thoughts in space

Updates and inspiration from the 8/7 studio.

Aging Gracefully

For the past two years, we have functioned pretty well just up the street from our new location. We’ll call our old space “400″ and our new space “424″. The buildout at 400 was quick and dirty; we may as well have been called “Unfinished Pine Central.” It was a perfect clubhouse for seven or eight testosterone-laced males with a propensity for strong drink and a deep seeded desire to change the world.

Then we started growing and we started having problems: “We’re not professional looking,” “There’s too much ambient noise to talk to clients,” “We don’t have a space to store hard liquor,” “People keep confusing us for Raygun,” “It smells like chemicals.”

We aren’t all 23 anymore and huffing chemicals isn’t at the top of our activity list these days, so we started building a list of attributes for our dreamland and we started designing our new space.

From the start, we knew that we needed a conference room and table. Too many of our meetings looked like this. We wanted to make sure that the place was ventilated properly and that there was plenty of elbow room at each of our desks. And… well, that was pretty much everything.

We will write in depth over the next few days and weeks about some of the specific features that we especially enjoy about 424, but in the meantime here is a sample of the atmosphere in which we function now.

 

Catching Feirer

We just printed some pretty sweet shirts for a pretty sweet event. One of our own, Justin, started to remind us a little of this guy when he started recalling the Iowa Jazz Championships. We managed to score a few minutes with Alan Feirer, Co-Chair of the event, and he even took the time to answer a few questions.


1. The Iowa Jazz Championships. What’s that and why should we care? 

The Iowa Jazz Championships showcases 60 of the state’s finest high school jazz ensembles.  It is held in Des Moines every April and and features 15 groups from each of the four Iowa High School Music Association classifications.  All ensembles perform in the daytime competition held at the Events Center and the Civic Center, and the top two bands from each classification perform in the evening finals competition, held at the Civic Center.  The event was founded by Iowa jazz educators over thirty years ago, is the only state jazz championships in the nation, brings 6,000 people to downtown Des Moines, and continues to be organized by just 3 goofy guys, supported by a board of directors.

2. It’s been a tradition for over 30 years, how many title belts do you have? 

The classy answer is NONE; I have no title belts.  The students I served over the course of 19 years as a band director accumulated some honors, though, including 7 invitations to the State Championships, and several first-place finishes at festivals.  The best one ever was when I was gone for a funeral, and the Winterset students performed on stage with no adult director and won the Indianola Jazz Encounter in 2009.  That was cool, and proved my uselessness.

3. I haven’t met anyone from Winterset who does not know you. Within 10, how many Winterset residents do you not know?

83.

Really, anonymity is tough in a small town where you are either the mayor, the head football coach or the band director.  After 11 years as the “band guy,” I left teaching to start my own training and consulting business, so I got involved with the Chamber of Commerce, and now I’m the co-chair of that outfit after drawing the shortest straw. So, there’s that exposure now.  To top that off, for 10 years I’ve been the MC of a talent show – the Lions Show – put on by our local Lions Club for over 50 years.  That draws about 1000 people each year, and so, um, that’s how the old people know me.

Anonymity is kind of nice once in a while, though, and the 83 people who live in Winterset but work out of town have no clue who I am.  Once I was out for a run and twisted my ankle about a mile from my house.  I asked a guy in his yard for a ride home.  On the way, I was thrilled to discover that not only did he not recognize me, he had never ever heard of me. That was awesome.

4. Is this your full time gig?

Naw, it’s one of those quasi-volunteer gigs with an honorarium, which works out to about $1.25 an hour.  It’s fun, and rewarding, and cool to be a part of such a special event with a great tradition.  The 18-hour day of the event is a marathon of putting out fires and is totally exhilarating.  I’ve got two other co-chairs who do most of the work.

5. How did you get into this?

About 10 years ago, there was a need for a new co-chair, and I met the most important qualification:

I had a phone number that was local to Des Moines, making it cheap for me to help plan the event.

As time has gone on, that’s become less relevant, but the board keeps allowing me to serve, along with Steve Shanley (formerly a band director from Cedar Rapids; currently a music professor at Coe College) and Jason Pentico (high school band director from Pella).

6. Here’s a chance for either a shout out or a backhanded compliment, your choice: Of which school’s program are you currently jealous?

