Tag: coronavirus

#158 Place & Space & Face

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment
#158 Place & Space & Face
#158 Place & Space & Face
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.

California is now the epicenter of the United States. Gotta do better than “watch your space & cover your face”— we need to seriously
STAY IN PLACE!

We’re real­iz­ing (I’m not one bit sur­prised) how much dam­age was done over the 4th of July week­end by those who won’t wear a mask & won’t keep their dis­tance & won’t even try to halt spread­ing the virus. Seems they want their “free­dom” but unfor­tu­nate­ly it seems they don’t exact­ly under­stand the concept.

I’m ashamed & angry at so many of my fel­low Amer­i­cans who are so god­damn stu­pid and self-​righteous, that they are spread­ing the coro­n­avirus exten­sive­ly, much of it to oth­er idiots who won’t stay put or won’t wear a mask (some of whom have got­ten sick & learned their les­son) … but sad­ly, and far more dev­as­tat­ing­ly, to those who are old­er, in poor health already, and try­ing their best to prac­tice safe mea­sures. Sad­ly, many of those who have no choice but to stay in place (crip­pled, elder­ly, nurs­ing home patients — now even babies) are the very ones who are dying. 

To the assholes:

Come on, those of you who won’t stay home, won’t wear a mask, let’s show some con­sid­er­a­tion. Swal­low your fuck­ing pride and admit you are not invin­ci­ble. Real­ize you are spread­ing this virus. Admit you might even be scared. Because this is scary. You are scary.

The other version.

In my last Amper­Art, I urged every­one to be more con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers & watch out for our own lives by fol­low­ing the exam­ple set by a very sane char­ac­ter, the amper­sand, who does wear a mask.l I offered posters, cards, even iron-​on T‑shirt transfers.

Download, print & iron-on image to a T-shirt.

But appar­ent­ly that did­n’t work. Throngs of peo­ple par­tied, shoul­der to shoul­der, & did not cov­er their faces. The virus spread big time. Cal­i­for­nia (where I live) now has more cas­es than New York. It has more cas­es than any oth­er state in the whole US. So we can no longer just keep six feet apart. Or ten. Or twelve. We must stay put. Of course it’s not pos­si­ble for some of us, and kudos to those who are on the front lines and risk­ing their lives work­ing for the rest of us. 

But going out and par­ty­ing? Those morons are mur­der­ers. Plain and simple.

I don’t know if this will even help, but if you want to spread the mes­sage (not the virus), you can print & wear these T‑shirts to remind oth­ers to be safe & con­sid­er­ate, until this pan­dem­ic is over and life is (sort of) back to normal.

SHOULD I SELL THESE?

If you think I should make these shirts available as products for purchase, whether you’d wear one or not, please let me know in the comments.
(Would you wear one?)

To make T‑shirt:

Down­load PDF iron-​on image
Down­load png iron-​on image

INSTRUCTIONS: Down­load PDF or png image, print onto Avery T‑Shirt Trans­fer sheet using an inkjet print­er (not a laser print­er), & iron onto T‑shirt. Vis­it this Avery page for details & where to pur­chase trans­fer sheets (most office sup­ply & craft stores). You can also have the image print­ed onto a T‑shirt by some local spe­cial­ty shops or online T‑shirt printers.

Print these posters to remind others to be play it safe:

Print letter-size announcement
Down­load US let­ter size
Down­load A4 size

Print these poster-​style notices onto standard-​size paper & post all around.

Or be real discreet:

Drop these business-​size reminders around the room & acci­den­tal­ly into pock­ets & purses

Business card size
Down­load sheet of dis­creet cards

Down­load this sheet of 12 business-​card-​size notes & print on card stock or even plain paper. Trim & spread the word to end this pandemic.

LEAVE A COMMENT about stay­ing in place — or not

Concept & design

The phrase is kin­da hokey, but it’s mem­o­rable & gets the point across. I first saw it on a flash­ing road sign, think­ing it was some ama­teur attempt at clever poet­ry. But then I dis­cov­ered it’s ubiq­ui­tous across the nation, maybe around the world (prob­a­bly would­n’t rhyme every­where, though). So I thought Why not, I’ll spread it even fur­ther with AmperArt. 

