I am really looking forward to January’s edition of LosAngeles/CreativeMornings with National Forest. I’ve been an admirer of their work for years now and I have a few pieces of Steven Harrington’s work in my “collection.” I stopped by their studio the other day to take some pics and chat with them up the upcoming event. They really couldn’t have been nicer guys and anyone who is coming to see them speak on the 20th is in for a treat. RSVPs open up on 1/16 at 11am.

Last Thursday night we had our second Creative Mornings at night. This time our speaker was the legendary Roger Gastman. Gastman has been at the forefront of street art and graffiti for years and years. He founded the magazines While Your Were Sleeping and Swindle, he was one of the produces and creative consultant for Exit Through The Gift Shop, he co-curated the Art in the Street show at MOCA and he recently wrote The History of American Graffiti. His talk was a short history of how he got where he is today, including bank-rolling a European trip, and most of his early business success, by selling graffiti caps. We’ll be posting a video of his talk on the LACM Vimeo page in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks to everyone who turned up. We had a big crowd and many thanks to Willard Ford at Ford & Ching for getting this all going.

I started my new job this week. I am working as Creative Director at Media Temple in Culver City. So far, so great. I am working with an insanely talented and smart team of people and we’re working on some big changes. I’ve been a devoted (mt) customer for years and, after being inside the walls there, I am even more impressed with the company. They’ve lived up to the high expectations I had.

I had the pleasure of dining at Son of a Gun last night and it was damn good – shrimp toast, lobster rolls, mahi dip, dark and stormies and coconut porter all around. Mr. The Fox Is Black himself (Bobby Solomon) organized a little designy “bro” evening for myself, Justin of Aquarium Drunkard, Alec (one of TFIB contributors and sadly a Liverpool supporter – yet a supporter nonetheless) and Damien Correll who was in town from NYC. Hopefully, it’s the first of many evenings like this. I highly recommend checking out that restaurant and, even more so, clicking on all those talented dude’s links above.

Generationals live at the Echo from jon setzen on Vimeo.

2011 is shaping up to be a banner year for music. So many good records have come out: Bon Iver, Black Lips, McCartney reissue, etc. One record I have been listening to for months is “Actor-Caster” by Generationals. It’s a great summery pop record which just doesn’t get old. I went to see them the other week at The Echo and definitely would go back to see them again – a perfect show for a Summer night – goes well with Red Stripe. Check out their album.

On June 25th Willard Ford and I put on the first (of hopefully many) CreativeMornings (at night). These quarterly nighttime events will give us the opportunity to bring speakers from outside in LA into town to talk. Our first speaker was David Trubridge from New Zealand. Trubridge, famous for the lights you see above, gave an enlightening talk about our place in nature, the future of design and the importance to get outside, connect with nature and listen.

Our June LosAngeles/CreativeMornings took place at Media Temple in Culver City and our speaker was software designer and artist Josh Nimoy. We had a lot of help from the amazing folks at Blik as they not only sponsored the event, but they created custom signage for us. Thanks to Nick at Blik for doing a grab job hanging all the graphics. Check out more photos from the event right here.

Birthday boy, John Moshay, on his way to Moto Club di Santa monice

Coffee with Edward Boatman founder of The Noun Project (great iPhone case)

Checking out Media Temple - host of June LosAngeles/CreativeMornings

The rollercoaster at the Santa Monica Pier

The ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier

Silverlake at dusk

Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon

A rainy (no, really) morning in Portland, Oregon

Venice Beach Skatepark

Getting ready for boxing class at Strong Sports

If you’re using instagram look for me – jonsetzen. If you’re not, well, you really should be.

The super-talented Mindy Shapero teaching baking pan art to a group of kids

Jack's creation

Jack racing his clay racing car.

Jack's kaleidoscope

Jack in his knight costume

A few weeks back we took Jack to the Hammer Museum for their annual K.A.M.P. fundraiser. K.A.M.P. – Kid’s Art Museum Program enlists more than a dozen local artists who all setup stations for kids to learn some really fun art projects. We went to support our friends Mindy Shapero and Julian Hoeber and, of course, to let the kid go bananas for a few hours. My son had the best time ever and made kaleidoscopes, race cars, costumes, paintings, t-shirts and more. We were so busy we managed to somehow miss story-time with Rainn Wilson which I assume was great. I think the things the Los Angeles museums are doing for kids are fantastic. LACMA has their NextGEN program which gives kids under 18 free admission (plus a parent) for life. K.A.M.P. at the Hammer is one of the more enjoyable museum events I’ve ever been to and it’s impressive they’re reaching out to future generations.

Last week I toured the Herman Miller Showroom in Culver City as they were interested in hosting a LosAngeles/CreativeMornings event. The space is remarkable. It’s exactly what you’d expect from Herman Miller. It’s modern, it’s refined, it’s futuristic and I am beyond thrilled to be doing events at their space. Many thanks to Cerentha at Herman Miller for hooking this up.