FAQs & Facts

The series seems to be out of numer­i­cal order. Is that a mistake?

You’re right, they are not issued in numer­i­cal order. Amper­Art edi­tions are num­bered in order of com­ple­tion, not release. Some­times I’ll be inspired, believe it or not, to do some­thing Christ­massy in the mid­dle of July. Not a good time to issue a print that says “may your days be mer­ry & bright & may all your Christ­mases be white” so I num­ber & archive them until it’s the right sea­son to send them to you.

I read some­where that you have orig­i­nals for sale. How large are they and how do I get one? I real­ly like the “Believe & Achieve” poster.

The orig­i­nals are files on my com­put­er & don’t come to life until they are print­ed or dis­played on a mon­i­tor. The orig­i­nal designs are cre­at­ed with hi-​resolution & bril­liant col­ors in mind, ulti­mate­ly print­ed as high qual­i­ty giclees on acid-​free paper & intend­ed for fram­ing. These gallery-​quality prints are 20″ by 30″ but can be print­ed small­er as well. They are not set in the poster for­mat, but rather the main image extends to all four edges of the can­vas, as a fine paint­ing.  I print a lim­it­ed num­ber & they are avail­able by spe­cial arrange­ment. Con­tact me here. Thanks— “Believe  & Achieve” is one of my favorites, too. It reminds me of what Walt Dis­ney accom­plished & of course Tomorrowland.

Can I pur­chase posters that are already print­ed? I’d like the larg­er size, but I don’t have a print­er that big.

Not only does the larg­er size (assum­ing you mean 11″ x 17″ which is per­fect for fram­ing with or with­out mat­ting) require a larg­er print­er, but to repro­duce with excel­lent col­or & detail it requires a large, expen­sive print­er. The dif­fer­ence is amaz­ing. Yes, I will be offer­ing print­ed posters & oth­er items that peo­ple have been ask­ing for: note cards, greet­ing cards, book­marks, mugs, appar­el, key­chains, & more very inter­est­ing sug­ges­tions. The shop­ping cart will not be ready for awhile, though. If you wish to pur­chase a print or poster now, just con­tact me. The largest art print is 20“x30” and the largest poster is 24″ x 36″ (posters include the artist’s imprint & edi­tion num­ber in the low­er mar­gin). Oth­er poster sizes are 11″ x 17″ & 8.5″ x 11.”

How do you come up with your ideas?

Lack of sleep.

How long does each one take, and is it done on a whim or planned out?

Here’s an expla­na­tion of the thought process & a lit­tle about the design: click here & scroll down to “How this project began…and wouldn’t end.” This actu­al piece was select­ed as a demon­stra­tion of how I cre­ate most pieces. As to whether it’s on a whim or not, some­times I’ll get an idea in the mid­dle of the night (see? lack of sleep) and get start­ed on the pre­lims imme­di­ate­ly. But each ele­ment is care­ful­ly con­sid­ered, cre­at­ing sev­er­al roughs if nec­es­sary, and much thought is put into the final design and copy — more-​so for the actu­al piece of art, less­er for the sto­ry. I’ll research the phrase, its ori­gins, accu­ra­cy & most com­mon mean­ing. If it’s rel­e­vant to an era I’ll find rel­e­vant col­ors, images, styling & text for the art­work as well as the arti­cle. I strive for accu­ra­cy and authen­tic­i­ty. You might say I put as much effort into Amper­Art as I do for logos and oth­er cre­ative for clients.

What medi­um is your orig­i­nal art­work done in? I assume it could be almost any­thing, then pho­tographed and placed in the poster format.

So far, every­thing has been Pho­to­shop, Illus­tra­tor & InDe­sign, with some cus­tom pho­tog­ra­phy, stock art which I manip­u­late (& pay for — I don’t sup­port steal­ing art); also hand-​drawn let­ter­ing or doo­dles that I scan in. Even­tu­al­ly I plan to cre­ate some orig­i­nals that are dimen­sion­al & maybe repro­duce the art­work retain­ing some of the dimen­sion­al­i­ty with lay­ers of mate­r­i­al. Also, cre­ate some prod­ucts that are dimen­sion­al & func­tion­al. Here’s one that’s not very dimen­sion­al but very func­tion­al: the To Do & To Don’t List.

ʍɥʎ ɐɹǝ ʇɥǝ ɐɯdǝɹsɐups qɐɔʞʍɐɹps ou ʎonɹ ʍǝqsıʇǝ qɐɔʞƃɹonup¿

Actu­al­ly, the amper­sands on the web back­ground aren’t back­wards; they are upside-​down. That is how you would see a gal­ley of met­al type ready for press. When it’s inked & print­ed the images are then right-reading.

Want to know some­thing about Amper­Art & amper­sands not found in these faqs? Ask in the com­ment area below. If any­thing is urgent (like you need a logo designed by me with an amper­sand in it — or with­out — as brand iden­ti­ty is my exper­tise) don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact me. 

—Chaz DeS­i­mone design­er & typographer &
founder of Nation­al Amper­sand Day