One of the pitfalls of having left this blog sit and stew for so long is that I never got the timely and proper opportunity here to crow about quite possibly my proudest achievement in design in a long, long while – the jacket I concocted for Vs., Kerry's second published book of poetry. The book, whose creation and production zipped along at a rapid clip over the course of 2010, was launched with great fanfare (and a three-city cross-country tour) earlier this winter.We both had much fun collaborating on her first book, The Sleeping Life, in 2008. Admittedly, it can be dangerous territory when married creatives try and combine forces. But for those who hold steadfast to the belief that the customer/client is always right (a belief, I believe, in many cases is absolute hooey) our two jaunts book-jacket-land serve as a shining example. Kerry the Client art-directed her covers to perfection, knowing precisely what she wanted to best wrap her words in. And myself, as the Hands, served humbly and admirably.
For her second book, the base concept was once again hers (she also located the source photo, from the Library of Congress). I provided more this time around, stylistically, building a faux-tattered piece to portray a battered and time-worn feel. Carefully blending together freebie textural elements located across the Great Wide Internet, and capping with a dominant and weathered Helvetica super-duper-ultra-black for the title, I think it's a proud-looking thing.I'm tooting my horn here, and I don't usually like to do this with such enthusiasm. But I was a happy, happy cat the day the first samples arrived, printed up in all their 5x7 glory – my all-time favourite dimensions – in a fine and fibrous stock.And I still am. We still are.
Exhibit A: the Monday morning meeting doodle.I read books, and magazines. I unfold, scan, and re-fold highway maps. I look in the phone book. I call Tele-Bus. I record 30 Rock with a VCR. I take photos with a camera. I go outside to play. I sketch first with a pencil, then use a pen. I spend most of my days in InDesign. I've never owned a cell phone. Or smart phone. Or whatever they're called. But so far as I know, I think I nailed the essence of them here, in all of 30 seconds it took me to ink this sucker out...
Without using a pencil first. Oops.
Then check out this slice of goings-on at GDC Manitoba's most recent PechaKucha Night at the Park Theatre, featuring myself and 365-photo cohort Karen as we dissect our year of photo-journaling in lightning-fast fashion. I was nervous as a mutha, and had no idea my voice was so high. In hindsight, I would do it again in a snap. It's an absolute rush.
The next event goes down in June. If you have any sort of creative bent whatsoever, and have a story to tell, I strongly advise you to try this event out, as a speaker or spectator.
Meanwhile, Kerry is hands-down, the most creative person in this household. A single Saturday class in needle-felting has resulted in a gush of fuzzy creations popping up around the place like... like...
...well, like something. I just can't think of exactly what.
As such, I decided to take my own creative leanings outside. Facing a rare above-zero Sunday in mid-February, I sculpted this hale fellow in the front yard. But one month later he began to show the onset of spring in these parts, slowly wasting away to an avant-garde piece of modern art that I couldn't create if I tried. But sad news to report: his head was officially offed yesterday afternoon while we were out muchly enjoying Baraka Pita and a matinée screening of The Illusionist (my stars, a beautiful-looking thing).
In and amongst flashbacks here to goings-on of the past eight months, there's still plenty enough going on in the present. To wit, last night, when I bit the bullet and hit the stage for PechaKucha Night. (I should refine that – I bit half the bullet, since my stage-time was shared with friend Karen as we divulged on our respective photo-a-day ordeals.)But yeah, OK. I said a funny-sounding word without a whole lotta explanation: PechaKucha (pronounced, I believe, puh-CHOCK-chaw) is a movement borne in Tokyo some years ago as a collaborative event for creative types to convene, talk – the word means "chit chat" in Japanese – and share what they're doing, and what's on their mind. Operating under the founding umbrella organization, these events are put on around the globe. Including Winnipeg, where they're organized by the good folks at the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada's (GDC) Manitoba chapter – for which I am in my fourth year of handling communications duties.GDC Manitoba has now successfully staged five of these events, each featuring roughly a dozen speakers from all manner of creative disciplines (Kerry did one, in August). During an event, each presenter is given six minutes and 40 seconds to talk, while 20 slides run, 20 seconds a pop. This rigid formula can either drive presenters to panic and fluster, or to a fluid, tight schpiel. Either way, the thing moves. And entertains, massively. And that's what matters.Watching over four previous editions as volunteer, co-organizer – even emcee – I've been eager to edge my way into a line-up, but never had an idea for a presentation. That was solved when Karen and myself joined forces to use PechaKucha V as a form of closure to our photography projects. Bittersweet, sure, but our time on stage in the spotlight was a real kick, lightning-fast as it was. I'd certainly do it again in a flash given the chance.A compact collection of snaps from the event can be seen here. The next PechaKucha will be in June. I'd heartily recommend it as a thing to do, or see. It's a great display of talent.
