Tag: new year

#80 Believe & Achieve in 2016 — Happy New Year!

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments

80-Believe-&-Achieve-wm

#80 Believe & Achieve
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.

Happy New Year

First, have a blast cel­e­brat­ing 2015! Then use these tips to keep your New Year’s resolutions.

If you haven’t made any res­o­lu­tions yet—because you know they are so excru­ci­at­ing­ly hard to keep—read this won­der­ful advice from a friend, Tam­mi Bran­nan. You might even want to rethink your New Year’s res­o­lu­tions and actu­al­ly look for­ward to keep­ing them in 2016!

When choos­ing New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions that you want to achieve, make sure you do these 3 things:

  1. Iden­ti­fy 2 – 3 areas in your life you’d like to improve.
  2. Pick one action item for each area that you can do now to exact change.
  3. For 5 min­utes, 3 times a day focus on each action item, whether you’re say­ing it to your­self as a promise or you’re tak­ing steps towards accom­plish­ing that action.

The 2 rea­sons why folks fail when it comes to their New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions is because they:

  1. Pick Res­o­lu­tions they don’t care too much about achiev­ing, and…
  2. Sit by in hopes their New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion will come to them, instead of tak­ing active steps to achieve them.

If find­ing the per­fect occu­pa­tion or busi­ness is one of your 2016 goals, Tam­mi Bran­nan offers career devel­op­ment coach­ing for indi­vid­u­als & teams. She says, “Live a life that is truer to you.” You’ll find lots of insight­ful videos & arti­cles at her web­site, Instinc​tiveLife​.com. I endorse Tam­mi as a per­son of high integri­ty & gen­uine con­cern for individuals.

To Do & To Don’t List

AmperArt-TO-DONT-LIST-2016-227w

fea­tur­ing the Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016

Here’s a TO DO LIST guar­an­teed to sim­pli­fy your life. It’s actu­al­ly my spe­cial­ly designed TO DO & TO DON’T list. This is brand-​new art­work in the two Pan­tone Col­ors of the Year for 2016: Rose Quartz & Seren­i­ty. Down­load the TO DO & TO DON’T list here and print out sev­er­al copies for your friends.

chaz sez ...

My favorite quote about dreams & pos­si­bil­i­ties is by Walt Dis­ney, who real­ly accom­plished some aston­ish­ing feats. (Did you know Dis­ney­land was built in less then one year from ground­break­ing to open­ing day?) Walt said:

 “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

And he did. Birdies sing & flow­ers croon.

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

Chaz DeSimone 10 Comments

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

Chaz DeSimone 1 Comment

#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.

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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 GREAT—Back 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