Burger Zing!

Oddly enough my roommate, Ethan, and I both had a sudden hankering for Burger King last night. He had just eaten there while on a road trip to Chicago and had discovered some tasty burger with A1 sauce and fried something-or-others on top that he really wanted to try again. And I had been going through old iPhone photos earlier in the day and had been admiring a picture I took of their new bag earlier this summer while I was on out on tour. I really love this image; the symmetry, the rounded lines, the perspective. I just think its really cool. And apparently very enticing too, 'cause it made me want to drive 2.2 miles to the nearest Burger King in a city that offers some really tremendous food options.

"You know you can get a refill on any drink you want? It's a great restaurant!"

That's What's Up? That's What's Up!

Two weeks ago my buddy, Brian and I, got together to work on a flyer for a new party he's DJ at The Barbary here in Philly on Saturday nights called "That's What's Up!" Brian had this picture of Daryl Hall & John Oates from 1984 that he wanted to use and just make it say "That's What's Up!" instead of "Daryl Hall" and "John Oates." So I took it into Photoshop, did a little cropping, a little touching up, lassoed this, clone stamped, used Illustrator to try and mimic the type, and then added a couple flourishes of my own and it was done in a couple hours. The type was really the trickiest part. I don't think its anywhere nearly as striking as the original. I think that those specific number of letterforms in "Hall" and "Oates" are what make the original really work so well.

And even though most of the elements were already found in the original image Brian gave me. I was easily able to completely re-create them from scratch when I did this second image.
This was a quick, fun project for a Monday and DJ Def Janiels (Brian Dwyer) and DJ Hulk Hoagie (Daniel Pilger) really do an awesome DJ set together. It's a great mix of Hip-Hop, Soul, R&B, and funk. I don't even go to these sorts of things and I had a blast. Check out "That's What's Up!" every Saturday night upstairs at the Barbary (Barbarella).

Nina Shares The Blues

Last night, my roomate, Josh and I sat down and watched Nina Paley's wonderfully vibrant, beautiful and free-to-download animated feature "Sita Sings the Blues."


"Sita Sings the Blues" is a retelling of the Hindu epic "The Ramayana" and focuses on the story Sita, the wife of the deity prince, Rama. A story Nina Paley calls "the greatest break-up story ever told." For one reason or another Sita is removed from or rejected by her husband. Somehow, through it all Sita's love for Rama is undying.

To help tell Sita's story Nina uses songs by the 1920's jazz singer, Annette Hanshaw; songs she believed to be public domain. However, Congress had retroactively extended the songs copyrights and to as a result she ran into a plethora of legal issues and fees.

This lead Nina to release the film on the internet for free under the Creative Commons license. Below is a short 16 minute documentary on Paley, her film, and the Creative Commons license. It's pretty inspiring stuff, I think.



YOU CAN WATCH THE WHOLE FILM HERE.
Also don't forget to donate and support the artist.

The Map

My good friend, Michael P. Heneghan, and I were recently worked on designing the layout for The 2010 Map for Circle of Hope. The Map is basically a list of statements and goals that the community makes for itself to in the next year. It then gets printed up and distributed amongst the attendees and associates of the church. But like most of Circle's printed material it suffered from boring, unfocused layout.

So Joshua Grace, one of the church's pastors, came to Heneghan and I and set up a meeting to talk about ways to reinvent the look and feel of The Map. We looked at the The 2009 and pretty much threw all of its ideas out the door. It was basically your standard pamphlet; and two 8.5x11 inch pieces of paper folded in half with one placed inside the other.

So Joshua threw out his ideas for a booklet type layout instead of brochure, Heneghan put in his thoughts about a nautical theme and how he'd do the illustrations, and I just sort of sipped on cups of coffee and tried to mentally process how it was all gonna be put down on paper. I think I said something about the importance of typefaces hierarchies, I dunno.

We had a couple weeks to work on it but Heneghan and I really just sort of busted it out in the last couple days before it went to print. They were going to be presented at Circle of Hope's quarterly multi-congregational party, The Love Feast, so we had a pretty hard deadline. Kudos to Heneghan (and Daniel Pilger) who actually had to physically cut out and staple all the booklets together. I was out of town that weekend so I couldn't be there to help.

It was a real collaborative effort (Joshua, Heneghan, and myself) and I haven't really done a lot of those since my time at film school ended in '06. We strengthened each other and made a better piece as a result. And if that's not a metaphor for relationship, community, and life then I don't know what is.