#158 Place & Space & Face

The top amper­sand, Mr. Ser­pen­tine — well, he’s the most con­sid­er­ate of all, plant­i­ng him­self firm­ly in place. 

The social-​distancing amper­sands have dif­fer­ent per­son­al­i­ties, as we humans do. There’s ele­gant Mr. Bodoni, cute lit­tle Babes in Toy­land, fun-​loving Ms. Great Vibes, bor­ing Com­ic Sans, sol­id Mr. Rock­well & classy Mrs. Winsome.

Last but not least, Mr. Gil Sans sets a good exam­ple by cov­er­ing his face. Masks have even become styl­ish fash­ion statements.

Your opinion matters:

T-shirt: ampersand wearing mask

If you think I should make these shirts avail­able as qual­i­ty prod­ucts for pur­chase, whether you would wear one or not, please let me know in the com­ments. (Um…would you wear one?)

Thanks for help­ing end this incom­pre­hendible, dev­as­tat­ing pandemic. 

Have a fun & fantastic summer, even if you end up with a weird tan line on your face.

Production notes for #158 Place & Space & Face:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Programs: Adobe Photoshop
Font, text: Helvetica Extra Condensed
Fonts, ampersands:
Staying in place: Serpentine
Social distancing, top to bottom: Bodoni, Great Vibes, Babes in Toyland, Comic Sans (the boring one), Winsome, Rockwell
Wearing a mask: Gill Sans
Credits:
Mask: deposit​pho​tos​.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.
Visit DesimoneDesign.com
Chaz sez...
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

#155 Maintain Your Space & Cover Your Face

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment
#155 Maintain Your Space & Cover Your Face
#155 Maintain Your Space & Cover Your Face
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.

The pandemic is entering a dangerous new phase for summer 2020.

We’ll soon real­ize how much dam­age has been done over the recent 4th of July week­end by those who won’t wear a mask & won’t keep their dis­tance & won’t even try to halt spread­ing the virus. Now that the big hol­i­day week­end is over with, & the next isn’t until Labor Day, maybe we can be more con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers & watch out for our own lives by fol­low­ing the exam­ple set by our friend the amper­sand who does wear a mask:

Download, print & iron-on image to a T-shirt.

Print & wear these T‑shirts to remind others to be safe & sane.

SHOULD I SELL THESE?

If you think I should make these shirts available as products for purchase, whether you’d wear one or not, please let me know in the comments.
(Um…would you wear one?)

To make T‑shirt:

Down­load PDF iron-​on image
Down­load png iron-​on image

INSTRUCTIONS: Down­load PDF or png image, print onto Avery T‑Shirt Trans­fer sheet using an inkjet print­er (not a laser print­er), & iron onto T‑shirt. Vis­it this Avery page for details & where to pur­chase trans­fer sheets (most office sup­ply & craft stores). You can also have the image print­ed onto a T‑shirt by some local spe­cial­ty shops or online T‑shirt printers.

Print these posters to remind others to be play it safe:

Print letter-size announcement
Down­load US let­ter size
Down­load A4 size

Print these poster-​style notices onto standard-​size paper & post all around.

Or be real discreet:

Drop these business-​size reminders around the room & acci­den­tal­ly into pock­ets & purses

Business card size
Down­load sheet of dis­creet cards

Down­load this sheet of 12 business-​card-​size notes & print on card stock or even plain paper. Trim & spread the word to end this pandemic.

LEAVE A COMMENT about wear­ing a mask — or not

Concept & design

This piece went through more con­cept and design iter­a­tions than I care to recall. The entire piece was fin­ished as the com­plete “mot­to” we’ve seen in PSAs all over town, shown here:

The original concept

But then, right before upload­ing, on June 30, I saw the headlines:

As patients rapid­ly fill hos­pi­tals, the pan­dem­ic may be enter­ing a dan­ger­ous new phase.
States set records for hos­pi­tal­iza­tions & man­date face masks.

