#71 Ring & Ring

71-Ring-&-Ring


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Amper Fans meet Apple Fans

Today’s the day every­one’s been wait­ing for (unless you’re an Android or Win­dows fan — ha ha Win­dows fan sounds kin­da fun­ny, does­n’t it)…

THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF iPHONE 6

brokeberry

No, that’s not an iPhone. It’s my cracked, scuffed, worn, tor­tured, bro­ken Black­ber­ry Curve 6310 that I’ve had for 8 or 9 years.  Think I’m ready for a new phone?

Believe it or not, it still works. (It has to, it’s the only phone I’ve got.) I’ll tell you more about this Badass­ber­ry — the phone that won’t quit — in my “chaz sez” col­umn below. It’s been a work­horse, but I am so ready for a brand new iPhone — & final­ly the iPhone 6 has the one fea­ture I’ve been hold­ing out for, a larg­er screen. (I’ve also been cross­ing my fin­gers it will come in grey or black, & sure enough it does.)

Remem­ber before answer­ing machines (remem­ber answer­ing machines, which were before voice­mail?) the phone used to ring & ring & ring & ring & ring, some­times 10 or 20 times? Real­ly annoy­ing if you had an annoy­ing friend (or worse yet, a bill collector…or worse yet, a tele­mar­keter) who kept call­ing & you did­n’t want to speak to them. At least with answer­ing machines you could fast-​forward to the next message.

Let’s fast-​forward to today:

Well, the iPhone 6 has been announced, but we’ll have to wait & wait & wait & wait & wait until it’s actu­al­ly avail­able. I’ve wait­ed 9 years for a new phone so I guess I can wait a few months longer.


UPDATE: I did get that iPhone 6 Plus, & enjoyed it very much…until the iPhone X was intro­duced. I jumped at that imme­di­ate­ly, main­ly because I like the let­ter (or numer­al) X & the num­ber 10. It’s a mile­stone. & I love the phone, with its edge-​to-​edge larg­er screen (retain­ing near­ly the same size body), face recog­ni­tion, & super-​duper cam­era. (I had way to much fun with the ani­mo­ji fea­ture at first, turn­ing myself into a robot, chick­en, & such…until that nov­el­ty wore off. It was fun send­ing my great-​niece a col­or­ful ani­mat­ed uni­corn, though, on her birthday.)

So, am I anx­ious to get my hands on the lat­est & great­est iPhone 10 XR, XS, XS Max, or any­thing else? NO! I love my X, the sim­plic­i­ty of the mod­el name, & don’t plan to upgrade (not that I con­sid­er the newest mod­els much of an upgrade) any­time soon…although I doubt I’ll wait anoth­er 8 or 9 years.


phone colors adIf you’re won­der­ing what all the col­ors are in this Amper­Art piece, “Ring & Ring,” those are the col­ors tele­phones came in while I was a kid in the 1950s & 60s. Up until then they came in any col­or, as Mr. Ford would say of the Mod­el T, as long as it was black. The new, mod­ern col­ors were excit­ing, instant­ly mod­ern­iz­ing & adding a touch of glam­our to any liv­ing room, bed­room or kitchen. This ad announces all the new phone colors.

 

princess-phone-pink-rotarySMShort­ly after the new col­ors, along came the Princess phone (that was in my mom’s or sis­ter’s bed­room, of course, although I don’t recall if it was pink or turquoise).

 

 

 

black pushbutton phone

But the most rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­cept, that which changed the world of tele­pho­ny, was the push-​button phone. That allowed all sorts of won­der­ful new appli­ca­tions, includ­ing auto­mat­ed cus­tomer ser­vice depart­ment selec­tions that usu­al­ly dis­con­nect­ed the call. (I always just press 0 for a live oper­a­tor, although that usu­al­ly dis­con­nects the call as well or recy­cles back to the main menu). Then cord­less phones were the next big thing.

single-brickAfter that, of course, cel­lu­lar phones were all the rage, & any­one who owned one was an instant celebri­ty. For decades they were first nov­el­ties, then acces­sories, & today they have replaced the home phone alto­geth­er for sev­er­al house­holds. For many solo entre­pre­neurs such as myself, the cell phone is our main busi­ness phone, along with Skype.


