#181 Small Cheer & Great Welcome

181 Small Cheer & Great Welcome
#181 Small Cheer & Great Welcome
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.

Shakespeare said it best

Small cheer & great welcome make a merry feast.

This quote from William Shake­speare seems to be a per­fect Amper­Art phrase for Thanks­giv­ing. I’m not so sure it has such a rel­e­vant mean­ing in its orig­i­nal con­text (“The Com­e­dy of Errors”, Act 3 scene 1) but it sure does fit nice­ly as a piece of typo­graph­ic art with the amper­sand turkey as part of the quote.

Colorful words inspire colorful illustration

Wild turkey

As for “great wel­come,” that term inspired the col­or­ful feath­ers on the “amper­turkey.” The orig­i­nal illus­tra­tion (of which I used only the feath­ers) had a sub­dued palette of browns and grays. I start­ed adding col­ors to the feath­ers, then real­ized “great wel­come” should be just that: great! Inclu­sive of every­one — all col­ors, all sex­es, all shapes & sizes. All reli­gions as well, as Thanks­giv­ing is non-​denominational; that’s one rea­son I like this hol­i­day (besides the food). So I did a lit­tle research & start­ed over with the col­ors, includ­ing as many of the world’s skin tones as I could find & hope­ful­ly all the var­i­ous sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion flag col­ors. Feath­ers are all dif­fer­ent sizes to begin with, so that part was easy. 

Small cheer” in the play’s dia­logue refers to the food & bev­er­age being served at the gath­er­ing, only to be upstaged by the cama­raderie of the peo­ple present. But let’s be hon­est: there’s no small spread & lack of liba­tion at Thanksgiving! 


Thankfulness cards for your table & other uses

Table setting with AmperArt Thankfulness Cards

My friend Jo has told me sev­er­al times that she enjoys print­ing & mak­ing Amper­Art place set­ting cards for the din­ner table. That inspired me to cre­ate a new design this year (pre­vi­ous cards were issued in 2011 & 2015), & it’s one where you can write your own Amper­Art phrase (see ideas below). 

These can be placed as tra­di­tion­al din­ner table set­tings & made into oth­er things such as greet­ing cards (with some cre­ative cut­ting & glu­ing) & gift tags.

There are two styles you can down­load: one bright & col­or­ful, sym­bol­iz­ing the inclu­sion of all col­ors & ori­en­ta­tions of the world’s peo­ples; & a sub­tle col­or scheme clos­er to a wild turkey. (I pre­fer the bright & col­or­ful ver­sion.) There’s an instruc­tion sheet you can down­load as well, detail­ing how to cut & fold the cards. 

Choose your style & download

There are four cards to a sheet. Print on stan­dard letter-​size or A4 sheets of card­stock (or reg­u­lar heavy paper).

Instructions

  1. Down­load the pdf file in your choice of design: full spec­trum col­or or sub­tle color.
  2. You can also down­load the cut­ting & fold­ing guide or just refer to image below.
  3. Cut along the red dashed lines. The ver­ti­cal & hor­i­zon­tal lines sep­a­rate the sheet into 4 cards. The curved cut lines allow the turkey feath­ers to pop out above the fold. You can cut along the arc as shown below, or for more detail, cut along the feath­er shapes, as shown in the pho­to above. An X‑acto knife works best.
  4. Score to make fold­ing easy & clean. Score along the blue dot­ted lines as shown in the guide. This is where the sol­id pur­ple meets the sol­id white on the print­ed cards. Do not score through the turkey feath­ers — you don’t want to fold these. A blunt instru­ment works best for scor­ing, such as a wood­en stir stick or paper clip. You can use any­thing that is not sharp enough to cut through the card.
  5. Fold the card over only along the blue dot­ted lines. Do not fold the feath­ers; leave them flat to extend above the fold. 
  6. Pinch the fold to keep it in place. Addi­tion­al­ly, you can use tape or string under­neath to keep the card from unfolding.
  7. Write your text to the left & right of the amper­sand. See some ideas below.

You can use these cards for oth­er things too, besides seat­ing place hold­ers. Place them around your liv­ing & work spaces to remind your­self and oth­ers of what we can be thank­ful for. Place one on your boss’s or co-​worker’s desk. Or on your teacher’s desk. Use them as note cards (write some­thing inside), or use just the front to paste onto a larg­er fold­ed card as a greet­ing card. Use them as gift tags. Car­ry some with you to fill in & hand out.