This past fall I applied my design skills to a fantastic cocktail of social betterment and blatant nepotism by crafting the visuals for my dad's first crack at public office, a position on city council in my long-long-ago hometown of Kitchener, Ontario.We risked the handlebar-moustache-by-Sharpie treatment by the graffiti set and rolled out an array of materials featuring his familiar mug, which, previous to his political career, ran in the city paper week in and week out during his many years as reporter, editor and columnist. Thus, the image was a brand not to be trifled with.To avoid affiliation with major political parties, many colours were nixed from the get-go. In the end, a combination of yellow and dried-nosebleed red – one of my all-time favourites – was incorporated into brochures, leaflets, leave-behinds and lawn signs (above, and below).Typographically then, which way to go. Hobo? Too hippie-dippy, wavy-gravy. Impact? Too lock-down conservative. Helvetica? Too Swiss. Comic Sans? Too self-destructive.Clarendon. It works for Jeopopolis – check the banner, see for yourself. The slab-serif face handles dual roles delicately: its serifs keep things personable, while still conveying the strength and doggedness of a long and well-respected journalistic career. Toss in Fontin Sans, crafted wonderfully by Jos Buivenga's exljbris foundry, to support the cause and I safely feel like I've performed my civic and typographic duty.
I'm pleased to announce, the materials were a huge success. Or, in more accurate terms, success enough that he won the council seat by a single vote, 1689 to 1688 – a margin that ultimately stood up despite disputes, recounts and ensuing court battles. It's lesson enough, that the ages-old credo that every vote counts should remain valid.Good design wins, by a nose-hair.
Welcome to the redesigned, re-purposed – and re-dedicated – Jeopopolis!(I feel myself saying this as much to you, as I am to myself.)So, how's tricks? I must say I found that without a blog to kick about, I started to get a lot of shit done. Ventures that took time and some patience, a virtue I was not expressing well in the assembly-line of posts being rung up here week in and out. I started to like not having to think about it; frighteningly, a little too much on some days. Other days, I forgot the site even existed. Sometimes people would ask me about it, but I didn't have answers. I figured the time would either come, or it wouldn't.The blog, it was becoming an albatross around my neck – a neck neck-deep in a time-sucking, energy-tapping photographic opus and a desire to let this site sit as long as it took to become compelling for me again. Which, I'm happy to report, it now has.And I've got an awful lot of catching up to do, a lot of work and fun to document. There's been a welcome infusion of freelance work. The launch of Kerry's second book, a major moment in her literary career that I shared, in my own tiny way, by living out my own professional fantasies as book jacket designer. And there was the matter of that photo-a-day project; it's no mystery by now I completed it, officially kicked its ass, displayed it to the world with my friend Karen in a gallery exhibition that closed up shop last weekend.So for starters, I present a trio of spot illustrations I crafted late in the summer for placement on interior pages of Kerry's new book – titled Vs. – to help indicate chapter breaks. Using old-timey reference photos, I built five illustrations all told, to accompany five short poems detailing the sensations of five different boxing punches.
The illustrations ultimately didn't make it into the final layout. It was a downer at first; I was proud of knocking out pieces of work dabbling in material and a style I was quite unfamiliar with. The sketches gave me a good opportunity to attempt some fluidity in my stiff drawing manner (you can click on any of the three images, to view them larger).
I came to the same realization Kerry's editor/publisher did – that the drawings didn't gel with some of the book's central themes. They would have been window dressing at best, and distracting at worst. It was the right call. And mebbe someday in the future they can be rolled out for another use. You never know with these things.
Something is inherently wrong here; I've really let this place go to pot, and I'm feeling bad for it. Typically, in summers past, this is the time of year where I consider a shutdown – usually for good-weather reasons, getting away from the monitor, etc. But this time is different. For the first time in this site's long run I've neglected it to a worrisome point.
