afrojet

The Type of the Season
‘Tis the season for holiday banner ads. I have been putting together a few ads for different clients over the past couple of weeks. I thought I would use the opportunity to expand my collection and explore some of the typefaces from different foundries. In the process, I found some fun gifts to get any holiday designer started down the right path. Chank has got a great free dingbat called Spunkflakes. I would use it for the name alone. Also, this slightly blackletter and free Christmas type is a fun one to play around with. If you’re ready to put down some cash, then Linotype has put together a fine collection of typefaces for the holidays.

Turning from type to logos…design boom finally settled on a new logo and has put up all the other entries in their design contest. I think it’s a fun example of what different people see in a name and an identity. Looking at all the other entries, I think they may have chosen the wrong one. Hee.

This scary logo captured by the memory hole was the official seal for the Ultra-Orwellian governmental organization, The Information Awareness Office. I guess they got enough feedback decrying the ridiculousness of wearing their manifest destiny badge so proudly and withdrew it from their site.

Missy Misdemeanor of Middle Earth
As fate would have it, the most unlikely of people – me, found themselves with tickets to the opening night of Lord of The Rings Two. Having not read any of the Tolkien books and with only a vague recollections of the first movie, I sat through chapter two of this painfully pointless saga. My review goes something like this. Cool mountain. Who’s that guy? Who are they talking about? Was that guy in the last movie? Those guys look familiar. Oh I remember him but I don’t remember her. God, this movie is long. Where are we now? I don’t remember that guy? I need a map. Frodo’s hair looks darker. There needs to be more fighting. I thought that guy died. Talking trees are stupid. God Damn, this movie is long and this seat is really uncomfortable. There goes another cell phone. Oh, good – some fighting. Who is that girl? I don’t remember her. Please – this movie must end soon.

That movie required too much work on my part and way too much patience. But it was free so I’ll stop my complaining. Besides, I’m sure for people who follow this kinda thing, it was interesting.

But my fantasy comes in a different form. For instance, I had a fantasy this morning that Missy Elliot had her own morning show called “Morning with Missy”. Come on, it would be cool. A welcome staple to my morning ritual is Missy’s “Work It” video. I absolutely must see it before I start thinking about doing any work. Sadly, It dawned on my today that soon (but probably not too soon) the video will disappear from the top of the charts and I will lose my morning dose of Missy. That’s when I thought that she should have her own morning show. I’m sure Missy can decorate as well as Martha, deliver the world news better than Kuric, and the morning weather, – Forget about it – Missy would rule that too. So here’s hoping. In the buzz words of a a client I met with yesterday, “that would really be On Trend.” And now her buzz word has become mine. Everything must be On Trend, “Hey Sally, love that Christmas sweater. It’s really On Trend.”

Stay away from the tainted mayonnaise
I paid the price last night for dabbling in other french fry condiments, different than the old ketchup stand by. The unsound mayonnaise/mustard sauce that they serve at the Chatterbox went down fine but made for a long-suffering night of toilet bowl push-ups and nauseating sleeplessness. Oh how I hate it when one of my favorite food spots delivers a sneaky solid upper cut to the mid section. I won’t be able to go back there for a while now. The good news, if there can be any when talking about food poisoning, is that I don’t have the terrible stomach flu that has been making its presence felt here in town by taking down entire high schools in a day. At first, my bets were being placed that I was the flu’s latest victim but I think I’ve moved past it now. A trip out to my favorite South Indian Restaurant for lunch has revived my spirit and settled the inner rebellion.

While laying around in pain this morning, I received a package from Amazon.com and chatted it up with the UPS guy for awhile. He told me that 40% of the packages that he’s delivered in the last week were from Amazon. And, he said that number will continue to rise until Christmas. That’s just nuts.

Best number to bet on in 2002
For some ego-maniacal reason I have been feeling the need to put together an afrojet year in review 2002 kind of thing. A list or an indices of sorts. But for now the list must stew, ferment and yes, marinate a bit before I can commit it to type. For now I will just revel in some others.

To wit, Google’s top searches and year end stats. Makes me think I’m not part of the Google demographic. I guess kids at school aren’t using the library to research quantum physics papers and D.H. Lawrence. The New York Times Magazine had a nice spread on the best and brightest Ideas of 2002. Yahooligan’s have the best toys of 2002. Shift offers a nice Stupid Moments of the Web and a best of collection of the Smoking Gun. The United Press International has put together a nice collection of 2002 a Year in Photos. WEMU has got your best jazz and blues recording of the year. Yahoo also has the best named intersections and worst television shows of the year. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you know of any other good ones send ’em my way. I’m looking for inspiration.

The Case of the Canine Crunch
Christmas got a special early start last night when the missus and I went over to her mothers for a pre-Christmas dinner and gift exchange. As always, I was greeted by their micro dog Miles (named after some Jazz guy or something), who loves me very much and shows his affection frequently with quick little jumps up to my thighs. This gives way, only after repeated attempts to reach my stomach, to a very human like conversation where he sings a very lyrical doggy song on my behalf. It’s sort of a half wining, half who is strangling Mariah Carry chart topping type vocalization. But hey, it’s all for me. And what if all my friends were as enthusiastic to see me as Miles? I mean, I went to a few Christmas parties this weekend and I didn’t hear any, “Oh, look everyone. John is here. Let us all gather round and sing him a song of grand merriment and cheer”. It just didn’t happen. Humans can be so boring sometimes.

