#77 Seek & Find — A Resolution & Solution for the New Year

Seek & Find what you need in 2015

 


#77 Seek & Find
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Someone dear & close to me inspired the title Seek & Find for this New Year’s AmperArt.

2014 was a tough year for many of us. Loss of loved ones, loss of jobs, loss of property.

I was even at a loss of how to turn the numer­als 2 – 0‑1 – 5 into an amper­sand, a tra­di­tion for every New Year’s Amper­Art ren­der­ing so far. Absolute­ly noth­ing came to mind, so I sim­ply decid­ed to skip this year’s endeav­or & issue a non-​new-​year piece instead.

But then I got some shock­ing news. A very close, very dear per­son in my life – I’ll call him Mr. A – some­one who has intel­li­gence & wis­dom & integri­ty that is unsur­passed – was laid off ear­li­er this year. He has tried relent­less­ly to find anoth­er job, & is now even sur­viv­ing on peanut but­ter & jel­ly sand­wich­es; in fact, now just peanut but­ter since he ran out of jel­ly. This is some­one who is respon­si­ble about time and mon­ey, and who is not lazy about send­ing out resumes. And he will even set­tle for work that is below his mul­ti­ple degree lev­el. Still, no nib­bles. My heart goes out to Mr. A,  a per­son deserv­ing of so much. Yet his humil­i­ty, per­se­v­er­ence and strong faith keeps him going, seek­ing work until he finds something.

The New Year, Twenty-​Fifteen, will bring a change; it has to.” I did­n’t say that; Mr. A did. Right then I told him he inspired me to design a 2015 New Year’s Amper­Art after­all, no mat­ter how hard I had to seek & find some­thing rel­e­vant & maybe even clever.

The words were right in front of me: seek employ­ment, find a job. Seek & find. Or as the bible says,

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…”

—Matthew 7:7 (King James Version)

To my dear Mr. A, may you seek & find the posi­tion that ful­fills not only your finan­cial needs but also your pas­sion for cre­ative problem-​solving & reward­ing work.

To my fam­i­ly & friends & read­ers, may you seek & find suc­cess & pros­per­i­ty in 2015. May you seek & find health & hap­pi­ness. May you seek & find joy & wonder.

For those of you in a posi­tion like Mr. A, may you seek & find your dream job ear­ly in the com­ing year.

& to all amper­sand fans, I hope you seek & find the per­fect amper­sand in 2015.


 chaz sez ...

The font for Seek & Find was cho­sen for its clas­sic pro­por­tions & round ele­ments to com­ple­ment the style of the numer­als & amper­sand. Obvi­ous­ly, a design­er does not choose a type­style based on its name, but after Seek & Find was fin­ished I real­ized I coin­ci­den­tal­ly did seek & find an appropriately-​named font for the new year: Futu­ra.

For those of you who can’t find the amper­sand in this edi­tion, just seek & find a lit­tle fur­ther: it’s the “plus” sign inside the zero. (That big round cir­cle is a zero, you know. It’s part of the abstract “2015” that makes this a new year’s piece just for this new year.) The “plus” sign is “short­hand” for the amper­sand (which is short­hand for “et” or “and”). You can see how that works here:

ampsnd-to-plus

Seek & find more inter­est­ing facts about the amper­sand here.


Production notes for #77 Seek & Find:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Font: Futura
Ampersand & numerals: drawn in Illustrator by Chaz DeSimone
Reference:
Phrases: The Phrase Finder — phras​es​.org​.uk

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone Design

Enjoy & share…

10 thoughts to “#77 Seek & Find — A Resolution & Solution for the New Year”

  1. This is a beau­ti­ful piece, Chaz. The design is very clever and this verse is one of my favorites.
    My heart goes out to Mr. A…I can empathize and I will be pray­ing for him.

    May all who are seek­ing find all they need in Christ this new year.

    Many, many bless­ings to you, my dear friend, always.

  2. Prayers for your friend- and for your radi­ant spirit.

    The puri­ty of the design + lay­ers of mean­ing are a delight to contemplate- even the tiny breaks at the 9 & 12 o’clock with­in the zero are per­fect­ly com­posed, the rhyming of the 2 & 5 arcs and their acute angles are resolved by the zero becom­ing the whole… and on and on. An ele­gant proof for a cal­cu­lus of form: a for­mu­la for joy.

    1. Wow — that is artic­u­la­tion at its most obser­vant and refined lev­el! Your word­ing is like poet­ry. Even a plus sign amper­sand. Thank you!

      (I wish my clients could per­ceive the strat­e­gy and detail I put into their logos and lay­outs like you do.)

      Hap­py New Year. And thank you for sub­scrib­ing (I assume you did).

  3. Hi Chaz,

    Your Amper­art today is my favorite one ever! I espe­cial­ly liked the demon­stra­tion you gave of the pro­gres­sion of the & into a +. Genius! Tru­ly beautiful! 

    Every­one will be pray­ing for your friend too. I know I was as soon as I heard his story.

    Do you remem­ber the famous explor­er who many years ago trav­eled through the San Fran­cis­co Bay up to Sacra­men­to? He was lost. He was seek­ing. Thank­ful­ly, he found his way! He was named Humphrey, the Humped­back whale! It was a scary jour­ney away from home and his loved ones, but ulti­mate­ly he found his way back with the kind­ness and bless­ings from strangers every­where. I hope his way­ward whale of a sto­ry gives hope to your friend.

  4. Hi Chaz! May the cre­ative out­put of yours help bring in abun­dance for you and Mr. A. Love what you do.…
    Leslie

  5. Hi Chaz,

    The way you come up with your designes always has your heart into it 100%.
    Always makes my day when it comes out. Your com­pas­sion for your fel­low man makes me proud to call you my Friend. Mr. A will make it with I’m sure the knowl­edge and Friend­ship in know­ing you. I’ll still add him to my Prayers. God Bless Chaz and Hap­py New Year!!

  6. I sym­pa­thize with Mr. A and wish him and oth­ers in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions to be blessed with all of the real trea­sures that are in store and yet to be revealed. 

    Your lat­est Amper­Art is very inter­est­ing as I first saw “crosshairs” with the cir­cle and the “+” sign inside of it.….that is not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of sim­ply seek­ing; rather it is sniper-​like focused tar­get­ing with pre­ci­sion accu­ra­cy! Per­haps that’s what it takes to real­ly find what one seeks.

    1. Thank you for your com­pas­sion­ate, insight­ful, artic­u­late reply (& the first!).

      This design was a tough one. This is pret­ty much the orig­i­nal con­cept, and when I saw the crosshairs myself I named the piece “Aim & Fire,” “Seek & Find” (with­out the “and ye shall’), even “Seek & Destroy.” All cross-​hair-​related stuff. Too harsh for a new year’s mes­sage, until I came across http://​www​.phras​es​.org​.uk/ and was remind­ed of the entire bib­li­cal phrase. That made all the dif­fer­ence, and if any­one sees the crosshairs like you did, espe­cial­ly attribut­ing it to pin-​point accu­ra­cy, that’s a bonus. 

      I stayed up all night design­ing this piece, and your imme­di­ate com­ment, AD, made it worth­while. But now I’m going to crash & zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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