A Fun Exercise

I was reading the book Lolita and just like most books I read I was looking at the cover. I had read it once before with a different cover and that got me thinking about the differences between the covers and the fact that there are also two different Lolita movies released, so basically there have been many opportunities for people to redesign the cover for either the book or the movies. So I went online and did a google image search and here are some of my results.
This is actually quite a fun exercise to do with any book or movie that is has been released multiple times.

A good read...or look

Ok I am blogging about this book as a whole even though I still haven't finished despite having it a month. The book is titled Graphic Agitation 2 and contains a impressive collection from around the world of political and social graphics from the 1990s. As well as it being focused on that particular decade it also puts the posters in perspective by showing posters along the same lines from previous decades and examines the effect of computer technology on protest graphics today. This book is really interesting and would highly recommend looking into it though it is a little on the spendy side, something of particular interest to me as a student is that it it shows the work of both professional and student designers.

Oooooooh I love this DVD inside and out!

Ok I am absolutely no expert on this but I am quite fond of the design for Walk the Line, specifically the collector's edition. First off the design of the whole shebang works quite well with the actual movie, something which is quite important and something which I feel is often ignored. The color palate is quite striking and is made even more powerful by the fact that the designer used a limited number of colors, three main ones with two lessor colors. The design itself is very high in contrast and simplifies more complex forms. The cover design is repeated in part on the disc itself and the bonus disc has a guitar rendered in the same style. And the inside covers are a collage of faux old photos.

fabulous me, myself and I

Just thought I'd blog about my business card that I made for one of my classes(for those in the know who are basically anybody who reads this mindless drivel because they are in the class with me). Basically all I have to say about them is that I had tons of fun designing/making them and because I am "overly confident" I am super psyched with the outcome. Gawd i love them!!!...ok I took it too far, now here they are↑
though for some reason blogger has messed the color up, though I still like them.
Over and out suckers.

Make a Statement Without Ever Opening Your Mouth

I decided to write a little blog about t-shirts, in particular those with writing on them. Just because I find it interesting and don't think people always realize the message they are sending even though it is literally on their shirt. I never gave it much thought until I got one that reads "Guns don't kill people, people with mustaches kill people" and realized that not only does everybody look but a lot ask what it means. Now with the idea that you are going out with this written on your chest (or back) one would hope you are pretty comfortable with the message you are giving, that being said it amazes me what some people wear.
Here is a pic of my gun shirt and a pic of a man wearing one of my all time favorite shirts and lastly what appears to be a home-made go at humor or at least close to it.

Worlds Longest Blog: What makes it Art?

Now this is not directly related to graphic design but since I have already reached my weekly quota of blog postings I feel I deserve a superfluous post of unrelated material. Though I don’t feel it is completely unrelated instead it is under the broader umbrella of art, a little more specifically modern art. The other night I watched a documentary titled My Kid Could Paint That, about a 4 year old little girl who painted pictures, her work was so popular that she ended up being labeled a prodigy by some and getting gallery shows at which she sold thousands of dollars worth of paintings. Then inevitably this all came crashing to a halt when 60 Minutes did a special on her and speculated that she couldn’t be doing it on her own sine the painting were too “adult” to have been done by a child and it is suggested that her father is either doctoring her work after the fact or simply painting them himself. There were secret cameras (secret to the child not the parents) in which the girl looked less then enthusiastic about painting and a clip in which her father can be heard basically begging her to paint and then heavily suggesting that she use different colors etc etc. Then collectors of her work become outraged and her popularity diminished and people quit buying her work. Her parents then released their own video of the makings of one of her pictures from start to finish to quell the rumors, however this didn’t help the kid’s popularity rose and fell some more. The parents hoped the documentary would put an end to the doubt however the ending of the documentary was inconclusive. This is in no way a criticism of modern art since I happen to be quite the fan but here are some points I would like to make:

1. Who decides what is considered art, even if the father did the work entirely and completely lied about it who says that is not another form of art. Stranger things have been done in the name of art, such as German artist Joseph Beuys the man who locked himself in a gallery with a wild coyote for three days, for some people that was art, for others it was just insanity.

2. Next if people like the art its quality shouldn’t change based on the artist, I mean you either like it or you don’t. It’s not like she was some well established master of painting and somebody was trying to pawn off their work as hers. If they had claimed a four year old was painting using photo realism that would have been more extraordinary and relevant however they weren’t instead they were saying she was painting like any other four year old, with random colors and none representational shapes so in actuality it would be more impressive that her 30+ father was painting in the style of a 4 year old.

3. In defense of the kid even though I do not have a concrete opinion of whether she painted them or not and I like the paintings either way. If they were at all familiar with children they would realize one of the quickest ways to get a child of any age to stop doing something or change the way they do it is to tell them to do it a specific way or to put to much focus and pressure on what they are doing, which in my opinion makes the footage totally irrelevant.

4. Against the kid, or more accurately her parents. The dad was a total “pageant” dad and even in favorable footage can be heard mercilessly “encouraging” his child to paint and seems just totally blinded by the fame and money. I think a likely scenario is the girl started out as the painter and then the dad’s insane drive to keep her paintings coming caused him to start helping her or coaching her in order to keep up the production and therefore the fame and money that went along with it. After just her first show (in which she sold every piece she had) there were 77 more people on her waiting list which is a pretty hefty demand to fill for a four year old. No matter if she did them or not I believe her dad ruined it because even if she was truly the artist of all the work he definitely managed to suck the fun out of it for her and make it all about him.

Not a bad way to get cash

So this is not about design but instead about blogging, relevant because this is a blog and maybe somebody who reads this is good at blogging.

Here is an excerpt taken from the age.com.au, view the whole article at:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/soldier-blogger-wins-prize/2007/05/14/1178995040941.html
OR for more info on the blooker prize go to:
http://www.lulublookerprize.com/
"former US machine gunner's irreverent memoir about his year fighting in Iraq has won the Blooker prize for the best book of the year based on a blog.

My War: Killing Time in Iraq by Colby Buzzell was awarded the £5000 ($A12,000) prize today, beating out 110 entries from 15 countries.

The late Kurt Vonnegut wrote to Buzzell praising the book and US blogging queen Arianna Huffington, a Blooker judge, called it "an unfiltered, often ferocious expression of his boots-on-the-ground view of the Iraq war".

But Buzzell, 31, said he would have never written it had it not been for the encouragement from readers of the anonymous online journal he started in his free time in a war zone"

I have read the actual book and it is quite good, and it was entirely based on his blog.