Category: Challenge

#80 Believe & Achieve in 2016 — Happy New Year!

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments

80-Believe-&-Achieve-wm

#80 Believe & Achieve
Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Happy New Year

First, have a blast cel­e­brat­ing 2015! Then use these tips to keep your New Year’s resolutions.

If you haven’t made any res­o­lu­tions yet—because you know they are so excru­ci­at­ing­ly hard to keep—read this won­der­ful advice from a friend, Tam­mi Bran­nan. You might even want to rethink your New Year’s res­o­lu­tions and actu­al­ly look for­ward to keep­ing them in 2016!

When choos­ing New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions that you want to achieve, make sure you do these 3 things:

  1. Iden­ti­fy 2 – 3 areas in your life you’d like to improve.
  2. Pick one action item for each area that you can do now to exact change.
  3. For 5 min­utes, 3 times a day focus on each action item, whether you’re say­ing it to your­self as a promise or you’re tak­ing steps towards accom­plish­ing that action.

The 2 rea­sons why folks fail when it comes to their New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions is because they:

  1. Pick Res­o­lu­tions they don’t care too much about achiev­ing, and…
  2. Sit by in hopes their New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion will come to them, instead of tak­ing active steps to achieve them.

If find­ing the per­fect occu­pa­tion or busi­ness is one of your 2016 goals, Tam­mi Bran­nan offers career devel­op­ment coach­ing for indi­vid­u­als & teams. She says, “Live a life that is truer to you.” You’ll find lots of insight­ful videos & arti­cles at her web­site, Instinc​tiveLife​.com. I endorse Tam­mi as a per­son of high integri­ty & gen­uine con­cern for individuals.

To Do & To Don’t List

AmperArt-TO-DONT-LIST-2016-227w

fea­tur­ing the Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016

Here’s a TO DO LIST guar­an­teed to sim­pli­fy your life. It’s actu­al­ly my spe­cial­ly designed TO DO & TO DON’T list. This is brand-​new art­work in the two Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016: Rose Quartz & Seren­i­ty. Down­load the TO DO & TO DON’T list here and print out sev­er­al copies for your friends.

chaz sez ...

My favorite quote about dreams & pos­si­bil­i­ties is by Walt Dis­ney, who real­ly accom­plished some aston­ish­ing feats. (Did you know Dis­ney­land was built in less then one year from ground­break­ing to open­ing day?) Walt said:

 “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

And he did. Birdies sing & flow­ers croon.

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#81 Devastation & Despair

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

81-Devastation-&-Despair

#81 Devastation & Despair
Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Exact­ly one year ago — at 11:30 a.m. on the 2nd Sat­ur­day of Feb­ru­ary 2014 — my soul was auc­tioned off. Every­thing I had from my bronze baby shoes to all my art­work, ideas writ­ten on nap­kins, pho­tographs, my dad’s bar­ber tools and mas­sagers, the last gift my mom gave me which she hand-​crocheted (this is so spe­cial there will be an Amper­Art ded­i­cat­ed just to that pre­cious item), gifts from fam­i­ly & friends, books I was to savor read­ing after I retire, Dis­ney and oth­er col­lectibles I had yet to enjoy and pass down to my grand nephews and nieces, fam­i­ly heir­looms (the grand old floor-​model wood­en radio, the paint­ing that hung over our din­ing room meals), items that belonged to fam­i­ly and friends, mid-​century retro fur­nish­ings, sou­venir appar­el, stu­dio equip­ment (art, pho­tog­ra­phy, record­ing, office) – every­thing I had in stor­age for home and shop and recre­ation and col­lectibles and gifts, which is every­thing but the few items I have around me at this moment – was pur­chased by a heart­less, greedy ass­hole who nev­er returned my calls so I could offer him far more than what he paid for my life, and I could go on living.

Dev­as­tat­ed and in despair ever since. More to fol­low as future Amper­Art pieces tell the sto­ry. I can’t write about it now.

Production notes for #81 Devastation & Despair:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Illustrator (lettering), Photoshop (noise)
Font: None

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone Design

#29 Success & Nothing Less

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Download to print special size for Balboa students’ notebooks: 8.5 x 11 inches

Amper­Art #29, Suc­cess & Noth­ing Less, was inspired by Bal­boa Ele­men­tary School, for it is their mot­to, and it’s where I learned my abc’s, in Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia. (It’s also where I learned the dif­fer­ence betweens it’s and its.)

The type­style is Aachen, same as used on their school sig­nage. The amper­sand is derived from the Z in the team’s name, Blaz­ers. The col­ors used in this edi­tion are, of course, the school colors.
The phrase was made famous by Snoop Dogg on the show Entourage where he said, “Suc­cess and noth­ing less, man!”

One of my favorite quotes about suc­cess is by Jack Can­field: “If you love your work, if you enjoy it, you’re already a suc­cess.” I guess I’m a suc­cess then, for I love cre­at­ing Amper­Art and all my oth­er graph­ic design.

That and many oth­er quotes on suc­cess can be found here. And there’s a Face­book page called Suc­ces­sAnd­Noth­in­g­Less.

The Leona L. DeSimone Award

I have always been grate­ful that I went to three tremen­dous pub­lic schools, all in the Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia Uni­fied School Dis­trict: Bal­boa Ele­men­tary, Toll Jr. High and Her­bert Hoover High School. I even went to Glen­dale Junior Col­lege but did­n’t learn much there as I was already more focused on run­ning a graph­ics business.

It was at Bal­boa School, dur­ing 4th Grade, that I lost my father to emphy­se­ma. I was the old­est of four, with a sis­ter and two broth­ers. Our moth­er strug­gled, I mean real­ly strug­gled, to clothe and feed us, hold­ing down a job at a lunch counter in a vit­a­min store. Some­how she always had time for us kids and made sure we were to school on time, and helped us with our home­work. All the while putting up with tantrums from me, the spoiled firstborn.

I’ll nev­er for­get see­ing Mom cry when mon­ey was short, count­ing pen­nies to feed us, going with­out din­ner her­self. Or walk­ing five miles to work in the blaz­ing heat when the bus­es went on strike.

We did­n’t have much mon­ey but I don’t think there was a fam­i­ly in Glen­dale any rich­er than ours with love.

Sev­er­al years ago my sis­ter Roslyn set up an annu­al schol­ar­ship at Bal­boa Ele­men­tary, in our moth­er’s name, for a deserv­ing stu­dent (espe­cial­ly if their fam­i­ly was in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances that ours was in), and each year one of us sib­lings presents the award.

I was hon­ored to present the schol­ar­ship at the end of the 2012 school year to a spe­cial stu­dent who was also raised by a sin­gle moth­er, and who came to school ear­ly and stayed late to work on the com­put­ers, since the fam­i­ly could not afford their own.

Upon arriv­ing at the school for the pre­sen­ta­tion, I dis­cov­ered the school mot­to is “Suc­cess & Noth­ing Less” so of course that would be an upcom­ing Amper­Art piece.

This year’s Leona L. DeS­i­mone Schol­ar­ship recip­i­ent is a shin­ing exam­ple of one who aspires to achieve the very mean­ing of her school’s mot­to, “Suc­cess & Noth­ing Less.”

Production notes:
Original size: 20 x 30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Font: Aachen
Ampersand: hand-​drawn, based on school team lettering

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