Thankful for ampersands & more ampersands 

Here are some ideas for your amper­sand “Thank­ful for…” phrases:

  • Peo­ple’s names & their out­stand­ing virtues: Uncle Gil & always will­ing to help out
  • Cou­ple’s names: Mike & Vio­la
  • Things that make you hap­py: my dog & cats, books & danc­ing, flow­ers & but­ter­flies
  • The neces­si­ties: food & shel­ter, friends & fam­i­ly, love & light
  • I per­son­al­ly am thank­ful for: artis­tic tal­ent & loy­al subscribers

Have a very happy Thanksgiving
full of small magnificent cheer
& great welcome. 


(Sorry for the edit, Bill.)


Production notes for #181 Small Cheer & Great Welcome:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Font: Garamond
Ampersand: Garamond
Credits:
Illustration: deposit​pho​tos​.com (modified by Chaz DeSimone)
Background: deposit​pho​tos​.com
Quote: Shakespeare
Other credits as noted
Note: &” replaces “and” in most or all text, including quotations, headlines & titles.
You may repost the image & article. Please credit Amper​Art​.com.
To download a full-​size high-​resolution 11x17-​inch poster suitable for printing & framing, click on the image.

Chaz DeS­i­mone is the cre­ator of Amper­Art and own­er of Des­i­mone Design. He was adding ser­ifs to let­ters when he was just a lit­tle brat scrib­bling on walls. Now he’s a big brat and his entire career is design, so long as each project requires the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing results. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com to dis­cuss your project, pick his brain, or just talk shop.


Chaz sez...

Who banned the ampersand?

Whoever thought up the syntax for Universal Resource Locators (URLs) was 100% coder & 0% copywriter. No foresight whatsoever. We can’t even use common punctuation in a URL except for the hyphen & underscore. It sure makes all the AmperArt URLs ugly & hard to understand—no ampersands allowed!
This is just one of the rants on my blog, chaz sez.
Rants & raves mostly about design, sometimes about the universe.
An occasional bit of useful advice.
Read the blog:

des​i​monedesign​.com/​c​h​a​z​-​sez
Desimone Design
Desimone Design

#110 He She Me & We

110 He She Me & We#110 He She Me & We
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.

Ampersand stars in hilarious music video

The ampersand looks kinda happy.Amper­Art #110, He She Me & We, was inspired by a cre­ative, fun & very fun­ny video, Sec­ond Favorite Man, by Tight Paja­mas. You’ll see, it fea­tures our favorite char­ac­ter, the fun & fab­u­lous ampersand.

Watch the video!

Most of you know I love nud­ism & hate coun­try music — not to men­tion I kin­da like amper­sands — so this video real­ly made me a fan of Tight Paja­mas. I laughed my naked ass off.

In the band’s own words:

Sec­ond Favorite Man” is the debut sin­gle by the bay area’s Tight Paja­mas. It address­es the “cheatin’ & lyin” you often find in coun­try music, but in a total­ly unique way. In fact, it cel­e­brates a kind of love tra­di­tion­al­ly bemoaned in country/​western songs!

If you enjoy the song & the video, please con­sid­er shar­ing the link with your friends via social media. With your help, we think it has the poten­tial to be spread far & wide.
You can sup­port our work by down­load­ing a copy of the song here [like Chaz did].
tight​pa​ja​mas​.band​camp​.com
Thank you for sup­port­ing weird art & the weird artists who make it!

Musi­cians:
Mau­rice Tani — lead vocals, elec­tric gui­tar & bass,
Robert M Pow­ell — Back­ing vocals & ped­al steel gui­tar, engi­neer­ing, mix­ing, mastering
Susie Davis — pro­duc­er, back­ing vocals, piano
Pam Del­ga­do — back­ing vocals

Not men­tioned is the per­son who sug­gest­ed the title of the Amper­Art piece, He She Me & We: Jeff Green­wald. He co-​wrote the song with Susie Davis & shot much of the video. (He’s the “rab­bi” in one of the pho­tos.) I checked out some of Jef­f’s own videos & books. He’s a very inter­est­ing guy. His speech about Noah’s Ark is enter­tain­ing: Jeff Green­wald /​ Noah’s Ark

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 #110 He She Me & We:
Original size: 20x30 inches

Program: Adobe Illustrator
Fonts: Cooper Black, Benguait Charisma
Ampersand: Benguait Charisma
Effects: Gradation intended to resemble a method of screen printing, common in the 1960s-​70s-​80s, as were the chosen typefaces. 
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!

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

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