Classic and Quality Never Go Out of Style
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The Bitterness of Poor Quality…
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The whole quote attributed to Ben Franklin is “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of the low price is forgotten“. And it is tempting today to go down the road of compromise because business is so challenging. In the final analysis, when is it okay to cut a corner or bring in substandard products into your world? I don’t know the answer to that but I can tell you that cheap, as far as the world that our customer occupies is never the answer. Sure, it may be a temptation but at what cost?
Lately I’ve been thinking about my father who passed away almost four years ago. If he were here, he’d ask me “Ed, if you were a suit, what brand would you be?” a good question. Notice, he would not ask what brand “am I”, but “would be”. That’s the engine that drives my thinking in my work and at home. Quality is nearly impossible to define so we create a narrative. My dad’s narrative was a suit, yours may be a fine time piece or a car, others may think of fine crystal or even wine. So if in doubt about what to do today or where to go tomorrow, we need to know who we want to be, because if we do not know where we are going, any road will take us there.
So, what suit would I be (and why)? I would be a Brioni. A Brioni suit is impossible to compromise. The name itself is a call to action if you are a tailor. The processes that created this brand are passed from generations through meticulous adherence to quality standards, materials and craftsmanship. Yet, the responsibility that comes with maintaining a legendary brand is daunting. Temptations to cut corners and work with inferior materials to appease threats of low cost options is always there. The opportunists that appear year after year ready and happy to knock you off your mount are many. Those that claim to have the Brioni quality with more a “modern” style and of course, lower prices sing persuasive until you drape the garment on your shoulders. I can’t afford Brioni suits but I know what they look and feel like. I’ve even had a sport coat on at the store, fantasized about meeting mysterious people on the streets of Rome and looking impossibly dashing sipping my Negroni at Harry’s Bar. That is the standard by which I measure the suits I can afford and more than that, it’s the standard by which the uncompromising nature of our products are based. Like me, my company can’t afford Brioni, but it can sure aspire to the ideal of what makes it a legendary brand. We would be the company with integrity, quality and more than anything have our customers in mind when creating our world. The byproduct is what we sell: pictures. And in those pictures you would find 50 years of like-minded individuals all striving and working under the onus of a legendary brand with the responsibilities that comes with it. To trip-up or cheat or cut corners would be unthinkable. If you were a suit, or car or a watch or…what would you be? –EM
Quality At The Source…How We Do It
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Throughout the manufacturing chain at Soicher Marin, our materials, products, and processes are continually inspected for quality and thoroughness. We believe Quality at the Source is fundamental to our role as product leaders, and the foundation of our Quality Assurance Program.
Quality at the Source is critical to the hand crafted product we create. The craftsmen in our shop deal with numerous variables that require immediate and sound decision in quality. Through proper skills training and standardized processes, we give each employee the skill and knowledge to identify potential defects in materials and workmanship, and prevent them from ever leaving our doors.
At each workstation, every unit we produce is inspected for size, quality and construction. Defective items are pulled and recorded for review by our Quality Teams. Standardized processes provide assurance that the craftsmanship behind each fine work of art will bear the same time tested methods. From one workstation to the next, nothing moves down the line until it meets our agreed standards.
Every product Soicher Marin ships receives Final Inspection just prior to packaging. Here our quality control inspector gives a final review of the four major product points; Art, Materials, Craftsmanship, and Labeling. Only after meeting all our strict requirements do we proudly ship your art.
-AG
Art for the Artists Sake
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My favorite piece I drew
I have been an artist since I was a little girl…of course I didn’t know it at the time. I would walk around the playground with my Steno notepad writing short stories all day. That soon moved to musical instruments, of which I played the percussion. By 2nd grade I was in the high-school band playing little drummer boy, but then I moved on again to drawing. In 5th grade I had an art teacher take a liking to me and she pushed me and my drawing skills to the limit. I was drawing caricatures and still life’s pretty well, I think even better than I can now! In high-school that moved on to painting where again I had a teacher pushing my boundaries every day, while other kids were working on their weekly school projects I was doing my monthly painting with toothpicks for detail.
My montage to the greats.
