Category: Nationality

#143 Live Long & Never Want

Chaz DeSimone 6 Comments
143 Live Long & Never Want
#143 Live Long & Never Want
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.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to my Irish friends & to the rest of you who wish you were Irish

There’s a say­ing that goes “peo­ple are either Ital­ian or wish they were.” The same goes for Irish. Maybe it’s the charm­ing per­son­al­i­ty, the won­der­ful way with words, or the dai­ly pints. Any­way, I’m glad I’m half Ital­ian, but I would­n’t mind being Irish as well. Talk about an explo­sive combination! 

That reminds me of the shirt I made years ago just to wear on St. Pad­dy’s day every year:

I’M

 
REALLY GERMAN & ITALIAN BUT I LOVE

IRISH

 
WOMEN

 

I real­ly do love the Irish — men & women, young & old. Fun, wit­ty, cre­ative. They are sim­ply the best sto­ry­tellers (Walt Dis­ney was Irish) & toast mas­ters in the world. Amper­Art #143 Live Long & Nev­er Want, is the per­fect Irish toast for you, my amper­sand friend:

May you live as long as you want
&
nev­er want as long as you live.

Here’s anoth­er one that I like, mean­ing­ful & clever:

Here’s to a long life & a mer­ry one.
A quick death & an easy one.
A pret­ty girl & an hon­est one.
A cold pint & anoth­er one!

 

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

 

 Please comment here.

Production notes for #143 Live Long & Never Want:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop
Font: San Marco (not very Irish, is it?), Serlio
Ampersand: Serlio, modified
Credits:
Stock images: deposit​pho​tos​.com  (modified by Chaz DeSimone)
Inspiration: just lucky, I guess
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!

#88 Brats & Beer

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

 

88-brats-beer
#88 Brats & Beer
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.

Grüß Gott!

That’s “Hel­lo!” in Bavar­i­an. Lit­er­al­ly, in a for­mal sense, it means “salute to God.”

My broth­er Rob sug­gest­ed Amper­Art #88 Brats & Beer for Okto­ber­fest. Danke, Bro!

In Bavaria, where it orig­i­nat­ed, Okto­berbest is actu­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed on the third Sat­ur­day in Sep­tem­ber, and con­tin­ues to the first week­end in Octo­ber. Here in Amer­i­ca, we “cel­e­brate” dur­ing the entire month of Octo­ber — whether it’s an excuse to guz­zle some fine Bavar­i­an beer or to adver­tise a cheesy Okto­ber­fest sale. Or to cook up some hearty Brats & Beer.

My moth­er was full Ger­man (from the Black For­est), so I, along with my sib­lings Roz, Andy & Rob, real­ly should find some good Brats & Beer (I know one of us is going to find some beer!) and cel­e­brate our close-​to-​Bavarian her­itage. (Just like we’re also half Sicil­ian, so we are con­sid­ered by some “true” Ital­ians to be close, but not quite, Ital­ian. True or not, our rich red suc­co beats the north­ern Ital­ians wimpy white sauce any day. And our Ger­man moth­er could cook Ital­ian like our dad’s own moth­er — she taught her daughter-​in-​law well!)

Sausage seems to run in our fam­i­ly, whether Ger­man or Ital­ian. It’s all köstlich! 

Please comment here.

Here’s some interesting reading about the “real” Oktoberfest.

From Wikipedia, verbatim:

Okto­ber­fest is the world’s largest Volks­fest (beer fes­ti­val and trav­el­ling fun­fair). Held annu­al­ly in Munich, Bavaria, Ger­many, it is a 16- to 18-​day folk fes­ti­val run­ning from mid or late Sep­tem­ber to the first week­end in Octo­ber, with more than 6 mil­lion peo­ple from around the world attend­ing the event every year. Local­ly, it is often called the Wiesn, after the col­lo­qui­al name for the fair­grounds (There­sien­wiese). The Okto­ber­fest is an impor­tant part of Bavar­i­an cul­ture, hav­ing been held since 1810. Oth­er cities across the world also hold Okto­ber­fest cel­e­bra­tions that are mod­elled after the orig­i­nal Munich event.

Dur­ing the event, large quan­ti­ties of Okto­ber­fest Beer are con­sumed: dur­ing the 16-​day fes­ti­val in 2013, for exam­ple, 7.7 mil­lion litres were served. Vis­i­tors also enjoy numer­ous attrac­tions, such as amuse­ment rides, side­stalls and games. There is also a wide vari­ety of tra­di­tion­al foods includ­ing Hendl (roast chick­en), Schweine­brat­en (roast pork), Schwein­shaxe (grilled ham hock), Steck­erl­fisch (grilled fish on a stick), Würstl (sausages) along with Brezen (pret­zels), Knödel (pota­to or bread dumplings), Käs­espät­zle (cheese noo­dles), Reiber­datschi (pota­to pan­cakes), Sauer­kraut or Rotkohl/​Blaukraut (red cab­bage) along with such Bavar­i­an del­i­ca­cies as Obatz­da (a spicy cheese-​butter spread) and Weißwurst (a white sausage).

The Munich Okto­ber­fest orig­i­nal­ly took place in the 16-​day peri­od lead­ing up to the first Sun­day in Octo­ber. In 1994, this long­stand­ing sched­ule was mod­i­fied in response to Ger­man reuni­fi­ca­tion. As such, if the first Sun­day in Octo­ber falls on the 1st or the 2nd, then the fes­ti­val would run until Octo­ber 3 (Ger­man Uni­ty Day). Thus, the fes­ti­val now runs for 17 days when the first Sun­day is Octo­ber 2 and 18 days when it is Octo­ber 1. In 2010, the fes­ti­val last­ed until the first Mon­day in Octo­ber (Octo­ber 4), to mark the even­t’s bicentennial.

