Tag: art print

#184 Chocolates & Truffles

Chaz DeSimone 5 Comments
#184 Chocolates & Truffles
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Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Chocolates & Truffles

But truf­fles are choco­lates, you say. Right, how­ev­er I’ve titled this “Choco­lates & Truf­fles” for a cou­ple reasons:

First, truf­fles are a unique type of con­fec­tion. Although they are coat­ed with choco­late, they are most­ly known for their ganache fill­ings of caramel, can­died orange peel, hazel­nut, cof­fee, fruits, dates or even more choco­late. Sim­ply put, truf­fles are a kind of choco­late where­as choco­late is a fla­vor of truf­fles. (Here’s anoth­er way to look at it is: a chocolate-​covered ice cream bar is cat­e­go­rized as ice cream, not choco­late candy.)

The oth­er rea­son I named this Amper­Art piece “Choco­lates & Truf­fles” is because my orig­i­nal title was too plain & awk­ward: “Dark & Milk.” When I found the pho­to­graph that includ­ed an assort­ment of both choco­lates & truf­fles, that tast­ed like the sweet spot for the title. (Of course I delib­er­at­ed way too long on “Choco­lates & Truf­fles” vs “Truf­fles & Choco­lates.” I won’t explain my deci­sion process here; the box of can­dy would expire before its “best by” date.)

What is chocolate?

I don’t have to tell you what choco­late is — it’s one of the most pop­u­lar foods on the plan­et. It’s cre­at­ed from the beans of cacao trees. These beans are har­vest­ed into a dark, cream­ing brown mate­r­i­al used for all types of bak­ing & cook­ing. It’s also used to make all your favorite sweet treats such as brown­ies, cakes & can­dy bars.

What are chocolate truffles?

Tak­ing its roots in Europe, choco­late truf­fle is a dessert del­i­ca­cy that has a long & deli­cious his­to­ry. The name comes from a Latin word mean­ing ‘lump’ because of its sim­i­lar­i­ty in appear­ance to truf­fle mush­room, a kind of fun­gus that grows under Hazel, Poplar & Oak trees. Choco­late truf­fles are cre­at­ed using ganache & a type of coat­ing, usu­al­ly some type of con­fec­tion or dark, white or milk choco­late & cocoa pow­der. They’re then tra­di­tion­al­ly rolled into a rus­tic, mis­shapen look to resem­ble the truf­fle mush­room they’re named after. They often come in fill­ings of caramel, dif­fer­ent fla­vors of cream, fruits, dates or even more chocolate.

Just for comparison:

chocolate candy

choco­late

chocolate truffle

choco­late truffle

truffle fungus

non-​chocolate truf­fle
(aka fun­gus)

Dedication

Amper­Art #184 Choco­lates & Truf­fles is ded­i­cat­ed to three spe­cial ladies: 

❤ Leona DeS­i­mone, my moth­er, who loved See’s choco­lates & always had a box at hol­i­day dinners,

❤ Roslyn, my younger sis­ter, who car­ries on the tra­di­tion of See’s dur­ing the holidays, &

❤ Jeanette, my “adopt­ed old­er sis­ter” who loves (& intro­duced me to) truffles.

My favorite can­dy is also See’s — but it’s the but­ter­scotch marsh­mal­low kiss­es. I don’t care for chocolate.

What’s your favorite type of chocolate?
Production notes for #184 Chocolates & Truffles:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Photoshop
Font (text): French Script
Font (ampersand): Capistrano
Credits:
Photograph: all​star​.by via deposit​pho​tos​.com (modified)
Reference: truf​fleers​.com/​b​l​o​g​s​/​o​u​r​-​b​l​o​g​/​d​i​f​f​e​r​e​n​c​e​-​b​e​t​w​e​e​n​-​t​r​u​f​f​l​e​s​-​a​n​d​-​c​h​o​c​o​l​ate
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 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...

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

#93 Work & Turn

Chaz DeSimone 2 Comments

Click to download hi-rez pdf

#93 Work & Turn
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.

“Work & Turn” is a term used by print­ers to print both sides of a sheet of paper with just one plate & one press set-up.

Find a com­plete list of print­ing terms at wcb​s4print​ing​.com. For more infor­ma­tion about this out­stand­ing full-​service print­er, see the “chaz sez” col­umn below.

What is “work & turn”?

