Image of the Day: Printers Row

Corkscrew and business card from the Printers Row area in Chicago.

Emilie de Griottes’ Pantone Tarts

Pointed out via a raven
“French food designer Emilie de Griottes for a special feature in french culinary magazine Fricote developed dessert tarts that recreate Pantone color swatches. Berries, carrots, lemon, candies, and other foods are arranged upon a tart base, whose bottom is iced in white and marked with the Pantone color represented…’
See more of her Pantone Tart creations here.

Image of the Day: Yale Lock

Bird by Will Ryman

via designboom
From now until March 24th, the 515 W 27th Street space in NYC boasts Will Ryman’s monumental sculpture ‘Bird,’ inspired by Edgar Allen Poe's poem, ‘The Raven.’
See more images of it here.

Are Sea Monkeys Vegan?

Scan from the Hanna-Barbera comic book “The Hair Bear Bunch” No. 3 August 1972, published by Gold Key  

In case you missed it, read the “Wonder if it’s Vegan?” post at the Bacon is Not an Herb blog here. I ever so vaguely recall that my older brother had Sea Monkeys for a while in the mid-1960s. I was probably under 5 years old at the time and only remember that I wasn’t allowed to touch the bowl.

Typo . . . or is it?

From the Bargain Sheet Personals Section

One of the perks of where I work is that on break I can read copies of one of the local free publications, The Ad Bargain. I particularly like scanning for typos that are not caught by any “Spell Check” function, and are obviously not proofread all that carefully for content. Other than adding the yellow highlight, the above example has not been manipulated in Photoshop.

White and Pink Pearls

I had an instructor at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh that despised the use of Pink Pearl erasers. If he caught anyone using one in his class, he would snatch it off of their desk and throw it across the classroom. He was an evangelist of kneaded erasers, and hated the dreaded “pink streak” that Pink Pearls are notorious for leaving behind in their wake of pink crumbles. But it wasn’t until recently that I discovered that there are White Pearl erasers — no more pink streaks [I think]! I wonder if a former student of his invented this version . . .

It’s Groundhog Day!

via savage chickens

Image of the Day: Plankenhorn Stationers & Printers

Downtown Williamsport — I love the signage type treatment.

Glasses Case Project

Personalized glasses case

My previous black glasses case hinge broke, and my wife picked up a free case at Target, in red. Our one friend suggested personalizing with with a Sharpie®, and that gave me an idea. Drawing upon some letterboxing knowledge, I knew I could transfer laser prints with heat and with 100% acetone [nail polish remover] onto different materials. Since heat wasn’t an option, I was pretty sure the acetone method would work. I took a scan of a photo of me from August 1965 and converted it to pure black and white with a cutline filter. Because the acetone fumes are pretty nasty, I waited for a day that was decent outside. Yesterday was my day. I wrapped the laser print paper around the case, held it in place, then dipped Q-tips into the acetone. I applied a little pressure when rubbing the Q-tips on the back of the laser print, and was careful not to get any acetone on me. It worked perfectly, and the toner is not sticky at all. The only thing I would do different would be to not go back over an area that was previously rubbed — parts of the images got just a little smeary looking.

Ghost Signs: Coca-Cola and D. Bean

A few weeks ago, as we were traveling through Williamsport I thought I spotted a ghost sign. We were not able to stop at the time, but on a later date, made the time to explore the area.

Site of the demolition, which revealed the sign on the building to the far right.
Panorama shot by trueindigo.

Double ghost signs — top and bottom

Above the Coca-Cola sign

Coca-Cola

Click on the image to enlarge, and see the painted inscription
roughly in the center of the tarred area:
D BEAN
APR. 30  23

PSDSGNR Listserv Gathering

The first gathering of members of the PSDSGNR listserv met at Olde New York last evening. Twelve were able to make it to this informal way of putting faces to names, network, and talk about what we do outside of our work at Penn State. Lots a good ideas were shared, and plans are in the works for the next gathering.

Everyone got to choose from a selection from the
printers set of temporary tattoos from Tattly.

Images of the Day: The Electric Horse

Patiently waiting . . . 

with a sense of humor in its eyes.

Wood Type of the Month: Grecian

Read this month’s wood-type column to find out about a wood-type that uses only straight lines as edges for the letters.

You know you’ve raised a Font Snob when...

Today is the 12th anniversary of the listserv I host for the professional design community at Penn State. Below is a screen capture of a recent post by one of the 101 current members:

When asked in a later post, “How did the grub stack up to more sophisticated menu-ed establishments?”

The reply was: “Well, I wouldn’t rate it a Frutiger. But it was definitely up there with American Typewriter. (They were selling themselves short with Comic Sans.)”

Strawberry Square Butterflies

Image of the Day: On a Winter Walk

Image of the Day: Mercury Space Capsule Playground Slide

Most likely manufactured by Mexico Forge in the late 1960s to early 1970s.
This one is located in a school playground in Bellefonte, PA.
I wonder if the children crawling and sliding on this even know what it represents?

Image of the Twilight: Crows Off to Roost

When I left work a few days ago, a steady river of crows flew overhead from the Penn State Aboretum / Toftrees wooded area toward main campus. The birds just kept coming, and I believe that there were hundreds if not close to one thousand crows on their way to roost. I pulled out my camera, and took a shot with an extended exposure. When I opened it up in Photoshop later in the evening, I was amazed to see how they looked like flying pieces of paper. With a few adjustments to color and contrast, the results are above.

Pico Iyer: The Joy of Quiet

I really enjoyed reading Pico Iyer's article, The Joy of Quiet, in the New York Times. Ways that I personally find quiet and clarity in my life are early morning solitary 4 mile runs several times a week, making the time to take a 15 minute brisk walk at mid-morning while at work, and very often at least one day of a weekend making a conscious effort to not check email, blogs, and my standard web sites. What are the ways that you find and capture the “Joy of Quiet”?