News from a Little Hill

Pantone Unveils 336 New Colors?!

May 1, 2012 – 8:47 am

The almighty gods of color, Pantone, have unleashed a treasure trove of new colors on the world (or well, on art directors & print designers) today.

In one of it’s biggest expansions since June 2011 (when they added 175 colors for home & fashion use), Pantone brings to the table a bunch of new shades for it’s popular Pantone Plus Series. The new colors are a beautiful mix of undertones, mid tones, pastels and vibrant hues. With this new addition, the Pantone Plus Series has a whopping 1, 677 colors.

From Pantone:

Pantone is committed to continually deliver essential color inspiration and innovation to creatives and color professionals. Designers consistently demand more colors to differentiate their work and stand out in a crowded marketplace. Pantone created the 336 New Colors with this in mind, expanding all color ranges to offer designers greater creative freedom.

And while it may not seem like a big deal – “i mean, it’s just colors, who CARES?” – this kind of visual color expansion reminds us that color, design & the general creative practice, is always growing. These may not be “new” colors, but bringing them to the designers toolkit means we’ll see these awesome new colors, with new names to boot, springing up in design work from the biggest agencies, to the smallest bedroom studios. And as designers ourselves, we’re thrilled to try out some of these new shades.

Immortal Musicians? No, thanks.

April 16, 2012 – 3:24 pm

By now most anyone who has ears & an internet connection, has seen this holographic performance by “2pac”. The sheer awesomeness of this is enough to warrant attention from all corners of the world wide internets. But there’s another aspect to this that immediately caught our attention, and more interestingly, sparked our imaginations: future applications of this technology.

How soon will we see holographic performances by Elvis, Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley or Frank Sinatra? Does this mean the end of cover bands and impersonators? We sorely hope the answer is no.

Invisible Monsters Remix!

March 30, 2012 – 11:43 am

Chuck Palahniuk – The man, the myth, the legend. Whether or not you explicitly know his work, you know his work. Being the author of such classics as Fight Club, Choke, Survivor, Snuff, etc… His literary work has a deep basis in film, and video culture, and as a consequence, many of his books have become movies, and many more of his books are slated to become movies.

This cross-media nature to Chuck’s work, makes this new endeavor all the more exciting. His SMASH hit – and our favorite book of his – Invisible Monsters, is slated to be re-released as a “REMIX” edition come this june. From the press release:

“Injected with new material and special design elements, Invisible MonstersRemix fulfills Chuck Palahniuk’s original vision for his 1999 novel, turning a daring satire on beauty and the fashion industry into an even more wildly unique reading experience. Laced in are new chapters of memoir and further scenes with the book’s characters. Readers will jump between chapters, reread the book to understand the dissolve between fiction and fact, and decipher the playful book design.”

Remix culture has had a slow creep over the last 15-20 years, and with the introduction of new tools, that allow for faster, better and more reliable creative output, it’s hard to believe this creep has any boundaries. And we’re super excited to see that remixing has finally landed on non-digital shores.

We can not wait to check out this incredible concept, and see if it flys or falls flat. Either way, it’s the dawning of a new era, and we’re excited!

Find out more & check out Chucks’ tour dates here: Chuck Palahniuk

TAVIK: Visionaries Return

March 19, 2012 – 1:30 pm

TAVIK Clothing and Humble Giants have had a great working relationship over the last 3 years; as the creative team behind the TAVIK brand, we’ve designed soft goods, tee graphics, advertising creative, catalog layout, and more recently, a beautiful line video & stoic photo shoot.

Our work with TAVIK shines a light on what we do best: translating a brands vision across different mediums and languages. Whether we’re designing a new set of tees, or creating advertising, or concepting new initiatives, our focus has always been on telling TAVIK’s story, in TAVIKs language. Through grueling work deadlines to creative breakthroughs, we’ve forged a consistent voice for TAVIK that is helping them reap rewards in the ever-growing, and changing, clothing industry.

CBB on IFC

March 15, 2012 – 4:41 pm

Our favorite comedy podcast HAS to be the wonderful & charming, Comedy Bang Bang, and now it’s going to have it’s own TV show! A bold move on the part of CBB, and a big gamble on the part of IFC, the clip below shows that the gamble is definitely going to pay off.

