#190 Kiss & Make Up


August 25 is National Kiss & Make Up Day

If you’re read­ing this a day or two before August 25, you have plen­ty of time & no excus­es to not kiss & make up.

Accord­ing to Jacque­line Mil­gate of Hilton, New York, who found­ed Nation­al Kiss & Make Up Day, & the good folks at Nation­al Day Cal­en­dar (who also offi­cial­ized Nation­al Amper­sand Day, com­ing up in just a cou­ple weeks), here is some advice to make things bet­ter between those peo­ple you real­ly want in your life:

This Nation­al Day gives us a chance to make amends. Each one of us has had a fight with a loved one at some point in our lives. Whether it is between you & a friend, fam­i­ly mem­ber, neigh­bor or co-​worker after time has passed, do you remem­ber the cause? Who was even at fault? Do you want the dis­cord to go on any longer? That is prob­a­bly the most impor­tant ques­tion of all.

Offer­ing an apol­o­gy, or sim­ply just break­ing the silence can be enough to begin the heal­ing. Strive to com­pro­mise. Even in a no-​win sit­u­a­tion, if the rela­tion­ship is worth pre­serv­ing agree­ing to dis­agree may be the only res­o­lu­tion. When we talk through issues calm­ly after a seri­ous dis­pute, we often find both sides mis­un­der­stood the oth­er per­son. Look­ing back, hope­ful­ly, we can find some­thing to laugh about & repair the relationship.

Why is the kiss important?

Kiss­ing prompts your brain to release a hap­py elixir of feel-​good chem­i­cals like sero­tonin, dopamine, & oxy­tocin. This isn’t only impor­tant for your hap­pi­ness, it may also help to strength­en your relationship.


Also by Nation­al Day Cal­en­dar:

What are the best movie make up scenes?

  • The Note­book – Allie & Noah reunite after years apart, but they have a firey argu­ment fol­lowed by an epic make up.
  • Juno – Juno fills Paulie’s mail­box full of Tic Tacs.
  • The Mis­sion – Rodri­go, an indige­nous tribe, & Father Gabriel rec­on­cile after a penance for Rodrigo’s sin­ful acts.
  • Hap­py Gilmore – Hap­py Gilmore apolo­gies to Chubbs by say­ing, “I’m stu­pid. You’re smart. I was wrong. You were right. You’re the best. I’m the worst. You’re very good-​looking. I’m not attractive.”
  • Jer­ry Maguire – Jerry’s “I love you” speech to Dorothy hits the mark when he says, “You com­plete me.”

Anyone else on the list?

Even if you’ve had a squab­ble with your boss, bud­dy or barista, you can still make up — kiss­ing is entire­ly optional.

I was upset that my cat woke me up at 4am. I think I’ll make up with her now & kiss her too.



Concept & design

I got the idea (which I should have thought of years ago) to sim­ply vis­it nation​al​day​cal​en​dar​.com to see if any spe­cial cel­e­bra­tions were on the hori­zon with an amper­sand (or “and” or “+”), & sure enough two days away was Nation­al Kiss & Make Up Day. 

Imme­di­ate­ly I visu­al­ized a big red pair of lips in the cen­ter of the piece, with noth­ing all that clever about the text, orig­i­nal­ly intend­ing “Kiss &” to be the top line & “Make Up” being the bot­tom. But while perus­ing the images at deposit​pho​tos​.com for a “kiss” I came across the per­fect con­cept for an amper­sand: a lip ring (or two). That was fun to put togeth­er — once I did my research as to where the actu­al­ly pierc­ing occurs. (I like to keep my work as authen­tic as fea­si­ble, lest cre­ative license intervenes.)

Turns out, rarely is the lip actu­al­ly pierced; it’s usu­al­ly above &/or below, although there are times when it’s right through the smack­er. Here are the two arti­cles that helped me cre­ate the art­work, which I found inter­est­ing: freshtrends​.com & the​list​.com. If you’re con­sid­er­ing a pierc­ing, these are excel­lent arti­cles. (Truth be told, the sec­ond one scared me off. What a wuss, I know.)


