post script visions

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Google is celebrating 40 years of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This was one of my favorite books as a child. In first or second grade my teacher gave me a copy of this book. I love it. It’s beautiful. Now that I think of it, my love for collage could have started from there. Thank you Eric Carle!

Today I went to a job fair. It was awful. Very crowded. Very desperate. Very poor jobs. And very real.

There was a man who was following me a lil bit to each of the tables. He had worked in a very high position at Merrill Lynch for the last 23 years. He was laid off and now he is going to job fairs where Home Depot is looking for people to move lumber around in their warehouses and FedEx package handlers.

This is an eye opener. I’m glad I went even if it was pretty pointless for me. There were not jobs that pertained to anything I was the least bit interested in or could even consider as any sort of additional income or temp job. A lady asked me if I wanted to work as a security guard. That’s pretty humorous. I’m totally not qualified to be a security guard. Another guy wanted me and Steve to start selling candles in our spare time. He told us to have candle parties where our friends and family could but $70 candle holders. Right…

Desperate times. I’m not there personally, but I feel for those who are.

I found this image on dropular. It is very fitting right now.
This is work form the artist Jota Castro.

For real life.

Last week, I felt like this. –But I don’t anymore. That is the important part.

Tristan Eaton is very quickly becoming one of my favorites out of the art and design world.

I know that everyone and their mother is still talking about Shepard Fairey. But whatever! There are more street artists out there. This is not a repsonse to Fairey’s work. Tristan aton and Shepard Fairey were both working to help promote Obama’s champaign at the same time.

Check out this interview he had with Knight Pulse. He comments on all the buzz surrounding Fairey and his work. He brought up points and information that I didn’t know yet. Like the fact that the piece was given to the Obama campaign. Fairey made no money off of this piece. It’s a bit silly to sue him then.

Life’s been a little bit crazy!

I’m in between leaving and finding and commuting and trying to get some rest right now. I apologize for the lack of updates/posts recently. But you can follow me on Twitter! Thanks!

So everyone and their mother is talking about Olly Moss. Thank you Karol for really introducing me to these great redesigns of movies and books.

Olly moss does video games too. These posters are awesome!!!! I love it all. But my favorite is for Half Life.

Dear NJ Transit,

I will still most likely be with you when crossing the Hudson River, but I just want to let you know that this isn’t the most ideal of relationships.

I know you’re doing your best. It’s not really your fault. Blame your funding. Your conductors have always been great to me. I have met several nice people while on your trains. But you have to admit that you’re a bit expensive and the trains are always so crowded. I love the new trains, the double deckers… but why aren’t there more of them? Is 300 bucks a month from me not enough?

Seats are too small. Not enough cars on the trains during peak hours. Way too many delays because of mechanical door malfunctions. In the evenings the trains are always cluttered with litter. There aren’t many or something any trash containers on the trains.

I have taken many naps and found myself with an ache in my neck but still pretty pleased that I have arrived safely at my destination. At least safely, if not in a timely fashion. Usually.

Really, I’m just deciding and maybe I’m realizing now that I’m giving you too much and not getting enough back. But I know it could all be so much worse. Thanks for everything you’ve done well and right.

–I just want you to know, that even if it isn’t your fault, I will remember all the times you were the reason why I was an hour or more late. I can forgive, but I can’t forget. By the way, what exactly does “signal problems” mean? Why do your conductors seem grossly uninformed at times when there are delayed over 15 minutes? They are nice people, and deserve the truth!

Don’t take this personally. It’s just how things are working out right now. I’m sure you’ll soon find another girl to replace me who treks across state lines with more than enough stuff with her each day. Maybe we’ll meet again and things will have changed. Either you or I and we can go steady again. Maybe one day…

Love Almost Always,
Sammi

PS: Your “Lost and Found” system is awful. Seriously awful.

