Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Business Cards: Page XXIII
[Top Row] Well, at least Kelly McDermott can create ransom notes, which is what this card looks like. Middle card: this card has ALWAYS cracked me up with the statement, “Jesus Saved?” and the photo of the Evangelist. On a whim, I Googled his name, and it looks like he is 76, still resides in Plant City, FL and is also listed as a Bishop another place. Last card in the row— just a unique card that probably was set in metal type.
[Bottom Row] Randy's Beehive nephew art makes me smile for some reason; Subterranean Mango is just a cool name; and Gita-Nagari in Port Royal is from the Krishna farm located there. We would visit this farm at least once a month when they offered free vegetarian meals during one of their many festivals. It was like stepping into another reality seeing a life-size statue of Prabhupada wearing a real wristwatch. From what I understand, they never did become a self-sustaining farm, but they were surely making an effort in the early 1980s. Today, they even have a Facebook page!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Business Cards: Page XXII
[Middle Row] It cracks me up seeing the hand-written addition “Also Snake Dancing.” Middle casino card has really fine line embossing; it looks like something out of the Rat Pack era. Last card: is CAZAN from mixing up the letters in the owners’ last name ZANCA?
[Bottom Row] Middle card — something about the 1950s minty green ink on this card just draws me in.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Business Cards: Page XXI
[Top Row] Can "White Dragon" be positioned any closer to the top of the card? Trivia on the last card, we graduated from high school with Mona.
[Middle Row] First card, I think it is time to invest in a new card when you have to resort to whiteout and mailing labels to fix your present card. Last card in the row: Strike-a-Pose Computer Portraits — does the art in the upper right hand corner look extremely scary to you?
[Bottom Row] Crappy hand drawn type and horse just doesn't cut it. Middle card: What exactly does Jean E. Tayrien do by appointment only? Last card in the row: so stereotypical of early 1980s desktop publishing.
A Paper Record Player Wedding Invitation
via Paper Forest“Check out designer Kelli Anderson's lovely wedding invitation design. Okay, so it is not made entirely of paper, but careful folding of the paper in this invite is used to amplify the sound of a sewing needle on a flexi-disc record.”
Click here and watch the video. Kudos to Mr. Wizard!
Friday, April 15, 2011
Image of the Day: Ampersand Cleaning
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| Interesting effect when cleaning the ink from the metal type on an old cotton rag. |
Antarctica, 1911-1914
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| Wreck of the 'Gratitude', Macquarie Island, 1911 / Format: Silver gelatin photoprint |
via Brain Pickings
“In the summer of 1911, a group of Australian scientists, adventurers and explorers set out to make history by undertaking the first Australian expedition to Antarctica, a three-year journey into the frozen unknown. Under the leadership of Dr. Douglas Mawson, they set sail for Macquarie Island and the virgin parts of Antarctica. . . ”
Read the rest, and see more images, here. More on Frank Hurley — who was also the photographer during Ernest Shackleton’s fabled Endurance expedition to Antarctica, 1914-1917 — can be found here.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
1922 Flapper’s Dictionary
via boingboing“Originally published in the July 1922 edition of FLAPPER magazine, this dictionary went into some detail, listing the group's slang and providing definitions. In the process, it also provided an insight: through the slang we can begin to discern attitudes and priorities and the mindset of the adherents. And the adherents, after all, were our grandmothers and great-grandmothers.”
Visit here to read the dictionary.
Business Cards: Page XX
[Middle Row] AMBUSH uses a crazy wooden looking font, but the extremely poor letterspacing on their subhead kills the card [A•C•R•U•I•S•E•B•A•R]. Middle card is just so poorly executed, and the "pun" of the manager's name just doesn't cut it. Nag Drywall — is it because they use horsehair in their plaster? The smug looking horse with a bow-back looks like it is out of a 1950s MAD magazine.
[Bottom Row] My mother-in-law’s business card back when she was still doing craft and art shows to sell prints of her scenes in central PA pen and ink drawings. I remember Stan Scanlon coming into Graphics II in the early 1980s; the photo sums him up. Last card in the row: is this a supply company for taking armadillo photos, or a photo supply store for armadillos?
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Image of the Day: Angry Bunny Ornament
Camera Lingo Necklaces
via photojojo“Masons have secret handshakes, conspiracy theorists have secret symbols. Photographers have their own secret code words; lingo that only serious snappers recognize. Show you're in the know by wearing the symbols of the craft! There are 4 symbols to choose from: JPEG, the no-flash icon, NEF, or CR2 (Nikon and Canon's respective RAW file format names).”
Find out more here.
Business Cards: Page XIX
[Middle Row] Why would anyone name their company “S.N.A.T.C.H.”? The next card for “Rare Plant Research” is just an interesting field of study and makes me smile. Dog Waste Removal—a business that can only exist in the age of owners too busy and/or lazy to clean up after their pets.
[Bottom Row] Why would a computer consultant name their business “Medusa Systems”? I’d hate to see the screensaver they install on your PC — fears of turning to stone looking at it as it kicks in! The Curl Up Hotel, well the name is just simple and homey. The next card—what does it mean? Cheap nephew-art lips and a strawberry—Is it trying to be erotic? Why are the lips eating the strawberry stem first? This is for a fishing guide’s business card?
The Beauty of Maps: A Documentary
via swissmissThe Beauty of Maps is a 4 part BBC series that was released almost a year ago. The documentary takes us through the staggering four million map collection of the British Library in London.
Discover more here.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Pi & Piem
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| Letterpress poster by Amanda White |
via green chair press
“For National Poetry Month I’ve been noticing where poetry showed up in every day life. Recently in the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin wrote about pi day and mentioned:
There is a form of poetry known as a piem, in which pi’s digits are represented by the number of letters in each word. The best-known piem renders the first fifteen digits of pi as “How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics.”
Read the rest here.
Gender Stereotypes in the Language of Toy Ads
via boingboingTranscribed boys’ and girls’ toy commercials were made into word-clouds. The difference is stark and immediately visible.
Read more about the project here.
Newspaper Blackout Poems
“Austin Kleon has been creating newspaper blackout poems since 2005, shortly after finishing his undergraduate degree in Interdisciplinary Studies from Miami University in Ohio. He was facing writer’s block, when he got the idea to make a blank canvas out of a newspaper. In an interview with PBS News Hour, Kleon says ‘I looked over at the recycle bin next to my desk and thought, “I don’t have any words, and right over there are millions of them.’”
Asked what he does now when he faces writer’s block, he says, “When I’m blocked, I don’t try to force it. I go do something else. I go for walks. Do dishes. Play the guitar. Watch a movie. Read a book. Doodle. Browse Twitter. As long as you show up every day, you can lose a day and still get work done.”
Though the words in the newspaper may not be his originally, the poems are always a reflection of Kleon. He doesn’t just summarize the initial article in a poem. Rather, he focuses on one or two words that really call out to him, and then he creates new meanings from a few already-existing words or letters.”
See more of his work here.
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