Sunday 1 December 2013
rorschacht or pareidolia
catagories: ๐ง , graphic design, networking and blogging, Star Wars
Saturday 16 November 2013
a-list or he knows when you've been sleeping, he knows when you're awake
Though it's maybe too early for the decorations and music, it is the right time to think about ones greeting card list. The Retro Christmas Card Company allows one to personalise and automate—after a fashion, since carefully nicking open an envelop to a honest-to-goodness card is the still best part, even if it was handled by a third-party.
The middle-man was not the NSA this time, but another good reason for sending out cards now is that it allows the intelligence services to know who in advance of the holidays constitutes a frequent and sustained contact in ones life. The service, custom-printing and mailing, offers lots of swank retro designs—plus a selection of motifs from the Mid-Century movement of 1950s and 1960s Americana.
catagories: ๐ฅธ, graphic design, holidays and observances
Sunday 10 November 2013
in the room the women come and go, talking of michelangelo, or prufrock and other observations
Julien Peters delivers an excellent recitation of T. S. Eliot's seminal modernist's work, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, illustrated in comic strip style. The artist has given several dozen classic pieces of poetry the same treatment and it's fun and moving to follow along with stanza and verse converted to panels in the form of graphic novellas.
catagories: ๐, graphic design
Friday 27 September 2013
aca, ada, abracabra
It is the Anti-Deficiency Act of 1882, as amended, that puts the American government in the precarious situation of dismissing some one-third, deemed non-essential—which has the interesting ring of the imagination of Douglas Adams (not a statesman)—of its workforce without compensation. The government will still discharge its duty to protect, duty to warn with a skeleton crew, who themselves will not see their salary until such time as Congress has set a budget, being legally bound against the incursion of further debts that it cannot vouch for. The last time a full government shut-down happened, notwithstanding many intermediate close-calls and political staring-contests, was in the winter of 1995 and 1996 and I remember being quite frustrated that the National Galleries were closed to visitors and I came expressly to see a special Rembrandt exhibit.
I was content, however, at the time with making snow-angels on the Capitol. There were dread inconveniences (a weak word) to public services and those employees embargoed, and this time we can only project the impact of disrupting the paper-push of bureaucracy the hardship of individuals just now starting to recover from the last rounds of an administrative-, as opposed to an emergency-, furlough, though the predictions of doom and despair did not come to fruition at-large and the output of the federal government is largely invisible and looks expendable until one is personally affected by the loss of a cog or two. Though the causes reach back much further and the US government has expanded into something unwieldy and self-serving—surely to be redressed by follow-on show-downs like the looming matter of America's debt burden that will make this intransigence seem like theatre, the major bone of contention that is keeping the legislative branch staunchly divided is over another Act, the Affordable Care Act (a new idea only to America, though, with most of the rest of the world having put universal health-coverage in place long ago), and not in costs, immediate nor long-term, but rather in perception and principle. The devil's advocate seems to keep company with a business-lobby not renowned for its fair labour-practices to begin with, and considering that all of the really awful and onerous laws that the US has implemented and unleashed upon the rest of the world (lately, at least, if not always) have been done so at the beck-and-call of this same cartel, perhaps it would be wise to consider careful what these groups through inflexible fear-mongering might be trying to un-write.
catagories: ๐, America, economic policy, graphic design, labour
Wednesday 4 September 2013
yaarg! or a darkly-adapted eye
Although losing an eye was certainly an occupational hazard (I can only imagine terrible incidents with splinters), the stereotypical pirate did not, it seems, wear an eye-patch only to cover up a handicap nor to look like a veteran.
catagories: graphic design, transportation
Thursday 1 August 2013
the sound and the flurry - we've got a million of them
catagories: ๐, graphic design
Thursday 11 July 2013
lexical extraction
catagories: graphic design, networking and blogging
Wednesday 3 July 2013
picture-picture or instamatic
catagories: ๐ง , graphic design, networking and blogging, philosophy, technology and innovation
call your parents
The BBC reports about a new “Elderly Rights Law” enacted in China to promote, under pain of fines or jail time, adult children visiting their parents and never neglecting the spiritual and emotional needs of older people. Though a nice message, regulating visits and enforcing the policy maybe such not be something left up to the authorities and perhaps the criticism is somewhat deserved, since there's no equitable way to apply it and no allowance to help keep children in compliance. I miss my parents and family very much but personally don't need legislated guilt to encourage me to make the time. What do you think? Is such a law necessary and do people need this sort of nudge?
catagories: graphic design, lifestyle
Sunday 23 June 2013
heel, toe or a shoe-horn, the kind with teeth

catagories: antiques, graphic design, lifestyle
Monday 13 May 2013
tremolo heroism or darlings of oblivion
catagories: ๐, graphic design, psychology
Wednesday 13 February 2013
austatten
catagories: graphic design, lifestyle
Saturday 9 February 2013
shoal
catagories: environment, graphic design
Monday 21 January 2013
it slices, it dices
We picked up some paper napkins from the Einrichtungshaus decorated with this very clever pattern (Muster) of antique kitchen implements. I have a general aversion to disposable napkins and try to use them sparingly and always twice, but they are important to presentation like the vintage catalogue depicted. I hope that these anonymous designers know that their work does not go unappreciated.
We have a growing collection of fish knives, relish-trays, cake servers, coasters, salt-cellars, moutardes, mortars and pestles, coffee mills, icing spoons, and more usual utensils, like these silver forceps for grasping a hot, hard-boiled egg or these serving tongs for slippery asparagus, which we try to put to purpose every chance we get and not just have as decoration. It is not about etiquette or intimidating table-manners but rather just opportunity. Do you have a quiver of specialized kitchen tools just waiting for their moment to shine, as well?
catagories: antiques, food and drink, graphic design, lifestyle
Monday 31 December 2012
silvestergala
catagories: antiques, graphic design, holidays and observances
Sunday 30 December 2012
katzenjammer
catagories: ๐บ, antiques, graphic design, lifestyle, networking and blogging
Friday 14 December 2012
Thursday 13 December 2012
making spirits blithe
I suppose (though I am the first to admit to being not among the it-getters when it comes to skiing) it’s like the thrill of being outside of one’s comfort-zone that comes with winter-sports and being able to take to the slopes and to push oneself to enjoy the elements. Jingle, jangle, jolly.
catagories: environment, graphic design, holidays and observances
Sunday 11 November 2012
tie-in campaign

catagories: graphic design, networking and blogging