Okay. Wait.
They guy sitting next to me just told me that NJ Transit apparently has free public wifi/internet?! I’m excited. But figures NJ Transit.. you’re so sneaky. Just as I’m about to leave you or at least take a break from you, you try to lure me back in. Trickster!
—By the way, I can’t find anything about free wireless on NJ Transit trains or stations. They are lying!!

Great video all about information or actually what information is. Beautiful typography too.

The Indian government is going to be holding a public contest to redesign the Rupee. Currently, the rupee is referred to only as abbreviated forms like Rs or INR (Indian Rupee). Only Indian citizens are eligible to participate in the contest. Finalists will receive $500 (in US dollars) and the grand prize winner will receive $5000 (in US dollars) which will also be “payment” for the rights of the symbol.

Read more here. Thanks BBC.

Can you imagine trying to redesign the US dollar symbol “$” ? I can’t. I really can’t imagine designing such a widely used and such an important symbol. Hopefully, by creating a sort of Universal symbol for the Rupee, the Rupee will gain more clout. While being known as a relatively poor country with a giant population, India has billionaires and money and deserve to be on the same playing field/market as the rest of the world.

My boyfriend pointed out the “fact” that most currency symbols are just the first letter of the name of the currency with two lines through it.

Euros, Yen, Pounds, Dollars, Pesos.
They all pretty much have the first letter.

Okay, admittedly I didn’t realize that. Thanks Smarty-Pants.

I asked him then why the dollar symbol is an “S” then. He couldn’t answer me because he forgot the reason. I still want to know why… so here is the reason.

Apparently the “S” comes from British North America evolving the use of the Spanish dollar a long long long time ago. The British adapted the Spanish dollar for North America.
Thanks wikipedia!

I really hope that the Rupee will be something more interesting than just an R with a few lines through it. It think it would be great if they used a character from a language specific to India instead of an English “R”. I want to see a character that I am not used to seeing.

It will take a lot of time (and money) to really implement the new symbol into the world’s daily life with all of the computers, different fonts, different languages, different pieces of technology like phones, and even in print in books and magazines. I’m really interested in seeing how this new symbol works out. And plus, it’s just another glyph for typeface designers to play with.

Bubblicious from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

This is amazing!

This is a DIY stop motion music video with great personality, a great story, and great insight into how it was done. Stop motion is hard. Not matter what you’re doing, it will take a long time. This shows some super fast and really perfect foam core cuts, but that must have taken hours! If you went to art school or have ever tried to cut foam core, then you’ll really appreciate this. I really enjoyed the DIY aspect to this movie.

Great characters! I loved their eyes. Everything starts out so simple and turns out to be a great little show.

I dig it. I really do. It was highly entertaining and funny. So… go watch it. Right now.

Big props to Rex The Dog.

We spent this aniversary at the Bonefish Grill. If you haven’t gone, I highly suggest you find one and go there as soon as humanly possible. It was really great food and not too expensive. All of it was amazing. Don’t forget the creme brulee!

Originally found on dropular with the tag “sexiestmanalive”
I like that.

What are your thoughts on mister 360°?

Then this video will be happy and as a result I will be happy because I enjoyed it so much.
I love WWF.

This watch is ridiculously complicated.
Enjoy the look of having a small engine room or strange factory of time on your wrist with this watch.

Cabestan’s Winch Tourbillion watch is made up of 1352 different components driven by a 450 link chain and nickel silver drums. And it only costs $275k – $400k! (That’s more than my college education.)

Originally found on PicoCool.

NPR’s Fresh Air asked Shepard Fairey, Mannie Garcia, and a law professor about the the Garcia photo, the lawsuit, and fair use.

Notable parts of the transcript…

How did Shepard Fairey pick out the image for the Obama piece?

FAIREY: Well, I looked through a lot of photographs, but I had an initial concept that I’d like to divide Obama’s face in highlighting shadow between tones of blue and red. So, it was really the direction of the gaze which I felt looked presidential, looked like Obama had some vision and some leadership, and that combined with the way that the light was falling.

…why did he decide to sue the AP?

