About Okay Samurai Multimedia / Okaydave
Okay Samurai Multimedia (okaysamurai.com) is Dave Werner's personal site, helping to keep in touch with friends and family through journal entries, musical performances, short films, and other creative pursuits. Okaydave (okaydave.com) is his student portfolio site, showcasing work from the graduate school Portfolio Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dave is currently a Creative Director at Minor Studios and lives in San Francisco.
Press / Fun Stuff:
★ June 25, 2009: Speaker at the 2009 HOW Design Conference in Austin, TX
★ June 2009: Work featured in Graphic Design, Referenced: A Visual Guide to the Language, Applications, and History of Graphic Design by by Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez Palacio
★ September 2008: Impact chair project featured in Design School Confidential book by Steve Heller
★ August 2008: Okaydave featured in Guidelines for Online Success book by
Julius Wiedemann and Rob Ford
★ August 2008: Judge, Graduate Studies Multimedia Competition at Texas A&M University
★ March 27, 2008: Speaker at the University of Central Oklahoma and AIGA Oklahoma
★ November 8, 2007: "Straight Up (Acoustic)" Video Featured on College Humor
★ August 2007: Judge, Graduate Studies Multimedia Competition at Texas A&M University
★ June 23, 2007: Speaker at the National Association of Black Journalists 2007 Conference at the Associated Press Headquarters in New York
★ June 11, 2007: Okaydave - Best of Category: Interactive, 2007 SEED Awards
★ June 11, 2007: Speaker at the 2007 HOW Design Conference in Atlanta, GA
★ June 2, 2007: Panelist, Class of 2002 Seminar, University of Virginia Alumni Reunions Weekend
★ April 2007: Illustrations featured in The Word It Book: Speak Up Presents a Gallery of Interpreted Words by Bryony Gomez-Palacio and Armin Vit
★ March 2007: Okaydave featured in Web Design magazine (England)
★ February 26, 2007: Amateur Illustrator Interview
★ February 14, 2007: The FWA (Favorite Website Awards) article: "An Okay Year"
★ February 2007: w.e.b. (Korean design magazine) Interview
★ December 2006: Illustration featured in the Speak Up "Word It" Exhibit for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum's 3rd National Design Triennial "Design Life Now"
★ November 27, 2006: Performance of "Straight Up" featured in the Torontoist's Top 5 "Better than the Original" Cover Songs and Entertainment Weekly's Popwatch
★ October 2006: Okaydave featured in Fingerprint: The Art of Using Handmade Elements in Graphic Design by Chen Design Associates
★ August 8, 2006: Featured in the FWA (Favorite Website Awards) Review, Best Portfolio Websites
★ August 6, 2006: Okaydave featured in HOW Design Magazine Newsletter
★ July 6, 2006: Unbeige Interview
★ June 8, 2006: Okaydave - Interactive Distinctive Merit from the 85th Annual Art Director's Club (ADC) Awards
★ June 2006: HOW Design Magazine - "Time" illustration featured in article on Speak Up in
★ June 2006: Okaydave featured on Netdiver in "Imaginative" sites
★ Spring 2006: CMYK Magazine - Okaydave featured in article "How to Launch an Online Portfolio"
★ April 22, 2006: Okaydave - Internet Tiny Awards Site of the Day
★ April 3, 2006: TheFWA (Favorite Website Awards) Interview
★ March 19, 2006: Okaydave - Design TAXI Site of the Day
★ March 7, 2006: Okaydave featured on Newstoday Broadcast (NTB)
★ March 6, 2006: Okaydave featured on Stylegala
★ February 2006: TheFWA (Favorite Website Awards) Site of the Month
★ February 26, 2006: Okaydave featured on Scobleizer
★ February 26, 2006: Okaydave featured on John Nack on Adobe
★ February 26, 2006: Okaydave - Billy Bussey Site of the Week
★ February 20, 2006: Okaydave featured on Speak Up
★ February 19, 2006: Okaydave - TheFWA (Favorite Website Awards) Site of the Day
★ February 19, 2006: Okaydave featured on Core77
★ February 10, 2006: "Yeah (Acoustic)" Video Featured on College Humor
★ May 2005: Adobe Student Achievement Awards, Broadcast Design Honorable Mention
★ January / February 2005: STEP Inside Design Magazine - Featured in article "Class Act"
Tuesday, January 31 at 9:00 PM
at 8:03 PM
The Portfolio Center Chapter Ends
Portfolio Center graduation was Friday night, and it was a well done, intimate ceremony. My family and I had a great weekend. Melissa Jun, who was my graduate advisor over the past quarter, was the guest speaker and did an incredible job. When there's more time to reflect after this portfolio launch (which will hopefully be next Monday, February 6 mid-February - save the date), I'll write a little more detail about how much these past two years have meant to me. Thanks to everyone - family, friends, staff, instructors - for the support throughout this experience. San Dimas High School Football Rules.
