jeffrey + upstairsloft

A friend and former colleague of mine opened up his own photography practice and asked me to design his first set of business cards. The brief went something like this: “I want something simple and clean. Louis Vuitton status. Classic but refreshing. Elitist. Oh. And it has to leave an impact on the people I give it to, like WTF?!”

The cards are just that. Ridiculously thick with an elitist attitude. Very understated and it’s giving the recipient a lot of credit. The dash lines, which will probably go over most people’s head, allude to measurement—since photography is all about light measurement and composition. The composition of the card achieves equilibrium—in a dynamic way—which are key ingredients to what makes a great portrait.

» Calvin Ma Photo

This kid growed’d up and became my wife. She’s a weirdo.

I used to take snapshots non-stop until I caught myself stuck in the same scene, taking snapshots of the same people, in the same places. It got repetitive and it didn’t feel new to me. I knew taking a break from the repetition would be a good thing. It’s been about 3 years since I’ve really touched film.

I’m about ready to jump back in and start documenting with my film camera again. The thing about using film is I’m even more selective about when I press the shutter. Fellow shutterbugs often comment on how little I snap away. But the pay-off is rewarding. 1. I don’t have to filter through a crap load of photos in search of “the one.” 2. Patience pays and years later, some of these photos have quite the stopping power.

Today, I spent an hour looking at old film photos I took. My snapshots primarily focus on my loved ones and they show me how much things have changed in the last few years and how much we’ve aged (these photos seriously feel like a lifetime ago). But a few snapshots from my set in the Philippines stopped me in my tracks.

Below are a few of my fave snapshots that I took with my compact film cameras.

» More here

While the rest of the world soaks themselves up in a drunken stupor, I spent the day with the Biala family to celebrate Jack’s 3rd birthday. Anytime I can spend time with the Godkid, I will. He’s an awesome little creature and I can’t believe he’s already 3. Slow down, little dude.

» Check the Pics

Remember the wedding invite? Probably not unless we mailed you one. But I finally had some downtime to take some detail shots of these guys. Designed by your favorite hub/wife design team—Team Reyes-Tanhueco. Work during the day, freelance, wedding planning, collateral design at night. But what a way to dress one of the most memorable and fun weeks in our lives through some nifty design!

Our wedding invitation suite has a vintage travel theme for our destination wedding. We expanded the visual vocabulary of our invites to live on tags, stamps, boxes, the slideshow, umbrellas, the place settings… anything a design can live on—we designed it. It was, after all, our wedding. So we made it just that. About us with the fam and friends in the most intimate of settings, on the island of O’ahu.

We designed our wedding monogram to be a loose concept of tying the knot, incorporating both our initials, wedding date and location.

The invitation itself is inspired by older forms of correspondence, such as the telegram. We wanted our guests to open the invitation and feel as if the message were personally crafted to to arrive at their doorstep.

The RSVP, while following the look and feel of the invitation, has incredible functional value. It leaves the guests with an area to fill out the names of the attendees (for future reference) and also allowed us to make note of which invitation went to which invitee, by reference of the receipt number.

The memo insert functions as secondary information that still remains pertinent to attending guests.

(click image)

Kate and I hit up the Alameda Flea Market for the first time today and scored some sweet things. The Alameda Flea Market happens every first Sunday and it’s an antique flea market that takes up the old naval base at Alameda Point. I had no luck finding a used electrical chair, a Yugoslavian bidet or a guillotine to furnish our apartment, but we did come home with some other cool pieces like 30 year old whiskey, wooden block type, a skeleton key, a cool mason jar and eyeglass frames I plan on popping new lenses in.

Because any reason to design something cool to send out to your closest friends and family is exciting (like baby announcements, invitations, hell, even a new haircut) we were thrilled to share the news of our new place of residence in San Francisco—in the Sunset District.

We had a handful of boxes that fell apart during our move and we caught ourselves almost dumping them in the recycling bin when we realized—Oh! We can use this for our moving announcement. So we did. Crate and Barrel boxes, moving boxes, all sorts of boxes. So each piece has its own character.

From the Richmond, we were Sunset Bound. The card pays homage to The Sunset, specifically where we live, just off 9th and Judah, where we can conveniently catch the N-Judah line, thus the blue-circle N. We had a local alterations shop sew the printed piece onto the scrap cardboard—mimicking the MUNI tracks and transit lines. And it gave it that extra tactile feel. We had fun working on this piece.

Rituals are important, especially in times where I need to just sit back and unwind. Especially, when after I sit back and unwind and I’m back to grinding. Rituals and mini breaks are vital and it’s one of the main ingredients that keeps me on my grind, and keeps me sharp when working late nights, non-stop, jumping from one project to the next and meeting quick-turn project deadlines.

The Morning Ceremony
Every morning when I wake up, I hit snooze for about 15 minutes. This is easy. When I wasn’t working from home, I had to hit snooze for about an hour before I got up. Now I hit snooze for about 15 and get up after a 6–7 hour slumber. I pick up my iPhone to end the alarm, scan through emails, tweets and Facebook updates and my calendar. Okay. I’m up.

I put on my glasses, my robe (it’s still pretty chilly in San Francisco) and I walk over to the kitchen, heat up water in the kettle, brush my teeth, head back over to the  kitchen and press coffee for 5 minutes.

Over a delicious cup of black brew, beans courtesy of The Beanery, I read emails, catch myself up to speed on the ol’ to-do list, read my RSS feeds and create a playlist to last me at least a 1/3 of the day (thank you iTunes Genius playlists!). And then I’m on my hustle.

Midday Crash
I either make something for lunch or walk around my neighborhood, which is known for being a purveyor of all sorts of deliciousness. And it’s just great to stretch the lo’ legs.

Into the Night
By 5, I’m drinking a glass of wine. It slows down that race in my head and it calms my pulse. It induces that need to reflect and just kick it for a bit.

But Wine Everyday?
Yeah. At least a half bottle of wine a day. There are 9 days in a week, right? Well, I think it it’s fine. But my stubbornness is typical of Taurus behavior. So in respect of the wife’s wishes, I decided to cut down my wine intake. I can’t blame her as the same blood that courses through these veins have a history of a handful of diseases. As I’m within arm’s reach of 30, paying mind to my health, cutting down on my intake of wine, butter and bacon isn’t something that’ll punish me.

So Then What?
As a gift for my cooperation, the wifey bought me a cool teaset She knew that both wine and tea both calm me down and she knows I scoff at drinking tea out of a paper cup like it’s coffee simply for the sake of caffeine consumption. Drinking tea is something you do sitting down, not something I love to do when I’m on the go-go. Coffee in the morning and 2–3 pots of continuously hot tea throughout the day.

The wife is smart. 2 weeks in since switching up the routine and I’m still sane. Kate, you’re cool.