Merry Christmas
I’m back/Halloween
So I’m no good at this blogging thing, I blog for a while then I stop for an even longer while. Anyway I am going to try this again. I’ll be posting things I’m working on and design that inspires me.
For Halloween this year a few work buddies and I decided to be the Martian Yip Yip aliens from Sesame Street. If you haven’t heard of them or don’t remember peep this. We found a costume pattern here but we modified it some. Anyway our company goes all out at Halloween and about 1900 kids come through the office, it was a lot of fun. This is what they looked like, I’m the magenta one.
RIP Mike
Courtesy of etchasketchist.blogspot.com
A message
Just this today.
Designing Through the Recession
I stumbled upon this great article by Michael Bierut entitled “Designing Through the Recession” Its a must read.
Peep it here.
Thanks www.designobserver.com
Poster by Lester Beall for the Rural Electrification Administration, 1937
Stock Photo Hilarity
Working as a designer requires me to be familiar with stock photography sites in order to fulfill the needs of my creative assignments. A person who uses stock photography instead of hiring a photographer can save time and money, but can also sacrifice creative control. There are a number of sites out there, the top 3 I spend the most time on are veer.com, gettyimages.com and istockphoto.com. Every once in awhile I find a funny stock photo that makes me laugh and wonder why it even exists. Some photos are so ridiculous I can’t imagine anyone ever spending the money for it. From time to time I will post any hilarious stock photos I find. To get things started here are a few I stumbled upon most recently.
[All images are from Veer, click on the photos to view or purchases them.]
Retro Trading Cards and Mustaches.
I have always had an appreciation for the design of old sports card. The colors were great, the photos were terrible in a good way and the typography was fascinating. Oh and the mustaches on Phil Jackson and Pat Riley are equally amazing. I’m sure collectors today would say that trading cards have improved, the technology certainly has but I still look back at these cards and think they were rad.
Last summer my sports fan Uncle celebrated his 60th birthday and I was asked to create a retro looking football card as a party favor. It was a really fun project and Uncle H.B. seemed to enjoy it. The one on the left was the actual card+party favor and the one on the right was a poster and below is the back of the card written by his talented daughter Lacy.
Advancement in sleeping bag science
I stumbled upon the Lippi Selk Bag on the interwebs recently and think these are pretty rad. Just imagine instead of a sleeping bag you could rock one of these insulated suits to sleep in or wander around camp sites scaring boy scouts or maybe you are into doing old school b-boy poses like the photo below. You can check out their site here.
Derby Design
I participated in Pinewood Derby awhile back. I originally planned to ask my Dad to help me just like the old days but we weren’t able to get together in time so I just made my own car(s). I have fond memories of the pinewood derby, mainly of my Dad making the car for me while I waited around for the exciting part like painting the car and the actual race, which we won 2 years in a row. Anyway I made two cars, one normal one for my son to race and one car that was a little different. I clipped out images from old church magazines and made a little mod podge collage on the wood brick. Anyway it was a lot of fun, peep the photos.
ODANA Poster
Well, we are 67 days into the Obama administration and he still hasn’t paid off my mortgage and credit cards…joking of course but the jury is still out on whether this guy can do the job well. I have my opinions but will only say that politicians in general disappoint me.
Whether you love Obama or hate him you have to admit that his campaign was brilliant, there were viral videos, posters, a nicely designed logo, celebrity endorsements, and even an iPhone application.
The posters created by Shepard Fairey (seen below) created quite the buzz and I think contributed to his overall image. Anyway, I stumbled upon a tutorial that demonstrates how to create such a poster and I tested it out using a photo of my wife.
On a side note…
Previous to his Obama posters, Fairey was most well know for his Obey Giant street poster but has come under fire recently and even been accused of plagiarism. Peep this interesting article.
Word.
