We’re so excited that customers can now experience KINIS from their brand-new popup at Short Pump Town Center!
“I am thrilled to introduce the Nomad 804 barefoot footwear to RVA folks, having a pop-up store at Short Pump Town center allows me to share my barefoot journey and why it is important for us to getting back to basics for healthier feet and bodies. We’re also planning to utilize the space as a community fitness center where customers will have the opportunity to take fitness classes with local personal trainers for free.
I started Kinis because of my personal foot injury, leading me to connect with my early childhood living in the refugee camp playing soccer barefoot. I wanted to connect to my pass by having s stronger feet by going back to basics.” -Vincent Vu, founder of KINIS Barefoot

We partnered with Here’s what Juan had to say about the project:
“We got 360 footage and audio from familiar locations in Richmond like Belle Isle and Byrd Park. We placed mats with different textures like grass and pebbles in the store, so when people put on the VR headset and KINIS shoes, they’ll experience these places as if they were there. I partnered with Miles Hopkins, who used his ambisonic microphone to record in 360”
I met Juan at the VCU Advertising Program’s portfolio review this past May. I’m so glad I went! If you’d like to get on the list for the next, email Scott Sherman at sfsherman@vcu.edu. They have them twice a year.

Here’s a peek inside the pop-up store. You can see it in-person now through the end of the year. Photos by JAWFOX PHOTOGRAPHY






After a mini photo shoot I did with her and her daughter, my friend Jess sent me a “Greetabl” as a thank you. I’ve found myself telling more and more people about it as a gift idea.
Greetabl calls itself “an online one-stop-shop for creatively-curated, personalized gifts and greetings.”
Here’s how it works:
You choose a box pattern, then upload photos. You can choose a gift. They have a bunch of fun things to choose from. The box she sent me had a cat pattern (does she know me or what?), and was filled with a coconut mango mini candle, Sephora gift card (eee!) and photos from our shoot with a sweet note.
The box unfolds and the photo portion is perforated, so you can tear them off and frame them.


I love shower tablets (you put them in the bottom of your shower when you turn on the water and they fill the shower with steam and aromatherapy).
It looks like you can also order in bulk and brand them for your company/clients. These are some of my favorite things from their gift selections:








Thanks to B Cards Creation Shop and Bethany of Modern Raven Design for helping me bring my business card vision to life! I’ve been wanting these clear cards for such a long time!
I found the printer on Etsy. They’re in the Ukraine, so it took about two weeks for the cards to come in.
I reached to the printer again to ask if they had a discount code that I could share and he gave me one! Enter TFB10 for 10% off. I can’t wait to see all of your cute cards!

We just ordered these branded boxes an can’t wait to fill them with goodies for new clients! Gifts are our love language.



“Art isn’t only a painting. Art is anything that’s creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creator.
What makes someone an artist? I don’t think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren’t artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artists who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.
An artists is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artists takes it personally.
That’s why Bob Dylan is an artist, but an anonymous corporate hack who dreams up Pop 40 hits on the other side of the glass is merely a marketer. That’s why Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, is an artists, while a boiler room of telemarketers is simply a scam.
Tom Peters, corporate gadfly and writer, is an artists, even though his readers are businesspeople. He’s an artists because he takes a stand, he takes the work personally, and he doesn’t care if someone disagrees. His art is part of him, and he feels compelled to share it with you because it’s important, not because he expects you to pay him for it.
Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn’t matter. The intent does.
Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another.”― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?


“Capitalism has taught us that every transaction has to be fair, an even trade for goods or services delivered. What artists demonstrate is that linchpin thinking is about delivering gifts that can never be adequately paid for. As soon as it’s part of a system, it’s not art. Artists shake things up. They invent as they go; they respond to inputs and create surprising new outputs….Customers love artists. So do investors. That’s because art represents a chance to improve the status quo, not just make ti cheaper. Art builds a community, and the community creates value for all.”
“The magic of the gift system is that the gift is voluntary, not part of a contract. The gift binds the recipient to the giver, and both of them to the community. A contract isolates individuals, with money as the connector. A gift binds them instead.”
“Let’s talk about picking yourself. All of us are surrounded by people who can’t wait to be picked. Authors used to need to be on Oprah, we want to be picked by our local political party. We want to be picked our boss. We get picked, which authorizes us to do art.But gatekeepers don’t have all the power anymore. If you want to make a record, make a record. Put it on iTunes. Pick yourself. If you want to write, write. Build a blog. If you want to start a software company, you don’t need a permit, you don’t need anything. You just start it. And so we see authors and writer and singers and entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to, because we’re all one clock away from each other. Raise your hand and say, “I’m in. Here’s what I make. Here’s what I do.”
“Everything you do is either going to raise your average or lower it.
The next hire.
The quality of the chickpeas you serve.
The service experience on register 4.
Each interaction is a choice. A choice to raise your average or lower it.
Progress is almost always a series of choices, an inexorable move toward mediocrity, or its opposite.”
People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them and they always believe what they tell themselves
I love these application questions:
Point to your personal website
Show us some of the projects you’ve led that have shipped and made an impact
Show us work you’ve done on the clock, and how you made it work
Are you restless? What do you make or do in your spare time that leaves a trail and makes an impact?
Find a particularly lame example of UX on the web and fix it into something better than good
What’s the best lesson you’ve learned from Steve Krug or Steve McConnell?
Point to a blog post that changed the way you think about connecting with people online
Have you created anything worth watching on Vimeo or YouTube?Where do you work now? What’s great about it?


My client, Tiffany Jana, gave a talk on managing unconscious bias in the workplace and beyond. Seth Godin is the keynote alter today and Tiffany remembered that I am a big fan and invited me to come. Amazingly thoughtful, that one.
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I’m so excited that NICHE fit Studio is officially my first art customer! I met Jaclyn through her husband. I’ve tired her Spa Savasana class (yes, it’s amazing as it sounds) and love that she always has a foster kitten (or two or three) in the studio. You can follow some of the extras here and let me know if you’d like me to make something for you!







One day each year, animal shelters across the country waive adoption fees to We went to Richmond SPCA.
They wanted an extra hand photographing pets and their new families, so my friend Arshan and I spent the day with them.
Arshan is the one who taught me how to use my camera, and some of my first practice shots were of kittens and puppies at the shelter.
Here are some of my favorite shots. (You can see the full photo album here.)





