I told him that I thought I’d made a mistake by leaving just for the money. He was pretty excited and I was pretty relieved.

I gave my notice the next day and worked out my new salary at my old job that night. I only ended up having to stay for a couple more days at the other place. They were pretty pissed at me for leaving. One of the owners even accused me of coming there just to try and get my hands on their software or to get more money out of my old employer or just to do something malicious to their company. All of those things are absolutely absurd and I was honestly a little hurt. I just realized that doing the most boring job in the world wasn’t worth the money they were paying me.

I found myself having to repent. Repent to my wife, my employer, and my God. I’d been making the most foolish and selfish decisions I possibly could and it was really starting to mess things up. (I won’t share all the details here.)

After all that, I start back at Righteous Clothing tomorrow morning. It turned out to work out really well in the end. I love it there and I’ve invested so much there that I can’t believe I even left in the first place. I feel much better now. Glad to finally be out of the crazy daze I’ve been in for the last month.

I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything new. So here you are.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year’s. I heard Shane ended up with a flat tire at some point in his travels. My holidays were fairly uneventful. I focused on work a lot (Probably too much) and we made the rounds to all the parties and family events. It was Judah’s first Christmas so that was a big deal to all of his grandparents. I spent New Year’s eve with some close friends and we wrapped up the night competing our brains out on the Nintendo Wii. (I have to say, the Wii is one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. It far surpassed my expectations and now I’m going to have to buy one.)

Anyhow, aside from all the festivities I spent all my time working on a major project for a Confernce that took place over New Year’s. It was the Foursquare NextGen Youth Summit called Imagine. It was an event to raise awareness for the causes of Human Trafficking, Poverty, and Orphans. I developed and designed apparel, accessories, and print media for the event. All of which were and are still being sold with a portion of the revenue going to aid the causes of Imagine. Here are just some of the items I’ve spent my time on. Click for more.

You can find out more about Imagine and it’s causes, supporters, and who it supports here: Imagine Conference

You can help the cause and increase awareness by purchasing Imagine apparel and accessories here: Imagine Store

I’ve been really busy with a plethora of other projects as well. I’ll post a couple more updates with some good graphics and a freebie sometime this week.

Peace,

T

Well, Judah just turned 4 months old on the tenth. I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone by. He’s more like a little boy and less like a baby every day. I’m constantly amazed at how fast he learns and grows and changes. It’s been a little bumpy at times but it’s all been good. He’s pretty much sleeping through the night now and he’s finally gaining plenty of weight and he just gets cuter all the time.

Being a dad is, I’m sure, easier than being a mom. However, it’s not without it’s stresses. I want Judah to grow up right. With a love for Christ and people too. I don’t want him to go through some of the crap I did or make some of the stupid mistakes I did. I pray every day and just thinking about those things alone is almost enough to bring me to tears. Not to mention, girls and college and everything else. Anyhow, enough ranting.

Here are a couple of photos for those who care. Click for a larger image.

Click for a larger image.

Well, here we go. My apologies for not getting these up sooner. I’ve been hella busy.

Anyhow, I couldn’t have been more excited to see these versions of our metallic amigo. Thank you all for submitting. (I believe I still have a couple more coming )

1. Shane from ShanesArt.com (Shane’s blog)

Shane is a fantastic illustrator quickly gaining wide recognition for his phenomenal skills and Photoshop illustrations.

2. Magnus Snickars, a friend from half way around the world in Sweden. (Magnus’ Blog)

Magnus is another fantastic illustrator with a style all his own. His cartoons are rad. Check out my favorite “No Brain No Pain” on his blog

3. Tom Johnson aka BetterThanHuman (My Portfolio)

4. Original Doodle by Tom & Beckii

Click the pic for more.

Well, it’s time for another addition of everyone’s favorite random post. Renown for bringing you such favorites as the Golf Green Skull. Today, a Thursday that feels like Friday, we are proud to introduce, the mustache sporting robotic luchador, Robo Suave!

That’s right, today was another one of those Thursdays that feels like a Friday and yet again I ended up with a freaked out doodle on my desk. Beckii (with two eyes) gave the finishing touches to the original doodle and we each agreed to do a different rendition of a more developed illustration.

Here is mine, Beckii’s will be up on Monday. Any others that want to join the mayhem are welcome to it.

Shane, perhaps you’d like to take a stab at this one too?

I spent last night helping out a friend of mine at the Portland Ski Fever & Snowboard Show. About a year ago Peter Hostetler of Walk on Water Designs came up with an idea for a new style of fingerless glove. I’ve been helping him here and there with product development over the last year. This weekend Fluvs made their debut at the expo with huge success. No surprise there. We’ve got a lot of love for our Fluvs and we knew others would too.

Fluvs (fingerless + gloves = Fluvs) are a two part glove system that allow you to build your own custom gloves. You start with one of 5 basic thermal liners and add a cover to create your custom glove. One-of-a-kind covers are also created from recycled t-shirts. Even without fingers, Fluvs keep your entire hand warm, working on the same principle ThremaBands. They keep the blood flow to the fingers and hands warm.

The best part is that you can still do everything you normally would wihtout having to remove your Fluvs. They fit under normal gloves and shells, you can still get into your pockets, wallet or purse and you can drive and grip things like normal.

Check em out. Click on the photo for more pics from the show.

You can buy Fluvs online. Check em out: Fluvs.com