Helvetica

We watched Helvetica tonight and I enjoyed it. I have a thing for typography/fonts but also from a designer-graphic artist-mixed media artist, I could appreciate it too. And even though I am a designer and have a thing for typography I didn't even realize how often Helvetica is used. I actually don't use it all that often. I didn't even have it as a font on my computer until 2 years ago when a client had it is in his logo and I was designing letterhead/business card to match so downloaded it. Probably very sad that I haven't used it. Probably will now though. :)



I really liked this guy - Michael wasn't as amused by him as I was though.

And then I also liked this guy too...

Redesigned...

Michael's political blog for him.


Spoon's Rant

No More Papyrus Please!

I just read one of those lists -- 25 Reasons you might be a graphic/web designer. And all to many of them I could relate too but one of them has been a personal crusade of mine for a long time. It is to not use the font Papyrus. For the last several years -- to urge people not to use it. I said it once in a workshop I was teaching and they just looked at me like I had slapped them in the face. But I guess they just don't see how OVER used it is. To me it feels clunky with most designs. Nothing seems to mesh with it very well. So my suggestion is to not use papyrus for anything you do (I was going to add except for personal correspondence but really it even bothers me seeing it there.) Please just step away from the papyrus font! Pretty Please!

Boxes Boxes Boxes

Our UPS guy probably hated us yesterday. I have been working on a postcard project for a client. We ordered the postcards just a little over a week ago and almost all the postcards were delivered yesterday. The company that we got them through - sent the majority of these 4" x 6" boxes individually and then 3 bigger boxes filled with the little 4" x 6" boxes. I am not sure I understand why you would send so many of them separately. The UPS guy had to scan them all in and then we helped him bring them up to our house. Yay for steps on the porch (yes that is said sarcastically).

It took us 2 hours of going through each box and mark whose cards they are and whatnot. Our hands were black with toner ink (from the shipping labels) and dirt that had collected on the boxes. The next step, after we get the last of them today, will be loading them all into our car, bringing them to the place they need to go and then unloading them there.

Thankfully the project is almost done for everyone involved!

Two Frog Home banner

Very small version of a banner I made for Two Frog Home blog!

New Business Card

Michael had a coupon for 100 free business cards and I am out so he said I should use it. So I made up some new designs. I ended up ordering number 5 (which is the photo below). I sent it to a bunch of friends and the majority liked 5 the best. But it was close between 1 and 5 - in the end though 5 had more votes. I would like to get a batch of 1 sometimes too.

Invitation

I had been meaning to post the invitation postcard that I designed for my parents 40th wedding anniversary....


click on image to see a bigger view

I still watch the video Michael made and I am sure I will for the rest of my life...it is amazing.

Graphic Art

The beginning of this month seems to be all graphic art. I have been doing some web design. As well as just playing with photoshop lots. The other day I made up some sample banners for Michael's site. We just kind of slapped something together to have something there. But never got around to actually designing him a nice site. So it is something we hope to be able to get to soon. Anyway, I played with photoshop the other day and came up with some really nice layers to make it look like almost handmade textured paper. I combined that with his photography. He said he loved all of them and will have a hard time choosing so I guess they came out pretty good!