Sunday, January 29 at 4:26 PM
Almost There...
Hey everyone. I'm still alive, just working feverishly on the portfolio. My family is coming down to Atlanta for graduation tomorrow evening, so I'm looking forward to that. Not too much longer to go now!
Thursday, January 26 at 6:57 AM
Photo Shoot!
Today was my final portfolio photo shoot with the man himself, Peter Hobbs. We started at 9 and ended at 6, shooting the wine bottles, chair, and Kennedy Center promotional suite. Everything looks amazing...even better than in reality! I couldn't be more pleased with the end results, which I'll show after some post production work when the portfolio launches in February.
Thursday, January 19 at 4:33 PM
Larry Luk Is My Hero
Good news...the dishes are DONE man, if by dishes you mean my final Portfolio Center projects. Signoff is next Tuesday afternoon, and graduation is next Friday. So the final portfolio should be up within the first few weeks of February. And check out this sweet tee shirt my friend Larry designed, printed, and gave to me on the left! I love it...thanks again man. He's going to be selling some original designs online soon; I'll let you guys know when the store is in business. Oh man, and 24 has been freakin' AMAZING for the past two nights! Gotta love Samwise Gamgee rockin' the Flank II. Time to go datamine some stuff, I'm going dark.
Tuesday, January 17 at 2:42 PM
Film
Today Google Video went through a major update, now allowing you to download, direct-link, and purchase videos. In other words, online/portable film is bigger than ever. The ability for anyone to create their own television station or movie studio and broadcast it to the rest of the world instantaneously is just plain awesome. Film has always been a fun creative outlet for me, and it's been exciting to see it evolve to where it is today.
The first film I ever made was for Mrs. Watson's 7th grade English class; a VHS book report cartoon for The Outsiders created with the Super Nintendo game Mario Paint. It was pretty sweet; when Johnny stabs someone with a knife to protect Ponyboy, the screen fills up with red spraypaint. Sure beat Terry Hartley's crappy shoebox diorama. My family got a video camera right around the same time, and a fake news broadcast book report for The Westing Game was the first live video project I did. With every subsequent high school project, I learned new stuff through trial and error, the highlight being filming the Good Morning Robinson TV announcements with the Okay Samurai guys during our senior year.
I remember feeling so proud and happy in 7th grade when a teacher asked if she could keep one of the Mario Paint videos to show to her other classes. 15 years later, an obscene amount of people worldwide have seen the okaydave thing since its release a month ago, and it has served as the primary method of opening up doors with the upcoming job search. Who knew all those cartoons and book reports would eventually pay off?
One day I'll put all those old movies up here and on Google for fun. The idea of someone having my 7th grade book report on their iPod is just too cool to pass up.
Monday, January 9 at 11:21 PM
You Had Me At Sugar Cookies
My friend Talia is holding a blood drive at Portfolio Center next Friday, January 13. I'll do pretty much anything for free cookies. Contact her by clicking on the image to the left if you're around the Atlanta area and can help out. Not much else new to report...I finished producing some wine bottles today and have a photo shoot scheduled in about a week. All the physical project work should be done within the next week, and then it's just a matter of developing the portfolio website. I can't wait to show all of this stuff to you guys!
Friday, January 6 at 2:11 PM
One More Month...
I made the drive back to Atlanta today after a great winter break. With less than a month to go in school (graduation is on January 27th), I will be in complete isolation from the living world until the portfolio is finished (early February). Santa delivered this year in the form of a camera tripod, sweet new shoes, an external hard drive, and of course The Essential Yo-Yo Ma. Andrew gave me an awesome custom-made Lego guitar set. I also got the video game SSX On Tour, which is the latest installment of EA's snowboarding series. It's ridiculously fun, with insane challenges like "run into 15 skiing kids in 2 minutes" and special outfits like a giant panda suit. The interface is one of the best interactive menu systems ever, with all the type and imagery feeling like it was ripped out of a rock and roll sketchbook. Any game with a unicorn rocking out a face-melter on a double neck guitar is awesome in my book. Since the hand-drawn look is similar to what's going on with my portfolio, this game has been pretty inspirational in terms of style and presentation.