Well, “jealous” is the wrong word; even when I was a band director, I’m not sure jealousy was part of the gig. BUT – there are programs I admire, and always have.  I really dig the programs where everyone excels, and cares about doing very well, but without a lot of uptightness; in short, groups that have lots of fun, and are really good.  A great example is Independence; they are way understaffed, and have very old facilities to work with, but they always perform well and ooze a sense of fun and excitement in what they do.  When I taught, that was one of the programs I sought to emulate.

7. Jazz kids seem so laid back and they seem to get along with everyone… Do they actually “compete”?

Oh my. Yes.  Yes, they do.  If you ask some of the “old-timers” for stories of absurd levels of competitiveness, you can hear some.  I’m not gonna tell any of them, though.

There will be both cheers and tears on Tuesday.  Those groups have put a lot of time into this.  Now, it’s also true that groups support each other.  But there are rivalries, especially in the smaller classes.  Some of the small schools that are perennial competitors don’t have a lot of successful extra-curriculars, and half the town turns out for their jazz bands; they’re a real source of pride.

Another note on jazz kids; one of my favorite parts of the job is visiting with the students on stage at the Civic Center before their finals performance; they’re so keyed up and excited and nervous and confident and anxious, in the best sense of the word.  IPTV has their cameras on stage, professional stage crew (the same people who work with, say, Rent or Wicked) are moving the equipment around to the specifications of the students and director — all on the same stage that celebrities have walked. It’s amazing.

8. Why should anyone come to the event if they don’t have a connection to any of the competitors?

Do you like good, live music?  Come.  Because of the high level of the competition, some of these groups sound like pros.  For $10, you can listen all day to the daytime rounds from 8:00 to 4:00.  For the same price, come to the Civic Center in the evening for the finals. You’ll be blown away. And, the t-shirts are super cool.

-Sent from my iPhone, because I’m busy making Iowa a better place.

Thanks, Alan, you are making lots of lives better, and making our great state a better place.  Learn more at www.iowajazzchampionships.org.

Eat it!

I dare you to read through the list below without getting hungry.

We have the best clients. This is a list of some of the amazing “restaurants” we have gotten to team up with over the last few years. We have printed their shirts, created their websites, printed their menus, created their logos, etc.
I would highly suggest you give them your patronage.

-Justin

AK O’Connors
Baru 66
Beaver Tap
Centro
City Bakery
CAB Co.
Flarah’s
Flour
Goodsons
Hessen Haus
Host
Jethro’s
La Mie Bakery
Lucca
Luna Bistro
Mad House Brewery
Mars Cafe
Open Sesame
Palmer’s
Peace Tree Brewery
Proof
Red Bistro
South Union Bread Co.
Tartine
Thai Flavors
The Cheese Shop
Tacopocalypse
The Royal Mile
The Village Bean
Trostel’s Dish
Z’Mariks
Zingaro
Zombie Burger

Did we forget you? Let us know! Would you like to be on this list? Contact us and let us help you out!

Tartine

Proof

Red Bistro

Baru 66 - Cooking Class

Palmer's Catering

One Shining Moment

Like many workplaces, in March we filled out our brackets. $5 got you into the the office pool and the first day of March Madness may have been a little less than productive.

Now let me be clear, I work with 9 guys (…well, ten guys if you count Phil, but he started after we submitted our brackets). Being the only girl, there was no real pressure on me to win. I’m not a total stranger to watching sports and did grow up with a sportswriter for a dad, so I know a thing or two about who might be a good pick. Had I seen much of the season? Not really. But you better believe I kept pretty close tabs on the scores once I had invested a little cash in the outcome.

The first weekend was a good one for me. With two major upsets in the first round, those who picked Duke or Missouri to go on were no longer a threat. I didn’t plan for that big of an upset, but I didn’t think it was Duke’s year and Missouri never screamed “basketball” to me. Instead, I think of their journalism school or maybe football. Granted, I know this isn’t all Mizzou has to offer, but this is the type of intuition I went with. For all you skeptics, NO, I did not pick teams based on my favorite color or the cuter mascot.

By the time we got to the sweet sixteen, I had a strong lead over all the boys. Some had already given up, while I still had my picks for the elite eight safe (and of those eight, six of them ended up being correct). Once we reached the final four, only one person could potentially beat me by picking the winning team for a total 32 points. It all came down to Kansas.

Last night I watched the game with friends and ate way too much food while cheering on Kentucky. I did in fact have Kentucky and Kansas in the final two, but so did Justin, only with Kansas winning. For most of the game I sat comfortably while Kentucky continued to have a double-digit point lead. That last three minutes of the game had me a bit more uptight. To be so far ahead in the brackets just to lose by mere points in the final game? No! I picked 44 games correctly and was not ready to let go of my 45th. But really, what more can you do but yell at a tv screen? If somehow you missed the final score of the game then I’m not sure what you’re doing reading this post frankly. But in case it isn’t yet clear: Kentucky took the title, and I became the first (and only) girl to win the 8|7 Central brackets.