In the case of a two-​sided fly­er, the work & turn job’s plate & paper will be large enough to con­tain two full fly­ers. The plate is set up to print both the front & back images of the fly­er in just one pass. The print­ed work & turn sheet will look like the Amper­Art Work & Turn art, above, con­tain­ing two full fly­ers where the front side is adja­cent to the back side.*

Then then the paper is flipped end-​for-​end (after the ink is dry) so the print­ed side is down and the blank side is up, & then print­ed again with the same plate. In this way, the front of each fly­er will con­tain the oppo­site image on the back. (It’s impor­tant to flip the paper the right way, or each fly­er could con­tain two “front” sides or two “back” sides. Yes, I’ve made that mistake.)

The sheets are then cut apart in the cen­ter to make two fin­ished items, like this — each work & turn fly­er will have a front & a back side:

front & back of a work & turn job

Although one plate could be used for a 1‑color work & turn job, sev­er­al plates would be required for full-​color print­ing such as shown in the Amper­Art Work & Turn art­work. Still, only one press set-​up is required with only one set of plates, not a sep­a­rate set for front & back. The paper is passed through, flipped, & passed through again.

*Tech­ni­cal note: The Amper­art Work & Turn image would actu­al­ly be print­ed full-​bleed (not shown in the Amper­Art Work & Turn piece), then trimmed on all four sides as well as in half. But full bleed is anoth­er dis­cus­sion. “Bleed,” “work & turn,” and oth­er print­ing jar­gon is explained in a com­pre­hen­sive glos­sary page at wcb​s4print​ing​.com. For more infor­ma­tion about this out­stand­ing print­er, keep reading…

chaz sez ...

Here’s a real coin­ci­dence: I searched Google for “work & turn” to find a sim­ple def­i­n­i­tion which I could mod­i­fy for my read­ers. The page I was lead to is wcb​s4print​ing​.com print­ing terms, an excel­lent list of print­ing terms pro­vid­ed by a full-​service print­er in Palm Desert—just a few towns over from me! Of the thou­sands of print­ers all over the world, I find this to be quite a coincidence…like an invi­ta­tion for a short dri­ve to take in the won­der­ful smell of ink & hear the roar of the presses.

The full list of ser­vices & out­stand­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­als have enticed me to ask wcb​s4print​ing​.com for a quote on an upcom­ing print job. And when a client needs custom-​printed bags, badge hold­ers, book­marks, lug­gage straps & tags, mag­nets, mugs, name badges, pass­port wal­lets, pens or post-​it notes…
their spe­cial­ty divi­sion, wcb​s4L​o​go​Prod​ucts​.com, han­dles all those items.

Small world. Or as the TV soap goes, As the World Work & Turns.

Production notes for #93 Work & Turn:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Adobe Illustrator
Fonts: Rockwell, Bodoni, DIN Schrift
Ampersand: DIN Schrift, modified

Relat­ed arti­cle in the Print­ing & Pub­lish­ing series:
#63 Upper & Lowercase

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone? Damn good!

#74 Creak & Quake

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments

AmperArt 74 Creak & Quake

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This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Greet­ings, mortals.

This mor­bid install­ment of my Amper­Art series could have been enti­tled “Crypt Doors & Tomb­stones” but I chose the just-​as-​eerie verbs over the nouns “Creak & Quake.” These words are all from the first stan­za of Grim Grin­ning Ghosts, the theme song per­me­at­ing Walt Dis­ney’s Haunt­ed Mansion. 

Truth be told, I’m still only 99% sure that the song starts with 

“When the crypt doors creak & the tomb­stones quake…” or
“When the crypt goes creak & the tomb­stones quake…”

Why? Because after vis­it­ing sev­er­al web­sites to make sure I got the lyrics right (even though I’ve heard the song hun­dreds of times, it’s not embed­ded into the skull like “It’s a Small World”) there were dis­crep­an­cies. The first site which sound­ed like an offi­cial lyrics site is what threw me off: It read “…goes creak” which was sur­pris­ing, as I’ve always heard, so I thought, “When the crypt doors creak…” The orig­i­nal song­writ­ers — Bud­dy Bak­er, melody, and lyrics by Xavier “X” Aten­cio, the Dis­ney leg­end — were list­ed, along with dates and oth­er infor­ma­tion.  So I fig­ured that was what they wrote, and every­one just adapt­ed what they thought they heard. 

Until I vis­it­ed a few more sites. Every­where else the song goes “…doors creak…” which sounds so much bet­ter; is part of the Dis­ney fans’ venac­u­lar; and what I chose to use in my piece of art­work. (It’s prob­a­bly the cor­rect choice.)