Production notes for #190 Kiss & Make Up:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Font: Stalemate
Ampersand: 24k gold
Credits:
Lips image & ring image (pierced by Chaz): deposit​pho​tos​.com
Inspiration & most of the text: nation​al​day​cal​en​dar​.com
Creative guidance on piercing: freshtrends​.com & the​list​.com
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 & 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 & his entire career is design for clients who desire the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing cre­ative. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com to dis­cuss your project, pick his brain, or just talk shop.


Chaz sez...

A global solution for peace

Wouldn’t it be great if countries could simply kiss & make up?
This is just one of my opinions on the chaz sez blog.
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

#189 Space & Time

Re-engineered Webb Telescope becomes first ampersand in space

A picture is worth a thousand worlds.”

I didn’t say that; Google did. On July 13, 2022, I saw this Google Doo­dle & imme­di­ate­ly clicked on it, for­get­ting what­ev­er it was that I was googling. I rec­og­nized the gold hexag­o­nal mir­rors & knew it had some­thing to do with the James Webb Space Tele­scope. Wow — it was announc­ing the first images sent to earth by JWST! Google’s phrase “a pic­ture is worth a thou­sand worlds” is a very clever pun, so I used it to blast off Amper­Art #189, Space & Time. The very first image sent, that of deep space, was used as the back­ground in my lat­est piece. Here’s the Google Doo­dle — click on it to see its amus­ing ani­ma­tion & read about its cre­ative development.

Google Doodle celebrating first images from Webb Telescope
Click the Google Doo­dle to see the ani­ma­tion & read about the artwork.

Have you heard of the James Webb Space Telescope? 

Ear­li­er this week I met a new friend who has been in tech­nol­o­gy through­out his career. I told him how excit­ed I was about the first images of space & time from the new tele­scope, expect­ing him to share in the excite­ment. Instead, he asked “You mean Hub­ble?” He was not even aware of the James Webb Space Tele­scope, Hub­ble’s suc­ces­sor. (He has since told me he Googled it, and said “it’s all over the news!” Yes it is.) 

I was amazed that some­one in tech­nol­o­gy had not heard of this tech­no­log­i­cal won­der. That alert­ed me to real­ize maybe not every­one has heard about the JWST — or oth­er inno­va­tions, for that mat­ter — even if it would be of inter­est to them. So I was com­pelled to add this video to intro­duce those of you (espe­cial­ly if you wit­nessed the first moon land­ing in 1969 on your black & white tubes) who have not heard of this suc­ces­sor to the Hub­ble tele­scope, which is mag­nif­i­cent in its own right & still in ser­vice. You just might be as awed as the rest of us are by the James Webb Space Tele­scope — espe­cial­ly after you see the spec­tac­u­lar first images that were revealed July 12, 2022.

This excel­lent video by Fras­er Cain at uni​ver​se​to​day​.com will explain & entertain:

(If the video does not appear, play it on YouTube.)

For those who pre­fer to read, there’s a good entry about JWST at Wikipedia.

Vis­it the web­sites list­ed below (includ­ing NASA​.org) for more infor­ma­tion about the James Webb Space Telescope.


Space is hard to comprehend…

I have been fol­low­ing the jour­ney of the James Webb Space Tele­scope since it was first launched on Decem­ber 25, 2021. For some rea­son I just feel a deep pride in this ven­ture & I’m thrilled at every task it suc­ceeds in func­tion­ing even bet­ter than expect­ed. It seems like a mir­a­cle that noth­ing has gone wrong when there is so much that could have. Even the traf­fic acci­dent (appar­ent­ly they hap­pen in out­er space, too) of a micro mete­or dent­ing the mir­ror last month was planned ahead & com­pen­sat­ed for. 

It’s hard to com­pre­hend how vast space is & what’s real­ly out there, but…

Planetary Nebula NGC 3132, one of first images from Webb Telescope

…time is even harder

It is beyond my com­pre­hen­sion that what I am look­ing at in these first images from the James Webb Space Tele­scope is from space & time 13 bil­lion years ago. I tru­ly can­not com­pre­hend that! I will just set­tle for admir­ing a spec­tac­u­lar image achieved through the vision & tech­nol­o­gy of bril­liant humans on earth.