Ah, the sim­pler days when all the instruc­tions for using your new phone were print­ed on a sin­gle sheet of paper…

dial telephone instructions

If you hap­pen to have a Bell & How­ell 16-​mm sound pro­jec­tor sit­ting around, you could sim­ply learn from this high­ly edu­ca­tion­al film which shows you step-​by-​step how to place a call with the rev­o­lu­tion­ary new sys­tem. Is that an ear­ly portable cell phone she’s stand­ing next to?


I know, I know…this Amper­Art release coin­cides with the iPhone 6 release & it was planned that way, so why have I hard­ly even men­tioned the Shiny New Toy? Because you’ll be hear­ing enough about it on the on the news, on the Inter­net, at Star­bucks, & from your geek col­leagues. You might even be at an Apple store plac­ing your order right now.


listen up!Why do I still have a Black­ber­ry Curve where I can’t read half the screen; the ear­piece does­n’t work so I have to use it only on speak­er; the track­ball fell out once & until I found it weeks lat­er (right under my chair) I had to do every­thing with the key­pad, which meant no scrolling (now it’s taped in place); & I have to pull the bat­tery out to charge it because the usb jack is all screwed up? Oh yeah, & it’s held togeth­er with duct tape?

Because it still works—and I’ve been wait­ing for an iPhone that has all the fea­tures I want, includ­ing a nice big screen. Oh yeah, & the price. Oth­er bills came first. The new iPhone 6 Plus is exact­ly what I want, & the old Beast­ber­ry prob­a­bly won’t hold out much longer.

Which means I’m going to get the iPhone 6 Plus for sure (and all its 128g), so I bet­ter get back to work right now to afford it.


 PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20×30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Font: What font? This is hand-​lettered, just like ads were created back in the 1960’s (unless you could find a decent script in Fototype).
Colors: Sampled from period telephone ads & adjusted according to memory
CREDITS:
Ad: clas​si​cro​tary​phones​.com
Princess phone: playinginthe​worldgame​.files​.word​press​.com
Black pushbutton phone: unmesh​patil​.blogspot​.com/
Brick: bodyshapestyle​.com
Instructions: teach​inglit​er​a​cy​.tum​blr​.com
1954 film: YouTube /​ Bell System

#52 Quality & Dependability

Like my Jeep!


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Amper­Art #52, QUALITY & DEPENDABILITY, is from the Amper­Art Adver­tis­ing Slo­gan series. It’s a term that used to be more preva­lent, decades before today’s Cheap & Dis­pos­able mer­chan­dise. Oth­er words that come to mind are: sol­id, reli­able, uncon­di­tion­al­ly guar­an­teed (not just a lim­it­ed war­ran­ty) & ser­vice with a smile.


 

listen up!I remem­ber when prod­ucts were made with qual­i­ty & they were tru­ly depend­able. Not so much any­more (except for Jeeps & iPhones & OXO*). But I am very glad that I have friends who fit the descrip­tion of QUALITY & DEPENDABILITY. My fam­i­ly & friends are of the high­est integri­ty — hon­est, gen­uine, sin­cere — & they are very depend­able — from help­ing out in a pinch to being on time. Unlike most of today’s prod­ucts, my friends are not disposable!


*My love affair with OXO

(as in hugs & kiss­es, although that’s not what the name was intend­ed to imply)

OXO is an out­stand­ing com­pa­ny, tru­ly the def­i­n­i­tion of QUALITY & DEPENDABILITY. I love the visu­al & com­fort­able styling of their prod­ucts (which is most­ly kitchen­ware), the care­ful­ly R&D’d use­ful­ness (unlike some gad­gets that are more dif­fi­cult to use than if the task was ren­dered man­u­al­ly), & even the name & logo. Okay, very much the name & logo, even though I’m not a fan of red.

