blog

This has probably been my best freelance project to date. Jamie got in contact with me after seeing my Aged Beef invite. She wanted something interesting and fun for the thank you notes for her baby shower. This was a fun and memorable project for me for a lot of uninteresting reasons, but the deal sealer on this project was the print budget. Letterpress y’all. Joel over at Dependable Letterpress did a real bang up job.

Jamie and Joe’s babes are referred to as “Green Beans” due to their surname and their affinity for organic produce. The idea was to combine the style of those old signs while maintaining some fun handmade details.

I started with a really rough sketch that Jamie and Joe picked out from handful of choices.

Then I sketched it out, and cut up an eff load of colored paper—excuse me—African American paper. I lit it and took a bunch of pics.

After deciding I was not feeling a four-color offset job for this, I decided to do a simple two-color print, but this meant some tracing.

I picked out some loose color ideas, and Jamie punched it up a bit in her final choices.

This shit was the bomb. I hope I can do more projects like these as I get better. This got printed a little later than what I wanted. Lesson to learn there is to plan out the project ahead of time, and okay the schedule with the client. Her birth announcements (babies are due in October) should go smoother. I am honored to be a part of welcoming those babies into the this god forsaken world.

My brother Cam wrote a hilarious article about my dad on his website cameronedmondson.com. This is almost as funny as his post about me.

Cam is clearly a genius, and is spending his unemployed lifestyle very well.

Put this in your reader, dummy.

Every once in a while, I get in a small discussion about religion with my dear friend and devout Christian, Brad Wrage. I know what you’re thinking, arguing with Brad about taking the bible literally, is like saying the sky isn’t blue, or telling my brother Cameron to get to work—it’s not going to get anyone anywhere—so that’s why we always keeps these talks short.
Brad sent me a link to a YouTube video of a debate about the existence of Satan. In the Nightline special (which was only mildly interesting, but I watched the whole ten parts), there is a host, and a panel of four, featuring Annie Lobert, a born again ex-hooker who was raped by demons, Pastor Mark Driscoll, your typical Grace Bibel youth group leader, Deepak Chopra, and Bishop (why are Bishops always black?) Carlton Pearson, who stopped beleiving in hell even after a successful career as an exorcist. He was also featured on a great episode of This American Life a few months back.
These days, I give very little thought to spirituality or religion—I always thought I was just fine without it—and after watching this special, I feel pretty much the same, but Deepak had some really interesting things to say.
In his argument, DeeChops said that there are about 20-30 wars going on in the world right now, and most of them have religion at the core of their cause. He says, “I think religions are obsolete. They are divisive, quarrelsome, idiotic.” I like that, but my favorite part was, “I search for people who are searching for the answers. I run from the people who think they have found them.” Thats good.

On Sunday, I finished the invitations for Danapalooza 2009. The invited consisted of one main poster, and 4 mini posters. I guess these aren’t posters so much as Facebook fliers, but who is ever proud of designing a facebook flier? No one, except me, last year.

Here are the sketches. How many Matt Kats does it take to make a poster? Ten.

And here are the posters. Why have one when you can have five? The facebook flier medium is kind of funny because you can’t really have the same contrast in hierarchy that you can have with an 18" × 24" poster, but you can have about 2 solid levels. Obviously, the main poster has a bunch of crap all over—mostly inside jokes for friends—but the others stick to mostly two levels of information.

Update

Dana wrote an article on her blog Life is Such an Adventure thanking me for the work I did! It was truly a labor of love, but everyone appreciates a thank you. Her blog is password protected, so for the Jamilo Pitts readers that aren LISAA readers, here is an excerpt from her post “James, YOU’RE THE FUCKING BOMB.”

Dearest James,

First off I’m in tears. And B, I’m in hysterics! Everything is beautiful. The witty minimalism, the amazing fonts, the orange, white, light blue, and black color scheme. It is absolutely fantastic. And I thought I couldn’t get any more excited!

I love you. We really don’t say it enough.

Love,

Dana

This is why I love doing work for friends. They appreciate it so much. Nothing more fulfilling than that.

Via SpiekerBlog

I couldn’t agree more.

Around the time that I first heard Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I thought to myself, “I wish there was a documentary about Wilco recording this album.” It’s an increadible album, and something made me think there had to be a story behind it. Fast forward a few years, and while hanging out at dear Matty K’s house, he said he got cool documentary about WIlco. I couldn’t believe my ears.

Gary Hustwit was an executive producer of that film (“I am Trying To Break Your Hear”) and a few other docs about small bands. Helvetica was his directorial debut, and the film totally blew me away. Hearing the smartest designers in the world speak so eloquently and thoughtfully about a subject so dear to my heart was thrilling. I wondered why no one had made this movie before. It was around the time after watching Helvetica that I decided to go to art school to study graphic design.

Thank you Wilco

Soon after Helvetica, I heard the same director was working on a film about Industrial design called Objectified. I started following his blog, and there were some interesting bits. Marian Bantjes had a funny rant about a toothbrush, and I learned about Michael C. Place from Build designing that beautiful logo. Then I read a post about a screening of the film in San Francisco. Then I read about how they needed volunteers to help out with the screening. I sent Gary and email, and he promtly responded.

Wednesday night I went to the Kabuki Theater to see the film, and it was awesome. I met Gary right away. He was a totally nice guy, and seemed to have an interesting demeanor for a guy that was premiering his movie. He appeared very calm and laid back. I guess he’s a professional.