William Shake­speare & his poem, Venus & Ado­nis, influ­enced the title of the Haunt­ed Man­sion’s theme song:

Look, how the world’s poor peo­ple are amaz’d
At appari­tions, signs, and prodigies,
Where­on with fear­ful eyes they long have gaz’d,
Infus­ing them with dread­ful prophecies;
So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,
And, sigh­ing it again, exclaims on Death.
‘Hard-​favour’d tyrant, ugly, mea­gre, lean,
Hate­ful divorce of love,’ — thus chides she Death,—
‘Grim-​grinning ghost, earth­’s worm, what dost thou mean
To sti­fle beau­ty and to steal his breath,
Who when he liv’d, his breath and beau­ty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?

The tomb­stone and grave­yard in this piece real­ly do exist: The Gra­nary Ceme­tery, Boston, Mass. Well, almost. The top and bor­ders of the tomb­stone are authen­tic (except for the icon­ic “D” under the skull); I elon­gat­ed the entire mon­u­ment and replaced the somber inscrip­tion with sil­ly lyrics. So much for rev­er­ence. I wish to give cred­it to an incred­i­ble pho­tog­ra­ph­er, whose image I came across on the Inter­net and used as ref­er­ence for this piece. Her name is Del­la Huff. Her pho­tog­ra­phy is spec­tac­u­lar. See it at http://​del​lahuff​pho​to​.zen​fo​lio​.com/ I had no idea such mor­bid tomb­stones actu­al­ly exist­ed. The grave­yard, though heav­i­ly dis­tort­ed by my twist­ed mind, is among many won­der­ful pho­tographs I found at https://​www​.flickr​.com/​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​m​b​d​e​z​i​n​e​s​/​s​e​t​s​/​7​2​1​5​7​6​0​7​8​5​7​0​0​8​0​82/

listen up!

As much as I detest innacu­ra­cy (why can’t oth­ers do a lit­tle research like I did, even though it took longer than the art­work?) it led me to sev­er­al inter­est­ing haunts:

I dis­cov­ered alter­nate, high­ly enter­tain­ing ver­sions of Grim Grin­ning Ghosts; a great video for the kids (and the grown-​up kids); and of course it was haunt­ing­ly won­der­ful to hear the orig­i­nal sound­track again (where I could swear they enun­ci­ate “doors”). Here are those sites:

Turn off the lights and turn up the sound:

Enter­tain­ing a capel­la from VoicePlay:
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​j​p​w​0​y​Q​p​v​b_c

Here’s the orig­i­nal sound­track fol­lowed by a cool alter­nate ver­sion (which seems to have been pro­duced by James Pres­ley) and some of the begin­ning and end­ing narrative:
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​X​S​a​q​SVi – Ms

The kids will enjoy this sin­ga­long video: https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​e​a​v​o​0​8​I​X​duQ (I like it very much myself.)

And some­thing real­ly enter­tain­ing — spooky at first with organ and choir, then wild­ly zany with unique voic­es, and all sorts of oth­er sounds…produced by James Presley:
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​R​I​_​4​v​z​q​e​vLg

Production notes:
Original size: 10x15 inches
Program: Photoshop, Illustrator (for the dingbats)
Fonts: Willow, Eccentric, Harrington
Ampersand: Harrington (line shadow added)
Images:
Tombstone & graveyard  reference: Granary Cemetery, Boston, Massachussetts, USA
Della Huff is the photographer whose tombstone photo was used for reference and sampling by the artist. See her spectacular fine art photography at http://​del​lahuff​pho​to​.zen​fo​lio​.com/  Della’s original photo that made this AmperArt piece possible:
http://​www​.pbase​.com/​d​e​l​l​y​b​e​a​n​/​i​m​a​g​e​/​4​0​9​4​6​116
Graveyard background: mbdezines Image modified so extensively it does not resemble the original photograph…but the background would  not be “authentic” without this photographer’s contribution.
Artist discovered that crypts do have doors at:
http://​idiot​pho​tog​ra​ph​er​.word​press​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​5​/​2​8​/​t​h​e​-​c​r​y​p​t​-​d​o​o​r​s​-​o​f​-​r​i​c​o​l​e​ta/
Music and lyrics sites visited for reference:
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​j​p​w​0​y​Q​p​v​b_c
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​X​S​a​q​SVi – Ms
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​e​a​v​o​0​8​I​X​duQ
https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​R​I​_​4​v​z​q​e​vLg

H u r r y  b a c k …