With a constant flow of great guests, off-beat special guests, word games and irreverence, CBB is helping define the new era of audio-only “talk” shows — a genre MANY said was dead. Harkening back to what we all think of as “radio” shows, or “stories”, where lack of visual cues becomes a tool in the artists tool belt – CBB takes the audience on a ride every episode. Beyond an off-mic sound guy, CBB tricks and plays with the listener in a way that very few programs (radio or television) have ever been allowed to. They put the onus squarely on the listener, to sort truth from fiction, reality from improvisation.

With the IFC Show on their roster now too, they may just be re-defining TV Sketch/Talk shows as well. But, let’s not forget the ground-breaking work put in by shows like ‘That Mitchell & Webb Look’ and ‘Portlandia’. We’re very very excited to actually watch a real episode and see how they structure the show for a 30-minute segment, replete with actual commercial breaks. And not to mention the visual aspect! But from the above clip, it seems like CBB has decided to embrace the change, and find ways to translate their audio-hijinx, into video-hijinx. If they can keep it up beyond this 8minute clip, we’re in for a seriously wild ride.

So set your TiVo’s (CBB! comes to IFC in June 2012) and get ready to laugh your ass off. OH! and they’ve got Reggie Watts as the band leader?! ?uestlove can eat it. (jk, we love him too).

Hill House Radio

March 5, 2012 – 12:05 pm

Many of you may already be aware of our latest self-produced endeavor, Hill House Radio, but for those of you who haven’t, or aren’t quite sure what it is, we’d like to formally introduce you all.

Hill House Radio (HHR) is a bi-weekly (once every 2 weeks) music podcast that the Humble Giants team has been working on, and releasing, since the beginning of 2012 (first episodes released on 1/2/2012 to be exact!). HHR is our attempt to engage with culture and be a content provider. The podcast doesn’t look to revolutionize music or how you listen to music – rather, our goal is to provide a solid 1-hr long playlist to our friends, partners and fans. These are tunes that we, at Humble Giants, listen to, work to and play to – and we thought sharing these would be a great way to give you all a glimpse into our aural world.

We also happen to think these playlists represent some of the best that the music world has to offer, and has offered. HHR isn’t just about current/trending music, it’s about GOOD music. So whether that means a brand new tune from Tanlines (like in the just released, episode #17), a massive classic (like Nightshift from Commodores, episode #16) or a brilliant new remix of a beloved tune (like the Hannes Fischer remix of 93′ Til Infinity, episode #10), we craft every episode with a mind towards flow, not popularity.

As we say on the HHR website:

“Our musical guide is the tap in our foot — blind to borders and eras. So sit back, subscribe and enjoy some great tunes with us. Whether you’re at work, at the gym, mixing a cocktail or just professionally chilling, HHR will have something for you. And if you’re a music buff, a n00b or still listening to Toni Braxton, HHR will probably have something for you too.”

Hill House Radio Website
Link to Subscribe (via iTunes) to HHR

Nike FlyKnit

February 28, 2012 – 9:36 am

It’s unsurprising to hear that Nike has put out a new shoe, or some fancy new material for shoe making. But whats even more exciting than that is when Nike takes that next big step and straight up changes the Paradigm of how we, as a culture, think about shoes, and moreover, fitness apparel.

I’ve previously read that internally, Nike has a challenge to switch Paradigms like this every 10 years. You saw it with their Nike+ technology, and the integration of iPods directly into their product lines. They’ve done this time and time again, sometimes with amazingly powerful results, and sometimes to little fanfare and a sullen disappearance.

But this time, Nike has outdone itself – which is no small feat in and of itself.
read more »

Silverton – POW Wedding

February 17, 2012 – 9:59 am

What’s been happening during our hiatus? We’ll have to see if Daniel the Giant decides to share his adventures following his return… For now we’d like to share with you a little trip we took to Silverton, Colorado. We’ve been to all kinds of mountains and resorts, but Silverton is unique. The mountain is guided only during most of the year, and offers visitors endless pow runs and pillow lines. This is a TRUE mountain experience. Much thanks goes out to our friends Erin and Alex, who staged a wedding in order to give us all an excuse to escape!

David ‘F**K IT’ Choe

February 4, 2012 – 9:38 am

I never write blog posts. I don’t even read them – and I can tell you someone else who won’t be reading this.
David Choe.

