#158 Place & Space & Face

#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:

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

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



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.

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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

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

Seek & Find what you need in 2015

 


#77 Seek & Find
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.

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

#56 Lose Weight & Feel Great

#56 Lose Weight & Feel Great

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.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 
My friend Crys­tal got me back into shape last year. I’ve giv­en her a lit­tle plug after my main sto­ry. She real­ly helped me lose weight & feel great!
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LOSE WEIGHT & FEEL GREATBack around 1978 I lost $400 in one day wear­ing that phrase! (or some­thing that sound­ed just like it)

That was back in the ’70s when a com­pa­ny that sold herbal sup­ple­ments via your typ­i­cal pyra­mid multi-​level mar­ket­ing scheme recruit­ed (by means of over-​the-​top “rah-​rah” meet­ings & con­ven­tions) any­one who want­ed to get rich quick & stay healthy at the same time. I bought into the dream­scheme, stocked my liv­ing room full of every type of sup­ple­ment, ton­ic & snake oil the com­pa­ny had to offer, & head­ed out on my first day, wear­ing my shiny new Lose Weight — Feel Great lapel but­ton near­ly the size of a hock­ey puck, to make an overnight killing. After all, I was in top shape, toned & tan, & fig­ured any­one would assume a few sup­ple­ments a day took me from a fat slob to an Atlas in just a few weeks. (In actu­al­i­ty, I had been work­ing out for years.)

I did­n’t get a sin­gle nib­ble. Instead, I lost over $400 in one day. I was so excit­ed about wear­ing that damn badge & mak­ing my easy for­tune that I for­got all about my reg­u­lar job, my loy­al clients & dead­lines for designs. (It was my fault, not the MLM’s. Just not for me.)

I tore that but­ton off that evening & nev­er did anoth­er MLM again. But at least the phrase, a slo­gan of the era, prompt­ed this edi­tion of Amper­Art. (This com­pletes the first Adver­tis­ing Slo­gan series, one slo­gan per month through­out 2013. You can see the entire list here.) Read More