Rather than post­ing the orig­i­nal Amper­Art with the phrase that’s preva­lent every­where, I scrapped it and decid­ed to cre­ate a tru­ly use­ful piece which hope­ful­ly will remind (or urge) enough peo­ple to “main­tain your space & cov­er your face” to pre­vent the spread of the coro­n­avirus & maybe save a life or two. Mean­ing wher­ev­er you are, you’ll be a liv­ing PSA wear­ing the shirt, tap­ing up posters, or hand­ing out cards to help end this pandemic.

I was able to pub­lish the new design by dead­line (last minute of June 2020) but it took a few more days to ren­der sev­er­al lay­outs & for­mats to tru­ly help the cause with reminder posters, tiny notes & T‑shirt imprints. 

T-shirt: ampersand wearing mask

Your opin­ion matters:

If you think I should make these shirts avail­able as prod­ucts for pur­chase, whether you’d wear one or not, please let me know in the com­ments. (Um…would you wear one?)

Thanks for help­ing end this incom­pre­hendible, dev­as­tat­ing pandemic. 

Have a fun & fantastic summer, even if you end up with a weird tan line on your face.

Production notes for #155 Maintain Your Space & Cover Your Face:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Programs: Adobe Photoshop
Font, text: Helvetica
Font, ampersand: Gill Sans
Credits:
Mask: deposit​pho​tos​.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.
Visit DesimoneDesign.com
Chaz sez...
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

#159 Over & Under

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment
#159 Over & Under
#159 Over & Under
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.

Do you prefer over? Or under? Over & under are both popular — but which is correct?

The cor­rect way to install toi­let paper is over, accord­ing to the patent draw­ing from 1891. (I like the lit­tle hands.)

.

Toilet paper patent drawing
Patent draw­ing for toi­let paper or wrap­ping paper roll, 1891. Hope they grab the right roll to wrap my gift.

The history of toilet paper

This is an excerpt from a web­site devot­ed to the his­to­ry of toi­let paper (if you can believe that). Read the entire sto­ry at their website:

toi​let​pa​per​his​to​ry​.net

The first “offi­cial” toi­let paper was intro­duced in Chi­na in 1391, but the first men­tion of toi­let paper (paper for per­son­al hygiene) dates back to the year 589 AD in Korea. Between 875 & 1317 AD, paper was pro­duced in large sheets (2‑foot x 3‑foot sheets & even per­fumed) for Chi­nese emperor’s fam­i­ly hygiene.

In the Colo­nial Amer­i­ca, the com­mon means was corncobs.

Paper was a rare com­mod­i­ty until the 17th or 18th cen­turies. The first ref­er­ence to paper as toi­let paper was record­ed in 1718. After inven­tion of paper pages from news­pa­pers & mag­a­zines were also com­mon­ly used (news­pa­pers became wide­ly avail­able at 1700s.)

Joseph C. Gayet­ty invent­ed the first pack­aged toi­let paper in the Unit­ed States in 1857. “Gayetty’s Med­icat­ed Paper” was sold in pack­ages of flat sheets, med­icat­ed with aloe & water­marked with his name. Gayety’s toi­let paper was avail­able as late as the 1920’s.

In 1871, Seth Wheel­er (to some sources Zeth Wheel­er) of Albany became the offi­cial “inven­tor” of toi­let paper (on a roll). Seth Wheel­er patents rolled & per­fo­rat­ed wrap­ping paper.

Rolled & per­fo­rat­ed toi­let paper was invent­ed around 1880. In 1879, Thomas Sey­mour, Edward Irvin & Clarence Wood Scott found­ed the Scott Paper Com­pa­ny in Philadel­phia. Scott broth­ers came up with the idea of cus­tomiz­ing rolls for every merchant-​customer they had. They began sell­ing pack­ages of small rolls & stacked sheets. Scott Paper Com­pa­ny began pro­duc­ing toi­let paper under its own brand name in 1896. By 1925 Scott Com­pa­ny became the lead­ing toi­let paper com­pa­ny in the world.

This is just part of the sto­ry. It’s from a web­site ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to the his­to­ry of toi­let paper! Read the full his­to­ry at toi​let​pa​per​his​to​ry​.net

Still no toilet paper!

