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Betabrand Poo Emoji Shirt

June 5, 2018 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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Betabrand is known for a slapstick approach to content creation and storytelling, so when it came to coming up with how to present a shirt literally covered with poop emojis, the brainstorming session consisted of all sorts of lowbrow concepts. One of them consisted of photoshopping studio photos of a model being flushed down a toilet.

Sick of the rampant potty humor, in the creative meeting I proposed a presentation that was almost a complete 180: let the product serve as the humorous element and do something not at all expected. Instead, I wanted to model the mood in the style of a tv novella or soap opera to create the narrative.

It took some convincing, but the concept paid off, as the internet took the queues provided and ran with as the major blogs picked up the story. (Julie at BuzzFeed, you get me) The launch proved successful, inspiring a number of follow-up products.  Although some ‘photochop’ cheese was added to the gallery after the fact, it remains as some of the favorite work I did for Betabrand during my tenure.

Select Web Coverage:

Buzzfeed — This is the Classiest Poop Shirt You’ll Ever Wear

Gizmodo — This Poop Emoji Shirt is Crap

CNet — Poop Emoji button-up shirt makes your wardrobe stink

AdWeek — Betabrand’s Latest Stunt: The Poop Emoji Shirt

The Guardian — The Poo Shirt (or the rise of emoji fashion)

The Verge — Here’s that poop emoji button up shirt you always wanted

Thrillist — This Poop Emoji Button Up Shirt Smells Like Sucess

Daily News — Smiling poop emoji shirt, matching sneakers a hit with online shoppers

 

Filed Under: Betabrand Tagged With: Art Direction, Betabrand, Photography, PR

Collaborative Marketing: Betabrand x Torker

May 10, 2018 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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As a consumer direct, online Clothing Company, Betabrand generally doesn’t invest marketing dollars into print advertising. In my efforts to promote the Bike to Work Collection line of commuter focused apparel, I was always seeking to create opportunities for Brand Collaboration in order to expand market reach and brand awareness.

A conversation with some of the marketing team at Accel North America at the Sea Otter Classic Bike Festival led to an ongoing conversation.

As we were regularly photographing images for the collection, a partnership was proposed: working in collaboration with the art director with the Torker Bikes Brand, my team and I would produce lifestyle photography that incorporated Torker Bikes to create a library of assets for both brands, then co-promote the brands in different channels, extending brand reach for both brands.

Filed Under: Betabrand, Featured Tagged With: Art Direction, Brand Awareness, Collaborative Marketing, Photography

Bosky x Betabrand: Wood Sunglasses Product Launch

June 9, 2016 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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Case Study: Photography & Creative Direction

Bosky Optics is an Oregon-based company that creates sunglasses and snow goggles with natural and recycled materials. For this collaboration between Bosky and Betabrand we had less than a week to come up with a plan for creative direction and execute it.

The concept we came up with? Wood models wearing wood sunglasses! This was a fun concept to run with. To execute it, we had a make-up artist paint our models, then enhanced the photos in post-production.

For this launch, I took an active role in creative direction, scouted locations, and did the studio and location photography with the assistance of our stylist/ photo producer Megan. Our graphic designers helped with post-production and retouching of the wood mannequin effects.


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Filed Under: Betabrand, Featured Tagged With: Betabrand, Bosky, Photography, Sunglasses

Event Marketing: The Time We Jumped an Electric Bike Over a Car to Sell Pants

April 27, 2016 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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Maker Faire is an event created by Maker Magazine that’s part science fair, and part county fair, intended to be a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity and resourcefulness. It also was the site of one of the first event marketing stunts we put on during my stint with Betabrand.

To raise awareness of Betabrand’s collection of office/bicycle friendly workwear, the team created the character of Eco Knievel – the world’s first eco-friendly stuntman. While wearing Betabrand Bike to Work Pants, our fearless stuntman would launch an ebike into the air over a Humvee in front of a crowd ammassed at the event.

