Nice sign

I like this sign. The typeface used (mostly Franklin Gothic, I think), the colors, the slightly worn look, the three-over-three name, the design of the sign. It's just nice.

The corner of my eye

Out of the corner of my eye I read this sign "2 Dogs & Snake."



Using the magic of Photoshop, I move a few pixels around and here it is.



Guess I'd better go re-watch "Escape From New York."

Big plans

Something is going to happen on this corner.

C.J.! I've got just the guy for that "Animal House" remake!

Bluto and Hurley.

La Crosse sign

I'm puzzled by this sign. I spotted it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. It can be read three ways. "Olympic," "Oly-Mpic" or "Ly-O-Mpic." Okay, I know it's just supposed to be Olympic, and it hints at the Olympic games' five-ring logo. I guess the designer felt a need to fill in the "O."



How's the Olympic Builders logo stack up against some other Olympic logos? Not too bad. [Click for bigger.]



This nifty post by Daughter Number Three inspired me to post my own La Crosse signage photo. Thanks for shaming me into action, D#3!

Cancellations

The Postal Service has been changing its cancellation marks. As you might expect, I'm a fan of the old way. This cancellation is much like letterpress printing. The printed image is raised and it actually touches the surface it prints on. The cancellation looks good, and the date and city information is easy to read.




The new inkjet cancellation keeps the wavy line of the original, but doesn't retain the circle with the date/city info. The dot pattern isn't tight enough to make small, readable lettering. So the letters are quite large. I'm guessing it's faster to run mail through the inkjet cancel machine because the printer doesn't actually have to touch the piece of mail -- it just sprays the surface as it goes by.




Probably the major advantage of the inkjet cancellation is it that it's programmable. Someone decides to promote Arbor Day or something? It's just an easy computer change. Still looks bad with the sloppy dot pattern, but it's quicker and easier than making a new, physical, cancel marker.




The biggest disadvantage of the inkjet cancellation is keeping the thing in focus. Yikes!

Zoom in on "Foot In The Door 4"

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts' Foot In The Door 4 exhibit is all about quantity. And context.

Delores's piece is on display as you enter the exhibit. We were worried it would be on the sculpture area, but fortunately it was hung on the wall.

As with all these pictures, click for a closer view.



Sandra's piece also has a pretty good position -- you can get a good look if you bend over a little bit.



Roz got the very bottom of the display. Actually, it's kinda nice -- she has one side completely to herself.



Linda wasn't real lucky with her placement -- she's in a corner. And the glass on her frame adds sharp reflections of her neighbors art to her piece.



Kirk snared a very good spot in the sculpture forest. I think his display here on the table is equally as good as if he had been on the wall -- except he got an extremely rare and valuable corner spot! Two sides free from other art! Excellent work, Kirk!



Jil also snared a window seat for her entry. Very nice!



Steve was not so lucky with his 3-dimensional piece. It's positively buried in a thicket of other sculptural pieces. Bummer!



The photo below and at the left is of a regular Minneapolis Institute of Arts gallery sign -- jumbled in with the "Foot In The Door" artwork. Amusing.

And finally, I have a complaint about the "Foot's" artist catalog, available online and in kiosks and on computers in the exhibit itself. For some reason, the art is displayed in groups that are nine rows across. A normal computer screen will only display four or five rows at a time.

This nine-row configuration means in order to see everything on each screen, you have to scroll up and down AND scroll left and right. A major pain -- and a major usability blunder.

Why didn't they just put four rows per screen? Then you would be able to click and scroll your way through a large amount of entries without undue mouse futzing. (I've Photoshopped together a nine-rows-wide screen below.)

The "Artworks" viewer is labeled "beta," so I hold out hope that something will eventually be done to make it easier to view the artist information.



Complaining aside -- what an amazing show! Five thousand pieces! Overwhelming!

Note: And here is some crop art that made it into the "Foot" show.

Ride the Ducks postcards

My friend Doug sent me some Wisconsin Dells postcards. I never knew there were so many variations on the Ride-the-Ducks theme!

Click to enlarge.




Update: A few more Ducks postcards.

"Foot In The Door 4" submission process

Today about 3:30 p.m., we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to take part in the "Foot In The Door" free-for-all. Any Minnesota artist can participate -- your piece of art just has to be one cubic foot or less. It took 45 minutes from the end of the line to the sign-in. (Click picture for bigger view.)


Signage along the way to keep Foot-In-The-Door art from socializing with the real art.


The Curator (center) was harsh -- but fair.


Checking in. It's the "We Love Katamari Clock" I did for the 2007 State Fair Crop Art exhibit/competition.



Got a ribbon that says "artist" on it, a refrigerator magnet and a receipt for the art -- to be picked up in June.

The show starts February 19. We overheard that close to 4,000 submissions had been taken by Saturday afternoon.

Last day for submissions is Sunday, February 7, from 11 a.m. through 4:30 p.m.

Update: I was checked in by Andy Sturdevant. I know that only because the guy checking me in asked me if I knew a guy named Dane Steinlicht. I said, "Sure! That's my nephew!" I didn't ask his name, but I saw he signed the return receipt "Andy St." So I asked Dane about some guy named "Andy St.-something" and showed Dane the picture and Dane said "Oh yeah, I know him. He has a great blog." So I went to the blog and there's the guy's name. Cool. And the blog is fun, too. Here's a link to Andy's blog. Thanks, Andy! Thanks, Dane!

