Category: Challenge

#15 Challenge & Spirit

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments
click here to download full size poster
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.

Sev­er­al months ago I dis­cov­ered a fan­tas­tic web­site about every­thing ITALIAN. That side of my her­itage is most like­ly where I get my artis­tic tal­ent and most sure­ly my tem­per. (The oth­er half is Ger­man which is prob­a­bly why I’m a design­er rather than a sculp­tor or painter, and very glad I am.)

 
They say you’re either Ital­ian or you love Ital­ian! So this won­der­ful web­site is for all you Ital­ians and those who wish you were: 

 www.italialiving.com

While perus­ing this beau­ti­ful and infor­ma­tive site, I came to a very heart­felt note by the web­site’s founder, Richard J. Michel­li, that his broth­er Ray­mond, 36 years old, had just passed away. He was chal­lenged by Duchenne Mus­cu­lar Dys­tro­phy and con­fined to a wheel­chair most of his life. 
 
Then I read the sen­tence that tore my heart out, as it remind­ed me of some of my own friends who were phys­i­cal­ly challenged: 

“Ray­mond was admired for his endur­ing resolve to tran­scend his lim­i­ta­tions and live each moment to the fullest, as he put a smile on the face of every­one he met.” Each and every attribute applies to those friends I know per­son­al­ly who are so accept­ing, so per­se­ver­ing, so full of spir­it in spite of their debil­i­tat­ing chal­lenge. I need look no fur­ther, I real­ized, than the words post­ed by Ray­mond’s friends, as well as his obit­u­ary, to cre­ate my Amper­Art trib­ute. Every sin­gle word on this piece is tak­en ver­ba­tim from those sources.

Feb­ru­ary, with its cel­e­bra­tion of Valen­tines Day and Pres­i­dents Day, is the month of love, courage and deter­mi­na­tion. With those val­ues in mind, I hon­or the incred­i­ble spir­it of phys­i­cal­ly chal­lenged indi­vid­u­als, in the form of my lat­est Amper­Art piece, “Chal­lenge & Spirit.”

You may down­load and print a copy of “Chal­lenge & Spir­it” for print­ing and fram­ing – just click on the image above. You’ll find print­ing and fram­ing sug­ges­tions here.

Join oth­er amper­sand fans and receive a free Amper­Art edi­tion each month. Sub­scribe here.

 

#10 Crazy & Different

Chaz DeSimone 10 Comments

AmperArt #10 Crazy & Different

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.

Upon read­ing of Steve Jobs’ pass­ing, I felt almost the same way as I did on Decem­ber 15, 1966…

As I was fold­ing papers for my paper route, the head­line caught my eye:

WALT DISNEY DIES

I went numb and cried. Both Dis­ney and Jobs were vision­ar­ies, cre­ative genius­es, demand­ing per­fec­tion­ists, and they both died much too young.

My first lap­top was the very first Tita­ni­um G3 – it couldn’t even burn a cd, it was such an ear­ly mod­el. (I’ve since learned to wait for ver­sion 2 or 3.) I was so proud of that thing. It was the ulti­mate in styl­ish design. I didn’t even care if there was a com­put­er inside the case, it was just beau­ti­ful to look at. That’s what I appre­ci­ate most about Steve – he made every­thing with class, from the way it works to the way it looks and feels, even down to the mar­ket­ing and advertising.

Macskateer

M‑I-​C… See how insane­ly great this world is today.

K‑E-Y…Why? Because of vision­ary genius.

After Walt passed away the com­pa­ny stum­bled for awhile, but the “cast mem­bers” and fans of Dis­ney have so much soul that they got it back on its feet. We’ll always won­der what else Walt would have cre­at­ed had he lived longer, and sure­ly we won­der that about Steve. But just like Dis­ney, Apple has such a strong desire to be a class act and pro­duce class prod­ucts, sup­port­ed by its incred­i­bly loy­al fans, that Steve would prob­a­bly be proud of what his peo­ple con­tin­ue to invent and polish.

I designed this poster hon­or­ing Steve Jobs, as a spe­cial edi­tion in my Amper­Art poster series.

The words are straight from of one of Steve’s speeches.

No doubt Walt and Steve are think­ing up the next insane­ly great idea in vision­ary heaven.

Production notes:
Original size: 20 x 30 inches
Program: Photoshop (coulda used Illustrator — probably started out as an entirely different concept for which Photoshop would be required)
Font: Myriad (Apple’s marketing font family)
Ampersand: Myriad, sans one delicious byte