 

The challenge? In 2011, eMountain Bikes didn’t exist as they do now. It wouldn’t have mattered though as our partner for the stunt that providing the ebike for the event, only sells a utility-style ebike designed for delivering cargo. While said ebike was a hoot to ride around San Francisco and could do a mean burn out, (provided you locked the front brake while unweighting the rear of the bike) it handled about as well as a wheel barrow in the air.

Another way to describe it could be to say that this electric utility bike possessed a similar capacity for flight as a red brick.

Which, assuming you were astride said red brick as it launches into the air, you would likely be screaming at the top of your lungs as the unfriendly ground rushes up to meet you. 

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As the resident “extreme mountain biker” in the office, at one point, I was asked if I was interested in assuming the task of executing the jump. Although performing a stunt of this caliber was technically within my existing skillset (I once moonlighted as a mountain biking stunt man for an HBO production) on my personal bike, having ridden said electric bike around town, I was all-too-familiar with the handling of the utility bike, as well as its non-existent capacity for flight.

My response was a politely uttered “Oh hell no“. (This story plays a lot better if you read this line as performed by Chris Tucker in the cult classic film”Friday“.)

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My task assigned for undertaking was to recruit a stuntman and a crew to construct the ramps for the event, then produce the photography and documentary video. With a measly budget of maybe a couple of hundred bucks. Ok, it was maybe 2-3 times that… but not very much.

To assist in pulling off this event I recruited a pro BMX rider friend to help with assembling a crew to construct the ramps, transport them across the bay area, and perform the stunt.

On the day of the event, when the crowd ammassed on site and it was time to jump the bike he was genuinely scared. It was a bit ironic considering he could have backflipped his personal bikes over the ramps all day without breaking a sweat.

Needless to say the crowd was entertained and he walked away unscathed. Somehow we pulled it off, and our stuntman lived though the fact the bike flew like said brick. After the jump, he rode his bike through a wall of tofu, but that was nowhere near as daring as the main event.

Filed Under: Betabrand Tagged With: Betabrand, Marketing, Marketing Stunts

Betabrand STL Tyvek Windshell

January 7, 2016 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

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During my tenure at Betabrand, I rarely had time to scout locations for shoots as our release schedule moved extremely quickly. Because of that, we scheduled shoots based model availability and the time of day to capitalize on natural lighting conditions. If we needed a specific setting, I’d use Google Maps to plan locations.

I was looking forward to shooting the STL Tyvek Windshell; during our creative meeting I was given a mood board and a few locations were suggested as possibilities. Fortunately, I managed to get out on my bike to visit the site a few days in advance to find the time the lighting would be optimal. The extra bit of preparation resulted in a great set of images and when we were launching the product, we a lot of great visual assets to work with.

You can view the Betabrand STL Tyvek Windshell at Betabrand.com.

Filed Under: Betabrand, Featured Tagged With: Betabrand, Creative Direction, Photography, Tearsheets

Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory 2015 Travel Planner

October 7, 2015 by jasonvh Leave a Comment

Splash page on the 2015 Travel Planner
Splash page on the 2015 Travel Planner

 

Mt. Hood is one of our favorite places, and one of the main reasons we relocated back to the Portland area, so its been both an honor and pleasure to have the Clackamas County Tourism Development Council/ BPN as a client. My photo of Inga Beck and her Santa Cruz Blur LTc enjoying the viewpoint at the Sandy Ridge Trail has a prominent location in the table of contents for this year’s Travel Planner and has been featured in web and outdoor campaigns.

There’s so much to visit, see and explore on Mt. Hood – here’s to more adventures on the rivers, lakes and trails of our amazing backyard.

Filed Under: Featured, Tearsheets Tagged With: Inga Beck, Mt. Hood, OMHT, Photography, Tearsheets

Betabrand Disco Tuxedo

September 25, 2012 by jasonvh Leave a Comment

Bill Boles in the Betabrand Disco Tuxedo
Bill Boles in the Betabrand Disco Tuxedo

 

It takes a special occasion (for most) to don a tuxedo, much less a tux made from disco ball fabric. It also takes a rockstar personality to head out in public head-to- toe ensconced in the shiny material, as it’s guarantied to get the stare down from everyone passing by, which is why I recruited Bill Boles for the job.

