Unit Verse

Now adorning a wall in my office and in full view of anyone entering our front door is a piece that I commissioned from Kyle Steed, an artist and designer from here in the Dallas, TX area. It’s entitled, “28 Bicycles.”

When I commissioned the piece Kyle asked if I had anything in mind for the subject of the work. I told him to do whatever he thought was appropriate; full license, in other words. I’m excited by the fact that what he came back with was a subject close to my enthusiasms and relevant to my life, for I am an avid cyclist.

The artist’s comment on this work:

“The poster consists of 28 different bicycles all a little different from the other. The layout is very structured and organized in contrast to the hand-drawn imperfections of the bicycles. Thinking about life as a journey and using the bicycle to symbolize how we are traveling, we all get there a little differently. But ultimately we all end in the same place. The bicycle then just becomes another fragment from our journey and we are left with all our memories. The beauty is in the journey, the challenges and imperfections, not in the things we own along the way.”

The fixture.

As seen through my office glass door at the entrance to Unit. Nice shadowbox effect :)

It’s a large-ish work: 32”x40”. This is precisely the scale of work I wanted, as even though it is on my personal office wall, it’s a wall that is clearly visible just as people enter our office (even seen through the glass door to my office). So it needed to be of a certain size.

Even the conspicuous tear at the bottom is part of it and, for me, an appealing feature of the work, as it was the result of the artist’s full engagement in creation (he was not aware that he had torn the paper while working on a section of the piece), as Kyle explains in his notation on the back of his work.

The artist’s message on the back: “This piece represents the movement and order of our world. All are not the same. We each get to where we’re going a little differently. But ultimately we all arrive at the end. The tear represents the unplanned surprises/accidents/blessings in life. Thank you so much for believing in what I do.”

I’m really happy with how Kyle used full license to create something cool and I’m excited to have the work on display in the Unit Interactive office.

Kyle Steed:
Twitter: @kylesteed
Blog: kylesteed.com
Shop: shop.kylesteed.com

Ever since we moved into our new office we’ve had to endure some conspicuous expanses of glaringly-bare walls. We’ve begun to make progress on this front, however. Now adorning the entry hallway into our office are three pieces from Anton Peck, an artist from the Peoria, IL area. While some of us have begun to decorate our individual offices, Anton is the first artist to be featured in the general office area of our new digs.

Three of Anton’s robots in our hallway. Click for a bit larger version. Detail photos appear below.

These three works are from Anton’s 100 Robots project, where he’s creating 100 unique robots as a series on 4”x6” stock. I really like Anton’s work…so I grabbed three of em!

Artist’s comment on the Project:

Anton asked if I had anything specific in mind when I ordered them, but since I like all of his stuff I just told him to do whatever he wanted. Little did I know that these seemingly-disparate-themed works would have a common thread, and would be so tailored to me:

Artist’s comment on the subject matter:

“Although I have never met Andy in person, it was my goal to capture my impression of him and illustrate it in each of his three little robots: a love of cycling, an unshakable political stance, and being a very serious carnivore (enjoying the flesh of unprofessional designers, I suspect). That my art has been met with his praise is beyond satisfying.”

I’m stoked that he’d imbue these works with so much meaning, and tickled at his impression of me! I definitely got my investment’s worth and I’m thrilled to have these works hanging in the Unit office. For more insight into his work, have a look at a sped-up version video of the creation of one of the pieces he did for me:

Anton Peck:
Website: AntonPeck.com
Twitter: AntonPeck
100 Robots Announcement: http://antonpeck.com/journal/article/100_little_robots/
100 Robots Storefront: http://anton.bigcartel.com/product/note-card-robots