Here are the final standings in the shop:

  1. Samantha – 136
  2. Justin – 115
  3. Jonathan – 105
  4. Adam – 101
  5. Ben – 96
  6. Shawn – 88
  7. Zach – 82
  8. Caleb – 72
  9. Garrett – 44
  10. John – 39

Ten bucks says I never win again.

Our Secrets Thus Far

A couple of days ago as we were commemorating our two year anniversary by downing a celebratory Gin and Tonic, Ben and I started feeling an impudent mixture of nostalgia and confidence. We decided to write up a quick list of things that we have learned over the past couple of years in hopes that it will help others in trying their own thing as well.

1. Surround yourself with talented people that you actually like. The people you work with every day become like a second family. Get used to it. They will represent you and you will need to trust them. If you wouldn’t grab drinks with someone more than once, why would you want to work with them every day? If you really like someone, but they can’t do what you need, don’t hire them. There are over 300 million people in America; don’t sell yourself short.

2. Surround yourself with good customers. After about six months of doing work for businesses, individuals, churches, and organizations, we began to realize that not all customers are created equal. There were many who were ecstatic with the work that we did for them. They brought us cookies and beer. You should ALWAYS put extra effort into these relationships.

Then there were the OTHER ones. As soon as the number on the caller ID was recognized, our shop became a giant game of hot potato played with the ringing phone. These customers sucked up time and energy and then complained about our pricing. We try to end these relationships as quickly as possible.

3. Maintain yourself. I have been learning a lot lately about how to take a step back from the business. There will be good days and there will be bad days. I am learning not to stress out when things go wrong and accept the fact that shit’s about to hit the fan when things are going well. Life goes on, so embrace the day for what it is.  Maintaining this balance is crucial to success.

Now go make your community better.

Changes Ahead!

When 8/7 Central split off from Raygun at the beginning of 2010, we consisted of six and a half guys who had just a vague idea of what we were doing. We hadn’t yet screen printed a poster, written a website contract, or even figured out how to pay taxes correctly. We had space to spare, and we wisely filled that space with a dart place (an oche, as we later learned) and a leaning place (modeled by Zach).

Fast forward two years to present day and we are bursting at the seams. We have more people than desks, more screens than shelves, and most of our meetings take place off-site. It is incredibly difficult to thrive in this chaos.

So… we are moving to larger confines! We will still be in the East Village, in fact, we will still be on the same street. Our new space is situated between Jimmy Johns and The Continental, and will feature proper ventilation (no more fumes!), a conference room area (no more people up in your bidness!), a real bathroom (no more standing water!), ample desk space (no touching!) and several other tricks we aren’t quite ready to reveal yet (no telling!).

More info on the new space and the open houses will be dropping as we get moved in in early April.

What’s all the fuss about?

Recently you may have seen our stream of ADDY related tweets or glanced at the photo we posted on Facebook of a few new shiny things. Let me ‘splain.

We decided it was about time that our web and design work was put to the test. We think it looks cool, but what does everyone else think? Asking the question seemed a little baited, so we decided to be official and entered into the local ADDY competition. Put on by the American Advertising Federation, the ADDYs is defined by their website as “the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, recognizing and rewarding creative excellence in the art of advertising.” Fancy, huh? While we haven’t started doing billboards or commercials, we have done some solid creative work that some might even consider advertising.

Back in January we started looking at a few different pieces we thought would be up for the challenge and here’s what we came with:

Self-promo: Employee of the Month t-shirt…anyone rocking one of these? You know who you are.

Logo: The Cheese Shop…a new personal favorite location of ours.

Interactive work for the Arts: Public Art Foundation website

Book: Badowers Look Book

 

Mixed/Multiple Media: Badowers Rebranding Campaign….we can’t take credit for you being the best dressed at the party, but we did create the website, design the logo and work to ensure you know where to shop for men’s clothing in Des Moines.

What do you think? According to the ADDYs…all of those are ahem, award-winning. Gold ADDYs (which move up to the next level of the competition) went to the Badowers Rebranding Campaign and The Cheese Shop logo and silvers went to the rest. All in all, we were pretty pumped and glad to have some great clients to work with to make it all happen.

