A Random Series of Photographs #1

Right Now

Right now I am excited about this:

How Many Hours of Olympics Watching is Too Many Hours of Olympics Watching?

Okay, I realize that this is 50% a repeat post I already wrote for heartbeast/wolfgang , but I have Olympic fever bad. I have been seriously studying the branding of the Olympics, not just Vancouver 2010, but the individual countries and their choice typefaces, logos, colours, and uniforms. For example, the German speed skating team uniform has the huge letters GER in Gill Sans, an interesting choice, given that Gill Sans is the official/unofficial typeface of England. NBC created its own Vancouver 2010 logo it airs on screen with its broadcast, that has such a particular American feel. Serif letters, looking like 3-D steel, and powerful mountains in a crest.



Continuning with talk of Olympic logos, while I have hated on many aspects of the official Vancouver 2010 logo and oh-so-predictable iconography chosen, there is one aspect that I completely love. I love that Sasquatch is one of the mascots of the Olympics. Quatchi, as he is officially called, is the best mascot I can remember since that bird thing with the really long rainbow nose. Remember him? Was that from Barcelona? Regardless, I am pleased that the Canadian Olympic Committee (I made up that name) deemed Sasquatch an appropriate representative of Canada and then created the cutest mascot the Olympics will ever see.*

*I cannot guarantee that the Olympics will never produce a cuter mascot, but I challenge them to improve on Quatchi.



It should be noted that in my short quest to find a picture of Quatchi I somehow ended up on in the French area of some sort of Olympic site for children and made this picture. Im pretty sure I'm supposed to print it up and colour it in now. And by "made it" I mean I dragged Quatchi where I wanted him to be, and put in those mushrooms because they are the happiest mushrooms I have EVER seen.

For complete self-plagiarism I am including my comments from a few weeks ago on Olympic posters. The golden age of Olympic design really feel between Rome 1960 and Moscow 1980. These posters are amazing examples of clean lines and geometric imagery, really iconic. The Olympics should be saluted for their lengthy history of very simple and minimalist poster design. It's amazing how 1960 was the last use of serifs and more defined imagery, moving on instead to the incredible 1964 Tokyo poster. Each poster manages to capture the times and the identity of the city quite effortlessly and with such simplicity.

Go to Helvetica

Right now I am working on something that this is a part of. This is my favourite page from it. I tried to use a substitute for Helvetica, but nothing had the right feel. Univers was too robotic, Verlag was too thin. It's not Helvetica's fault that it is mathematically perfect and the most used typeface in the world. I'm going to stop the boycott. Helvetica is a-okay with me.

Indian Food Took Over My Life

From 2:30 on today all I thought about was Indian food. But the restaurant I really wanted to get it from didn't open until 5. My solution? Take a nap until 5. I'm not saying this was an appropriate course of action, but it really made the time go by quickly! The only problem is that once the food finally arrived and we gorged on it, I simply could not stop eating. This overeating of the most delicious Indian food in the city has rendered me near paralyzed on the big white chair in front of the TV.

Once after getting take out from this particular restaurant I was so happily full and sleepy that my brother and I almost missed a Bruce Springsteen concert. We had to debate the merits of going. Bruce Springsteen! This food is that diabolically good. So this post has basically been hijacked by Indian food. Delicious, delicious Indian food.



This poster represents how I am feeling right now. Like Vinod Khanna my eyes stare straight ahead, unblinking, slightly glazed. But happy.

Take a Look, It's In a Book

I really love books. Both the act of reading and the physical objects themselves. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the Nazis are burning the books and the Nazi lady secretly cries because she also loves books, I feel her pain (and once cried myself — I was 10!)

Anyways, anyone who has seen any of my recent work knows that I am really into designing book covers these days. Last week I came across a really great blog dedicated to (generally) vintage book covers from around the world. http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/ After going through the incredibly vast collection for 10 minutes I actually had to take a break because, as I immediately described to someone, "my brain just exploded with design overload". It's been an intense search, but below are some of the best covers that I completely loved. I feel like these could act as some sort of Rorschach Test, and I really don't think I'm interpreting them accurately. I find them all strangely whimsical and cute.

Every time I look at this I think "Why hello giant grasshopper" in my head. weird.

I think this is the cutest image of death I have ever seen. I know he is bad ass and driving at deadly speeds in his muscle car but I find this image extremely cute. Love the little gun detail in the upper right corner.

This is just a really cool collage, and the typography works just as well and with the image. I guess this also could be seen as a bomb of wild west gay pride.

I didn't even notice the man with the axe (Casually going to chop down some of those trees? Nothing murderous going on here) until the 4th or 5th viewing of this cover. I also love the fox. Makes me think of those fox scarves that bite their own tail that I may or may not secretly want.

I Had Enough Sense To Not Write "Herricane"

I have had this song stuck in my head for a whole day now. I'm usually not a fan of songs that tell a story but this one gets my attention throughout the entire song. I love how long he holds the "White" for.

Sidenote this was the best of videos for this song that youtube had to offer. I opted against the video that was a black screen with the lyrics in white Comic Sans, I wouldn't do that to you.

Desktops I Have Had

Since I spend 90% of my waking life staring at a computer screen, picking a desktop picture is actually a process. It has to be something I can stand staring at for at least a month, plus because I am a huge design nerd, it helps if it is something that I am jealous of*/makes me laugh/has some sort of meaning/has a white background. What follows are desktops that I have had this past year. Many come from the amazing Kitsune Noir Desktop Wallpaper Project as well as random children's books I have collected. The skeleton is possibly the greatest thing I have ever made.

*more on design jealousy later.