A few posters I made last quarter, for Journey of Type with Matt McFadden. 17 writers, 9 posters every week, one font, one cool class.
—————
David Carson, start running.
——–
Amnesty Int’l – Control Arms campaign. Joy Divisionesque?
——
This one might be my favorite…
On Tuesday, Ed McMahon went off in search of the stars
Farah Fawcett waved a red kiss goodbye
And the King of Pop popped some pills for his one big last Thrill
And yet none of these struck me with any significance
Until currents of water pulled my friend under
When that light washed out, and fairness was torn asunder.
Soren. My friend. Some things I won’t forget:
Your love of techno, Belgian beer, and tight pants.
How you turned your head sideways for every Facebook photo.
How you smiled at those you knew – and at those you didn’t.
I remember a long day in December.
It was raining outside so I decided to bother you.
“Do Danish people eat Danishes? Isn’t that like cannibalism?”
I thought I was being clever.
You took it seriously.
I never thought I’d spent an entire afternoon discussing pastries.
Soren I can see you now
Walking slowly, lighting up the streets in Paris
Or standing tall across the ocean
Teaching the penguins how to fly
In a world full by brands, yours was the best.
I’d buy a million of you if you came in smaller packages.
When all seems fleeting
We suffer and wonder how.
How we can sustain ourselves through the morning.
But somehow, from somewhere, we gain the strength to move forward.
To move beyond moments like this one.
Where each breath comes easier than the one before,
where laughter fills the space where before there was only black.
What’s strange and painful,
bittersweet and lovely
is that this will happen to us
without us noticing at all.
Soren Hellner (1979-2009)
You know how people LOVE their tattoos, but love GETTING tattoos? The burn of hydrogen peroxide on skin, the smell of ink bubbling underneath, the soothing buzzing sound of the drill…same thing with me and shaving my head. It’s like going to the mikva without having to see a bunch of old naked Jewish men. (That may sound pleasant to some of you, but I pass on ass) Couple rounds with the clipper and I’m left with millimeters of fuzz surrounding my skull. And I never have that problem of having my hair in my face like the rest of you long-haired losers.
But at some point, we all begin to break.
Male Jews suffer from a disorder. We entertain the idea of growing out our hair and sporting a massive afro. Expanding our base of hair from three to fourteen inches – thas a good idea. sually brought on by seeing Lenny Kravitz on a cover of Rolling Stone. We take one look in the mirror, glance back at the mag: I CAN DO THIS.
Seth Rogen brought the JewFro back into the public eye, until he got rich and lost weight. Speaking of Rogen, I saw this guy a few weeks ago, at Arlequin Cafe in Hayes Valley. Nice guy. Probably his stuntman.
I saw him and felt inspired. Could I do it? Would mine look better? Could it look any worse?
After some deliberation, logic won out, and for seventeen dollars, the perfurmed Persian ladies at Supercuts did some damage yesterday.
It looks decent. But I feel like I’m letting the team down. So I compiled some studies of the Afro.
I’d like your input on how to proceed.
————————————————————————-
THE BURNER
Vegan. Brews his own kombucha. Volunteered at an organic farm in New Zealand, harvesting beets and carrots all summer. Prefers Chacos over Tevas. Swears his rock deodorant works. Don’t get too close. Secretly purchased Soulja Boy ringtones on iTunes.
UNITY
Café junkie / Bus stop preacher. Seeking a Publisher for his indie anthropology fashion zine. Can’t talk to girls but will whoop your ass in speed chess. Heroes: Malcolm X, Kanye, and Willis from Different Strokes.
STRICTLY BUSINESS BABY
Afraid of big words. Great at sales calls. Brings in leftover donuts, goes out to lunch with the CEO, leaves work early to hold down the Happy Hour. Currently listening to the Da Vinci Code book on tape. Have you read it? He has questions.
Advertising creatives are receptacles for useless information. We dump everything we find straight into our brains, let it seep out slowly. Hopefully, it leads to some interesting work. It can also have drastic repercussions.
Ever since I completed a print campaign for Purell Soap, I’ve become a full fledged germaphobe. I wash my hands constantly – 4 or 5 times a day. I scrub before I eat anything. I pound fists rather than shake hands. I de-MUNI-fy with antibacterial spray sanitizer after riding the metro. If I forget to spray – it’s like skipping yoga for a day – something’s off.
Then it got worse. I started to realize how many surfaces my hands come into contact with everyday. Think about it. Then I paid attention to how often my hands make it into my mouth. It’s astounding. Automatic.
How other people do the exact same thing? Could I continue to trust them? I drew parallels with the ultimate health trap: ‘If you sleep with this person you sleep with everyone THEY slept with.’ Now I can’t touch a doorknob, ATM keypad, or shake hands with a stranger without wondering how many people had sex on them.
