I really wanted Cam to do this post. But since I am the one home today and HE is at WORK, well I guess we know who's in who's place!
Last weekend we went to the Ditch! which should always be spelled with an exclamation point on the end. A friend through Kim whose family owns a large plot of land in Idaho, has a tradition of throwing a party on their property every year which is dubbed "Water in the Ditch" due to the ditch in the back of the house which has water in it. This tradition has been celebrated for 25 years and the generations that have attended keep coming back and bring their next generation with them. I would love to go into great depth of the great times we had but first.. here are some pictures so you can get the main idea :)
First of all, Kevin shaved his beard off which no one, including Kim, had ever witnessed before. He sported instead a giant walrus mustache. Some people arrived days ahead of us to set up and when we arrived Friday night after midnight, lawn real estate was hard to come by. It was a very cozy community with plenty of utilities and easy to meet your neighbors. Yay for sunshine! We had a lot of it! Overlooking the fire pit to the stage. Among just camping, we tried many new fun things... like acupuncture! Beth Hazzard, a girl I met through Kim, has been studying Chinese medicine for the last 5 years or so. She is skilled in the philosophy of Chinese medicine as well as the science of the practices in the Western world. She had brought on the trip a few needles which she then proceeded to poke into me in stragic places in my legs, wrists and my head! I had told her that I had told her I had specific pains in my back and my dreams had been been very vivid lately. This was enough for her to find the exact spots on me to plant her pins. I can't say I'm completely sold on the idea of acupuncture although I'm sure it can be helpful in certain circumstances. Being pinned down in a chair listening to loud rock right next to me from the stage certainly had a certain calming effect on me. Looking a bit ramshackle, Kim and I both get visions of grandeur of owning something just like it someday. The band list for the evening. I regret not being able to get a picture of its creation. Damon created the type with nothing but a magnifying glass in which he burned the titles in.. even in cursive!! Cam succumbing to the joys of the pool. I had sadly forgotten my suit. The main house and everyone clear of the area in order not to get too sunburned! Saturday afternoon brought hot clear blue skies and then suddenly with his Aussie sixth sense, Cam sensed a storm coming in and in an hour and half the sky was gone. Dust rose over the horizon and wind pumped up to a near 40mph. Everyone ran to rescue their poor tents which the wind picking up fron the ground. The bands continued to rock out on the stage and everyone was in a frenzied chaotic state. Cam took a cute picture of me protecting my eyes with my bonnet from the flying dust. I for the most part went and laid in the tent and watched the tent violently shake and shift. It was so soothing to me I was able to take a sound nap. The storm evaporated as quickly as it had formed about 2 hours later and everything was back to normal. Nothing like a weekend of crazy people, crazy rock, crazy wind out in the middle of nowhere to regain your senses!!
A couple of weeks back I got serious about this Australian immigration thing. Now that Cam is affixed here in the USA, now I want to be able to get back to Oz. At that point we would have free reign to go wherever we liked with the freedom of birds. Up till now, I assumed marrying Cam was my ticket to get back in and override the ban that was put on my VISA almost two years ago now saying I could not come back for a total of 3 years.
So, I called the embassy.
I talked to a nice woman, whom I was thrilled had an Aussie accent, and told her about my situation, and the reasoning that I had been granted this ban when my Uni was handling my VISA extension in my behalf so I wouldn't have to go to the immigration department and wait in line all day. Had I have been told to go there, instead of just sending Sydney Uni a piece of paper, I would have done so. The Immigration building was only right down the street!
So the nice woman laid her cards on the table. I would have to fill out an application online stating my case and applying for Visa 676 which would essentially override my current ban. Having married an Australian citizen had no merit in this process. Once the application was submitted and approved I would still have to contact an immigration officer for final approval for admittance.
A few days ago, I received my reply. Australia said no. They still needed a bit more from me and if it was the country's best interest to let me back in. If I could not prove my worth I was labeled simply as a RISK. As much as I would love to pursue this issue, I would not win by saying that I was just misinformed or that the Uni messed up. And, obviously I have no other reason to go to Oz other than getting my tan back, therefore my argument is already been brushed off the table.
The 75$ fee isn't all that much to have gone to waste but I sure could have used it on something a bit more worth while if I was going to be told off so quickly. I was hoping Cam and I could get somewhere warm in the cold month of November but I guess we will have to go somewhere else!
Many of you may have seen this video on YouTube (it's rather popular, apparently!). As a designer, I find it absolutely hilarious - mainly because it's absolutely true!
I do disagree on one point, though: Trajan hasn't totally overrun the entire movie industry quite yet. There is one segment that resists the classical charms of this font, that being comedy movies. Don't worry, though, they have their own lazy designers who more often than not, resort to this:
BIG FAT SANS SERIF FONTS.
Almost always Gill Sans Bold (possibly one of the ugliest sans serif fonts ever, and an embarrassment to the Gill Sans family) or Futura Extra Heavy. If you can squish the kerning up to join all the letterforms together, then you're well on the way to the perfect comedy movie title.