What’s the point in this? I’m not trying to impress you with my art or even state that I am an artist myself. My point is the respect I have for artist and art itself. I have pushed myself through different aspects of art my entire life-writing, photography, ceramics, charcoal, pastels, watercolor, oil painting, acrylic painting, drawing, etc. The work, effort, and conceptualizing that goes into pieces makes them invaluable. That people can even put prices on art work as great as Dali, Da Vinci, or Van Gogh astounds me. I do have respect for the great artists of their day, but I believe there are artist alive and well today that are impeccable as well. This, dear reader, is what I would like to focus on in my monthly blog’s to you. I feel as though a lot of artists have become overlooked for no other reason than they get lost in the overshadowing of the greats. Why spend 1000’s on an artist that is alive when I can spend it on a dead one for 100’s of thousands….uh well basically because times have changed my friend. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying to leave the greats behind, absolutely not! I will always buy Dali until the day I myself expire…but it will be a giclee.
One artist that I love in particular is Laurie Lipton. Looking at her drawings can initially be a bit creepy, but once you take in the intense detail you can do nothing but appreciate her technique. She was inspired by the religious paintings of the Flemish School, and tried to teach herself how to paint in that style. When this proved to be a failure she began developing her very own peculiar drawing technique. She began building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. The result is an incredible amount of detail that makes you wonder how on earth could she have spent that much time creating this enormous works of art. That is what makes an artist completely worth it.
Spend some time looking through her work, and see if you can find my favorite piece she has. I’ll give you a hint: It has to do with faces, and no it is not the main page piece on her web site. Until next time dear readers.
My fashion week photo at the Baby Phat show
Tech University Vol.1
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Ok everyone put your backpacks away, take a seat, oh and feel free to leave an apple on my desk, but it better be the kind made in Cupertino, California! What I am going to be doing over the next few months is be your tech teacher. One of the biggest problems I run into as a graphic designer is trying to either explain something computer related to someone that has no clue what I am saying, or trying to understand what a client is asking for because they are using incorrect terms. So, as an attempt to help this, I will explain computer and design related things to everyone on a very simple level and by the end of the course, possibly have the reader doing something on their own!
Since this is the first class, normally I would introduce myself as the teacher, but my last blog somewhat already did this. Feel free to go back and read a little about me if you haven’t. Trust me, I’m worth it. So instead of introductions of ourselves, let’s do a quick course overview.
By the end of this blog series you should know the follow:
-The different file types and what they are used for
-Image resolution and how to use it
-The difference between RGB and CMYK
-Basic color correction of images in Photoshop
-Resizing an image correctly in Photoshop
-How to use layers in Photoshop
-How to take parts of the image out or add more of something in
-Create a basic brochure or bi-fold
-Hand code back-end developer applications and hack into the Pentagon
So there we have it. Everything on this list is fairly simple to learn and should be known by anyone that deals with a designer on a regular basis or just likes to learn new things. If at any time along the way, there is something I haven’t covered that you want to know, feel free to comment, I love feedback.
Well that’s it! Welcome to class, I hope you enjoy this series and if you don’t, I will not hesitate to expel you. Yeah, that’s right, I’m that teacher!
Vote for Daisy!!
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Soicher Marin’s Newest Team Members
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Meet Soicher Marin’s new team members that make the company come to life both artistically and literally.
Michelle Gagne
Hello everyone I am Michelle!
I am a new addition to the team here at Soicher Marin, and I am very happy in my new home. I am the Marketing Director for the firm and you may see me tweeting, blogging, or facebooking quite a bit as I am social networking happy. I also hope to assist Soicher Marin on its fun journey of being the best art consulting/dealing/framing/design company in the US.