There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask him, but whenever I think of questions ahead of time, I quickly forget them and talk about bullshit. So I asked him how the premiers in London went, and other stupid stuff. I was just trying to stay cool for how hard I was fanning out. Connor came with fellow film major and I introduced him to Gary. Connor asked if he was gonna be watching the film, and Gary said the only thing he was gonna be a watching was his beer disappear.

The film itself was awesome. Hearing Dieter Rams say his 10 Commandments of Design in German was awesome (my favorite is “Good design is as little design as possible”), as was watching Johnathan Ive speak about the production of Mac Books. Intensely interesting stuff.
The big idea I’ll take away from the film is this: Designers design experiences. Actually they design objects or interfaces, but the important part of the equation is whats going on between the viewer/user and the object/interface. I suppose this is obvious, but when you think about it like that, you realize all designers are just problem solvers working with different tools and substrates/media. Like when you design a book, you are in turn dictating how the reader will enjoy that book. It’s an enormous responsibility, and very difficult to do it well, but hey, what else am I devoting my life to?

Everyone should watch this film.

After the show I was chatting a little more with Gary and he said that he made Helvetica and Objectified because they were films he wanted to see. I told him about wanting to see a Wilco documentary and then realizing that there was already a great one released. He said that the Wilco doc went way over budget, took a long long time, but was overall a total success. He said if it hadn’t have been as successful as it was, his company would not have ever produced Helvetica or Objectified. I told him how my life would have been a little different had I not seen Helvetica, and he said “Well I guess you owe it all to Wilco then!”

The more I live in San Francisco, the more I go to bars. It constantly astounds me to see how many there are in the city. Every neighborhood has their main drag, and lots of the bigger neighborhoods have a lot more than one. This city has more bars than asian ladies over a hundred years old, and that’s saying somethings.

Shooting for the stars

Going out and getting drunk at a bar is great—don’t get me wrong—but this is such an attainable goal for evening plans. I have been trying to open my eyes up to a less predictable and more interesting nightlife.

Last week I saw Fleet Foxes at the Fillmore on Tuesday, and then Born Ruffians/ Franz Ferdinand (they put on a great show!) at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Wednesday. I’m going to see the SF premier of Objectified on Wednesday with friends Connor (expert filmmaker and documentary connoisure) and Corinna, and I think this is going in the right direction, but where do I go from here? Here’s what I’m thinking: bars, to concerts, to documentary premiers, to art openings/ exibitions, to rap battles, to cock fights, to street races, and finally drum circles.

A little more about Objectified

I follow the Objectified Blog, and there was recently a post about how they need volunteers to help out at the screening of the premier which I already had tickets to. They said they’d buy back any tickets for volunteers, and we’d also get a free poster! If there is one thing I love, it’s free, high-quality printed ephemera. If there is another, it’s documentaries.

So I emailed the address the post told me to, and got a response from Gary Hustwit himself!

I can’t wait for Wednesday, and I’ll be sure and write about it on Jamilo Pitts.

Every once in a while, we throw a party. I’ve only been a part of one—New Years Eve, 2008—but I loved every minute of it and have been looking forward to my next one since then.

I designed the invitation for the New Years party, and it was a hit. A traditional design contrasted with some barely offensive text on the inside. We even got them printed, but the majority of people just saw them on the email we sent out.

I was excited about making the invite for Corinna’s party, which is a college theme. I just realized it’s awfully close to her “Animal House” theme of September 2008, but whatever. I don’t think we’ll get any complaints.

I had the idea of constructing the type with the quinticential frat party staple: party cups. Since we have a window looking out on our patio (where most party attendees usually hang out) I thought it would be the perfect place for my party cup type.  The lighting was exactly what I was hoping for, and I had a ton of fun laying out the cups. I love doing this shit.

When my dad was an English teacher at Arroyo Grande High School, he had only a few posters on the wall. One of those was his favorite poem, The Desiderata (literally: things to be desired). It was a cheesy looking poster, printed on cheap paper with a design you’d expect to see on the wall of a public classroom. The poster was crap, but the content is great.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

—Max Ehrmann

What I like most about this poem, compared to similar things in the Bible or whatever, is it’s succinctness, clarity, and I appreciate that it doesn’t discriminate on religion. I don’t know if I’d like it to be taught in schools, but I will absolutely show it to my kids.

My roommate Corinna (aka Beefball, aka Meathunk, aka Baby Bee) recently got a new shower curtain, hand towels, and floor mat for our bathroom. We agreed that some artwork in there would compliment the look, and Baby Bee suggested framing expensive wrapping paper. While this would yield a totally acceptable end result on par with shit you’d see on a lot of HGTV design shows, I couldn’t help but think that there would be something for more fun to make than that. That’s when I got the idea of framing multiple compositions (probably 10” by 10”) all in a row. At first I was going to take the pattern from the shower curtain, but now I’m thinking of doing hand drawn type writing The Desiderata across four panels. I think it’s gonna be the bomb. I’ll post pics if I do it.

Recently, my friend J-Dong posed and interesting question.

What would
Dana Moore’s and
Matt Kingstreet’s child look like?

Well, I think we have our answer. Before taking the time to consult a specialist and produce the image to the left, I made a short list of things we might guess about the future of this little he-she.

• S/he would love concerts. That’s why s/he is pictured at a music venue.
• S/he would love Amie. I’m not sure what Amie’s child is going to look like, but let’s assume she procreates asexually.
• S/he would love to drink Joose and get shitty. In fact, Datt’s friends would probably call him/her Datt Ralph.

The best part about Datt Moringstreet is that it’s more possible than you might think. All we would really have to do is steal some eggs from Fertility Futures. Or, they could easily fall in love.