So why does this repetition happen? Laziness, for sure. Why think of a new font/logotype for each new movie when you know that something that was done previously will work just as well. In a way, these typeface choices act as a kind of visual shorthand for the viewing public: Trajan = Epic. Distressed Trajan = Horror. Big Fat Sans Serif = Wacky Comedy. Adam Sandler. Jim Carrey. Straight away, you have some kind of idea about the movie. That's a plus on a crowded video store shelf, where you've only got a few seconds to attract a potential viewer. Not that I'm condoning this kind of design at all... I can't stand lazy, no thought typography. I was always taught to pay close attention to the appropriateness of type, and I think it's a great thing to remember.
Let me give you an example. At a previous agency, a client asked us to design a logo and brochure that evoked a stylish, 1930's kind of feel. I briefed the job into a junior designer and went away to do my own work. A couple of hours later, I checked in with the junior and was horrified to find that they had typeset the whole thing in Helvetica.
"Why did you do that?" I asked.
The junior simply replied, "Because it's a nice font".
And it can be, if set well. There are agencies out there who only use Helvetica Neue in every job they do, and it looks fantastic. But in this case, Helvetica was not an appropriate font to use. Helvetica was not invented until the 1950's and shares none of the aesthetics of the 1930's period we were trying to evoke. I explained this to the junior, who just looked at me a little blankly and asked which font I would use.
The short answer was "Futura" (because we were on a deadline), but there's more to consider than just the obvious answer. Take a look at this:
Here we have four fonts, all set at the same point size. Firstly, we can see that Helvetica displays none of the characteristics of a 1930's style font: it's what's known as a grotesque font (so called because purists thought this type of type was hideous when first introduced in the late 19th Century), while the others all display elements of the humanist style of sans serif fonts.
The next font, Futura, is appropriate to the task at hand because it's from the 1930s. You can't get more authentic than the real thing. Gill Sans is another font from around the same time period, making it another possible choice.
The last two fonts shown, Neutra and Nevis, are modern, computer generated fonts. But they have the look and feel - the elegance - of a 1930's font and are therefore appropriate. Neutra's extremely small x-height is particularly redolent of 30's style, while Nevis is very heavily based on Johnston Sans, another Eric Gill typeface that is famous for its use on the London Undergound.
A good typographic designer has an innate sense for this kind of stuff - a knowledge of the history of type and the ability to find new fonts that fulfill old roles in design. There's always an obvious choice for a typeface, but sometimes further investigation makes a good design great. For my part, I wish I'sd told the junior designer to use Neutra for that brochure, because it's a lovely, lovely typeface.
The big news here in the US lately has been how the national average price for gas has reached $US4 per US gallon (oddly, not the same as an Imperial gallon). Apparently it spells the end of the world as we know it or something. So I did some quick sums based on a recent Sydney Morning Herald article that stated that petrol prices had reached 171.9 cents a litre in Sydney.
Works out Sydneysiders are paying the equivalent of $US6.13 a gallon for petrol or thereabouts. Ouch. There's always someone worse off than you. Makes me glad I ride a bike, that's for sure!
I've just finished revamping the website that I design/manage for Colin Lake & Wellbottom, a local blues band. I've mentioned them plenty of times on this blog before, I'm sure.
The old site was perfectly functional and even looked better than 95% of band sites out of there, but it lacked a certain panache in my eyes. That, and it had been added to in a very hodge-podge manner as the site grew from its initial 3 or 4 pages to the fount of knowledge that it is now. The whole thing is definitely more unified and "designed" now, and it will be much easier to amend and expand in the future.
The real reason I went through all this work to fix a website that didn't have a lot wrong with it? Because it looks awesome in my portfolio! I don't have a whole heap of web stuff in my portfolio, so a quality piece like this will strengthen it immensely!
We're all familiar with them: ads on TV that include a little warning in them, either as a caption or a voice over. Do Not Attempt, they say, or Consult Your Doctor If Pain Persists... that kind of stuff. In general, they're a good idea: no one should take their new Audi out and attempt handbrake turns on the freeway like you see on all the car ads these days.
It's just that in America there are so damn many of these disclaimers. Sometimes it seems like every ad on TV has a disclaimer warning you about something. There's even car ads which proclaim Professional driver on closed course. Do not attempt. when all the car is doing is driving within the speed limit down a perfectly ordinary road!
Or how about the ad for earwax spray which shows a guy sticking a toilet plunger onto the side of his head in a futile (and obviously comedic) effort to dislodge earwax. Do not attempt, the caption solemnly intones, like we'd all think that a plumber's friend is the instant solution to waxy buildup, rather than the erstwhile product the ad is spruiking.
I know that the advertisers are just covering their butts in today's increasingly litigious society, but where will it end? And is the general public really that stupid?
