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Rose Park Roasters

danballou — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:24:39 +0000

My friend Andrew is roasting coffee in Long Beach under the name Rose Park Roasters. It’s all roasted to order, and delivered by bicycle to your door (if you live in Long Beach). You can get a subscription, leave him to his own devices every week and get something new, or you can place a specific order. I’ve been geeking out over espresso and coffee for years, and the Rose Park coffee is good as it gets.

Plus you get to see this guy sneaking around your front porch once a week.

Canvas Shop

danballou — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:54:35 +0000

My buddy Ryan Callis runs the new Canvas Shop in Seal Beach. I’ve known Ryan since high school and he’s a great artist, and all around swell guy. The Canvas Shop is a real Canvas Shop, where he and his wife make boat covers and other custom canvas things. I dropped in on him last night to check it out. The front of the store is retail where they sell books, CDs, clothing, surfboards, and whatnots from local makers. They are presenting a screening of the movie “come hell or high water” on Jan 28th. Ray Barbee will be there playing music as well. It’s going to be a good one!

Day Trippin

danballou — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 06:53:27 +0000

I took a quick trip to San Francisco on Thursday, which included meeting up with Dan Nguyen-Tan of PUBLIC bikes. I met Dan in LA a several months back and stopped in on his storefront in the South Park neighborhood. He kindly lent me his own bike for the afternoon, which I rode down past Mission Bay and into a gigantic industrial ghost town. The bike was amazing, and surprisingly efficient for a european style commuter bike.

I had no idea that there were miles of abandoned warehouse and industrial buildings just south of the city, in the most expensive real estate market in the country. I’m not exactly sure what the heck is going on down there. I think it might be a front for an underground military complex, or a plan to make a gigantic, year round Knotts Scary Farm.

Dustin used to live in SF and he tipped me off to Blue Bottle Coffee. They are set up in an alley in the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Their specialty is pour over coffee, and it was a good coffee.

Sturdy, Plebeian, Full of Body…. great ways to describe coffee that I stole from O Lucky Man…. Wait a sec here. I actually found the clip from O Lucky Man on Youtube.

Ahura on Beavis and Butthead

danballou — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:13:06 +0000

I designed the Ahura First Defender back when I worked with the good people of Altitude in Boston. Somehow the product ended up on Beavis and Butthead, which ties my teenage and professional life together quite nicely.

Here is a link to the episode. The device appears around 5:27. By the way, the title of the episode “Dumb Design” is a jab at Intelligent Design, and has nothing to do with the Industrial Design…. at least that’s what I’m saying.

New York Times Gift Guide

danballou — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:31:12 +0000

The Cargo Containers are in the New York Times Gift Guide!

They are popping up all over the country with great retailers as well. Including museum stores SFMOMA, and LACMA, and one of the best design shops ever, The Future Perfect.

ArtBox

danballou — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:49:35 +0000

The ‘very nice bike rack’ was published in the latest issue of ArtBox Magazine. The bike rack is a self initiated project that is making slow progress toward mass production… Check out more photos of the rack on the ballou projects site.

Spatziba

danballou — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 05:28:05 +0000

Our dashdot friend and neighbor, Perhampus, helps run and contributes to this amazing website. If you have any interest in anything fun, it’s worth checking out.

Spatziba

Coinage

danballou — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:19:28 +0000

Our business coins are featured in the book “My Own Business Card”. It’s a collection of cards designed by designers for themselves. Besides our coin there tons of other great ideas. It’s awesome to see the creative explosion that happens when designers work outside of the typical boundaries. Here is a link to the book on Amazon.

Art In The Streets

danballou — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:12:32 +0000

Finally had a chance to go to the much celebrated Art In The Streets shot at MOCA. It really lives up to the hype and I can see the art history books from 2050 talking about how the exhibit was the peak of the ‘street art’ movement. This is the official cross over from sub-culture to pop-culture.

Barry McGee and friends created the most amazing instillation I’ve ever seen – a mini city block with so much detail that you can walk around 5 times and discover something new with every look.

A+D museum

danballou — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:59:08 +0000

Last night the whole crew dropped by the A+D museum to see a show centered around Surf, Skate, and Bike Culture. To tell the truth, I was a little let down, most likely because I had ridiculously high expectations. There were a few things worth the visit though. A nice interactive lighting exhibit by Electroland (I think), a concept architecture study that is a skate-able office tower, a found object skate ramp made by the Art Dump, and a Warhol inspired installation of over sized household wax.

The highlight of the night was going to Seven Grand afterward. A whiskey bar in downtown with bottles of gold from literally hundreds of small batch distilleries all over the world. It was quickly voted the new official dashdot team-building location.