I just came back from the super­mar­ket (first time out in two weeks — I’m play­ing it safe) and was amazed to find the shelves still bare of toi­let paper & paper tow­els & hand san­i­tiz­er (& no split peas for my favorite soup using the East­er hambone).

Stores still out but I’m stocked up

While every­one else is won­der­ing if they’ll have to resort to news­pa­per & corn cobs, I have a stock­pile of toi­let paper & paper tow­els in my bath­room cab­i­net. Like a mini Cost­co. No, I did­n’t horde the shelves when the pan­dem­ic start­ed. It has to do with spec­tac­u­lar design & two shock­ing dis­cov­er­ies (one bad, one good). Read on…

I’ve been a loy­al con­sumer of Cot­tonelle for a decade or two. I hate the word Charmin & their stu­pid com­mer­cials. I like the word Cot­tonelle. It sounds French or con­ti­nen­tal or some­thing classy. & I sim­ply like the stuff. But what do I like most? This:

.

Toilet Paper as Fine Art
Sleek lin­ear design of my favorite toi­let paper, regard­less of whether it feels like cot­ton or a corn­cob. It’s just nice to look at (pri­or to use).

Straight & narrow

Look at that design! No embossed flow­ers, dots or wavy lines, just sleek straight lines that appeal to my lin­ear design taste. Much like Mid-​Century Mod­ern. (How­ev­er back then toi­let paper rolls even came in col­ors: pink & blue & green & yel­low. I liked those. Still pop­u­lar in Europe, but nowhere to be found in the US — except on Ama­zon, but what isn’t?

I like the feel of Cot­tonelle, but it’s the design that arous­es my sens­es. Plain, basic, lin­ear par­al­lel lines, nev­er devi­at­ing from the begin­ning of the roll to the end. Toi­let paper heav­en. The one con­stant in my life (besides get­ting these Amper­Art issues out once a month).

Toilet paper terror

One day, just last year, I pur­chased a pack of Cot­tonelle, & noticed the design had changed. No longer straight lines, they were now wavy. I don’t even have a sam­ple to show you because I will not have flow­ery toi­let paper in my bathroom.

So for sev­er­al months I resort­ed to the cheap­est toi­let paper, because it was the only type that was as plain as pos­si­ble, just flat with no design what­so­ev­er. (I imag­ine a corn cob is soft­er than that stuff.) Took near­ly a whole roll to do what a few sheets of the good stuff can do, but at least I did­n’t have to look at embossed flow­ers & squig­gles. (If there were amper­sands I might con­sid­er that.)

TP Motherload

Last Sep­tem­ber I was in a Wal­greens & noticed a spe­cial on Scott toi­let paper which was not only a good sale price, but reduced even more with my rewards card. $3.25 for a 12-​roll pack is a great price, so I went over to check it out, &…

My design is back!

What I found was 12-​packs of toi­let paper that had the same exact design as my for­mer love, Cot­tonelle. But this was Scott. What gives? Who cares? I bought out the store.

Stocked up on TP
Yes, I got some stares wheel­ing all this toi­let paper out to my car.

Did I attract some stares? Yes, but only stares. Today I would be mugged & robbed, right? 

There was a sur­prise wait­ing for me when I got home, though.

Things aren’t always as they appear

I did­n’t just stock up on toi­let paper as I had thought. I had unknow­ing­ly pur­chased rolls of paper tow­els, too, that matched the toi­let paper! Same lin­ear ribs. Thus the pack­ages looked identical.

I had cleaned out that one store, so I rushed to anoth­er Wal­greens & bought out their toi­let paper (dou­ble proof­read­ing the labels first). But I did­n’t return the tow­els because, even though they don’t com­pare to my usu­al Brawny or Boun­ty in per­for­mance, they match my toi­let paper.

One brand’s trash is another brand’s treasure

I was curi­ous how the Cot­tonelle pat­tern got on a com­peti­tor’s prod­uct, but I did have an idea. Sure enough, Cot­tonelle & Scott are owned by Kimberly-​Clark. So I assume Scott just start­ed using the dies dis­card­ed by Cot­tonelle. I find Scott to be a good enough toi­let paper — after all, it’s the looks that count — so that’s who I’m loy­al to now.

