Louis Jourdan, Louis Jordan

I knew about Louis Jourdan the actor (pronounced "Loo-EE Jor-DAN") but I didn't know about Louis Jordan the musician ("LOO-ee JOR-dun") until I started listening to podcasts of WFMU's Old Codger. Boy, what I was missing!

Love and hate

Robert Indiana painted the original "Love," of course. Fantastic design. Pop Art at its best.

I did the "Hate," in the Indiana style, more or less. I don't know if someone else has done it that way, I just saw a "Hate" done the wrong way and I had to fix it.

The blog post that spurred me on to making these drawings is about stealing other people's artwork. (I'm going to take a stand here and say I'm against stealing, too.) One of the examples of stealing was a design like the one with the tilted "A." The blogger says it's stealing from Robert Indiana to do "Hate" in the "Love" style. I'm not so sure I agree. I think it's more of a tribute, or a visual nod.

But in any case, I don't think the tribute featured is tributing correctly! The "A" shouldn't be tilted, the "T" should be. The "A" has a diagonal in it and doesn't need the tilt. The "T" -- like the "O" in the original doesn't have a diagonal, and should be tilted to get the diagonal reverberating across the design.

Learned that in art class in high school.

If you're going to be inspired by someone's work, think it through.

Peeling billboard

There was a long, soaking rain and then the temperature went below freezing.

Result: Lots of billboards peeled. I like it!

Just like a Life Magazine picture puzzle

Life Magazine's picture puzzle (LMPP) is an obsession of mine. Silly but true. So when I happened upon two moving trucks, parked one in front of the other it was a real-life LMPP.

Can you spot the difference in these two pictures?

Click on the picture for a larger view, if you wish.

Hint: Typefaces.

Give up? The font used on the top truck for the web address and for "The trusted mover" is Interstate, while the font on the bottom truck is Arial.

So the question becomes: Why are there two fonts being used for these two trucks? Both truck sides look new. How could this happen? A mystery.

The only designer in the world

When I was a kid, I thought it would be cool if I was the only designer in the world. And then the world would be a better-looking place.

Hooey, of course. But . . . I still get the urge to redesign stuff I see.

Like this billboard. It's almost there, but with just a tweek or two it would be better. Would it be the best billboard in the world? No. But a little better.