# 1 Pass and Grab
Buy up everything you can. Properties, utilities, railroads, EVERYTHING. Be an even bigger dick. Put some money on Chance and charge rent when others land on it. Don’t worry about not having enough money in the bank. It’s early enough in the game that everyone’s still friends at the table. If you DO happen to land on Illinois Avenue and so poor you can’t afford the $24 rent, comp your friend a night stay in return at your place and you’re set.
NOTE: This only works in the at the early stages of the game. 45 minutes in and you’re cracking skulls to get that $6 your friend owes for sleeping in the slums of Baltic Avenue. Fuck him. You’ll need those six dollars when you gotta pay the Man in housing taxes.
# 2 Country Clubs
The other school demands more tact and patience. The prudent player skips half the board, buying property only in the real estate suck zones. A dice roll from Jail, these black holes draw in even expert players, and soon enough everyone’s getting raped at St. James.
These are the same bastards that run the high-end country clubs on Marvin Gardens & Ventnor Avenue. Less pricey than Pennsylvania Avenue, with a high mortgage, land on hotels here and you’re finished. If you manage to grab the orange, yellow, and red, you’ve got a bigger head than Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.
But not all places are terrible. There is one place that offers safety, relaxation, and peace of mind. And it’s not Free Parking.
It’s Jail.
After a few trips around the board, ruthless speculation, and nonstop construction, getting incarcerated is the sweetest thing next to finding two Red Starbursts in a row. The streets aren’t safe to wander, and going to prison is the best thing that could happen to you. Smoke a cigarette, watch others sweat over Luxury Tax, practice dice – once you’re rehabilitated, pay your debt to society with only 50 bucks.
You could even write a book your experiences or lay some tracks and put out an album about your experiences. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in prison. It only led to bigger and better things for him. (It fucked over everyone else, but hey, this is YOUR game)
The final school of thought, which is more of a strategy pursued by retards, is to buy up only railroads and utilities, and ignore everything else. The max you’re cleaning up is $200, (that’s if you own all FOUR) so this strategy is not recommended. Unless, you’re playing with actual real-estate agents, who will draw up contracts and cut deals in order to prolong the game even further.
In that case, put down the boxcar or thimble you’re playing with. (The thimble is choice – it’s fun to hold and provides ample distraction when that asshole to your right has to count his money after every turn), Hand your cash back to the Banker and get a new set of friends.
In my experience, Country Clubs usually wins. Unless, I’ll-Buy-Everything-I-Land-On has enough money and brains to monopolize the light blues early on. (that’s the one with Vermont Ave) That requires passing GO! Minimum 4 times, coming up big in the Community Chest, and replenishing funds at Free Parking to build some houses. It’s tough no doubt, but do that and everyone’s asking you for favors.
That’s it! Next week we’ll discuss the love triangle between April O’Neil – Michelangelo – Raphael. I personally believe April is totes asexual, but journalism comes before sexual preference. And you know damned well she’d fuck a mutant turtle for a front-page story.
I stare into refrigerators pretty frequently. I’ll swing that door, I haven’t gone shopping in two weeks, and yet I’ll open and stare at its cold insides over and over. I found this carton of OJ at my parent’s house. Tropicana wants to rescue the rainforest, 100 sq. feet at a time. Bravo. All they ask is that you log on to their site, and enter in the code. The code? It’s printed on there. Where? Who the fuck knows.
Find it?
It took me a few seconds. Maybe you’re quicker than I am. But I assume you got slightly annoyed. I did. I got annoyed that that code was hard to find, and my ecological code finding experience you created for me was ruined, Tropicana. I could go back to the carton of mystery, grab the code, save some wild toucans from going extinct…but seriously Tropicana? How difficult is it to add an arrow? I’m an idiot after OJ, and I’ve got milliseconds to be distracted from my beverage. You got in my way with some altruistic copy, but design wise, totally blew it. Make it easy for me. How none of the art directors suggested an arrow, or how a suggested arrow got shot down, is beyond me. Packaging fail.
I wonder how this went down when creatives got their first look after printing the prototype. And let’s hope there was a prototype.
Open on two guys , both wearing hoodies. It’s late, 2:35 a.m. One of them is eating Pringles, the other a Snickers.
“What the–? Did you see this packaging? It makes no fucking sense now with the numbers up there. Shit. How are people gonna see it?!”
They’ll get it. People aren’t stupid. Respect your audience.
People aren’t stupid? Can YOU find the code?
What code? There’s no code.
We are so fucked.
But the grovestand gurus are no stranger to design debacles. Look at their new cartons. Arnell did some repackaging work months ago.
People hated it so much Tropichronic scrapped the residesign and went back to the old one. Good move orange men.
And then, another flub. This doesn’t make me want to drink your orange juice any less. It’s better than beer, and I really like beer. But don’t expect me to fall into your marketing ploys any longer.
P.S. Been loitering by the fridge. Found some cabbage, cheese, and burrito size tortillas. Dinner!
whatya said