Category: brown

#94 Big & Tall

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

94 Big & Tall

#94 Big & Tall
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.

Big & Tall pertains to a lot of things.

Trees are Big & Tall. Build­ings are Big & Tall. The Mat­ter­horn (both in Switzer­land and at Dis­ney­land) are Big & Tall.

But the term Big & Tall will always remind me of the store that I had to go to some­times to find a shirt with long enough sleeves, or a pair of socks that the big toe would­n’t punc­ture, or a pair of shoes if they weren’t to be found in a depart­ment store. I wear a size 13, which is bor­der­line. Some stores car­ry 13, some stop at 12. But no one car­ries 14 or larg­er. So I guess I lucked out in a way.

I have some women friends who would scream if they could­n’t pur­chase every style in vogue because the shoe store did­n’t stock their size. But then, I’d stay clear of a woman who is wear­ing size 13 stilettos.

What does Big & Tall mean to you?

Com­ment here (or below if you see a big blue box).

chaz sez ...

Check out the new “chaz sez” blog at Des​i​moneDesign​.com, my com­mer­cial graph­ic design web­site. It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing, but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving.

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#69 Stuffed & Dressed

Chaz DeSimone 5 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving!

#69 Stuffed & Dressed
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.

Pos­ing for Amper­Art #69 Stuffed & Dressed, Thomas T. Turkey stuffed him­self into his finest tux & got all dressed up for Thanks­giv­ing dinner. 

Is that an amper­tiz­er he’s offer­ing you?

Colorful Thanksgiving Dinner Placeholders

Thanksgiving Placeholder

Here are your place­hold­ers with this year’s Amper­Art #69 Stuffed & Dressed art­work. Col­or­ful and humor­ous — the kids will espe­cial­ly enjoy these. Click here or on the image to down­load the place­hold­ers art­work, which you can print on stan­dard size paper. Full instruc­tions included.

Stuffing or Dressing?

While delib­er­at­ing on the title for this piece, I won­dered what the dif­fer­ence was between stuffed & dressed, or actu­al­ly stuff­ing & dress­ing. Inter­est­ing­ly, it’s the same stuff (no pun intend­ed) but called one or the oth­er name in dif­fer­ent parts of the coun­try. Also, stuff­ing is usu­al­ly cooked inside the turkey, while dress­ing is pre­pared sep­a­rate­ly. Here’s a map show­ing the region­al preferences.

Stuffing vs Dressing regional prefs

There are many tips for cook­ing your Thanks­giv­ing turkey & a great-​sounding recipe for corn­bread stuff­ing & dress­ing at the But­ter­ball web­site. (These links are not spon­sored. I’m just shar­ing what I’ve come across.)

Turkey Trivia Question:

What are those fan­cy lit­tle paper things called that are placed on turkey drum­sticks (& on amper­sands, at least in this mon­th’s Stuffed & Dressed piece)? If you know, write it in the com­ments area. I was always intrigued by them as a kid, as they came in all dif­fer­ent pas­tel col­ors (like pas­tel toi­let paper — remem­ber that?). My mom would put them on leg of lamb (the fan­cy paper things, not the toi­let paper).

Happy Thanksgiving

to you & your fam­i­ly & friends, includ­ing the fur­ry ones. (You will slip them some turkey under the table, won’t you?)

Production notes for #69 Stuffed & Dressed:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Fonts: Parisian, Kalinga
Ampersand: Kalinga
Credits for #69 Stuffed & Dressed:
Turkey: Dream​stime​.com
Patterns: Adobe Illustrator

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

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

Chaz DeSimone 10 Comments

Seek & Find what you need in 2015

 

#77 Seek & Find
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.

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