The Nail Gun

Like a real man, I just got a nail gun. And like men do, I started trolling around the shop looking some something that needed to be built, so I could avoid doing real work. I found a project.

The Problem: Squeegees.

It’s easy to get them 95% clean. The last 5% takes a lot of paper towels, chemicals, and patience. Our storage situation dictates the squeegee needs to be 100% clean before getting thrown into the drawer. And most days, the squeegee is coated in ink again within a few hours. It’s an exercise in futility.

So here is what Shawn and I built. The important thing is that you can see the nail gun in the background.

It is a squeegee rack, and it is going to get ink-nasty very quickly. It isn’t that fancy, but it was a good use of an afternoon.

Really Kindof Amazing Workplace

There are a lot of perks to my job. First and foremost, I’m surrounded by a team of truly talented people who all take great pride in what they do. We get to create things from scratch almost every single day and we get to be part of a trade that still makes things by hand, a community on the verge of extinction. We get to support our local community while sourcing most of our garments from right here in America. Clubs, bands, schools, teams, fundraisers, and start-ups all come to us when they want truly creative design on high quality apparel. We have freedom not only creatively and with our schedules, but in what we say and do, think and feel, and even wear to work. There is no dress code, but that doesn’t mean we wear our underwear outside of our pants and we don’t have to listen to Lite 104.1 but that doesn’t mean we listen to Lazer 103.3 either.

Instead of casual Fridays, we occasionally have Formal Fridays or Kenny G Fridays where all we play is Kenny G (until everyone runs out of song vetos). We almost always have beer in our fridge and are free to drink it whenever we want. This doesn’t mean we hammer a 6-pack before noon and pass out on the lawn, it just means we keep some suds in our fridge knowing that someone might encounter the need to have a cold one in the middle of the afternoon. Instead of fostering irresponsibility and the desire to punch out at 4:59 to catch the tail end of some lousy happy hour, it encourages us to stay in the shop and enjoy overtime with our co-workers.

When we advertise for an internship, even a barely paid one, we don’t have just 3 or 4 applicants. We get almost 50 eager responses. That’s 5 times more people than our actual workforce. 50 kids ready to challenge themselves and work their hands to the bone for meager monetary compensation and the chance of a full time gig. We’re honored by this. We realize we have created an environment where people want to work and that’s the sole reason our turnover rate is so low. It could be all the fumes we’re inhaling, but people don’t mind coming in to work at 8/7 every day. Sure, some days we’d rather be snowboarding or at the movies, but for the most part a job that’s akin to all-day-art-class is hard to beat.

Of course with this power, comes great responsibility, as they say. We must be willing to respect and trust each other and work hard when necessary. It requires us to pull our own weight and at times the weight of others. This is how it should work.
And so far, it has.

I just returned from a 4 week paid sabbatical. I planned for myself a 5,000 mile roadtrip through the West, a drive I’ve always wanted to make. I hoped to get out of town and find some new inspiration, visit old friends, peer off into distant landscapes and meet new people along the way. Photography has long been a passion of mine, but I don’t have the time to indulge it fully. So I went to take pictures and see how others spent their days and lived their lives. I took thousands of images, I read books, wrote and played music with strangers. A lot of this you can find on the blog my fellow traveler, Carla, and I built to document our trip: www.reallykindofamazing.com

Countless other ideas, books and projects have spun off as a result of this extended time off. I look forward to pursuing all of them. I returned home and to work feeling more refreshed than ever. I left with the overwhelming need to get away and returned with the unmistakable desire to come home. I’m lucky. Really kindof amazingly lucky. I understand this. I wrapped up my jobs as best I could before I left and turned things over to the guys in the print department. They handled their current workloads as well as mine and I’m grateful for that. Their thanks will be returned to them during their months off.

We asked ourselves, “who else out there operates like us?” and “couldn’t this slowly spark a movement?” “what if more companies in America started doing this for their employees?” What if companies that experience slower months, especially in the winter, negotiated a semi-paid sabbatical and enjoyed lower overheads? What if they freed up space for a temporary intern to get their foot in the door? What if they invested in the long-term benefits of happy and healthy employees rather than the short-term ones? What if companies treated their adult employees like adults? That is, adults with other interests and passions beyond their love for balancing spreadsheets? It’s lofty, we know. But take it from us, it’s feasible and more importantly, it’s necessary. Bring it up in your next board meeting – we dare you.

