Category: Free

#52 Quality & Dependability

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment

Like my Jeep!

Click on the image to download a high-​resolution file & create your own
gallery quality print. See printing & framing ideas here.
 

Amper­Art #52, QUALITY & DEPENDABILITY, is from the Amper­Art Adver­tis­ing Slo­gan series. It’s a term that used to be more preva­lent, decades before today’s Cheap & Dis­pos­able mer­chan­dise. Oth­er words that come to mind are: sol­id, reli­able, uncon­di­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed (not just a lim­it­ed war­ran­ty) & ser­vice with a smile.

 

listen up!I remem­ber when prod­ucts were made with qual­i­ty & they were tru­ly depend­able. Not so much any­more (except for Jeeps & iPhones & OXO*). But I am very glad that I have friends who fit the descrip­tion of QUALITY & DEPENDABILITY. My fam­i­ly & friends are of the high­est integri­ty — hon­est, gen­uine, sin­cere — & they are very depend­able — from help­ing out in a pinch to being on time. Unlike most of today’s prod­ucts, my friends are not disposable!

*My love affair with OXO

(as in hugs & kiss­es, although that’s not what the name was intend­ed to imply)

OXO is an out­stand­ing com­pa­ny, tru­ly the def­i­n­i­tion of QUALITY & DEPENDABILITY. I love the visu­al & com­fort­able styling of their prod­ucts (which is most­ly kitchen­ware), the care­ful­ly R&D’d use­ful­ness (unlike some gad­gets that are more dif­fi­cult to use than if the task was ren­dered man­u­al­ly), & even the name & logo. Okay, very much the name & logo, even though I’m not a fan of red.

Their absolute­ly no-​questions-​asked guarNow I even enjoy doing my dishes!antee was put to the test recent­ly when my OXO soap-​dispensing dish brush broke (quite sur­pris­ing­ly — although I use it con­stant­ly as it even turns wash­ing dish­es into a like­able task). In search­ing for the instruc­tions to get a replace­ment, I thor­ough­ly enjoyed vis­it­ing sev­er­al pages on the OXO web­site, as each one intro­duced me to anoth­er amaz­ing facet of their com­pa­ny: the ori­gin of the name; how each prod­uct is devel­oped; & the per­son­al­i­ties & hob­bies of their employ­ees. One of those won­der­ful employ­ees, a cheer­ful woman by the name of Brooke, answered my ques­tions about the bro­ken brush & she struck up a con­ver­sa­tion as if we were old friends.

“Would you like the same mod­el or the new­er mod­el with added fea­tures?” (New­er, of course — & I do like the added fea­tures, includ­ing the fact that it’s com­plete­ly black, no red, not even the logo.) She asked if I could send a pho­to of the bro­ken part — but it’s okay if I could­n’t. (I did.) She said they’ll send a replace­ment out imme­di­ate­ly. (They did. Imme­di­ate­ly.)

Brooke even sub­scribed to my per­son­al design project (which you’re read­ing now), Amper​Art​.com, which real­ly showed me how kind & con­sid­er­ate the Oxo­ni­ans are (their term, not mine). Hey! “Kind & Considerate”…that’ll be a new Amper­Art creation!

In case you’re won­der­ing…no, this is not a spon­sored endorse­ment. I sim­ply love OXO! (They say it’s pro­nounced “ox-​oh” but I pre­fer “o‑x-​o” & when I told Brooke why, she even not­ed my rea­son.) Some­day I’ll write an amaz­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­al about my ’96 Jeep which just won’t quit, or Apple, which is ahead of any oth­er device by eons, & my lat­est awe-​inspiring dis­cov­ery, Ther­moWorks, design­ers & man­u­fac­tur­ers of pre­cise & styl­ish bar­beque ther­mome­ters (as well as oth­er pro & semi-​pro kitchen & temperature-​related prod­ucts). Their qual­i­ty & styling is matched only by their incred­i­ble cus­tomer ser­vice, includ­ing Jenean Skousen with whom I had the plea­sure of plac­ing an order today. More about this com­pa­ny & their won­der­ful bar­beque “toys” (that kept me from burn­ing the food for the first time ever) in the upcom­ing Amper­Art issue “Low & Slow.” [Ther­moWorks rave review added April 23, 2018.]