A bit about me:
I am interested in life and all types of art-(sculpture, drawing, painting, 3-D, theater, music, sports{oh yes it is an art form}, graphics, design, and my new passion photography). I went to the top design school in the nation, Parsons, where I took Design Management. From there I hopped right into the publication world as a Marketing Associate and I produced a lot of events in New York, as well as traveled as a photojournalist for other magazines on the side. In my spare time I did graphics, photography, writing, and fine art. I am published in all areas in different locations. Basically I come with a keen sense of business, but from an artists standpoint. Organized chaos + creative solutionist = Cre8iv Sparq
I have traveled extensively in my short time here on this planet and I have seen some pretty incredible things that I hold dear. I keep them in my pocket, close to my heart, ready to pull out whenever my day seems to go sour. They are-Central Park on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the sun rising over Darling Harbor in Circular Quey in Sydney, Australia , the rice fields in Bali, spending my last four days from Australia on Treasure Island in Fiji, The White Party at Nikki Beach in South Beach Miami, sitting on the rooftops of San Francisco on a clear night, walking the streets of Bangkok, Thailand and instead of being afraid-absorbing the spirituality of the people that love every bit of their life even if they have nothing, laying out at Lake Ivanhoe in the Spring in Orlando, FL as I watch the people fly by on the interstate while I relax and take in the day, and most importantly the sheer energy that “IS” New York City- which is why I lived there for the best years of my life.
Now I am here in sunny Sarasota working for an exciting company. I hope to see and speak to all of you soon!
*~MG
Brent Jenkins
Where should I begin? I guess a simple hello, my name is Brent will do. I’m the new digital ninja here at Soicher Marin. For the past 7 year I have been a graphic designer, prepress artist, production designer and more. My education comes courtesy of The Art Institute of Atlanta where I received Best in Show for my graduating class. Yeah, I know, I’m awesome.
Besides being a designer, there are a lot of things I enjoy doing. First and foremost, I am a family man. Most of my time is spent hanging out with my wife and amazing little girl. After that, I like to hike, bike, run, scuba dive, bowl, play poker, fish and listen to endless amounts of music. Currently I am just trying to get use to my new amazing surroundings here in Sarasota, which is 57,000 times better than GA. That’s an actual statistic, feel free to check Wikipedia.
Along with all my activities, I am also a huge Apple fanboy and overall tech enthusiast. I follow a few sports as well when I actually have some free time. Mostly I stick to baseball where I am and always will be a Braves fan, and I also follow the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.
Being a part of the Soicher Marin team has been a great experience so far and I look forward to contributing as much as my nerdy brain can. Seeing some of these ideas come to life is always a pleasure and as a designer, it’s so rad to be surrounded by art all day.
For now though, I must get back to work. I can’t spoil you guys with too much of my time. Besides, I have requests coming out of my ears…got a qtip?
Tampa Tall Ship Festival
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As both sailor and amateur photographer I appreciate every opportunity to connect with the hobbies I love. Just recently I had the pleasure of visiting the Sail Tampa Bay Tall Ship Festival, an annual event that celebrates Tampa’s long maritime history. Here dockside tours provided me the opportunity of capturing some beautiful details of magnificent international sailing ships.
The Captain Miranda, a 205 foot Staysail Schooner built in 1930, and Gloria, a 249 foot Three-Masted Barque, were truly a feasts for the eyes. Both ships, built in Spain between 1930 and 1966, are a true testament to the countries long history of seamanship and boat building. Today, both ships serve as training vessels for young cadets from both Uruguay and Colombia.
As a small craft sailor, with dreams of someday sailing on such ships, I was pleased to see so many familiar systems. From fairleads and wenches to the sails and sheets, the only difference for me was the massive scale. They say that the whole is greater than the sum of all its part, and while I know this to be true, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to focus my attention on the simple details that sometimes get lost. 250 photographs were taken this day.
The details of my photographs hopefully capture the simple beauty of the systems that both power, tame, and support these massive sailing ships.
Please enjoy,
-AG
Thom Filicia At Soicher Marin
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High Point Market is around the corner (hard to believe) and Thom flew down from New York to put a few touches on the collection we’ve been working on together for nearly a year. The process of getting the multitude of ideas blazing through Thom’s mind into concrete works of art is incredible. He’s got an amazing ability to distill ideas, and he has one [idea] every few seconds. It’s all we could do to keep up. But as you will be seeing in the coming weeks as we “leak” some previews of the upcoming Thom Filicia Collection, his collection of art is like nothing we’ve presented before. Thom’s unique brand and vision is exciting. We are thrilled to be able to bring him to you. In the meantime, keep posted and enjoy a few behind the scene pix of Thom at work in our Sarasota studio.
Decesions, Decesions. Start of the day and we're all so fresh.
Does it look like we agree?
So many mouldings, so little time...
Collection of mouldings to pare down
Whittling down to the final, exquisite few.
The aftermath...