Type Hype - Klinghoffer Carpet One

I've passed by this sign probably hundreds of times biking between 8th and 9th on Bainbridge, but I've but never noticed it until yesterday. I think this is sign is particularly interesting because most hand-made type these days is designed to be intentionally imperfect. But in this case of this sign, the same effect is achieved but with lettering that was made unintentionally imperfect. And within its imperfections we can read its sincerity.

I can almost guarantee you this sign was not meant to look this way. It was probably meant to look "better" than it does. I bet the person that painted this wanted it to look as though a machine laser-cut each letter and pasted them onto the wall. But they didn't have a machine. So they made due and used their hands and some paint with whatever skill they had. So since Klinghoffer Carpet One couldn't hide behind the perfection of a computer, they got a much more honest final product.

This is an authentic example of hand-made typography. This is what some artists and designers try and emulate in their work (mine included), but you can't copy its truth. Its faults make it perfect. Isn't it remarkable?

Five Iron Fun-Pak

About a month ago I received an e-email from Peter Rollo who was working with Five Iron Frenzy, a defunct ska-core band from Denver, on their upcoming DVD. I had done a "bootleg" concert DVD of their performance at the Cornerstone Festival in 2002 and they were asking my permission to to use footage from my technically illegal DVD for their very legitimate DVD. So of course I had no problem with letting them use it. He thanked me and then told me to let him know if I wanted to be involved in any other way.
I was sort of pumped upon reading that."Any other way? Let me design the packaging!" I sent them a link to my page and even though I didn't quite wrangle the packaging job (that was being done BY the band) I was offered designing a t-shirt that was going to be sent out with special pre-orders bundles, the "Five Iron DVD Fun-Pak."

So here's what I submitted. Originally the design was three colors and on a cranberry colored t-shirt, but Peter told me that the record label could only afford one color and they wanted it to be on a black tee. So I gave them a couple options and these were the top two picks. I still don't know what they decided on. I guess I'll just have to see when I get mine.
I think the "Fun-Pak" pre-orders are all sold out but you can get just the DVD if you're interested. You get it from Asian Man Records.
UPDATE: Apparently Interpunk bought a bunch of Fun-Paks and is selling them from their store. Here's the link.

Type Hype - Clear Light / 1963 Iron Man

When its done right there can be an almost magical bond beyond an album's artwork and its music. A couple of weeks ago I was browsing through the rack of new arrivals at Repo Records and saw this album. It really struck me just popped out at me. Apparently this is the only record from the band Clear Light and it came out in September 1967. I think its really cool how the white dot breaks up the letters just enough to give the shape of the whole a focal point. I'd like to hear this record but $20 felt kind of steep.


My friend Ethan was just in NYC the other weekend and got this great book of production artwork for the Iron Man movie. As I was flipping through, I came across this image and was immediately struck by the lettering. I love the long bases and hard 90 and 45 degree angles in the letter forms. This illustration was done by Jack Kirby and Don Heck back in March 1963 and comes from Iron Man's debut in the Tales of Suspense issue #39. I can only assume that they had a hand in the type design.

Minilogue - Animals

I stumbled upon this artist from the Netherlands, Kristofer Ström, tonight while I was searching for "TV History" on YouTube (the connection there is that he did an animated commercial for Carphone Warehouse called "A Brief History of Communication"). I suggest you check out his blog, Ljudbilden & Piloten. He's got a lot of really great work up there. So much great work in fact, I was having a hard time deciding which piece to share. I went with this music video he did for a band called Minilouge. I just really love the color and the character design.

ljudbilden.com      minilogue.com

Pine Barons: Special Edition

A lot of people fault George Lucas for going back and touching up Star Wars seemingly every year with some new nudge, added sequence or adjustment in special effects. I, personally, cannot blame the man. I find myself going back to old work and revamping when I've learned new tricks and I am always pleased with the results. For instance this week I went back and cleaned up The Pine Barons mascot illustration.

I just sort of got in there and set up some ruler guides to help maintain and re-establish balance and symmetry, then had to simplify practically path by deleting extraneous anchor points, and then used some of custom art brushes to soup up the all the strokes and lines that were so lacking in energy. Obviously, I also tweaked the colors a bit and deleted all those gaudy clip-art trees. They weren't helping much either. Now it looks like a sports mascot! I would play for that team! No I wouldn't.

What's really crazy is that back in May 2008 I thought the original design I had done was my best work. Now I look at that old design and think it looks a thumbnail sketch. My perception and consciousness are funny things. As time goes the lens pulls back to reveal the bigger picture. Wow, this post just got really existential.