So consider this an official check-out notice. I'm essentially saying what has been painfully obvious: I haven't been around here – and I don't plan to, until I decide exactly what it is I need to do next with this site. I've been putting so much effort into my Flickr photo challenge that this place seems like an ugly stepsister.
It's not to say I don't have creative irons in the fire. I do. A few, anyways. And someday down the line they may be worth showing. But the bigger picture dictates I close up shop until further notice. It may result in a retooling. Or a total comeback. Or something else, but it's clear from the overwhelming silence here that it's necessary.
My July batch of photos are above, and my pick of the litter below. It's been a great month for shooting, and just when I think I'm tapped out even taking photos something wonderful presents itself. That's exactly what happened today, with this shot of Maximilian sunflowers at work – and I'm grateful we crossed paths, and the wind blew the way it did, and the sky was as blue as it was.
As always, check the photos daily. Right here.
Nearing the halfway point, which will strike in early August. I can't believe it. For now though, it's summertime and the photo-taking is (relatively) easy. Subject matter is everywhere. In the garden. On the barbecue. At weddings and parades. It's a fun time, and it's been reflected in the past 30 photographs or so during my image-a-day challenge.
Based on the response over on Flickr, the preferred photo from the past fiscal month has been this one, of a ghoulish-looking storm that struck one day during my evening commute from work. And for the first time since I began these monthly updates, I have to agree. It's my favourite, too.
I'd love to hear from you, what you think of the effort to date. If you have a camera, it's a project that I highly encourage embarking on. You can certainly cater it to however busy you happen to be (I let it consume far more time than I wager most do).
Interested in seeing any of these past 30 efforts larger? As always, check the slideshow, or create an RSS feed to the set. New product arrives daily!
So, the other day I was in the cafeteria lineup at work next to our resident naturalist (and all-around bird expert, who also leads Friday morning songbird banding, for which my camera and I are most grateful).
In typical bird-nerd fashion, I asked her where I could go in the area to improve my odds of spotting a scarlet tanager, one of the most vibrant and colourful songbirds around these parts. Since my early childhood days of bird geekdom, I've still only seen them in field guides.
She told me, essentially, what I already knew tanagers like deep forest and high tree canopy, largely away from prying eyes.
But it got me to remembering my apartment-dwelling days. I spent upwards of four years in a fourth-floor suite overlooking a city park through the canopies of huge boulevard elms. And every May for a few short weeks, the treetops outside my windows would be filled with brilliant and wonderful little birds passing though during spring migration. Warblers, thrushes, kinglets and thrashers; from street level I'd have had zero idea they were even up there. Probably, much like that elusive scarlet tanager.
I created this digital illustration in homage of my search. I'm often hard-pressed not to look at a big fat tree and think of what's up there, out of sight in the leaves. But they're obviously there. The field guides say so.
This is almost an entirely digital concoction. The bird and leaves are scanned outlines, vectorized in Illustrator. The tree itself was originally a high-contrast silhouetted photo, inverted and simplified. The background is a tinkered-with scan of faux-wood panel. The leaves were repeated in an analogous array of greens, rotated and bunched for copy-and-paste sessions in Photoshop. For a closer look at the overall piece, you can click here.
It's hard to believe I'm now a third of the way through my photo-a-day challenge. And this past month has been exemplary of the highs and lows while conducting such a venture. There's the obligatory days where you want nothing whatsoever to do with the project. Days where an image falls in your lap. Days where there's even too much to choose from when boiling down to a single submission. This past month in particular, saw the arrival of my new camera (and replacement macro lens a week later), spells of brilliant and terrible weather and an extremely photogenic trip away to New York City.
It's ironic then, that in choosing my favourite snap from the past 30 days, I find myself not particularly drawn to any one shot. But in selecting this portrait of a savannah sparrow, I realized one camera-friendly reason why I love this time of year – bird-banding mornings at work. And though I was told the brightly-coloured warblers, ever the stars of these sessions, overflew the area this year, capturing a wonderfully-textured bird in the hand like this chap is still worth the time and effort.
As always, check my 365 progress as the set grows and grows, here – or view it slideshow-style, here.
