Last Minutes with ODEN

This is one of those short documentaries where when you saw it, you just had to stop and think. It's a really heavy story and it's shot really well, so many good things about it. One of those things thats very sad and somehow inspiring at the same time. Well worth the watch, so well shot, directed and edited.

Anish Kapoor

A good friend told me about Anish Kapoor a year or so ago. I had never heard of him but his work is truly amazing. His work is mostly large scale site specific installation and most likely you have seen his work before, you may just not have known it was his. Usually listening to an artist talk about their work can become pretentious and hard to listen to very quickly, but Anish speaks about the work in a totally different manner than any other artist, most often taking almost no credit for what the work says or does or how it makes someone feel and talking more about the process of it and how it more comes to be rather than with and end goal or message in mind. Click the link to watch a video about him and check out more of his work if you are so inclined. 

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Banks Violette

One of our favorite, if not our favorite artist, Banks Violette has been an inspiration to us at the studio since one of my good friends showed me his work a few years back. Large scale sculptural and installation work is the best and most inspiring stuff to me personally and I would say to most of us here at the studio. Mostly because it requires more then just concept or fine art skill and thinking, there is a lot of engineering and problem solving involved which is something we all love and appreciate. Check out Banks and his work, hopefully you will be as inspired by him as we are. https://vimeo.com/31039354

Shinya Kimura

Everyone that works for Ply and many people that work with us ride bikes and most of us grew up riding them. Shinya Kimura is one of the most inspiring people in the motorcycle world and this short film captures what he does so well. The locked off shots, the sparse dialogue and the shots on the bike, all of it works together so well to evoke such a specific feeling. Another old one but nevertheless one that I still watch every few months because it's so good. Whether you ride motorcycles like we do it or not I would say this is undoubtedly worth watching. https://vimeo.com/13159991

Dark Side of the Lens

We're digging in the crates so to speak for some of these just to get caught up to the present day. This remains one of my personal favorite short films I've seen. Gives me the same feeling every time I watch it. I don't want to say too much, just give it a watch and enjoy. https://vimeo.com/15749351

Dieter Rams' Principles of Good Design

Dieter Rams is someone we look to a lot for inspiration. His Principle for good design are something that every designer should know, whether you're designing buildings or brochures the principles are still helpful. This is a short piece about them but there's loads more to read about Dieter Rams, the principles as well as his work with Braun. https://vimeo.com/15749351

David Ellis

We won't be posting much news here on the blog because I can't imagine anyone wants to read about the new ad campaign, catalog, photo shoot or tee graphics we're working on. What we will be posting are links to the things and people that inspire us or that we enjoyed. Our first post on this subject is an artist we've followed for a very long time. Artists that do more than just paint and take it beyond the canvas are much more interesting and David Ellis can move through different mediums as well as anyone. From his work with the Barnstormers including taking apart a barn, re-assembling it in a gallery and then painting it over and over for weeks, to his own installations his work is always interesting. Check out this video and if you like it look for more, there's a lot of good ones out there. https://vimeo.com/9764863

Welcome

Welcome to the Ply blog. This is where we post interesting happenings, inspiration and all things we are into as well as projects we are working on and other things going in the studio. Check back as we will be updating often.