"Cornered!" tour bus pulls into St. Paul

The on-going promotional tour for "Cornered! A slightly askew look at our pop-culture landscape" comes to downtown St. Paul. There's a book signing tomorrow -- Thursday, Jan. 28, 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Pioneer Press Gallery, 345 Cedar Street.

Okay, so the bus is a Photoshop creation -- and since the signage covers part of the driver's side window, it's in violation of some kind of rule. Still. A bus! With an ad for the book on it! (This approach seemed to work pretty well for Sarah Palin.)

Wings

Two movies with characters who have wings. Opened yesterday. The way I understand it one character is a tooth fairy the other is an angel.

Makes being sick look like fun

These drawings of ailments almost make being sick look like fun. Broken arm? Yeah! Hip replacement? Whee!

And it's a pretty nice use of Region's Hospital's dumb logo mark to tilt it and make a background pattern of it.



Click for bigger.

Packaging mood swing

Sad . . . that Snapple is available in plastic bottles.



Happy . . . that the improvements in this pepper tin are not bad. Not that it needed improving, but still, it retains the original design while adding those (I guess) necessary highlights and shadows.



(Click photos for enlargement.)

I keep forgetting

When I see ads for Buick cars I immediately think, "I thought they were out of business! Why are they still advertising?"

Then I remember it is Pontiac that is out of business.

Welcome to Rice Park

One of a few signs taped up around Rice Park a couple weeks ago. I missed the event, but the signs were still there at midnight. The park was empty, put apparently still under copyright protection.

The problem with street signs

The problem with street signs is they are on the street. They are always getting bumped by vehicles. This sign for Lexington Parkway is a little worse for wear, but it's at least still readable.

A publisher for "Cornered!"

(Click image for a really close view.)

Big news! In December, Nodin Press of Minneapolis is going to publish my anthology of In This Corner comics. I self-published the book this summer and sent it around to a couple real publishers. And Norton Stillman at Nodin decided to go ahead with a new edition!

Having a new print run was an opportunity to critique my original design and make it better.

There are just a few tweaks inside -- I've added some new comics, an additional introduction page and a few more entries in the index. But the biggest change is the cover.

I felt that, while I liked the original design, it didn't address the origins of the comics. The comics were first published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper. On newsprint the pristine computer-drawn lines make a nice contrast with the textured paper. And and a nice contrast with the visible halftone dots. When the cover drawing is perfectly printed on glossy paper using very tiny halftone dots, the final result looks a little too perfect. So I decided to try to bring some of the newspaper roughness back.

I scanned some blank areas of the Pioneer Press -- hooray for white space! -- and used those as a basis for the front and the back covers. I took the color tint areas of the original drawing out of Illustrator and plopped them into Photoshop. I applied the Pixelate > Color halftone filter. (The document is 250 dpi and the dots are 15 pixels in diameter) I put the dots on top of the newsprint scan and set the layer to Multiply -- so the newsprint texture would soak through.

Then I brought that picture back into Illustrator to be used as the background for the black line drawings and the type.

Linda Koutsky also consulted on the design. Linda, among many other things, designs books for a living at Coffeehouse Press. She had a few suggestions. She said the book needed a subtitle. So I did one. She also said that it needed an author photo and short bio for the back of the book.

I did what she suggested and, doggone it, now it looks like a real book. (Pioneer Press co-worker Ben Garvin took the author photo.)

Look for "Cornered!" soon at your local bookstore!

I go Ross Thomas

It's election time and one of the striking lawn signs is for Pat Igo.

Igo's name makes me think of one of my favorite authors, the late Ross Thomas. One of Thomas's books, "The Seersucker Whipsaw," is about political campaigns. Specifically about an American advertising/public relations firm running a political campaign in a small African nation. The cynicism of the characters -- and of Ross Thomas -- is breathtaking. Anyway, a slogan for one of the candidates, Sunday Akomolo, is "I GO AKO." The cover of my copy of the book highlights the phrase.

Which brings me back to Pat Igo's lawn sign and Igo's Web site address: igo4education.org. Whatever disagreements I may have with Pat Igo's positions on education, his signs and Web site address always bring a smile to my face.

Those awful, spendthrift educators!

A sign attached to the fence of a pretty nice house on Summit Avenue in St. Paul.

I don't understand the animosity toward public education. Training future adults the ins and outs of useful employment and citizenship seems to me to be a good thing. Worth paying for.

I like the drawing of the pig, though.

Teasing ad

There's a teaser ad out now for a new Android-operating-system-based-phone. The new phone is the Verizon Droid. The ad's slogan "Droid does" features a mix of upper- and lowercase letters that is difficult to parse. The lowercase "r" in particular doesn't make sense in this context. But the lowercase "r" is the star letter, so that has to stay.



So, I fixed the "d" letters. Left the "e."



But that's maybe a little too much, so I just fixed one "d" and left the rest. I think this is a huge legibility improvement. And the cute little eyes or fangs or whatever under the "r" are left intact.