Ocean Beach may be an obvious choice for any of you that live in or are familiar with San Francisco. It’s probably the most well known beach here. I still feel that it’s relevant however and could be a great location. here’s some reasons why:

• Proximity to my studio: Pretty much a “hop skip & jump” away from me. could get there in just a few minutes via moped, train, car, or bike.
• Charming beachfront architecture: The Outer Sunset neighborhood gets bashed by everyone, including me, for its cold temperatures and tedious commute into the downtown area. The truth is this area has tons of character and an “easy livin’” feeling in the air. Although the main photo shoot will be on the beach, the thought of possible photo ops of riding through these streets in foggy orange sunlight with big foam letters strapped to our scooters sounds totally awesome.
• Very “West Coast”: Sand, Surfers, Babes (in fleece), jellyfish. There’s some rocky offshore bluffs with seals and pelicans in the distance.

As some of you may or may not know, the members of Neon Gray reside in both San Francisco and Baltimore, separated by the fat middle section of the United States. While we are able to work together well via the Internet where location should be of no great importance, we still sometimes experience the frustrations of being so far away from each other and having to rely on virtual space - the time difference, Internet that craps out when group video chatting, differing monitor calibrations, etc. The biggest annoyance, however, has been simply not having the other person there when you need them to offer some quick advice, a shoulder to cry on, or a “that’s what she said” joke to lighten the mood.

This physical separation is always on our minds, and, for some reason, it’s totally mesmerizing. Previous to today’s technological world, a design studio that has an entire country as it’s conference table would never have been able to exist, at least not very easily. So we decided to base this project around that idea. We’re going to take advantage of our disadvantages of being separated. Because we don’t have any one physical location where we could show our work or hold our event for YCN Live, we decided that we would make use of all of the places that represent where we are and how we collaborate - the internet, San Francisco, Baltimore, and everything in between.

Neon Gray has always claimed the title of “bi-coastal multidisciplinary design kinship.” Both of our studios exist on an actual edge of the United states; It’s not hard for either of us to walk out of the door, get on a moped, and drive a few minutes to go and take a step off of the country and into some water (the Pacific & Atlantic oceans). So… that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Here’s what’s going to happen. Over the next day or two we are going to work together to design a word. Right now we are planning on using the word “coast.” After the design is said and done, I’m going to cut the word out of low density recyclable foam using a large format CNC hot-wire cutter (geek talk). These letters will then be taken to a picturesque West Coast location, set up, and photographed. Immediately after the photo-shoot, the letters will be packaged up and shipped Eastward to Baltimore. Here they will also be taken to a beach location and photographed. We will then gather all of the photos, perform some post production magic, and (hopefully) call the project a success.

Again, keep in mind the “live” aspects of this project. During all of this work, we’re going to keep you updated with photos, blog posts, tweets, geodata, and even tracking info when the letters are on their way to the East coast. So you’ll pretty much always know whats going on, and how much we’re slacking. Thanks web 2.0 and social networking!

We are proud to announce our participation in YCN Live. From August 25th, 2008, through September 5th, 2008, Neon Gray will be completing a project from start to finish, providing constant updates to the internet. This blog, neongray.info/ycnlive will be the main outlet to track our progress, although we also plan on integrating various 3rd party web 2.0 technologies within our updates. Keep up and check back often, this should be an exciting two weeks! (subcribe to our RSS) For more info about YCN and YCN Live, please visit http://www.ycnonline.com/live.