Our plan was to find a location (still is actually) where wearing a tuxedo would be appropriate and the symphony sounded like a great plan. Since they were putting on a free show at the Justin Hermin Plaza, we headed down to see what kind of photographic opportunities awaited us.

Turns out it was a pretty casual affair, with a few hundred people sitting cross-legged in the plaza, so we ended up shying away from the event. Fortunately we managed to get a few cool images on the water front- space and rockets have been on ongoing theme for the Disco Collection, and while my favorite photos often don’t make the site, I was really happy with this one.

I didn’t have a light stand with me and started by hand holding my speedlight off camera left. Fortunately Bill’s brother happened along and was able to play the role of VAL. (voice activated light stand). Camera: 7D, 10-22mm F4 Lens.

Check it out on Betabrand.com

Filed Under: Betabrand, Featured Tagged With: Betabrand Disco, lifestyle, speedlite

Three-alarm fire in Soma

May 5, 2011 by Jason Van Horn Leave a Comment

While heading to a downtown San Francisco location for a Betabrand shoot, we came across major traffic on Folsom Street. It was from a massive blaze, with fire trucks coming in from everywhere. I’ve never actually seen a serious fire before— it was intense stuff.

Just found SFGate coverage on it here: SFGate. Since I had my camera on me, (as I almost always do these days) I documented it. While I saw at least three injuries, hopefully they all recover.

fire fighters hard at work attempting to contain the blaze
fire fighters hard at work attempting to contain the blaze

Coverage from Kron 4

Article on SFist

Firefighters in SOMA in San Francisco
fire fighters hard at work attempting to contain the blaze
fire fighters hard at work attempting to contain the blaze

 

Filed Under: Featured, Photography Tagged With: documentary, fire, Folsom Street, photojournalism, SoMa

Testing a new DIY Push Button Trigger for Pocket Wizards

March 23, 2010 by jasonvh 5 Comments

First, a warning. This post gets pretty geeky. If you aren’t into cameras, or how images are made, you might just scroll to the bottom. You could also check out this link, to some cool images in my portfolio.

I’ve been looking for way to wirelessly fire my SLR remotely for some time now.  In this quest, I’ve tried a few different products intended for firing the shutter on my Canon SLR, with mixed results. None of them really worked that well. I found the first one in a camera store in Kelowna, BC. 

RFN3 Wireless Shutter Release
RFN3 Wireless Shutter Release

At $120, the shutter release seems a bit pricey, but when a single cord for a for a Pocket Wizard Wireless Transmitter is $80 or so, it appeared to be a less expensive solution to the problem. It seemed to fit the bill- I was able to fire my camera using a remote in my hand. The plan was to tape it to the handlebars on my bicycle in order to do self portraits while riding trails in the woods, for my site ihatebikes.net.

Things seemed to be good-  it fired the camera from an reasonable distance, and I was able to hang it on my grip easily with a hair bungee and some tape. That is, until halfway into a paid gig, when it abruptly stopped working. I ended up getting the shots I needed, but had to fiddle with it a bit until I got it working again.  However, using old school Nintendo tactics (ie, blowing on it) is a bit ridiculous. For what I paid, I wasn’t willing to be stuck with a random piece of plastic from Taiwan that may or not work a week from now, so on my way back through Canada, we made a detour and I returned it.

cleon wireless shutter release
Cleon wireless shutter release

I foolishly tried again with a similar product, the Cleon, from Phottix. I believe I found it on Ebay, and with a price of $30 or so shipped from China, it looked like the same product with different packaging.

Unfortunately I had similar results. The product worked- at times. The wireless remote didn’t fire the camera half the time, and that led to a bit more hair pulling, although I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. The push button release would fire the camera consistently, and that is about all I could recommend using the product for.

At this point, I was tired of messing around, and after reading the Chase Jarvis post on POV photography, and seeing some of the possiblities a reliable remote trigger system had besides just using myself as a MTB model in a pinch, I ordered up the rather expensive (it is all relative I guess) PW pre-trigger cable.