Here’s a fun list of “18 Essen­tial Words for Octo­ber­fest” from the Oxford Dic­tio­nar­ies website.

Glücklich Wiesn!

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 #88 Beer & Brats:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator (original ampersand link shapes), Photoshop (everything else)
Fonts: Embossed Black, Embossed Black Wide
WARNING: Do not attempt setting blackletter in all caps unless you are a fully qualified designer!
Ampersand: pork, spices & intestines
Credits:
Background images: graph​ic​stock​.com (superimposed & adjusted)
You may repost the 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!

#2 Red White & Blue

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments

Click to download hi-rez poster

#2 Red White & Blue
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.

If you wish to comment (and I hope you do) please comment here.

Flag Day’s 100th Anniversary

American-Flag-Waving large free

June 14, 2016 cel­e­brates the 100th Anniver­sary of Flag Day (Unit­ed States), which was estab­lished by Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son in 1916. Flag Day com­mem­o­rates the adop­tion of the flag of the Unit­ed States, which occurred June 14th, 1777 by res­o­lu­tion of the Sec­ond Con­ti­nen­tal Congress.

Red White & Blue is the sec­ond Amper­Art piece I cre­at­ed, way back in 2011. I don’t know if it was influ­enced by Flag Day or the 4th of July. I don’t even recall the con­cept behind the art­work (was the amper­sand sup­posed to resem­ble a char­ac­ter from an old parch­ment doc­u­ment?). Regard­less, I recent­ly dis­cov­ered it was nev­er offi­cial­ly released. So here is Amper­Art #2, Red White & Blue — final­ly unveiled on the 100th anniver­sary of Flag Day.

Clever concept, clashing colors

I have sev­er­al opin­ions about the design of the Amer­i­can flag — from a con­cep­tu­al stand­point, to a col­or stand­point, to a brand­ing stand­point. In order to get this “lost art” pub­lished today, Flag Day, I’ll save those com­ments for lat­er, & will add them to this arti­cle right here (& let you know when that hap­pens, if you sub­scribe to Amper​Art​.com).

But one thing I must state now, because it is fas­ci­nat­ing to me as a design­er, is the dynam­ic nature of the flag’s design, evolv­ing as the nation grows; & how clev­er­ly the stars have been (near­ly impos­si­bly) arranged to accom­mo­date the ever-​increasing num­ber of states. I applaud the clev­er­ness of each iter­a­tion. (I won­der if Bet­sy planned on that.)

38_stars2Here is a com­plete chart of the flag’s iter­a­tions. Quite inter­est­ing are the 1837 “Great Star Flag,” the star con­fig­u­ra­tions for the years 1847, 1877, & the 1890 43-​star flag which must have caused the design­er to pull out some hair. The next year, 44 stars, was most cer­tain­ly a wel­come sim­ple challenge.

Plan­ning for the future, you can also see the 51-​star flag if a new state is added (hmm…who would that be? Could there be a par­cel of land some­where in the shape of an ampersand?)

PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE

I pledge alle­giance to the flag of the 
Unit­ed States of America 
and to the Repub­lic for which it stands, 
one Nation under God, indivisible, 
with lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all.

The Pledge of Alle­giance, writ­ten by Fran­cis Bel­lamy, a bap­tist min­is­ter,  was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in The Youth’s Com­pan­ion on Sep­tem­ber 8, 1892. In its orig­i­nal form it read:

I pledge alle­giance to my Flag 
and the Repub­lic for which it stands, 
one nation, indivisible, 
with lib­er­ty and jus­tice for all.

Note there is no ref­er­ence to Amer­i­ca nor to God. Bel­lamy antic­i­pat­ed that the pledge would be used by any coun­try, not just the Unit­ed States.

In 1923 – 24 “my flag” was changed to “the flag of the Unit­ed States” & in 1924 “of Amer­i­ca” was added (so immi­grant chil­dren would know which flag they were saluting).

In 1942, the pledge’s 50th anniver­sary, Con­gress adopt­ed it as part of a nation­al flag code. Some state leg­is­la­tures required school stu­dents to recite the pledge. In 1943 that require­ment was dropped, as some reli­gious groups were not allowed to idol­ize a such a symbol.

On June 14, 1954, Pres­i­dent Dwight D. Eisen­how­er signed the bill approv­ing the words “under God.”

Bel­lamy went on to become an adver­tis­ing executive.

Read more about the Pledge of Alle­giance, includ­ing the debate over the words “under God,” at Smith​son​ian​.com, which pro­vid­ed the above his­tor­i­cal information.

If you wish to comment (and I hope you do) please comment here.

Flag Day is everyday (somewhere)

June 14 is Flag Day in Amer­i­ca. I’m sure all or most oth­er coun­tries have des­ig­nat­ed days to cel­e­brate their flags. Flags in gen­er­al are mean­ing­ful, col­or­ful, sym­bol­ic & fun. So here is a com­pi­la­tion of the world’s flags to enjoy as a piece of art in itself, also to give hope that we can all live in har­mo­ny someday:

Flags

If you wish to comment (and I hope you do) 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 #2 Red White & Blue:
Original size: 10x15 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
Font: unknown
Ampersand: Custom design by Chaz DeSimone
Credits: 
Flag against sky: stock
38-​star flag: UShis​to​ry​.org
Flags of the world: GraphicStock
You may repost the 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!