Best Toilet Paper Review

Here’s an excel­lent review on the top brands of toi­let paper (added to this post in August 2020, now that toi­let paper is a nor­mal com­mod­i­ty again, no longer worth more than gold). The review was writ­ten by Bryan Vu at yourbest​digs​.com. Click here for entire review which cov­ers cost, strength, absorben­cy, lint test, and oth­er details.

Best over­all: Cot­tonelle Ultra Com­fort­Care (used to be my favorite until they changed the design, as told above)

Most lux­u­ri­ous: Quilt­ed North­ern Ultra Plus

Most Eco-​friendly: Silk’n Soft

Best Toilet Paper Review

For you Costco shoppers, this is a fun bit of trivia:

Also from Bryan Vu’s arti­cle:
Kirk­land Sig­na­ture toi­let paper is Costco’s cash crop, the best sell­ing item in the mas­sive bulk-​warehouse store. It’s report­ed­ly well-​researched & stud­ied, scientifically-​engineered & designed to sell, sell, sell! Indeed, they sell more than a bil­lion rolls per year. This brand placed fifth in the review above, as best val­ue. [I bet there are peo­ple who pur­chase a Cost­co mem­ber­ship just for a seem­ing­ly end­less sup­ply of toi­let paper. —Chaz]

The 1973 Toilet Paper Panic

The clip shows how one inno­cent remark by John­ny Car­son on the Tonight Show set off a pan­ic across the Unit­ed States. There was no actu­al short­age of toi­let paper, but that’s not what Amer­i­cans believed. The shelves were emp­ty for four months, while toi­let paper was even being sold on the black market.

Enjoy ten min­utes of absurd fact, humor, & even nos­tal­gia — if you remem­ber White Front & Gemco.

Helping hand

I will end this post with a hilar­i­ous pho­to of one of my favorite peo­ple, Robin Williams:

LEAVE A COMMENT—what’s your best TP story?

Concept & design notes

I’ve been hold­ing onto the title Over & Under for a few years, plan­ning on using it for a Thanks­giv­ing issue. You know, “Over & under & through the woods to Grand­moth­er’s house we go…” but always con­jured up an image of three bears and a fox. Mix­ing it up with some oth­er woodsy sto­ry, I guess.

All of a sud­den, with toi­let paper eclips­ing all oth­er news, an image of two rolls form­ing an amper­sand came to mind. Sim­ple enough, I thought. But it turned out to be an M.C. Esch­er type of con­cept: trapped in the realm of impos­si­bil­i­ty and illu­sion. The page of sketch­es proves my frustration. 

Vis­it mcesch​er​.com, the offi­cial web­site pub­lished by the M.C. Esch­er Foundation

I final­ly fig­ured some­thing out, and with a bit of per­spec­tive and depth was able to ren­der some­thing pos­si­ble. Maybe I should have kept it an opti­cal illus­tion and become famous like M.C.

The tile back­ground is rem­i­nis­cent of the tile-​walled bath­room in my child­hood (with a sep­a­rate tiled show­er), and in fact I was going to use that palette of turquoise and black. But the back­ground I found in a stock library is more appeal­ing to a wider range of peo­ple, all of whom are con­sumers of the new pre­cious ele­ment, TP.

As men­tioned ear­li­er, Over & Under was orig­i­nal­ly the title for a Thanks­giv­ing piece. There are sev­er­al oth­er phras­es that can be applied to more than one top­ic as well, such as emp­ty & full, stop & go, big & small, et al. So I’ve decid­ed to give myself per­mis­sion to repeat a phrase when­ev­er I get the whim and cre­ate a whole dif­fer­ent con­cept with it. (One of my first Amper­Art designs was #4 Lost & Found, which fea­tured a set of keys. But I’d also like to do one for lost & found pets, espe­cial­ly since a “lit­tle lion” has been com­ing around for food lately.)

Production notes for #159 Over & Under:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Programs: Adobe Illustrator (main image), Photoshop (background)
Font: Parisien
Credits:
Images: deposit​pho​tos​.com (modified)
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.
Visit DesimoneDesign.com
chaz sez
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