Their absolute­ly no-​questions-​asked guarNow I even enjoy doing my dishes!antee was put to the test recent­ly when my OXO soap-​dispensing dish brush broke (quite sur­pris­ing­ly — although I use it con­stant­ly as it even turns wash­ing dish­es into a like­able task). In search­ing for the instruc­tions to get a replace­ment, I thor­ough­ly enjoyed vis­it­ing sev­er­al pages on the OXO web­site, as each one intro­duced me to anoth­er amaz­ing facet of their com­pa­ny: the ori­gin of the name; how each prod­uct is devel­oped; & the per­son­al­i­ties & hob­bies of their employ­ees. One of those won­der­ful employ­ees, a cheer­ful woman by the name of Brooke, answered my ques­tions about the bro­ken brush & she struck up a con­ver­sa­tion as if we were old friends.

Would you like the same mod­el or the new­er mod­el with added fea­tures?” (New­er, of course — & I do like the added fea­tures, includ­ing the fact that it’s com­plete­ly black, no red, not even the logo.) She asked if I could send a pho­to of the bro­ken part — but it’s okay if I could­n’t. (I did.) She said they’ll send a replace­ment out imme­di­ate­ly. (They did. Imme­di­ate­ly.)

Brooke even sub­scribed to my per­son­al design project (which you’re read­ing now), Amper​Art​.com, which real­ly showed me how kind & con­sid­er­ate the Oxo­ni­ans are (their term, not mine). Hey! “Kind & Considerate”…that’ll be a new Amper­Art creation!

In case you’re won­der­ing…no, this is not a spon­sored endorse­ment. I sim­ply love OXO! (They say it’s pro­nounced “ox-​oh” but I pre­fer “o‑x-​o” & when I told Brooke why, she even not­ed my rea­son.) Some­day I’ll write an amaz­ing tes­ti­mo­ni­al about my ’96 Jeep which just won’t quit, or Apple, which is ahead of any oth­er device by eons, & my lat­est awe-​inspiring dis­cov­ery, Ther­moWorks, design­ers & man­u­fac­tur­ers of pre­cise & styl­ish bar­beque ther­mome­ters (as well as oth­er pro & semi-​pro kitchen & temperature-​related prod­ucts). Their qual­i­ty & styling is matched only by their incred­i­ble cus­tomer ser­vice, includ­ing Jenean Skousen with whom I had the plea­sure of plac­ing an order today. More about this com­pa­ny & their won­der­ful bar­beque “toys” (that kept me from burn­ing the food for the first time ever) in the upcom­ing Amper­Art issue “Low & Slow.” [Ther­moWorks rave review added April 23, 2018.]

You will prob­a­bly enjoy the OXO web­site (oxo​.com), espe­cial­ly the about page for some inter­est­ing facts & fig­ures. Fur­ther down the page, you’ll expe­ri­ence a refresh­ing­ly human expe­ri­ence as you learn about the employ­ees’ favorite hob­bies, pets, lan­guages & inven­tive uses for their prod­ucts (use the spaghet­ti strain­er as a backscratch­er). If you want a per­son­al review of my OXO expe­ri­ence, just email me, or read about my favorite dish­wash­ing tool, even more than the auto­mat­ic dish­wash­er, here.


 Please tell oth­er amper­sand fans about the
QUALITY
of  each Amper­Art design & the
DEPENDABILITY
of one issue per month, guaranteed. 

They can subscribe
HERE 
Thank you.


 

PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20x30 inches
Program: InDesign
Fonts: Copperplate, Industria, English Script (ampersand)
Inspiration: Maytag washing machines, Craftsman tools, Jeeps — all from the 1950s & 60s