He won’t be reading this, because most of all he doesn’t care. That’s the most amazing thing about him. He doesn’t care at all. I don’t even think he cares that his .25 % of facebook stock he received for a painting at their original offices in California will make him around 200 million dollars.

The important thing about Choe is that he’s interesting. He’s a really talented artist, but he paints really quickly, in a dirty, wild manner. I imagine its more fun to watch in process than it looks good.

New Work: Yana Tutunik Artist Site

January 31, 2012 – 12:09 pm

Recently we got the privilege of working with one of our most favorite artists, Yana Tutunik. Her work spans across many mediums, seamlessly moving from collage to illustration – sculpture to video – performance to writing.

She asked us to build her a website, and we were thrilled at the possibilities. After an initial design that functioned almost as a piece of art itself, we went back to the drawing board to put together something Yana could actually use to promote herself. Of importance to Yana was the idea of sequencing and being able to see multiple works at once. Devising a plan to create horizontal rows of her work, we ended up with a simply beautiful horizontal scrolling website. We even customized it a bit – re-mapping the vertical mouse/pad scroll to a horizontal movement. This seamlessness allows users to literally flow through her work, seeing all relevant works together – bringing the narrative to life.

Please check out Yana Tutunik’s beautiful work here: www.yanatutunik.com

Tom Hanks Rap. YES.

January 30, 2012 – 7:32 pm

In this internet era, there are many things that get passed about – especially videos. And when it comes to videos, there’s literally everything you can imagine: pandas sneezing, people getting hurt, people doing really weird things with their faces, people ranting, etc.. etc… But the undisputed king of viral videos HAS to be old celebrity videos.

For some reason the video below has yet to do major footwork around the internet, but holy crap – is it deserving of some SERIOUS air time. It’s Tom Hanks and Dan Akroyd, from the movie Dragnet, performing a rap about how they’re policemen and how badly they wanna lock up these bad guys.

I mean, i don’t think much needs to be said here. this literally speaks for itself (notice how long the verses are!). Tom Hanks Dan Akroyd rapping and dancing (btw this was choreographed by Paula fucking Abdul). Speechless.

EL & IC

January 16, 2012 – 10:59 am

It’s a busy monday, but we’re loving this type treatment. Hopefully the movie is as beautiful as the type lockup, but we’ll see!

Are You Gay?

January 12, 2012 – 8:51 pm

I’ll be the first to admit it took me a really long time to get into Prince—I know, sacrilege. But come on, unless you grew up listening to him, it can be pretty hard to find an entry point into his massive discography. I mean, where would you even START?! I dare you to google “the best prince song” and find a consensus.

But this little joint, Uptown… IT’S FIRE! Granted I’m pretty biased because the wonderful boys behind Only Children put out an incredible rework/beef-up of this tune, and that’s really when I first realized “HOLY CRAP Prince is amazing”. Between his voice, cunning lyrics and light-years ahead of it’s time musicality… shit, I mean, what more can I say? Early lyrics in this song say “She said, ‘Are you gay?’ Kinda took me by surprise, I didn’t know what to do. I just looked her in her eyes, And I said, ‘No, are you?’” I MEAN COME ON PEOPLE! THIS DUDE IS INCREDIBLE.

And after watching copious amounts of live footage, I can really only say… Hail to the King: Prince.

Lightweight Stacey

January 9, 2012 – 10:53 am

There are many, MANY, Content Management System (or CMS) websites/applications out there. From the ubiquitous WordPress, to the artsy Cargo Collective, to the user-friendly Cushy CMS and the business-geared Shopify. All of these services provide something that, just a few years ago, was out of reach for most people: easy website building.

As the blog model became a bigger and bigger influence over our daily lives & national culture (remember Livejournal?), “normal” people started picking up the publication mantle and began creating their own “blogs”. For years, most people put a distinction between a blog and a website – although in all technical senses the two are identical. But as our media culture became saturated with blogger celebs like Perez Hilton, we stopped seeing the difference and early adopters began modding their blogs to the hills and back. Eventually WordPress opened up their template system, allowed for multiple page themes, and ka-boom—here we are.

You’re My Star

January 7, 2012 – 10:15 am

SBTRKT’s album was by far my favorite album of 2011, and even though there are plenty of great remixes of tunes off the album, none really stood out as adding something that was missing, or doing it better than the original.

But then i saw this acoustic cover version, and…. wow. WOW i tell you!

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