Finally- a real solution.

Now the question was, how am I going to attach and position this thing so I can reach the button and fire the damn camera? Back to Google, and after some searching, I found it on Reuben Krabbe’s blog. In his DIY tutorial, he modifies a miniphone jack, and connects it to a push button switch.

Heading off to Radio Shack, I purchase the necessary supplies, and shelved the project temporarily, as I don’t own a soldering iron. However, my brother is a full blown RC fanatic, and he just happens to be a master of the solder, so on my last visit, I pulled the bag of parts out and sat down with him to complete the mod.

My brother Izaak, working his soldering magic.
My brother Izaak, working his soldering magic.

My custom push button trigger for my Pocket Wizard
My custom push button trigger for my Pocket Wizard

Little bro did a great job, and even added some seriously nice finishing touches. I was expecting to wrap the soldered connection with electric tape; what he did turned out super pro.

Plugging it in to my Pocket Wizard, the project seemed to be successful. Pushing the button activates the PW on the camera via channel one. In order for everything to sync correctly, the Pocket Wizards on the speedlites need to be set on the next channel.

Mounting the push button trigger
Mounting the push button trigger

All that was left was to get out and test the new set up. Heading into the woods near our apartment, I set the camera up on my tripod. I bungied the Pocketwizard to my bars, and using gaffer’s tape, set the trigger up near my grip so I could actuate it while riding. The big test would be seeing if I could time the pushing of the button with aggressive moves while riding.

Testing out the new push button trigger, somewhere in the urban forest of Portland, OR.
Testing out the new push button trigger, somewhere in the urban forest of Portland, OR.

It turns out I was able to manage hitting the button at the right time- although I did end up shooting each position I was trying to shoot 10 or 20 times before I started getting results I was happy with. The downside to this system is that I am going to need at least one more Pocketwizard, as one is mounted on the camera, one on the bar, and one with my speedlite. I had issues slaving the flashes, so I’m going to get another (preferable at least two more) to get the effects I’m after.

The final image
The final image

Here is the final image from the day. It was creating using a composite of five separate images in post processing. I have one flash that is mounted to the camera right that is pointing to the rider. In this case, it’s me. I ripped through this s-turn section on the bike over two dozen times. Each time I would tap the push button on my left hand at the appropriate point, and capture an image. At one point in the day, the sun popped through the trees and lit the trail, which was perfect. The final product took a considerable amount of time to shoot and put together in post, but in the end, I came through with what I think is a pretty sweet image that I can add to my portfolio.

What do you think?

Filed Under: Photography Tagged With: Photography, pocketwizard, push button trigger, self portrait, speedlight, strobist, trigger

Bridgetown Hustle at Nemo

February 8, 2010 by jasonvh 1 Comment

The Bridgetown Hustle took place on Friday February 5th at the Nemo Design Studios in Portland. A convergence of bikes and associated culture, the event kicked off with an opening of a bike art show that featured installations, photography, prints and a few paintings and drawings. Backyard Blam held a cross genre bunny hop contest which pitted BMX versus MTB versus Freestyle fixed,(BMX won) and had a number of launch ramps, picnic tables, and other features for the riders to play on. Inside, they also held a packed Goldsprints race for the prize of a bicycle donated by Giant Bicycles.

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The crowd was a broad range of cycling enthusiasts, which was more than apparent from the variety the types of bikes stacked outside and cabled up in the parking lot, though the tight girl wearing jean crowd had strong attendance, with hipsters everywhere. At one point in the evening, it got pretty tight, especially after the events outside shifted indoors.

I got wind of the event just weeks before it happened, but had a few paintings that were ready to show that I was able to submit. I brought my camera with me, and was able to test my new low-key sneaky camera bag set up that utilizes Domke inserts in my Timbuk2 messenger bag.

The event continued on Saturday, with more mayhem planned, but we were unable to attend.

Please contact me if you are interested in the use of any of the images.

Filed Under: Painting, Photography Tagged With: art, backyard blam, bike art, bridgetown hustle, bunny hop contest, fixies, goldsprints, nemo

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