Category: Red

#117 See & Be Seen

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment
#117 See & Be Seen
#117 See & Be Seen
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

There are some people you see & just can’t forget.

• These peo­ple make an impres­sion on you with their out­ra­geous fash­ion style.
• Or they are extreme­ly like­able because of their gen­uine, dynam­ic personality.
• Per­haps they blow you away with out­stand­ing cus­tomer service.
• Or maybe they are just the most intel­li­gent per­son in the world.*

But what if you meet someone who is all of the above? 

Well, I did meet that per­son. His name is Saul Colt. & this is what he wears:

To match these:

As worn by Saul (he’s on the left):

Why is this guy so memorable?

I got to know Saul near­ly ten years ago, as some­one who real­ly cared about find­ing a solu­tion to a quirky prob­lem I was hav­ing with my timekeeping/​billing account, which is Fresh​Books​.com (whom I’ve hap­pi­ly been with over ten years). At the time Saul was on the Fresh­Books staff, as their mar­ket­ing genius & all-​around keep-​the-​customer-​happy guy.

A year or two lat­er, I received an invi­ta­tion to attend a din­ner with fel­low Fresh­Books users in a trendy Hol­ly­wood restau­rant (named Ketchup — red, of course). Din­ner was excel­lent & meet­ing oth­ers who loved Fresh­Books as much as I did was fan­tas­tic. The Fresh­Books crew was there, too, includ­ing Saul Colt. Unbe­liev­ably, he remem­bered me from our short online chat a cou­ple years ear­li­er. But what real­ly blew me away (and made Saul unfor­get­table — besides his glass­es & ten­nis shoes, of course) was his heart­felt response when I divulged that I prob­a­bly should­n’t be a guest at their expen­sive din­ner, as I was still at the free lev­el of ser­vice. He said, “We’re just real­ly glad you’re using Fresh­Books & thrilled to have you join us.” I will nev­er for­get that & I’ll nev­er for­get Saul.

(Short­ly there­after I was using Fresh­books to prac­ti­cal­ly run my busi­ness, & I was get­ting paid on time like nev­er before. I even­tu­al­ly signed up for the paid account, & for $14 per month it’s been my best invest­ment. If you want to know more about them, drop me a line or vis­it Fresh​Books​.com & try it free. This is not a paid advert; I just love Fresh­books!)

Even­tu­al­ly Saul branched off & found­ed The Idea Inte­gra­tion Co., sky­rock­et­ing clients’ busi­ness­es with his unique gift of pro­mot­ing their brands & retain­ing their clients. He has been named as one of the iME­DIA 25: Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Lead­ers & Inno­va­tors & cit­ed as one of Canada’s best com­mu­ni­ty builders/​experiential mar­keters. Chris Bro­gan once referred to Saul as “exact­ly who you want rep­re­sent­ing your company.” 

Years later, not forgotten

From time to time Saul still helps out Fresh­Books with their honest-​to-​goodness (& high­ly appre­ci­at­ed) efforts of keep­ing their cus­tomers hap­py & suc­cess­ful. A few months ago I received anoth­er email from Saul. This time it was an invi­ta­tion to not one, but two din­ners on his dime. One was for the Fresh­Books “fam­i­ly” & the oth­er was for his friends in Los Ange­les. He stat­ed adamant­ly that I should attend both because I belong to both! Is that gen­er­ous & from the heart, or what?

Dresden Room, HollywoodI could only attend the Fresh­Books group, but am I glad I did! It was at a his­toric Hol­ly­wood restau­rant, the Dres­den Room, & you could feel the pres­ence of Bog­a­rt, Ben­ny & Berle. I’ve been to a lot of clas­sic restau­rants but this was a first. What an ele­gant, mag­nif­i­cent evening, again with old & new Fresh­Books friends. I even stayed after din­ner to check out the retro-​style enter­tain­ment in the lounge. (The Blood & Sand is their sig­na­ture cocktail.) 

Thanks again, Saul. As a trib­ute to this mem­o­rable guy, I cre­at­ed Amper­Art #117, See & Be Seen, & saved it for Valen­tine’s Day. After all…

Hearts are passé
For Valen­tine’s Day
Here’s some­thing else red
For you instead

Hey, it must be Saul!

*Saul pro­fess­es he’s the most intel­li­gent per­son in the world. I tend to agree. Or at least, he’s the world’s most memorable.

IF YOU LOVE GOOD DESIGN & WANT TO KNOW WHAT MAKES IT GOOD…

chaz sez ...

My blog, chaz sez, will soon be a month­ly fea­ture at
Des​i​moneDesign​.com (my pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design web­site). It’s most­ly about design, typog­ra­phy, print­ing, pub­lish­ing & mar­ket­ing — and what it means to do those things prop­er­ly & pro­fes­sion­al­ly — but on occa­sion I’ll divert to a side­ways top­ic that just can’t escape my rant­i­ng & raving…like the Uike logo.

