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Amper­Art #29, Suc­cess & Noth­ing Less, was inspired by Bal­boa Ele­men­tary School, for it is their mot­to, and it’s where I learned my abc’s, in Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia. (It’s also where I learned the dif­fer­ence betweens it’s and its.)

The type­style is Aachen, same as used on their school sig­nage. The amper­sand is derived from the Z in the team’s name, Blaz­ers. The col­ors used in this edi­tion are, of course, the school colors.
The phrase was made famous by Snoop Dogg on the show Entourage where he said, “Suc­cess and noth­ing less, man!”

One of my favorite quotes about suc­cess is by Jack Can­field: “If you love your work, if you enjoy it, you’re already a suc­cess.” I guess I’m a suc­cess then, for I love cre­at­ing Amper­Art and all my oth­er graph­ic design.

That and many oth­er quotes on suc­cess can be found here. And there’s a Face­book page called Suc­ces­sAnd­Noth­in­g­Less.

The Leona L. DeSimone Award

I have always been grate­ful that I went to three tremen­dous pub­lic schools, all in the Glen­dale, Cal­i­for­nia Uni­fied School Dis­trict: Bal­boa Ele­men­tary, Toll Jr. High and Her­bert Hoover High School. I even went to Glen­dale Junior Col­lege but did­n’t learn much there as I was already more focused on run­ning a graph­ics business.

It was at Bal­boa School, dur­ing 4th Grade, that I lost my father to emphy­se­ma. I was the old­est of four, with a sis­ter and two broth­ers. Our moth­er strug­gled, I mean real­ly strug­gled, to clothe and feed us, hold­ing down a job at a lunch counter in a vit­a­min store. Some­how she always had time for us kids and made sure we were to school on time, and helped us with our home­work. All the while putting up with tantrums from me, the spoiled firstborn.

I’ll nev­er for­get see­ing Mom cry when mon­ey was short, count­ing pen­nies to feed us, going with­out din­ner her­self. Or walk­ing five miles to work in the blaz­ing heat when the bus­es went on strike.

We did­n’t have much mon­ey but I don’t think there was a fam­i­ly in Glen­dale any rich­er than ours with love.

Sev­er­al years ago my sis­ter Roslyn set up an annu­al schol­ar­ship at Bal­boa Ele­men­tary, in our moth­er’s name, for a deserv­ing stu­dent (espe­cial­ly if their fam­i­ly was in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances that ours was in), and each year one of us sib­lings presents the award.

I was hon­ored to present the schol­ar­ship at the end of the 2012 school year to a spe­cial stu­dent who was also raised by a sin­gle moth­er, and who came to school ear­ly and stayed late to work on the com­put­ers, since the fam­i­ly could not afford their own.

Upon arriv­ing at the school for the pre­sen­ta­tion, I dis­cov­ered the school mot­to is “Suc­cess & Noth­ing Less” so of course that would be an upcom­ing Amper­Art piece.

This year’s Leona L. DeS­i­mone Schol­ar­ship recip­i­ent is a shin­ing exam­ple of one who aspires to achieve the very mean­ing of her school’s mot­to, “Suc­cess & Noth­ing Less.”

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Production notes:
Original size: 20 x 30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Font: Aachen
Ampersand: hand-​drawn, based on school team lettering

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