Ray Winston talks to us about getting struck by lighting and the beauty of life in this promo film for ‘The Answer’ EP, from the forthcoming album ‘Day Dreaming with James Lavelle’, directed by John Hillcoat.

It’s Absolutely Awesome.

It didn’t take long after our initial meeting with Roush Fenway Racing for us to all become NASCAR fans (except for Noah, he’s loved it since birth). The people at Roush won us over with their enthusiasm, friendliness and passion. You won’t meet a nicer group of people in the sport.

Roush Fenway came to us with an interesting request. They were looking to reposition themselves as an entertainment and marketing entity and not just a race team. So we helped Roush get to the core of what they stood for and really drilled down into what performance and success means on the track and on the web, so we could bring that to life for their sponsors and fans. Of course, this would all start with their website.

This is a big change not just for Roush, but also for the industry, and we wanted to make sure their website had a new look to match their new positioning. The energy and vigor we felt at the racetrack was incredible so we wanted to bring some of that atmosphere and life into the site with color and great photography. The devotion of the fans amazed us so we also made sure we kept their drivers front and center. Furthermore, we organized the content so that it was not only easy to search but also easy to navigate. In addition to the race and team information, we featured their current sponsors as well as case studies to highlight their successful marketing programs.

After eight months in the making and a lot of learning, we are happy to announce the launch of the first part of our efforts. Check it out.

After almost a year of work, The Barbarian Group redesign of Bloomberg.com went live on Monday. At first glance, the combination of Bloomberg and Barbarian might seem like an odd fit. How could the same group that created the Subservient Chicken get along with the company that keeps the financial and business worlds moving forward?

On the surface, it might not seem like we’d get along but it was actually quite awesome. Bloomberg is a dynamic, forward thinking company with a great culture and a focus on innovation. Just looking at the building and stepping into the main lobby is proof of that. They are also the world’s largest private network and one of the first providers of email to their customers. And they came to us with the type of challenge that we love.

Internally, the folks at Bloomberg wanted to think about what their website would be in three to five years and they came to us to bring what they imagined to life. Bloomberg.com delivers 500 news stories a day, aggregates content from relevant third parties and has a different global audience from the Bloomberg Terminal user and thus needed it’s own identity.

So we started by evaluating the user experience; focusing on legibility and scanability, enhancing search, reducing the navigation and clutter and trying to improve the overall quality of the experience.

Bloomberg was really satisfied with the ideas and thinking we showed them for a future site. We can’t really go into the details of that project quite yet since it’s still in the works, but in the interim, there was a need to bridge the gap between what we presented to them for the future and the old amber on black Bloomberg.com. So we came up with what you’ll see today. And as part of the process we got to collaborate closely with the marketing team at Bloomberg on the About section of the new site and really helped them bring the Bloomberg story to life.

All this is to say Bloomberg has been busy and so have we and we’re both excited for what’s to come.

Exciting news late on a Friday!

We are super excited to announce we hired Jay Zasa as our first Executive Creative Director. You can read all about it over at Adweek too! Jay is joining us from R/GA, where he’s been an ECD for a goodly while. Frabjous day callooh callay, yo.

I’m pleased to award a gold medal to this absolute freaky model goodness!

The best things come in eights. Hotdog rolls. Octopus legs. Sides of an octagon. Pizza slices. Cheese wedges. Loopwheeler hoodies per day. What? Oh yes…Only eight loopwheeler hoodies are made each day. Thus is the allure of the AW77 Loopwheeler, the star of the Nike Sportswear line. And now, Nike wants everyone to know just how much they care about these hoodies and how they have perfected them since their initial design in 1977. The same year that Elvis performed his last-ever concert. Coincidence? Yes, completely.

Enter AW77 Stories, our new site for NSW in conjunction with Vice. London stories serves dual purpose, much like swiffers. It showcases the AW77 along with several other products from the NSW line in situ. All products are modeled on subjects that live in a giant, interactive panorama. Further inspection unveils some beautiful shots of the products awesome details. We all really dug the two-color pocket zips.

The site also showcases several London influencers, curated and shot by Vice.

A fun short little movie about the brand and design development for the San Francisco chocolate company, TCHO . I love how they chose to represent their brand through the visuals of currency.

This is not a work of art, and that’s entirely the point.

I’m a designer. It’s my job to stay fresh, to keep my creative capabilities from growing tired. I love my role at The Barbarian Group, a company in which our motto is to find the bleeding edge of the internet, and see how far and how successfully we can bring out clients towards it. I am proud of every project that has gone out the door that I have worked on, but there is always room to improve. That’s where bitchin’ times that have nothing to do with a paycheck come in. Sometimes, you need to be able to step away from the task at hand and tap into something that client work cannot supply: a lack of purpose.

New rule: Take some time out of every day to step back and create a quick sketch. Experiment. Rock and roll. Open my mind. Keep it fun. Love every minute of it. It’s never going to be a work of art, but it’s always going to be worth it. Hitting reset on your brain from time to time, no matter what it is you do, can be a pretty good idea.

Interested in seeing more? Follow the rest of my daily sketches  here