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Production notes for #117 See & Be Seen:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Fonts: Antique Olive
Ampersand: Antique Olive
Credits:
Shoe: Nike Air Force 1
Glasses: ask Saul
You may repost the image & article. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

#104 Time & Time Again

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment
 104 Time & Time Again
#104 TIME & TIME AGAIN
Click image to view full size or download poster for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Know anyone who screws up, arrives late, forgets something…time & time again?

Amper­Art #104, Time & Time Again, is about those peo­ple. The term could just as eas­i­ly refer to a car that just won’t start first thing in the morn­ing, or a com­put­er pro­gram that keeps crash­ing, but it usu­al­ly refers to peo­ple — & espe­cial­ly neg­a­tive instances such as always being late, for­get­ting to stop at the clean­ers, or get­ting the facts wrong. Time & Again could also have been the title, but Time & Time Again just sounds so much more wor­thy of a good rep­ri­mand or pink slip.

See the scenario?

This Amper­Art design, #104 Time & Time Again, presents a com­mon sce­nario, espe­cial­ly in the work­place. Can you fig­ure it out? Well, I know you can because only the bright­est peo­ple sub­scribe to Amper​Art​.com, and that means you. But if you’re in a hur­ry here’s the answer:

Sce­nario: In Amper­Art #104, Time & Time Again, there is a “team” of amper­sands, com­prised of 5 mem­bers: red, blue, green, yel­low, pur­ple. Each row of amper­sands rep­re­sents a group meet­ing. As you can see, all are present at every meet­ing except one of the team, Mr. Red. He shows up now & then, miss­ing most meet­ings time & time again.

Charles!

That meant I was in trou­ble. Oth­er­wise I was “Char­lie” or more recent­ly “Chaz.” I’m also called “Chuck,” “Char” & “Hey Ass­hole” but nev­er Charles, unless I’ve been a bad, bad boy. I can still hear Mom rep­ri­mand­ing me: “I’ve told you time & time again!” Was I try­ing out my new Cray­olas on the walls again? Who knows, but the phrase still rings clear in my memory.

The dreaded pink slip

Time & time again an employ­ee is late or does a lousy job, until they are “canned,” “let go,” or “giv­en the pink slip,” all of which mean you’re fired! (No, the pink slip does­n’t mean you’re giv­en the title to a new car for being late.)

"I'm what?!!"The “pink slip” has become a metonym for the ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ment in gen­er­al. Accord­ing to an arti­cle in The New York Times, the edi­tors of the Ran­dom House Dic­tio­nary have dat­ed the term to at least as ear­ly as 1910.¹

The phrase most like­ly orig­i­nat­ed in vaude­ville. When the Unit­ed Book­ing Office (estab­lished in 1906) would issue a can­cel­la­tion notice to an act, the notice was on a pink slip (“The Argot of Vaude­ville Part I” New York Times, Dec. 16, 1917, p.X7.) Anoth­er pos­si­ble ety­mol­o­gy is that many appli­ca­tions (includ­ing ter­mi­na­tion papers) are done in trip­li­cate form, with each copy on a dif­fer­ent col­or of paper, one of which is typ­i­cal­ly pink.¹

In the UK & Ire­land the equiv­a­lent of a pink slip is a P45; in Bel­gium the equiv­a­lent is known as a C4.¹

Anoth­er theory:

The very ear­li­est exam­ple we have is where a pink slip is a note sent to a typog­ra­ph­er indi­cat­ing that he’s made a mis­take. If he got enough of them then he would be fired. Yet anoth­er inter­me­di­ate one in 1905 where a pink slip is specif­i­cal­ly a rejec­tion let­ter from a mag­a­zine. So a writer would sub­mit a sto­ry, & it would get a pink slip back, mean­ing that the sto­ry was reject­ed. So clear­ly there is some­thing going on at around this time where pink slip is being used to refer to var­i­ous kinds of rejection.²

The term is an Amer­i­can­ism. In oth­er coun­tries they have dif­fer­ent col­ors to refer to dis­missal from a job. In Ger­many the expres­sion is to get the blue let­ter. In the French mil­i­tary, you would be dis­missed with a yel­low paper, carte jaune. ²

So typog­ra­phers were giv­en the pink slip? Time & time again I’ve issued the mon­th’s Amper­Art just under the wire. Bet­ter get this edi­tion out on time before I’m canned.

Please comment here.

 

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.

Production notes for #104 Time & Time Again:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Font family: Gill Sans
Ampersand: Gill Sans
Credits:
Reference text (verbatim & edited):
¹Wikipedia https://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​P​i​n​k​_​s​l​i​p​_​(​e​m​p​l​o​y​m​ent)
²Jesse Sheidlower is an editor-​at-​large of the Oxford English Dictionary. From https://​www​.mar​ket​place​.org/​2​0​0​9​/​0​4​/​0​9​/​w​o​r​l​d​/​t​r​a​c​i​n​g​-​o​r​i​g​i​n​-​p​i​n​k​-​s​lip
You may repost the AmperArt image. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster, click on the image.

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!