Gifts were exchanged and we came away with a food processor/blender combination, which strikes me as one of those items much like air and aspirin that one wonders how life was lived before it came to be. Perhaps, today and every day subsequent will now be referenced as A.F.P (After Food Processor) and the dark days will be B.F.P. Oh they were cruel days when we had to crush ice with our hands. Can you imagine?

We also received chocolate gold coins and candy canes that we put aside to consume later. Unfortunately, I decided that I would eat one of the candy canes before dinner and in doing so I would taunt and tease Miles with the candy cane. He likes ’em and he likes gold coin chocolates. But I was getting the better of him in a little game called follow the candy cane, which involved me standing in the middle of the living room and pointing myself randomly with cane towards one of the cardinal points and then waiting gleefully for Miles to run around and sit staring up at me and my cane intently as I crunched off bite after bite. And so it went – me being clever and having fun at the dogs expense. After dinner we all got caught up in a marathon game of Cranium, which we almost lost cause I didn’t know how to hum the tune to Joe Jackson’s “Is She Really Going Out With Him”. I just drew a blank. But we got the lead back when Kelly portrayed a spot on impersonation of his holiness – Evel Knievel. But during the closing minutes of the game Miles game bouncing into the kitchen wearing what I can only describe as a sticky candy cane beard. I swear he looked at me and winked, as if to say, “Fuck you buddy, don’t EVER mess with me again.” Sure enough he had gotten into and devoured all of our holiday treats the left the living room a mess. Gold foil was crumpled and littered everywhere in tiny speckles. Candy cane residue was ground deep into the carpet where the little canine capper had enjoyed more dessert than the rest of the family had put down. And thus it was that I knew that the holidays had now really moved into full swing. Party on Miles.

On the 12th day of Christmas…
Apple gave to me…hilarious Will Farrell Santa switch ads. And Tony Hawk gives his laser signature to a custom ipod. Now that would actually be cool if it was filled with all the mp3s that T. Hawk was listening to these days. Someday, I hope they have an ipod that you just hook up to your head when you go to sleep and it imports all the songs that were apart of your dreams. I have noticed that I wake up these days with some random songs stuck in my head that can only be the product of something that happened when I was in dream land. Today it’s “C is for Cookie” by, I believe, Cookie Monster? But I don’t know why I’m singing it. Yesterday, it was Boston’s “Let Me Take You Home Tonight”. And sometime last week I awoke with “Down By the Banks of the Hanky Panky” hammering in my brain over and over again.

Froogle holiday shopping
Playing around with Google’s slick new product search engine, Froogle, made the x-mas shopping oh so easy today. It’s great for finding those mysterious vinyl rarities on your shopping list and is fantastic for price matching. If you poke around enough with Froogle you can actually find things cheaper then Amazon. You may not get the free shipping, but it’s a welcome shopping assistant. The best part of Froogle shopping is that it lists all the mom and pop joints on even playing ground with the big chains. And if you don’t know what you want to get someone, just describe them or their habits in the search field and then buy whatever the first item is. For example: if you would described your friend or family member as “manic and neurotic”, then you would buy them this.

Get your Christmas on
The day was taken off yesterday to find and bring home a sturdy evergreen to bring good smells and christmas cheer to the Minneapolis domicile. This is the first Christmas ever that I have purchased my own tree and not mooched off the pine scent of others. I have been missing out. Definitely one of the best parts of Christmas is unpacking all your goodies from Christmas pasts and recounting the stories of old ornaments received or made.

Our tree is a good six footer. Strong and narrow with unflappable limbs. For ornaments, I am especially partial to the wooden Scandinavian sect. Very simple and nothing really too gaudy. The wooden Santa’s are comical and fun and the welcome lights are smooth, warm, and – well…welcoming. There is even a class I may have to take at the North House Folk School next year on carving Christmas tree ornaments.

Peace on Earth
Jimmy Carter accepts the Nobel Peace Prize today! Go Jim. Read the full text of the speech. A few nights ago, on PBS I saw a special on Carter’s term in office and was impressed by a speech he gave called “Crisis of Confidence“, which although was steeped with religious overtones, was a remarkable speech nonetheless, especially considering that his popularity was falling in the polls. I really enjoyed this part:

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self- indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We’ve learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.

Also, a beautiful photojournalism piece up on the Washington Post site titled, A Day in the Life of Africa. Beautiful shots. The snaps of the Namib Desert are surreal.

British commercials and nice logos
Checking out the British Television Advertising Awards is always a treat. My favorite part is checking in on all the products and brands that don’t exist in the U.S. It is bizarre to think that other populations find brand loyalties to products that I’ve never been able to taste, try on, or drive. A whole nation is going crazy over a car that I’ve never even heard of, let alone driven. It doesn’t seem fair. We are the U.S.A – imperialist monsters – and there are toys that other people get to play with that I only get to see the commercials for? Whole new atmospheres of automobiles, beers and sandwich spreads exist for the appreciation of our European brothers and sisters and I’m stuck with the same old same old. The Bush administration needs to step up their act and get these products over here for Joe America to enjoy. The fact that the British get to use condoms that I don’t is a far greater International crisis then some bearded guy who may or may not have some bad smelling gases.

When waiting for the British Ads to start, I found an amazing book in the museum shop. It’s called Los Logos and it’s published by Die Gestalten. The book displays thousands of new intergalactic logo designs by the best in the business. Some revolutionary typography going on here. Unfortunately, the site that accompanies the book does not show off these logos but instead is dedicated to archiving and preserving older logotypes, one’s that are in danger of becoming extinct by larger Multinational companies, who by design, always have horribly bland logos.