Tag: Employment

#77 Seek & Find — A Resolution & Solution for the New Year

Chaz DeSimone 10 Comments

Seek & Find what you need in 2015

 

#77 Seek & Find
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Someone dear & close to me inspired the title Seek & Find for this New Year’s AmperArt.

2014 was a tough year for many of us. Loss of loved ones, loss of jobs, loss of property.

I was even at a loss of how to turn the numer­als 2 – 0‑1 – 5 into an amper­sand, a tra­di­tion for every New Year’s Amper­Art ren­der­ing so far. Absolute­ly noth­ing came to mind, so I sim­ply decid­ed to skip this year’s endeav­or & issue a non-​new-​year piece instead.

But then I got some shock­ing news. A very close, very dear per­son in my life – I’ll call him Mr. A – some­one who has intel­li­gence & wis­dom & integri­ty that is unsur­passed – was laid off ear­li­er this year. He has tried relent­less­ly to find anoth­er job, & is now even sur­viv­ing on peanut but­ter & jel­ly sand­wich­es; in fact, now just peanut but­ter since he ran out of jel­ly. This is some­one who is respon­si­ble about time and mon­ey, and who is not lazy about send­ing out resumes. And he will even set­tle for work that is below his mul­ti­ple degree lev­el. Still, no nib­bles. My heart goes out to Mr. A,  a per­son deserv­ing of so much. Yet his humil­i­ty, per­se­v­er­ence and strong faith keeps him going, seek­ing work until he finds something.

“The New Year, Twenty-​Fifteen, will bring a change; it has to.” I did­n’t say that; Mr. A did. Right then I told him he inspired me to design a 2015 New Year’s Amper­Art after­all, no mat­ter how hard I had to seek & find some­thing rel­e­vant & maybe even clever.

The words were right in front of me: seek employ­ment, find a job. Seek & find. Or as the bible says,

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you…”

—Matthew 7:7 (King James Version)

To my dear Mr. A, may you seek & find the posi­tion that ful­fills not only your finan­cial needs but also your pas­sion for cre­ative problem-​solving & reward­ing work.

To my fam­i­ly & friends & read­ers, may you seek & find suc­cess & pros­per­i­ty in 2015. May you seek & find health & hap­pi­ness. May you seek & find joy & wonder.

For those of you in a posi­tion like Mr. A, may you seek & find your dream job ear­ly in the com­ing year.

& to all amper­sand fans, I hope you seek & find the per­fect amper­sand in 2015.

 chaz sez ...

The font for Seek & Find was cho­sen for its clas­sic pro­por­tions & round ele­ments to com­ple­ment the style of the numer­als & amper­sand. Obvi­ous­ly, a design­er does not choose a type­style based on its name, but after Seek & Find was fin­ished I real­ized I coin­ci­den­tal­ly did seek & find an appropriately-​named font for the new year: Futu­ra.

For those of you who can’t find the amper­sand in this edi­tion, just seek & find a lit­tle fur­ther: it’s the “plus” sign inside the zero. (That big round cir­cle is a zero, you know. It’s part of the abstract “2015” that makes this a new year’s piece just for this new year.) The “plus” sign is “short­hand” for the amper­sand (which is short­hand for “et” or “and”). You can see how that works here:

ampsnd-to-plus

Seek & find more inter­est­ing facts about the amper­sand here.

Production notes for #77 Seek & Find:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Font: Futura
Ampersand & numerals: drawn in Illustrator by Chaz DeSimone
Reference:
Phrases: The Phrase Finder — phras​es​.org​.uk

For pro­fes­sion­al graph­ic design, please vis­it Des­i­mone Design.

Desimone Design

#7 In & Out

Chaz DeSimone Leave a comment

#7 In & Out

Amper­Art #7: In & Out
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Hats, helmets and hardhats off to the workforce!

Whether we work 9 to 5, part time, grave­yard, free­lance, or own our own For­tune 500 com­pa­ny, we real­ly do clock in and out. Every moment we’re dri­ving to work, dri­ving a nail, answer­ing email, court­ing a client, or just day­dream­ing about an inven­tion, we are “clocked in.”

And every moment we are “clocked in” we are adding to the val­ue of some­body’s exis­tence, whether through a prod­uct, a pro­fes­sion, or serv­ing a blue plate spe­cial (like my mom did, and always with a smile).

If you are “clocked out” this week­end, enjoy the Labor Day fes­tiv­i­ties. And if you are work­ing, know that your con­tri­bu­tion to what makes this coun­try tick is tru­ly appreciated.

listen up!Work, work, work

Every sin­gle thing I’m touch­ing, look­ing at or lis­ten­ing to right now was made by some­one, or most like­ly hun­dreds of peo­ple, who trad­ed their time, tal­ent, exper­tise, and hard labor for a paycheck.

This mon­i­tor, for exam­ple: the min­ers for the phos­pho­rs; the prod­uct design­ers; the engi­neers; the oil­men who drill for the plas­tic; the sol­der­ers; the print­ers for the UL stick­er; the book­keep­ers, ship­pers, and truck dri­vers; the elec­tri­cal con­trac­tors who sup­ply the pow­er; the tech sup­port; and yes, the graph­ic design­ers who cre­at­ed the pack­ag­ing, adver­tis­ing and instruc­tion manual.
I was lis­ten­ing to an inter­view by the late Bud­dy Rich, jazz drum­mer. When asked if he enjoys his work as a drum­mer, he replied, “Work? What work? I play!”

I love what I do for “work.” Design­ing logos, books, ads and pack­ag­ing; brain­storm­ing with clients; and the thrill of see­ing the first piece off the press is more excit­ing than an exot­ic vaca­tion (some­times just as expen­sive when there’s a typo).

I hope you enjoy what you do, what­ev­er it is. If you don’t, do some­thing else. We do have that choice. If you need some inspi­ra­tion please con­tact me. I am grate­ful that I get to enjoy the earn­ing part of earn­ing a liv­ing, and I’m hap­py to share how it’s pos­si­ble for any­one else.

I love work so much, in fact, I’m going to work on my tan at the pool this Labor Day weekend.

Hap­py Labor Day!