A company not far from here in Chicago IL, has a benefits package that would make a Western European jealous. Red Frog Events rewards their hard-working employees with unlimited vacation days, one work-from-home-day per week, and a paid 4-week vacation (guest included) to another country, in addition to the outstanding package that already includes health benefits, 401k and birthday massages. And nobody in their industry told them they had to do that. No parent company prescribed to them their corporate culture. We, like them, decided that in order to get the most out of our employees when they are at work, we must make arrangements to manage when they’re not.

That to me is the mark of a strong and healthy company and the only kind of company that will ever employ me and my talents.
~Garrett Cornelison

“the CAPITALS” postcard series from my roadtrip

The Real meaning of Christmas Sweater Tee Shirts

This isn’t everyone’s memory of Christmas sweaters, but it’s mine, and if you want to have different memories, then go write your own blog.

It’s trendy to have ugly Christmas Sweater Parties around this time of year. Everyone laughs, takes a lot of photographs, and then eagerly scurries home to post the hilarity to Facebook. Just take a look at how happy our gracious models are in the photos below.

But before ugly sweaters were commercialized by corporate giants like Goodwill to drive profits, before they were a reason to drink egg nog, before people smiled while wearing them, they were the standard uncomfortable apparel at the center of the two of my family’s worst holiday traditions.

1. Christmas card pictures at Olan Mills. Inevitably, at least one of my siblings ended up crying. The resulting photo included forced smiles and puffy red eyes that were begging Mom to deem the photo “decent enough to send to Grandma.”

2. The church Christmas program. This involved singing Silent Night with a bunch of other kids who hadn’t shown up to rehearsal either and also didn’t know the words. As if not knowing the words was bad enough, I usually had to stand next to the cute blonde girl who knew all of the words and sang Christmas songs as they were meant to be sung: at ear drum damaging volume.

So this holiday season, before you get caught up in the hype, make sure to take time to pause and reflect on the misery that these sweaters caused you not that many years ago. Instead of buying this year’s sweater from a thrift store, consider buying one off the back of a crying child. This simple act can bring so much joy to a young one, and will warm your heart as well. If you prefer chilly forearms to a warmed heart, we made a few Christmas Sweater Tee Shirts as well which are on sale here for $17.

Why We Support Sabbaticals (and what we’re doing about it)

November 1st marks the unofficial beginning of the screen printing “slow season.” To say things were a little busy around here for the last few months is kind of an understatement. It feels more like we got curb stomped. It’s difficult to keep creativity levels up when you are physically exhausted.

So instead of repeating the same thing over and over and hoping for different results, we are giving each employee in the screen printing department a paid month off this winter. Hopefully this will clear the air of the smell of screen opener and Icy Hot. It’s the least we can do for the men who have broken their backs to clothe the huddled masses.

That’s a simple way to explain what is going on over the next few months, but I’d like to take a little time to go deeper into our idea, and maybe even get a little personal.

The concept of “work” and the role that your “career” plays in your life has been debated since the beginning of time. Probably the most common answer has to do with making rent and feeding a family, which is about as noble a reason as I can find. But that answer addresses the issue of money, it doesn’t solve the deeper question: “What am I doing with my life?” It’s a mystery that I have yet to solve, and I don’t think I am alone.

We live in a competitive culture. If you aren’t working, you are falling behind. If you are falling behind… then… you aren’t going to… win. Win what?  If you don’t know what the end game is, it gets tough to keep doing the same thing day after day. That’s when you get burnt out on life.

We feel that as employers we have a great responsibility to our employees. If we can help them answer these questions, everyone is much better off for it. So this winter we are encouraging them to skip town for a month on our dime (and a lot of their dollars). Here is what we hope they accomplish:

The road trip that Garrett will be taking in the month of November.

1. Get renewed. Most people take vacations from work, but usually these last one, or at most two weeks. One week is about enough to decompress and two weeks is enough to feel rested, but we feel that a month will be nearly sufficient to fully renew one’s mind.

2. Learn something about themselves. Try food they haven’t eaten in a town they have never been. Read one book instead of one thousand emails. Learn a computer programming language. We don’t really care what as long as they are pushing themselves forward.

3. Contemplate life.

4. Meet someone. It is sometimes tough to imagine, but there is a whole world full of people outside of Des Moines. If the guys can meet even just a few of those people, we’ll be happy.

5. Come back.

The last one is sort of a joke, kind of. There is a lot to do out there, we would feel extremely guilty if we were the reason these talented dudes didn’t make the most of their lives. We’ll keep you updated as the project moves forward.

©2010 8/7 Central