Married in the first "outsider" wedding ceremony that Kenya's famed Maasai tribe hosted in 15+ years, Jason Niedle was honored as a new "family member" of this historic tribe. Renamed "Saruni Ole Mpetti", Jason helped the tribe regain sustainability with the "Chicken Challenge" -- a Facebook campaign which got his friends to donate $6/each to sponsor a chicken (and help pay for the building of his coop). Potential visitors to the Masai Mara may stay with Jason's new family by visiting the website he built for them at www.leganishu.com.
Still Phantoms requested that Jason Niedle design the cover for their next album, entitled Moth in the Mirror. Jason art-directed and co-developed the theme, which expresses the lead singer's innocence trapped (along with the band) as the titular moth alights on the crystal ball she holds. Jason photographed the band members reaching to escape, as well as the lead singer, and composed all the elements, including creating the crystal ball.
Jason has been honored (and lucky!) to be one of a very few to photograph musical theater in Southern California, working with the Broadway Global Producers of the Year, multiple-time Tony winners, legendary writers, and award-winning directors. From Jekyll & Hyde behind-the-scenes (and on it's way directly to Broadway), to the incredible Carrie: The Musical remake, to award-winning productions of Les Miserables, American Idiot, First Date, Ms Saigon, and Rent ... plus a range of other amazing show including an innovative production of West Side Story to The Little Mermaid to rock concerts.
As one of the world's premier book designers, Jason was greatly honored to lead the design of the scriptures of a major religion, comprising the largest body of information ever assembled on the mind, spirit, and life.
Released as 18 individual books, those books then went on to win more than 50 design awards around the world. They were immediately translated into 15 languages each, with some translated into 50+ languages. Jason was also responsible for overseeing design consistency and resolving issues related to these translations, and was thus ultimately responsible for over 250 unique products from this project alone.
All components of the project together in total encompassed over 1 million man hours of effort, and the final books (and thus his designs) have been meticulously preserved to last at least 10,000 years.
The ecclesiastical leader of the religion had this to say regarding his work:
"...[h]e consistency demonstrated an uncompromising dedication to artistic quality -- while just as consistently meeting the tightest of deadlines. Indeed, Jason has proved himself a consummate professional, and a craftsman who habitually insists on nothing less than the highest standards of creative design and integrity of design.
"In all, he worked on 18 hardback and 9 paperback books to bring interior designs to levels far and above industry norms. He further oversaw and directed interior illustrations, and ensured design consistency and aesthetic impact of promotional publications.
"The net result is a body of materials comprising a spiritual technology now available for the enrichment of millions -- this Jason helped us to achieve, and so earned our unqualified respect."
Just five years later over 100 million books, booklets and transcripts that Jason has designed and/or art directed -- including and in addition to this project -- are now in distribution globally.
Jason and his then-fiancee April conceived the concept for The Wedding World Tour. Their experience of four weddings on four continents in four unique cultures has led them to write their upcoming book, Four Acts of Love.
Their romantic adventure was featured in various media -- from Kenya Broadcasting Company (KBC) to the largest newspaper in East Africa, to the cover article in COAST Magazine, and the passport-style invites that Jason designed won an international design award.
Read more about the weddings at www.theweddingworldtour.com or about the book at www.fouracts.com (coming soon).
Jason was honored to work with Center for Living Peace to document the visit of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
He later also documented the 3-day celebration of the 80th Birthday of His Holiness.
When royalty visited Southern California, Jason was asked to be the photographer for the Queen's various events, and was honored to later attend a film premiere with Her Majesty.
Jason interviewed Sir Richard Branson for an audience of 300 leading entrepreneurs.
(Photos courtesy Diana Keyes and Lance Perkins)
Jason is an avid nature photographer.
Jason collaborated with renown photographer Patrick Rogers to create "From the Big House, to No House" -- the stories of Orange County's homeless parolees. Jason supported Pat's stunning photos by helping craft the written stories as well as designing and producing the book.
Jason Niedle's design, photography, and leadership has garnered over 80 awards, such as the HOW International Design Awards for his wedding passport invitation, to Entrepreneurs' Organization honoring him as finalist for Most Creative Marketing, to several Gold Calendar Awards from the Calendar Marketing Association, to International Book Awards, National Indie Excellence Awards, american InHouse Design Awards, and many more...
Famed bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson (known for his Star Wars, Dune, and X-Files fiction books, and tons more!) had this to say about one of the award-winners:
"Hats off to Jason Niedle and The 28 Page Agency for such a fantastic job designing our coffee table book, Writers of the Future: The First 25 Years, which I edited. Of all the books I've published, this one is by far the most impressive, and the International Book Award committee agrees, awarding it first place in its category for 2011. Excellent work."
Jason was a member of Los Angeles' 106 year old famed organization, The Bachelors, until his recent retirement (due to marriage). This fraternal community is limited to no more than 75 members at a time (Jason was about the 1500th member), and hosts an extravagant Ball each year at The Beverly Hilton in order to repay their social obligations.
Virgin Unite -- the charity arm of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin empire -- hosts a yearly event called Rock the Kasbah in order to raise funds. Jason -- through his company Tethos, created the logo (and celebrity logo wall), branding, website, 15 pieces of support literature, created the Wikipedia article, managed the social media, a back page ad for Variety Magazine, and created the 128 page hardback commemorative book. This event featured Mary J Blige as the headline entertainment, and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the non-profit.
On the final day of the hundredth season of the hall -- 100 years after Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky himself opened the venue -- Jason Niedle performed as principal trombonist on Carnegie Hall's main stage with the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra.
Jason -- who oddly (or wisely) exchanged his music major (and scholarship) at USC for a philosophy degree -- next performed at the United Nations, on international territory. Conveniently, Jason is less apt to mention the Barry White video he was also seen dancing in, nor his antics performing with the USC Marching Band, both in that same time period.
Carnegie Hall is considered the nation's most prestigious concert hall, and has hosted everyone from the New York Philharmonic (for 60 years), to Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, and even rock bands such as Chicago, Jethro Tull, and the Beatles.
In what was Jason's most challenging physical adventure, he and 9 other friends made the 70-mile round-trip trek up Africa's highest mountain, Mt Kilimanjaro. Told that it was a "walk up," Jason had little idea of the difficulties that half the oxygen and freezing temperatures present to a complete novice to hiking.
And yet, it was one of the most important accomplishments of his life -- where he truly learned that any task is accomplished only one step at a time, and that persistence is truly the one key to any results.
Entrepreneur Magazine -- then one of the largest publications in the United States -- featured Jason in an article on "risk" starting on page 5 of the magazine.
Jason is a member of the high-IQ society, Mensa, which places him above the 98th percentile in intelligence. (He's actually a former member, which in theory doesn't affect his intelligence at all.)
Jason left after an incident where one of the members quite literally blew themselves up (recovering fully after several years) in a Halloween prank gone wrong -- showing him that common sense and intelligence are not necessarily related.
Jason founded The Calendar Factory in 2003, and since has created well over 700 custom calendars.
As a guest of the US Navy on a Guided Missile Frigate from Hawaii to San Diego, Jason was honored to be the helmsmen. As he steered the 453 foot long, 41,000 horsepower ship at nearly 28 knots for over an hour (in 50-foot seas, no less), suddenly all of the helm's alarms went off. Jumping back in fear, the Captain shouted at him to maintain his post... until the crew could no longer suppress their laughter. They had reset the gyroscope, causing no real problems for the ship, but nearly giving Jason a heart attack.
Jason has designed a custom shirt for a Knight of the British Empire, custom suits, and a wide variety of t-shirts.