The above image, Plan­e­tary Neb­u­la NGC 3132, aka South­ern Ring Neb­u­la, is cap­tured by JWST in dying star’s final moments (albeit very long moments). More fas­ci­na­tion about NGC 3132 here.


AA #189 features Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723

James Webb Telescope first image: Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723

This has been one of my favorite Amper­Art cre­ations to date. I am thrilled to design a piece that cel­e­brates the suc­cess — per­form­ing flaw­less­ly & far exceed­ing its expec­ta­tions — of this mar­vel of tech­nol­o­gy, which I have been fol­low­ing since its launch on Decem­ber 25, 2021. 

Not only does this Amper­Art #189 Space & Time back­ground fea­ture the very first image (at right or below) released by the James Webb Space Tele­scope, but the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the tele­scope’s gold mir­rors made for a sim­ple task of cre­at­ing the amper­sand by just mov­ing a few mir­rors around. (The amper­sand tele­scope turned out kin­da cute, don’t you think?)

The image above is the deep­est & sharpest infrared image of the dis­tant uni­verse to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy clus­ter SMACS 0723 is over­flow­ing with detail. You can see a larg­er ver­sion & read all the details on the NASA web­site. Here are some highlights:

✴ The image above shows the galaxy clus­ter SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 bil­lion years ago. 

✴ This deep field, tak­en by Webb’s Near-​Infrared Cam­era (NIR­Cam), is made from images at dif­fer­ent wave­lengths, total­ing 12.5 hours

✴ Thou­sands of galax­ies – includ­ing the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time.

Now this should real­ly send your mind to infin­i­ty & beyond:

✴ This slice of the vast uni­verse — every­thing you see in the image above — is approx­i­mate­ly the size of a grain of rice held at arm’s length by some­one on the ground.


Alien lifeforms

I’m sure if JWST ever finds a colony of intel­li­gent beings out there, they will all be naked. & hap­py. Maybe that’s what it will take to enlight­en us earth­lings to final­ly strip away our prud­ish, igno­rant, sense­less cen­sor­ship against our own bod­ies. After all, as my favorite bumper stick­er says: 


There’s plen­ty of space & time for a bil­lion words or less, so please…


Explore the James Webb Space Telescope & Mission & Images

NASA James Webb Space Telescope mission

First images from Webb Space Telescope

The ultimate guide to the James Webb Space Telescope

Other “webbsites” about the Webb Telescope


Production notes for #189 Space &Time:
Original size: 20x30 inches

Programs: Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
Font: Tall Films

Ampersand: custom by Chaz DeSimone, based on JWST mirror array
Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Background image: NASA & deposit​pho​tos​.com (enhanced)
“A picture is worth a thousand worlds.” quote from Google​.com
Text about the JWST from Wikipedia​.org
Video: Fraser Cain, uni​ver​se​to​day​.com
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.

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Chaz DeS­i­mone, design­er & typog­ra­ph­er, is the cre­ator of Amper­Art & 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 & his entire career is design, so long as each project requires the most sophis­ti­cat­ed, log­i­cal, cap­ti­vat­ing results. Con­tact him at chaz@​desimonedesign.​com.

Thank you for sub­scrib­ing to Chaz’s per­son­al design project, Amper­Art. Please invite your friends — those who are fans of the fun & fab­u­lous amper­sand — to sub­scribe at amper​art​.com.


chaz sez...
rants & raves by Chaz Desimone, otherwise known as Chaz the Spaz
Want more?
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

SPACE TIME — STICKY — REMOVE THIS

#189 Space & Time features James Webb Telescope as ampersand

#189 Space & Time

Released July 15, 2022 to com­mem­o­rate the incred­i­ble first images cap­tured by the James Webb Space Tele­scope, this post will remain at the top of this page indef­i­nite­ly, to cel­e­brate how amaz­ing the JWST is, show­ing us the uni­verse at it was bil­lions of years ago.

As you can see, the tele­scope was re-​engineered by Chaz DeS­i­mone to become the very first amper­sand in space. See the orig­i­nal post here.

The most recent Amper­Art issue is direct­ly below.