Jeff and Don came over to the Basement of Doom to rock through as many old Okay Samurai songs as we could remember, and the end result was surprisingly good for not having played together in forever. We even ended the night with Mario Kart, just like old times. And New Year's Eve in Philadelphia was so much fun. It was great to hang out with the old Baltimore roommates and play a couple of sets with Ferenczy (still celebrating at around 3AM in the photo above). Nice to see that everyone is pretty much still the same: Tammer still loves camshafts, Charlie can still pull off the sweater vest, Nick is still a compulsive gambler, and Mike can still say offensive things to women and get slapped. That's 'effin teamwork. It was the perfect way to start off 2006.
It was also cool to watch King Kong (freakin' awesome), hang out at the farm in Linden, play video games with Andrew and Sarah, drink Mom's peppermint hot chocolate, watch Dad blow up a wreath in the fireplace, and catch up with old friends like Louise, Jen, April and Jinsoo. So after a busy but entertaining break, I guess it's time to get back to work so I can blow this popsicle stand. PEACE.
Monday, January 2 at 6:13 PM
Okay Samurai Multimedia is Dave Werner's personal site. Thanks for visiting! (more...)
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Lars Amhoff: Kinkyform Design
Colin Anawaty: Cubed Companies
Chuck Anderson: NoPattern
Haik Avanian: HaikAvanian.com
James Bailey: The Kingdom of Sad Machines
Ben Barry: CarbonFour / Forced Connections
Dimitry Bentsionov: Arthero
Joshua Blankenship: JoshuaBlankenship.com
Casey Britt: CaseyBritt.com
Duncan Brook: Superfreaky Memories
Matthew Burtner: Burtner.net
Jeff Chin: JeffChin.com
Mary Campbell: Mary Campbell Design
Sarah Coffman: Minus Five
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Angie Cosimano: Angie Unit
Chris and Linda Doherty: Citizen Studio
Anne Elser: Annepages
Neil Epstein: Mediafactured
Bjorn Fagerholm: 3jorn
Dave Foster: Dave the Designer
Justin Genovese: JustinGenovese.com
J Grossen: Sugarcoma Labs
Audrey Gould: Aud's Blog
Greg Hackett: GregHackett.com
Sam Harrison: Zingzone
Todd Hammell: Solid Colors
Leon Henderson: LHJ Photo
Howard Hill: Fascination Streak
Peter Hobbs: Peter Hobbs Photography
Matt Ipcar: Ipcar Design
Michael Johnson: Michael J Rox
Melissa Jun: MelissaJun.com
Jiae Kim: Theme magazine
Zack Klein: ZackKlein.com
Katie Kosma: Flying Conundrum
Peter Lada: Proxima Labs
Josh Levin: Nothing Learned
Larry Luk: Epidemik Coalition
Mike Mates: Urban Influence
Alison Matheny: Life of a Harpy
Turi McKinley: Turi Travels
Alaa-Eddine Mendili: Furax
John Nack: John Nack on Adobe
Allen Orr: Anthem In
Scott Paterson: sgp7
Joe Peng: MacConcierge
Paavo Perkele: Astudios
Brian Perozo: Ephekto
Jason Puckett: Everyday Puck
Kate Ranson-Walsh: Thinkradical
Tania Rochelle: Stone's Colossal Dream
Angela Sailo: Peanut Butter Toast
Mohit SantRam: Santram.net
Dan Savage: Something Savage
Kevin Scarbrough: Thin Black Glasses
Scott Schiller: Schillmania
Jason Severs: JasonSevers.com
Anthony Sheret: Work By Lunch
Nick Skyles: Boats and Stars
Sujay Thomas: iSujay
Joe Tobens: JospehTobens.com
David Ulevitch: Substantiated.info
John Verhine: Verhine.com
Armin Vit: Under Consideration
Ian Wharton: IanWharton.com
Roger Wong: One Great Monkey
Clay Yount: Rob and Elliot Comics
Jack Zerby: Jack Zerby Music