And don't even get me started on the plague that is pharmaceutical TV advertising in America. These ads totally dominate prime time viewing and have to be seen to be believed. They tend to be a minute long, as they have to list every single potential side effect and problem that could arise from use of the product. And they're for everything: Viagra (and all the other "ED" products), osteoporosis, high blood pressure, sleeping pills and so on, ad infinitum.
It's fun when the advertiser tries to integrate the disclaimer into the narrative of the ad, such as making the protagonist actually visit a doctor (resplendent in white coat, of course) who proceeds to list all the side effects in excruciating detail, finishing with "and of course, see me if any of these things occur." It's all terribly reassuring.
But most of the time the ads just admit defeat and just show our heroes dancing around or leading happy, full lives while Serious Voice Over Artist™ runs through the litany of things that could happen to you for a full 30 seconds or more. It's kind of surreal, because the side effects always sound worse than the problem they're trying to treat. "Oh, so I don't have a blocked nose any more, but I might have headaches, blurred vision, a bloody nose or experience extreme nausea. Great!"
Finally, there's car ads which include financing offers. These tend to display an entire screen of miniscule terms and conditions (the real "small print") for a period of somewhat less than a second. Having worked on some car ads for the Daewoo dealership network back in Australia, I can safely say that you'd never get away with this there, as all type shown on screen in an advertisement has to be readable by a "reasonable" person. This would force these US car ads to be about half an hour long however, so it's probably best the way it is. I feel that Full terms and conditions of your lease agreement can be found at your local BMW dealership might be a better and more transparent way of going about things, however.
Design time – here's a logo that Christine and I combined forces to create.
Dr Kildeen Moore was Christine's much beloved aunt, who very sadly died from brain cancer a few years ago. Members of the family wanted to honour her memory by setting up a research fund in her name, and asked us if we would be able to come up with an appropriate logo.
The idea is all Christine's - she remembered Kildeen as always being the life of the party, so the conga line motif seemed perfect. Her initial concepts actually had the conga line facing left; it was only after we had "slept on the idea" that it occurred to me that the main character would resemble a stylised "K" (for Kildeen) if we flipped the whole thing. I redrew Christine's characters a little bit, added the type and submitted it. The family loved the concept and approved it after only a few minor revisions.
The stethoscope on the "Kildeen" figure was requested by the family: I personally find it a bit fussy for such a simple and stylised logo, but I can understand the reasoning behind it - an instant identifier of this figure as "Dr Kildeen".
So, after more than a year, the ol' white type on black was getting a bit grating. Time for something new! I spent most of the day scouring the internet for information on how to get/create a new Blogger theme, with varying levels of success.
I finally found this neat theme, which I've spent a bit of time tweaking to my liking. There may be some more fiddling over the next little while, so forgive us if things look a little wacky at times. I'm still getting the hang of using CSS to determine pretty much every element on an HTML page. It's extremely powerful, but also quite hard to get your head around on the fly. Let us know what you think of the new look!
So Colin Lake and Wellbottom's album, Bullet, is finally being released properly. I did the artwork for this way back in February and while I've had my own sample copy of it for quite a while, it's quite exciting to think that it's out there for other people to see. As well as being in bricks and mortar record stores, it's also available on iTunes (as seen in the image above; click on it for a full size image) and Amazon.com (where it's currently rated #639,331 in their Music category!).
Of course, now that I think about it, Colin's fine recording isn't the only artwork of mine that is available for sale on the ol' interwebs, as the CDs I did for Hillsong Church are all out there too. (See here, here and here - they're on iTunes as well as Amazon). Maybe I just have a bigger sense of ownership with Colin's work, helping a new artist out with some quality artwork and design. Whatever - I'm just chuffed for both him and me that it's out there.
The Mac Store has been marking the Grand Opening of their Clackamas store in a variety of ways: the usual special deals on hardware and software, and (perhaps more unusually) with a series of live shows by local musicians and bands in both the new Clackamas store and the Portland store.
I came down a couple of times to meet up with Christine, and the music was always of very high quality. And Christine said that about the acts that I missed as well. The problem was is that it was generally played to an almost empty store, or to customers who wanted to shop rather than listen to great music. Sort of "live in store" elevator muzak, if you like.
That all changed when Laura Veirs showed up for her gig on Saturday. Suddenly, the store was full of enraptured listeners who found a position wherever they could to listen to her. As you can see in the picture above, there was even a guy who pulled up his old G5 tower that he'd just picked up from the service department as a seat! No one was interested in picking up an iPod accessory or even in the free pizza on offer until after Laura finished her set.
Of course, this reaction was to be somewhat expected - Laura Veirs is a pretty big name on the Portland scene. As Christine noted, she's the only one out of all the acts booked who has her own Wikipedia entry! She's released at least three albums that get proper distribution (ie, she doesn't rely on selling them at the end of gigs to get them out in the market) and has had successful tours and collaborations with The Decemberists, amongst others.
And that's what's cool about this small Portland moment. A successful local act who isn't above playing a very low key gig in a rather strange location (a computer store?!!). And she's rewarded for this, as the large and appreciative audience shows. A big win all around!