FAIREY: Well, the AP was threatening to sue me, and they first contacted me and said, you know, let’s figure out how to work this out amicably, which I was vey open to and said, you know, I’m glad to pay the original license fee for the image. For all the reasons I’ve already given you, I didn’t think that I needed to, but I’m glad to do it because, you know, I’d rather just make this easy for everyone.

And then they said no, we want damages. And then they ran a piece in the National Press basically saying I stole the photo, which as an artist that works from references frequently, you know, I feel that they’re calling into question the validity of my method of working as well as the hundredsif not thousands of other artists that made grassroots images for Obama working in a similar way, or people that made things, you know, against the Bush agenda that had a likeness of him. These are all things that were created by people who probably don’t have the resources to license an image.

And the meaning of their art pieces is completely different than the original intention of the source image and adds a new layer, a new value. It’s transformative, and I think it should be fair use. And I felt that I needed to fight the AP not for myself only, but for a whole group of artists that would be self-censored, probably, because they can’t afford the photos and they don’t want to be in a legal entanglement over using those types of images to communicate a message.

What was Mannie’s reaction when he found out the reference image was his?

GARCIA: Initially when I found out, I was disappointed in the fact that, you know, someone had – was able to go onto the Internet and take something that doesn’t belong to them and then use it. I think that that part of this whole story is crucial for people to understand that simply because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s free for the taking, and just because you can take it, doesn’t mean it belongs to you.

**Currently AP over who owns the copyright.

And finally…

Professor GREG LASTOWKA (Rutgers School of Law-Camden; Visiting Professor, Columbia University): One thing that’s really important about fair use, they need to understand, is the Supreme Court has said that each fair use case needs to be decided individually, and there are no bright-line rules. And that’s one of the things that’s most frustrating about fair use because if you look at these four factors for fair use, none of them are strictly controlling, and you can find a case that has, you know, one of these factors going one way or the other and a finding of fair use or no fair use.

About the recent Facebook uproar…

Prof. LASTOWKA: I see it as very relevant because I think the reaction of the public to something like, you know, Facebook’s changing the terms of service, the fear that someone else is going to be able to monetized the creative work that you’re uploading to Facebook shows that we all feel like we are authors and proprietors of the content that we create. So, yeah, I think it’s very relevant because it shows the public’s reaction when their own authorial interests are at stake.

—Very interesting. I thought about this on the train home tonight…

In this blog, I am trying to share and showcase some of the most interesting and beautiful content and creations that other people have created that I have found on the internet. I always try to link back and give credit or at least link back to where I originally found it (or I probably won’t post it).

I now wonder if Shepard Fairey had originally given credit to Mannie Garcia during the Obama campaign, would there still be an issue?

In these hard economic times the issue is very much monetary but it’s not to say that credit is worth less (or worthless?). If Mr. Garcia had received credit and had his name brought up in a more positive manner rather than in the middle of a legal scandal with a very high profile person in the art and design world, would he have gotten more work as a result? Or any money? For an important political campaign that was considered to be a non-profit situation, would money have been an issue if all parties had received recognition?

It is always important to be recognized. I think that the public in general “thought” (knew/understood) that the Shepard Fairey image was based off of a reference, but neglected to acknowledge that fact because of how Fairey treated the work. It is not a photograph that has been altered. It is a drawing/design that was based off of the image, which should fall under fair use. Whether or not it was legally under fair use, it is still, I feel, the “right” thing to do to acknowledge others works.

Does common courtesy and honesty still exist?

Mr. Theodor Seuss Geisel would have been 105 years old today.
Google celebrated his birthday today. Great logo.

Did you know that Dr. Seuss not only drew his amazing characters, but he actually created them? In the 1930’s he began a strange method of taxidermy. His father worked for the Forrest Park Zoo in New York.  Dr. Seuss took horns or other pieces of the deceased animals and incorporated them into his sculptures of characters. Strange, but fascinating and beautiful results.

Check out the collection of works here at drseussart.com.

WOW.
I was almost speechless when I found this. It is just… amazing. This is brilliant.

Originally found on Buamai.