You will prob­a­bly enjoy the OXO web­site (oxo​.com), espe­cial­ly the about page for some inter­est­ing facts & fig­ures. Fur­ther down the page, you’ll expe­ri­ence a refresh­ing­ly human expe­ri­ence as you learn about the employ­ees’ favorite hob­bies, pets, lan­guages & inven­tive uses for their prod­ucts (use the spaghet­ti strain­er as a backscratch­er). If you want a per­son­al review of my OXO expe­ri­ence, just email me, or read about my favorite dish­wash­ing tool, even more than the auto­mat­ic dish­wash­er, here.

 Please tell oth­er amper­sand fans about the
QUALITY
of  each Amper­Art design & the
DEPENDABILITY
of one issue per month, guaranteed. 

They can subscribe
HERE 
Thank you.

 

PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: InDesign
Fonts: Copperplate, Industria, English Script (ampersand)
Inspiration: Maytag washing machines, Craftsman tools, Jeeps — all from the 1950s & 60s

#50 Fifty & Fabulous

Chaz DeSimone 4 Comments
#50 Fifty & Fabulous
#50 Fifty & Fab­u­lous
Click image to down­load full-​size print suit­able for fram­ing or giv­ing to that spe­cial per­son turn­ing 50 — er, 30.

Chaz DeS­i­mone’s 50th Amper­Art release is appro­pri­ate­ly titled Fifty & Fab­u­lous.

There’s noth­ing all that clever in this design…the amper­sand is the Amper­Art logo, a mod­i­fied Gara­mond ital­ic, & the words are set in the Amper­Art brand iden­ti­ty font, Helvetica.

What is spe­cial, though, is you—for tak­ing a look at each of my por­tray­als of “the amper­sand as fun & fab­u­lous art” every month.

Whether you’ve recent­ly sub­scribed or have seen all 50 from the start, thank you for join­ing our com­mu­ni­ty of amper­sand affi­ciana­dos & thank you for men­tion­ing Amper­Art to your friends who are fans of the amper­sand just like we are.

Fifty & Fab­u­lous is usu­al­ly heard around the time peo­ple are near­ing the half-​century mark in their lives. (Of course, we don’t see them as “old,” today’s 50 being the new 30.) So it might be a nice & sim­ple birth­day ges­ture to frame a print or make a card for the Birth­day Boy or Girl fea­tur­ing the new Fifty & Fab­u­lous Amper­Art design. 

FREE 11X17 ART POSTER: Down­load to print a POSTER here. It’s an impres­sive 11x17 inch­es, eas­i­ly print­ed at a copy or office sup­plies store. Same size poster frames are read­i­ly avail­able, too.

FREE 50TH BIRTHDAY/​ANNIVERSARY GREETING CARD: Down­load to make a CUSTOM GREETING CARD here. Prints on stan­dard letter-​size paper or card. For best pre­sen­ta­tion, print at high­est qual­i­ty on pho­to card stock. (The card does not men­tion the word “birth­day” so it can be used for any 50th cel­e­bra­tion. The inside is blank.)

Look at these ideas: Fram­ing & Dis­play­ing Your Amper­Art Print

PRODUCTION NOTES
Orig­i­nal dimen­sions: 20″ x 30″
Pro­gram: Illus­tra­tor, Photoshop
Fonts: Hel­veti­ca, Gara­mond (mod­i­fied as Amper­Art logo)
Back­ground: all​-free​-down​load​.com

Thanks for sub­scrib­ing to Amper­Art. Please invite your ampersand-​fan friends & col­leagues to sub­scribe – tell them it’s fab­u­lous & free.

#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